1. The decision to send Jake Marisnick did not work out.
First off, no Willie Harris hate here. This is the first time this year I can think of having a problem with his decision-making, which doesn’t mean he hasn’t made poor decisions before, but does mean this isn’t some big trend that’s holding the Cubs back as a team.
Secondly, it didn’t work. Marisnick was out, the Cubs lost, it was and remains a bummer (technical term).
Thirdly, the calculus about whether or not it was a good call is intense, but it’s also interesting:
You have a binary decision there, if you’re Willie Harris. You send Marisnick or you don’t. You also have a binary result: He’s safe or he’s out.
If allowed to pause the moment with Marisnick approaching third base so you, Willie Harris, could contact your team’s statistical strategists (the same gals and guys who crunch all the lineup numbers), you’d find them weighing two numbers against one another: The Cubs’ expected run total were Marisnick sent and the Cubs’ expected run total were Marisnick held.
In the first, the important probability is whether or not Marisnick would be out at home. The variables impacting this would be the probability the throw from Luis Guillorme would be in time, the probability the throw from Luis Guillorme would be accurate, the probability James McCann would cleanly field the throw, and the probability James McCann would tag Marisnick out. Those are, to be fair, four things that could go right for the Cubs: Guillorme’s throw could be offline. McCann could drop the throw. Marisnick could get McCann on a swim move. Guillorme’s throw could be late (maybe he doesn’t transfer the ball cleanly, or maybe he’s caught sleeping since the ball didn’t make it to the warning track—after all, he was lined up between Kevin Pillar and second base more so than between Kevin Pillar and home plate). Even if the individual probability of each of those four things going wrong is ten percent, there’s a 34% chance Marisnick scores. Which isn’t to say there’s a 34% chance Marisnick scores there. I don’t know the probability of any of those four things going wrong. I’m just pointing out something about the calculation, which is that all it takes is one piece of it crumbling for the whole thing to crumble. But that’s how the math works—the Cubs needed one thing to go wrong…er, right. Right for the Cubs. Wrong for the Mets.
That, though, is just the start. From there, they’d calculate the probability of Eric Sogard scoring from second, as the inning would be ongoing either way. With one out and a run in, your expected run total’s going to be much higher than it will be with two outs and no run in, so the numbers people would be crunching both those scenarios and multiplying them by the respective safe/out probability from before (it’s worth remembering that if Marisnick had scored, the Cubs would have only been tied, and it would have only been the top of the ninth, and there would have been just one out).
In the second scenario—the one in which Marisnick were held—the calculation would again be the expected run total. How likely would it be for the Cubs, with Jason Heyward and Sergio Alcántara up next, to drive home Marisnick? How likely would it be that they drove in Marisnick and Sogard? How likely that, with just one out when this began, they’d manage more than two runs? Find all those probabilities, weight the run totals accordingly, and you’ve got your number to compare. If the expected run total is higher sending Marisnick, send him. If the expected run total is higher holding Marisnick, hold him (this was probably the case: let’s remember that the Mets might have had to keep from shifting too dramatically with Heyward up and runners on second and third, given a ground ball with the infield in and/or Sogard allowed to take a wider lead from second would have a greater probability of scoring Sogard than a ground ball with the infield shifted and/or at normal depth—but we don’t know for sure).
In reality, though, Willie Harris doesn’t get to press pause. Willie Harris doesn’t get to call up the folks with the numbers. Those folks exist, though, and they probably work on stuff like this, which brings us to our broader point here:
Willie Harris is going to have to make decisions in individual moments. But he’s also going to have to have a broader approach within which he makes those decisions. He can’t run those numbers. But he can know the situation, know some general guidance from the front office and David Ross, and basically have a dial in his head of how aggressive or conservative to be that he can turn up and down at-bat by at-bat. And in that case last night? With the Cubs facing one of the more effective relievers in the game and guys with xwOBA’s under .300 due up? That dial was probably turned all the way towards aggressive. Sue him.
