IST: Indians vs Cubs

Feel bad for Lester. Deserved a W and walked away with a L.

PickSix said:

Feel bad for Lester. Deserved a W and walked away with a L.

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Definetly! Ugh! This team's offense! :cubspalm:

We better wake up or Milwaukee will be a mile out in front.

St. Louis has 6 really good starters next week when Reyes and Martinez come back.

This team acts and plays like the postseason is a given, and they are in for a rude awakening.

PickSix said:

Feel bad for Lester. Deserved a W and walked away with a L.

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Unlike us, THEY moved a guy up on the bases, and it led to a win.

Very frustrating. Leaving Heyward in to bat in the 7th was fucking stupid. Maddon does many things well but he is far from an elite strategist. And the 9th inning was an embarrassment. This team claimed in the offseason that it didn't want a repeat of last season's first half struggles. But that is exactly what is happening. I don't like talking in sports cliches and complaining about a lack of heart and/or motivation but only the biggest homers can't see that something is off about this team. The cubs are very fortunate that they have dominated the brewers or things could be truly ugly right now.

TL1961 said:

Unlike us, THEY moved a guy up on the bases, and it led to a win.

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Bash or bust with these guys. Manufacturing runs is not their specialty.

Just saw replay on that Baez bunt..

Rizzo screwed up twice on that

It was a safety squeeze

First.. he didn't need to run on that, and he didn't start running til Miller was about to field ball

Second.. he just about stopped running as he was close to plate and then went ..
If he didn't hesitate, he would of been safe as it was close

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Saw the replay of the bad bunt. Rizzo slowed to look at the pitcher, then started running again. Run full steam and we score. His hesitation-stop cost the run.

EDIT: You beat me to it.

If you're watching post game with Kaplan and Dejesus..

They mentioned the same thing I've been saying all day about Heyward..

Play Happ and Zobrist and put Heyward on bench and use him as defensive replacement til if/when he figures it out..

In their words.. need to start getting some offensive production out of RF..


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2016 made this fan base so ​dumb.

chibears55 said:

If you're watching post game with Kaplan and Dejesus..

They mentioned the same thing I've been saying all day about Heyward..

Play Happ and Zobrist and put Heyward on bench and use him as defensive replacement til if/when he figures it out..

In their words.. need to start getting some offensive production out of RF..


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Happ's next hit when it matters will be his first.

chibears55 said:

Lol...

You sure have alot of faith in Heyward

That ok.. we all have our guys


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I understand stats. Look I get you're not going to buy anything he does because you are already sold he's spoiled goods. But I'm telling you everything in the stats suggest this year is actually different. Don't take my word for it. Look at statcast's expected triple slash for him. They have him at .287/.368/.491. And while you can say it's been 2 years he's not changing... his expected rates the past 2 years were .251/.303/.348 and .260/.321/.393 vs the actual results which were .230/.306/.325 and .259/.326/.389 respectively. So, while not 100% accurate they were pretty close to what he eventually put up. You're talking 30 points in OPS in 2016 and 1 point in 2017. His expected OPS for this year is .859 vs .655 actual. That's a 204 point difference. In all three categories his expected result is top 15 in all of baseball below where it should be. And I'm not just playing with data to make him look better. His average exit velocity of 88.8 mph is identical to Bryant. He has a higher percent of hard hit(95 mph+) balls than Baez.

Literally the only thing in statcast data that doesn't quite point to all this just being horrible luck is his barrel rate is low vs MLB in general. But it's the highest it's been in the 4 recorded years of stat cast. He's at 5.3% of all batted balls are barreled vs 2.8% in 2015, 2.7% in 2016, and 4.1% in 2017. In terms of solid hit rate that's also up from 4.1% in 2015, 3.2% in 2016, 3.8% in 2017 and this year it's way up at 7.4%.

I've already laid out my read on that. I think he's hitting a lot of hard high fly balls hard but they stay in the park because he's too far under the ball. That explains the increased launch angle. It explains the increased infield fly rate. It also explains the big difference in expected stats while hitting the ball hard. But that is vastly different than a guy averaging a bunch of 86 mph ground balls like last year/2016. Some slight adjustments and those high fly balls turn into homers or rockets off the outfield wall.

https://twitter.com/TonyAndracki23/status/999485581389332480?s=19

Maybe I'm wrong but isnt Javy a bad bunter in that situation..
Don't recall seeing him being successful



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I dont want to put another pile of shit on Heyward, but Almora should have pinch hit for him there. It was the only shot Almora would have had against a lefty, even if they did get two men on in the ninth.

chibears55 said:

Just saw replay on that Baez bunt..

Rizzo screwed up twice on that

It was a safety squeeze

First.. he didn't need to run on that, and he didn't start running til Miller was about to field ball

Second.. he just about stopped running as he was close to plate and then went ..
If he didn't hesitate, he would of been safe as it was close

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Exactly. You are the only guy anywhere that I have seen point out this obvious thing. Dont think I would bunt there, but it wasnt a bad call. Without horrible Rizzo baserunning, we have 2nd and 3rd, 1 out.