Actually an Honest and Open Grading the Cubs First Half

The Chicago Cubs finished the first half of the 2019 baseball season in first place in the National League Central. Jason Heyward has had his best half of baseball as a Cub. Kris Bryant is proving that his 2018 was a fluke caused by his shoulder injury. Javier Baez has backed up his incredible 2018. These were a couple of the questions that the Cubs had going into the season and each player responded. There were a couple of other questions as well.

Is the 2018 Willson Contreras the real Willson Contreras?

Willson Contreras made his first All Star game in 2018 after he had an impressive start to his campaign. We all remember the video of Contreras breaking down and crying when he found out. We especially remember the video of his parents in the stands in Washington as Willson played, and we all got teary eyed watched his father and him embrace.

But the second half, which saw the Cubs play a disgusting 42 games in 43 days seemed to hit Contreras more than most others. Even with manager Joe Maddon finding some extra time off for Contreras down the stretch, his struggles continued.

Contreras was very honest about his 2018, and how he didn’t deserve to have a good season because he just didn’t work hard enough to succeed.

“I used to get to the ballpark, like I did in 2017, and I’d usually get on the elliptical or bike or stretch or lift,” Contreras said. “To be honest, I didn’t lift at all [as 2018 went on]. I came out of my routine completely. I didn’t deserve to have a good year last year. That’s what I told myself. I’ve learned from it, I took it as inspiration and now I’m here.”

In 2019 Contreras bounced back, big time. His current slash line is .286/.381/.556 – all of which are career highs. He has already hit 18 homers, which is just three shy of his career high. He’s also on pace to obliterate his career high in runs (41 now, high is 50), hits (74 now, high is 118), RBI (52 now, 74 is his high), and total bases (144 now, 188 high).

Have the Brewers closed the gap?

The Milwaukee Brewers stole the 2018 NL Central crown from the Cubs in the last days of the season. We have to remember though, it took a stretch of play from the Brewers which was incredibly special. That special play, coupled with the Cubs tough stretch and inability to score runs, helped the Brewers sprint into that last week, while the Cubs limped.

But their luck in 2019 hasn’t been as good. Every time the Brewers climb their way back into first place, they find a way to drop back out of it just as fast. They have spent a total of 40 days in first place, while the Cubs have spent 47 days in first. The differentiator, at least right now, is in run differential and their pythagorean record. Coming into the All Star week, the Brewers had a -17 run differential (RD) and a pythagorean record of 44-47, which is three wins less than their actual record of 47-44.

While the record could show that Craig Counsell has coached them to better record than their actual record, but the RD suggests they’re benefiting from some luck.

The Cubs on the other hand have a +55 RD and a pythagorean record of 50-40, or a three game improvement from their actual record. Again, this likely suggests that the Cubs have been bitten by some bad luck so far in 2019.

The real question is, have the Brewers closed the gap? Well, that’s difficult to say for sure, but it will be hard for anyone to lock the Brewers into anything without them improving their pitching staff. They have star offensive players all over the diamond, Christian Yelich, Lorenzo Cain (although he’s disappointed this season), Yasmani Grandal, and Mike Moustakas. There just hasn’t been enough production from their secondary and tertiary parts. Jesus Aguilar hasn’t hit. Travis Shaw has been hurt and hasn’t hit either.

But it’s their pitching that suggests the gap isn’t closed. Outside of Josh Hader, Zach Davies, and Brandon Woodruff, there really isn’t a feared arm. They did pick up Gio Gonzalez, but he’s currently spending 10 days on the IL.

Will Yu Darvish rebound?

Darvish is an enigma trapped inside a conundrum. I have to say that I am upset by his performance thus far, for multiple reasons. First, I love the Cubs and want their players to perform. Second, I have been lucky enough to talk to some of his friends and have gotten insight on Darvish, so it’d be cool if he also performed well.

Here is why I describe him as the enigma trapped…

Darvish is allowing a batting average against of .225, which is inline with his career marks. Fact is, Darvish is a hard pitcher to hit. He’s seventh in the NL in K/9 (10.3). In six of his games in 2019 he’s allowed three or fewer hits, four of those games he only allowed two or less. In his last seven games he has a WHIP under 1.000, but an ERA of 4.50.

He can be unhittable through several innings, and then give up three or four runs on a couple hits. While I, as one of the most staunch supporters of Darvish, have begun to waiver in my faith, I still believe that some of his performance of late can translate into a better second half.

Will Kris Bryant rebound?

I seriously cannot believe this was a real question among Cubs fans. He was injured in 2018. If you watched him at all, you can see he was swinging the bat with one arm. I know a lot of fans point to him getting hit in the head against Colorado, but he performed better offensively immediately following that game. It was always the shoulder injury that set him back.

