OT: Our long national nightmare is over

[Styre]

His strike zone judgment has deteriorated and that has made him a much less effective hitter.

This is an interesting thing to say about a player who just posted the most walks and best OBP of his career as well as the 4th-best OPS on the team.

 

[corbi2961]

This is an interesting thing to say about a player who just posted the most walks and best OBP of his career as well as the 4th-best OPS on the team.

Honestly, I am basing it on my anecdotal observation rather than any statistical analysis so those stats you quote are surprising. Every time I watched him this year he seemed to strike out. His BA was down below 240 for most of the year whereas in past seasons he was a 260ish hitter. That tells me his strike out rate went up a decent amount or he hit into a lot of bad luck this year. Either way, he way not very productive.

 

[pawildcat_rivals209725]

The Cubs don't really have a traditional prototype "leadoff" hitter, which, frankly, is a bit of a fallacy. What you really want are your best hitters, measured by OPS, hitting more often, which means putting them at the top of the order.

Schwarber and Rizzo both have high on-base percentages. Schwarber's 15% walk rate is elite, so his .240 batting average masks the fact that he got on base about 36% of the time in 2018. That's pretty good where league average was about .320 in 2018. Rizzo had a .376 OBP. Zobrist and Happ were two other guys with pretty high OBPs this year.

If you'll remember, Schwarber was a disaster as a leadoff hitter. It's a different mentality than batting lower and swinging for the fences. I think it put Schwarbs in too many two-strike situations. He's a guy who needs to be aggressive and jump on fat pitches early in the count. The prototypical leadoff hitter isn't a fallacy. He sets the table for the guys batting behind him. Part of the reason for the Cubs up-and-down offense is that they don't have a typical contact leadoff hitter. Too many strikeouts. Too much homer or nothing. Look back to the days of the Big Red Machine when Pete Rose and Joe Morgan basically made a Hall of Famer out of Tony Perez. If Schwarb's OBP is really so great, put him ahead of Rizzo, along with another good OBP guy such as Zobrist (at least this year), and give Rizzo a greater chance to turn his HRs into two- and three-run shots. Zobrist, when he's going well, is a classic No. 2 hitter, and a healthy Bryant is a good No. 3. I like Schwarber and Baez in the 5-6 area. Javy had a great year, but he still has too many empty at-bats to be in a top three slot.

 

[Hungry Jack]

If you'll remember, Schwarber was a disaster as a leadoff hitter. It's a different mentality than batting lower and swinging for the fences. I think it put Schwarbs in too many two-strike situations. He's a guy who needs to be aggressive and jump on fat pitches early in the count. The prototypical leadoff hitter isn't a fallacy. He sets the table for the guys batting behind him. Part of the reason for the Cubs up-and-down offense is that they don't have a typical contact leadoff hitter. Too many strikeouts. Too much homer or nothing. Look back to the days of the Big Red Machine when Pete Rose and Joe Morgan basically made a Hall of Famer out of Tony Perez. If Schwarb's OBP is really so great, put him ahead of Rizzo, along with another good OBP guy such as Zobrist (at least this year), and give Rizzo a greater chance to turn his HRs into two- and three-run shots. Zobrist, when he's going well, is a classic No. 2 hitter, and a healthy Bryant is a good No. 3. I like Schwarber and Baez in the 5-6 area. Javy had a great year, but he still has too many empty at-bats to be in a top three slot.

A "protoype" leadoff hitter goes back a few decades to the pre-sabermetric era when managers often used super fast slap-hitting types who could turn a single or walk into a double through stealing. Vince Coleman comes to mind. The modern Billy Hamilton (Reds) is another, though I am not sure how often he leads off. But Hamilton, with a career .298 OBP, is basically a fast out machine (70% of his PAs are outs--that's bad). Coleman was actually relatively decent at getting on (career .324 OBP in a low offense era of the 1980s).

 

[pawildcat_rivals209725]

A "protoype" leadoff hitter goes back a few decades to the pre-sabermetric era when managers often used super fast slap-hitting types who could turn a single or walk into a double through stealing. Vince Coleman comes to mind. The modern Billy Hamilton (Reds) is another, though I am not sure how often he leads off. But Hamilton, with a career .298 OBP, is basically a fast out machine (70% of his PAs are outs--that's bad). Coleman was actually relatively decent at getting on (career .324 OBP in a low offense era of the 1980s).

Guys like Pete Rose and Lou Brock were not slap hitters. Maybe someone like Maury Wills, but he was a much better hitter than Billy Hamilton.