2. Alec Mills did a good job.
I really thought the Cubs were going to win when they went up 2-0. I thought Mills was going to get to the bullpen with the lead and the bullpen was going to stretch itself ahead of a punt against deGrom tonight and hold off the Mets in a hard place to score runs. It almost happened. It didn’t happen. But Mills did well, which doesn’t completely overhaul our perception of him but does adjust it ever-so-slightly in a positive direction, which means that out of the grab bag of him, Jake Arrieta, Trevor Williams, Kohl Stewart, Cory Abbott, Keegan Thompson, and evidently Robert Stock (whom we’ll get to) that has to make up the third through fifth spots in the rotation, speaking broadly (Adbert Alzolay’s innings limitations and Zach Davies’s xERA combine with Kyle Hendricks’s things-could-happen-to-anybody to make them a combined two secure starters, again speaking broadly), the chances of getting a good pick just went up. Not a ton, but a little bit.
Man, we’re talking about probability a lot. Better tone that down for a minute.
3. Javy Báez is good to go, Kris Bryant is not.
Swelling for Bryant after getting hit on the hand. Glad it’s not broken but man…makes you wanna say, “Fuck.”
Báez, on the other hand, went yard to the opposite field.
Want a good median thing to tell yourself to keep you from obsessively checking the Cubs’ lineup and watching Bryant for signs of playing through something nagging? Expect Bryant to be out for five games. Tonight, tomorrow, the Marlins series (maybe pinch hit on Sunday), then come back to play Cleveland on Monday. Heck, if they want to IL him, he’ll only have to miss the first half of the Dodgers series, I think, and you could have space available for a Matt Duffy return that way without having to say goodbye to Sogard or Rafael Ortega or Alcántara just yet.
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Around the Division:
The good news is, the Brewers lost to the Reds. The bad news is, the Reds beat the Brewers. Elsehwere, the Cardinals did edge the Marlins by a run.
Standings, FanGraphs division championship probabilities entering today:
T-1. Milwaukee: 38-29, 53.3%
T-1. Cubs: 38-29, 27.1%
3. Cincinnati: 34-31, 13.0%
4. St. Louis: 34-33, 6.6%
5. Pittsburgh: 23-43, 0.0%
We are too far out to talk about the wildcard often, but for what it’s worth, the Cubs are up a game on the Padres (two losses, zero wins) for the last wildcard spot and are three games back of the Dodgers for the first wildcard spot.
Cardinals are already through six against the Marlins as I type this. Unclear if Johan Oviedo is pitching well or just pitching against the Marlins, but it’s scoreless. Brewers and Reds are in the third with the Crew up one to zero—Freddy Peralta, Tyler Mahle going in that one.
Up Next:
Game 3
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Whom:
Cubs vs. New York (NL)
When:
6:10 PM Chicago Time
Where:
Citi Field
Weather:
Wind blowing from left to right and slightly in at about ten miles per hour. Temperatures in the 70’s.
Starting Pitchers:
Robert Stock vs. Jacob deGrom
The Opponent:
Jacob deGrom keeps having weird little knocks and has still completed ten starts and 64 innings with a 0.56 ERA, 1.29 xERA, and 0.93 FIP. He’s already accumulated 3.7 fWAR. The Cubs have had a pitcher hit that over a full season just once since 2016 (Hendricks managed 4.0 fWAR in 2019). Even with comparable injury luck to what there’s been so far, deGrom is on pace for 8.9 fWAR, something a pitcher last reached in 2018, when a guy named Jacob deGrom did it (this is ignoring his batting WAR, which is also positive).
So…yeah. This is tough.
The Numbers:
That said, it’s not impossible, because this is Major League Baseball. Cubs are +240 underdogs right now, Mets are -300 favorites, and that means the Cubs have better than a 25% chance of a win, according to the market. Over/under’s at 6½.
Cubs News:
Robert Stock’s coming up to start, which means someone’s either getting DFA’d or put on the 60-day IL. (Really unsure what’ll happen here—Stewart DFA? Hoerner to the 60-day IL? Sogard DFA? Ortega DFA? Steele to the 60-day IL? Something else?) As for Stock himself, he’s got a 4.12 ERA and 4.28 FIP at AAA, where he’s been lighting up the radar gun and stretching himself out more lately, making two four-inning starts in the last two weeks as the Iowa Cubs have needed their rotation filled in. He’s 31 years old and has made 52 career MLB relief appearances, mostly in San Diego where he posted a 2.71 FIP in 2018 (and comparable ERA and xERA numbers).
Cubs Thoughts:
We’ll see what Stock can do. It’s a tough assignment, but scoring off deGrom isn’t impossible, deGrom is unlikely to throw a complete game, the Cubs’ bullpen is still rather fresh if they do have a chance, etc. Curious if today’s a day Willson Contreras gets to take a game off.