This is why his 2019 isn’t surprising to myself, as well as a lot of other Cubs writers/bloggers. When you watch with the critical eye, it was pretty easy to determine what was happening.

After a period of adjustment to begin the season, Bryant has regained the throne as the most dominate Cubs hitter.

Bryant leads the Cubs in AVG (.297), OBP (.403), OPS (.955), wRC+ (148), wOBA (.400), fWAR (3.7). He’s on pace to have his best offensive season, and continues to be the versatile player he’s always been. He is on pace for 120 runs scored, 31 home runs, 80 RBI. While some will poo poo on the RBI total, and even though RBI as a statistic is losing it’s luster, fans will always point to it as a back of the baseball card stat to grade a player.

So, we’ll jump into the RBI and Bryant’s lack of production with runners in scoring position.

I do believe, and there are numbers that back it up, that Bryant gets a bad rap for his production with RISP. A quick look at his slash line in these situations shows he is hitting .232/.362/.429 in 69 (hehe) plate appearances with RISP. But when you peel back the layers on this, it isn’t all bad.

With men on, he’s slashing .315/.403/.613 in 144 PA. With runners on second, or second and third he hasn’t performed very well (.111/.333/.278 and .200/.200/.200), but this is with a combined 29 PA. Bryant has performed very well with a runner on third, and this has been true his entire career. In 2019 he’s slashing .500/.571/.750 with a runner on third, when there’re two outs and a runner on third, he slashes .364/.500/.1.091. Again, throughout his career he’s excelled in these situations. And for what it’s worth, he has a 1.429 OPS with bases loaded as well.

So, yes, as a whole Bryant has struggled in 2019 with RISP (throughout his career his OPS is only about 30 points lower than his career OPS). But to blanket his performance with runners on with only total RISP doesn’t tell the entire story.

Grading the 2019 Cubs first half

While I will preference this with, baseball is a marathon and not a sprint. You absolutely cannot get too high with the wins or too low with the losses, but you have to be down on this team’s record. What is the reason? Well, there’re several reasons.

Pitching – C

So far, the Cubs have not received the quality starting pitching they believed they would get coming into the season. The Cubs have a team ERA of 4.09, while it’s good for seventh in baseball, too many guys the team believed they would rely on have underperformed.

Brad Brach – 6.11 ERA 1.78 WHIP
Mike Montgomery 5.67 ERA 1.78 WHIP
Carl Edwards Jr 5.40 ERA 1.00 WHIP
Yu Darvish 5.01 ERA 1.34 WHIP
Jose Quintana 4.19 ERA 1.35 WHIP
Pedro Strop 3.92 ERA 1.02 WHIP
Jon Lester 3.72 ERA 1.31 WHIP

To boot, newcomer and apparent savior, Craig Kimbrel has posted an ERA over 13 in his first four appearances in a Cubs uniform.

But all the fingers cannot be pointed at the pitching staff. No… the offense has been almost as inconsistent as they were in 2018.

Cubs stagnate offense – C

After the Cubs struggled, especially in the second half of the 2018 season, but the Cubs have scored two or fewer runs in 23 of their 90 games played. Basically 25% of the games played the Cubs are posting less than three runs. Conversely, the Cubs scored five or more runs in 47 of the first 90 games.

The Cubs have also played 36 games in 38 days, and this wears on a team. In the last 36 games, the Cubs scored two or fewer runs in 28% of their games and are scoring about a run less per game (5.33 in the first 54 games, 4.63 in the next 36). But their pitching has gotten a bit worse also, giving up 4.52 runs a game compared to 4.38 in the first 54 games.

This isn’t for the lack of opportunity, but the Cubs tend to stub their toes when guys get on base. Currently, they have grounded into the sixth most double plays per game. This doesn’t help a stagnate offense score more runs, even when that team has the seventh highest OBP in baseball.

Defense just hasn’t been, great – D

The Cubs feature a Platinum Glove winner at first in Anthony Rizzo, this era’s best defensive right fielder in Jason Heyward, a highlight reel magician in Javier Baez, and one of the slickest fielders to ever roam Wrigley’s center field in Albert Almora. But the team has averaged the fifth most errors in the league.

In the Cubs 2016 World Series season, the team had arguably one of the best defenses in the history of baseball. In that season, the Cubs posted a 107 DRS, which was almost double the next best team (Boston Red Sox, 54). That defense helped the Cubs pitching post a league low (and it wasn’t particularly close) 3.15 ERA. Their starters posted a combined ERA under 3.00, and was 64 points lower than the Washington Nationals starterss (3.60).

In 2019 however, the defense just hasn’t been the same. They are currently middle of the pack in terms of DRS (13) and it certainly cannot help a staff that gives up a lot of contact.