 

[Mr Wickerpark]

The Cubs should not overreact to this result. They lost 2 pivotal games by the slimmest of margins. That's baseball. The key is to not be in that position come post season. The Brewers outplayed their Pythagorean record by 5 games. The Cubs by one. The Cubs have a very good roster, with tons of lefty thump, good defenders, and enough pitching. They are getting old in the rotation, but there's easily enough left for another run or two.

The best thing that can happen to the Cubs in 2019 is Bryant's return to full health. Hard to say what kind of shape his shoulder is in (I suspect a bum labrum), but it would not shock me if they move him to LF. Of course, there is also Yu's elbow. But a rotation of Lester, Darvish, Hendricks, Hamels and Quintana is pretty dam good.

I assume Addison Russell will be gone in 2019 and Baez moves to short. Murphy is not a horrible fielder (slightly below average according to most defensive metrics, but he slipped in 2018 to -10 runs--not good) but he will be a defensive downgrade on the infield.

But get this: Murphy has a career .979 OPS at Wrigley. Also.856 at Busch 3, 1.0789 at Cincy Great America, .833 at Miller, and .886 at PNC. He destroys baseballs in NL Central parks. That should make Cub fans salivate a bit.

I still think we are the best team, on paper, in the National League.

I'm still healing after these home losses though.

I wouldnt be surprised if Bryant has offseason surgery. And Murphy ended up being a disappointment in these 2 crucial games.

 

[Hungry Jack]

I still think we are the best team, on paper, in the National League.

I'm still healing after these home losses though.

I wouldnt be surprised if Bryant has offseason surgery. And Murphy ended up being a disappointment in these 2 crucial games.

I am sure you can find horrible two game stretches for any player on the planet. At one point, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams, Bob Gibson, Rogers Hornsby and Willie Mays all sucked for two games.

 

[NUCat320]

Bryant was hurt this year, and wasn’t great when “healthy”.
Rizzo wasn’t very good this year.
Schwarber hasn’t ascended.

Rizzo has not become a pure middle-of-the-order thumper, leaving the Cubs without one of those. The draft strategy was built around finding difference-making bats, and filling in the pitching, and the difference-making bats are closer to league-average than to Mookie Betts.

Javy was out of his mind, and should continue to be, but those first three weren’t what we expected this year. I’m only optimistic about a surge from Bryant next year.

 

[xxxbobxxx]

For the very same reasons you cite, zobrist’s trade value is basically nil while his use value is still meaningful. He is in his last year of his deal so you let him play out his deal and retire a Cub. Schwarber is an enigma to me. He is a much better outfielder than he is given credit for but his bat has been disappointing. I watched him play in the minors and early in his Cub career and his greatest strength was his knowledge/control of the strike zone with the ability to generate great power. A rare combination, particularly for a lefty. His strike zone judgment has deteriorated and that has made him a much less effective hitter. This guy has the potential to bat 270, hit 40 Homer’s and drive in 100 rbi every year but he has been unable to put together a full season like that. I have some doubts now he ever will. My guess is that they give Schwarber another year to put it all together. Theo has his work cut out for him this offseason to sort through this jig saw puzzle. There will be trades but my guess is that Almora/Happ are the pieces most likely to get traded.

Seems like it didn’t come together… but they sure got a lot while dismantling… should be back in no time… definitely not more than 100 years

 

[Alaskawildkat]

At least Anthony Rizzo hit one of the Yankees' two home runs in the first game of the post season. That has to count for something?

 

[xxxbobxxx]

At least Anthony Rizzo hit one of the Yankees' two home runs in the first game of the post season. That has to count for something?

Yes - it means he escaped the AAAA up north and can spread his germs to MLB clubhouses now

 

[xxxbobxxx]

Question: Flubs play field of Dreams game next year: which team would do better, the Chicago squad or Iowa city squad?

And does it matter? Perhaps the Chicago squad should stay in Iowa

 

[CSCatFan1]

At least Anthony Rizzo hit one of the Yankees' two home runs in the first game of the post season. That has to count for something?

Thanks for reviving this thread.

 

[Alaskawildkat]

/s/

Actually IGNORE2 deserves the credit.

 

[Alaskawildkat]

At least Anthony Rizzo hit one of the Yankees' two home runs in the first game of the post season. That has to count for something?

Happier Days for Cub fans - Rizzo leads the team to a post season win at Wrigley as our own Wilbon interviews.