A Shot of Jameson - 3 Up, 3 Down

Friday night in Philly was fun. Lots of runs. Vintage Stro back on the bump. I felt joy again.

The following 48 hours of Cubs baseball posed more question than answers, and honestly dampened my spirits. I had been thinking of this season as a roller coaster, with dips and drops around the .500 mark. 

BleacherNation captured those feelings in this tweet:

Then a secondary tweet caught my eye:

If it weren’t for the Athletics embodying the plot to Major League to get to Vegas, the Cubs would have had the worst record in the last month. I know there are a lot of one run loses in there, but it never felt that bad.

Let’s check in on where we are:

Record: 20-26; 5 GB on the NLC

Up next: A much needed home stand vs the suddenly hotter Mets, the Reds, and Rays. 

3 Up:

1. Morel: My lord, is he en fuego. He is a full on conflagration.  If it feels like he has homered in every game, HE PRETTY MUCH HAS. In 11 games, he has 8 HRs with a 1.352 OPS. A lot of things I am reading on Twitter seems to be playing “What If” on the timing of his call-up. In a team hungry for slugging, he is exactly what they need right now. There are so many uncertainties in baseball, I generally try not to entertain these scenarios. It is much harder in this stretch of play to ignore it. 
2. Lt. Dansby: I will admit when I am wrong. I was low on Dansby this off-season given the crop of available shortstops. I new his glove was solid, and fell in love with the idea of his gap power at the Friendly Confines. If you take a look around, Dansby has been likely the best signing of that class. In fact,  he is near the top of baseball in total WAR at 2.2.
3. Man of Steele:  Looking at that WAR list, you will notice ANOTHER Cub featured. Justin has been phenomenal this year. Per his Baseball Savant page, he is in the 96th percentile in Avg. Exit Velocity and 97th in HardHit%. Justin has given up so little hard contact, and continues to manage this with a fastball and a several shapes slider. 

3 Down:

1. Taillon: Generally I don't advocate for "fake injuries," but it might be time for Taillon to get some time to work on mechanics. The early results looked ok with time to normalize as he got stretched out. I think we are seeing some issues with getting back into the swing of things after the injury. His past 50 PA have see his wOBA sky rocket. He still measures with elite fastball and curve spin. I am curious if the Cubs can get him a rehab start or two in a controlled setting to fix the mechanics. This team is dead in the water if he can't get right. 
2. Bullpen: I will put myself in the camp of folks who felt the Cub's pitching infrastructure had turned a corner with the emergence of Hughes, Roberts, Thompson, and Steele last year. In addition, the Cubs have had so much success in revitalizing and flipping veterans (Kimbrel, Robertson, Givens). Currently, the twitter-verse is calling for David Ross' job based on his attempts to manage a bullpen that has struggled. As mentioned on On to Waveland, the Cubs are getting aggressive with pitching prospects by moving them to bullpen roles. There could be options on the way that will hopefully rights the ship. 
3. Wisdom: This is a Patrick Wisdom Stan account. I absolutely adore the guy and what he brings to the table. He started the season Morel-level hot, but has cooled off significantly. He is in a tough stretch dating to the road trip that saw his K% at 56% with 2 doubles to his name. Madrigal remains on this roster to protect Wisdom from tougher matchups. However, Madrigal has not really been a solid replacement. I noticed Mastrobouni got the start there on Sunday. It will be interesting to see how the Cubs manage Wisdom's plate appearances going forward to get him right. 

Lastly, here are 3 baseball related things worth checking out that I enjoyed:

1. On to Waveland: If you are not listening to this podcast, you need to as soon as possible. This is my favorite Cubs podcast out there, as I adore Brett, Sahadev, and Patrick. Add it to your rotation today.
2. MLB The Show: I am a big baseball gamer, and this year's MLB the Show has been a ton of fun. I recently started a Cub's franchise to try out the new scouting system. I am pretty impressed with the level of detail in finding the next star for your team. 
3. Northside Bound: When the Cubs MLB team makes me sad, I like to read up on prospects to cheer me up. This is the place to go. Give Greg a follow on twitter as well!

I am hoping things get back on track this week. The Cubs are super fortunate that they are in a division that is not strong, and a stretch of solid play can fix this. 

3 Candors with CandidCubs on 5/11/2023

Hello! It has been a long time! 

I have found as the Cubs have returned to relevance, and my journey into baseball data have increased my need for a place for my thoughts. Here are a few things I am getting "candid" on:

• BleacherNation (my favorite Cubs content and it is not close) has a great article about their thoughts on Cubs broadcasts on Marquee.  I won't rehash what Michael discusses, but I think it is a great starting point on some of the gripes I have with the network. I still think the biggest issue is access, which I think will be solved in good time. 

• Is Justin Steele this teams ace? The argument can be made between him and Stroman in the early part of 2023, but Justin has felt like the classic "stopper." This is likely due to run support, as Stroman hasn't won his last 3 starts even with logging 3 QS. Boog/Girardi brought up an interest point on Justin Steele last evening: As a LHP, he seems to not face many lefties. I looked into that this morning and saw the sample size is pretty small, but they may be on to something. Justin has great Fastball command and is able to manipulate his pitches to get varying movement. His barrel rate is still elite, but in 2023, Lefties are hitting him slightly better. Recency bias of lefties in St. Louis' lineup squaring him up has me curious if his glove side run is harder to control. It will be something to see if there is an adjustments by the league. Justin hasn't looked totally locked in and the results are still excellent. I am sure the command on the arm-side fastball will be something he masters as he sees more lefties.

• I love having Christopher Morel back. His attitude, his bat, his versatility. *Chefs Kiss.* I think the Cubs are very lucky this division is not strong and have been able to give run to Hosmer and other veterans to get an idea of Roster construction moving forward. Yes, I did link Hosmer's Baseball Savant page. Yes, you should go look at why some line items are blue. Yes, you should see the concerning large amount of work that looks consistently bad. I will stop there, as I am hoping this is sorting itself out. 

- CandidCubs