Depth – D

Over the past several seasons, the Cubs have been a very deep team. Guys like Ben Zobrist, Tommy La Stella, Bryant, Heyward, Contreras, and a couple others that have played multiple places for the Cubs. The bench has often been as good as the starters, and it wasn’t a detriment to the club to have 11 or more hitters to have 500 or more plate appearances.

In 2019 the club lost Zobrist to off field complications, Addison Russell served the remainder of his domestic abuse suspension and has been a poor baseball player since returning. Daniel Descalso was supposed to be the replacement to La Stella except he could play defense – but he’s been more than bad. Potentially the only bright spot has been Victor Caratini and his .295/.367/.511 slash line and very competant receiving skills.

Overall, the depth on this team has been poor, at best.

Management – B

I know a lot of people crap on Joe Maddon for lineups, and overthinking. Thing is, and I know fans don’t like hearing this, Joe knows what he’s doing so just stop. I understand begin upset when you see that a player had a big game and then the next day that player isn’t in the lineup. Thing is, the lineups are made at the start of the series, so if someone has a multi-hit game on Friday, Maddon has already communicated the Saturday and Sunday lineups to the players on Thursday night. This was a directive from the players to Theo Epstein and from Theo to Maddon.

Ultimitely, and this hasn’t changed since Maddon has arrived in Chicago, Joe is the best pre-game manager in the game of baseball. He is also one of the top three best managers for younger players in the game. He has helped build guys like Evan Longoria, Ben Zobrist, David Price, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, and Willson Contreras. So for as much gripping there is about the way he might “treat” a player like Albert Almora, I think Maddon has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to developing players.

In game, there hasn’t been a lot to gripe about. There’s been some over-handling of pitchers, but Maddon tends to pull pitchers early in April, May, and June to hopefully get more out of them in July, August, and September (and hopefully October). Whether that actually translates into better late season production is still out to the jury, but it is something he has done regularly.

I know a lot of people do not like Kyle Schwarber as the leadoff hitter. In a perfect world, he is a sixth hitter. Thing is, the Cubs don’t have a perfect world scenario and Schwarber is the leadoff hitter until another one presents himself. The reason he is there is, he will take a lot of pitches, and he will walk. The downside is, he isn’t fast, if he does walk it will take two more hits to score him, and he will strike out. The argument for him is, he can start a game off 1-0 real fast.

Executive leadership – D

So remember when I say this, I am grading Theo and Jed Hoyer in the scope of the 2019 season and NOT as a whole. You’d have to be a damned fool to give these two a bad grade after how much they’ve changed on the Northside. But, their 2019 offseason was not one that will be remembered on a Hall of Fame plaque.

The first mistake was when the Cubs aquired Ronald Torreyes from the New York Yankees. Days later Torreyes declined the Cubs arbitration offer and the team let him walk.

Of course the elephant in the room is the La Stella deal which sent Tommy La Stella to the LA Angels for a PTBNL and cash considerations.

Of course it doesn’t help that the last couple of seasons acquisitions haven’t performed near expectations and several players that were traded away have eexperienced success. Guys like Quintana, Darvish, and Tyler Chatwood have continued to disappoint and we’ve seen guys like Daniel Vogelbach, Gleyber Torres, DJ LeMahieu, and La Stella make the All Star game. Guys like Eloy Jimenez has experienced some success and you can see his potential. Dylan Cease was called up and showed off a 100 MPH heater. Now, you can’t cry over spilled milk and every deal the Cubs made gave the organization something they desparately needed at the time. It is just adding insult to injury seeing some of these guys experience success while current roster players have stumbled of late.

As much as we can beat the men in charge up over past moves, you have to give them credit for the addition of Craig Kimbrel. It isn’t often that you can add someone of his talent, mid-season, without giving up a player(s). It seemed that the rumors of the Cubs interest started and within days

Outlook for 2019

The Cubs are still the most talented team in the NL Central, but the team just feels different. The 2016 team I knew would compete and could win a World Series sometime in January of that offseason. But you just don’t get any sense of anything from this group of players.

I don’t feel urgency from these guys, something Theo demanded several times this past offseason. I don’t feel confidence that they’ll come through when their backs are against the wall. I don’t feel connection between the guys and certainly don’t often feel that they feed off of each other.

But I keep going back to, this team is is more talented than the others in the division.

The next couple of weeks will show what this team is capable of. As I mentioned above, the Cubs played 36 games in 38 days and can very possibly be just worn out. In the second half of seasons, Maddon has managed this team to 189 wins against 103 loses and a .647 winning percentage. With the break and play six games before a day off, another six before another day off, and the longest stretch of games in a row they have is 17.

With rest, and talent, and a manager playing for his next deal, and the potential of getting Brandon Morrow back, Kimbrel falling into place, the Cubs should move forward in this division. I cannot see any team running away with this division, but I just can’t see the Cubs not winning this division, this year.