Four Things that Decided the Cubs Season
Without reading, I’m sure there will be a lot of folks pointing to these as reasoning; injuries, not spending in the offseason, bullpen, and their home run or nothing approach. While those factored into the demise of the 2019 Chicago Cubs, they’re not tangible and are more so excuses in the world of professional sports. There are four things we can point to (the list really could be much longer) that explains why the Cubs are on the outside and will watch the playoffs for the first time in four years.
Here are the biggest reasons for the Cubs failed season.
Inability to strike a baseball
“The Hardest Thing to do in All of Sports, Without Question, Is to Hit a Baseball.” Ted Williams
Whether you agree with Teddy Ballgame or not, but the 2019 Chicago Cubs seemed to make it their mission to prove him right. This club is tied for last in contact%, tied with the Detroit Tigers. Anytime you’re tied with the Tigers you’re not doing it right.
What is strange is, while their approach has led to more strikeouts than we would have seen 20 years ago, the Cubs are 12th in baseball in strikeouts. Overall, their two-strike approach as an organization needs to fundamentally change.
They can keep their focus on striking the ball hard, and still make healthy cuts. Hell, even finishing the season with 1,350 strikeouts can be ok if there’s a different approach. Take Javier Baez for example.
Baez changed his approach with two-strikes, but he didn’t change his swing. That resulted in a two-strike average almost 100 points above the league average. He did this by simply allowing the ball to get deeper and accepting the idea of driving the ball to right field. The last two months of 2019 we’ve seen Kyle Schwarber accept a similar approach. That’s resulted in a ton of success of late and thoughts that he might be that professional hitter we all thought he was in 2015.
Guys like Kris Bryant seemingly has a reverse approach. He will hit a ball the opposite way early in counts, but with two-strikes, he pulls off the ball (much more late in 2019). Willson Contreras has a similar approach as Bryant. He stays up the middle in hitter-friendly counts but pulls off late in counts.
Exit velocity is important
I know there’s a lot of traditionalists that are tired of hearing things like launch angle and exit velocity. Honestly, all these things are doing is explaining what is happening when a hitter strikes a ball correctly. Hitting coaches can use this data to continue to fine-tune a swing to get more out of it. And truthfully, exit velocity is similar to a radar gun measuring a pitch speed.
With an offense that’s built to slug, the Cubs are 25th in baseball in hard hit%.
Whether you agree with the purpose, the method of tracking this is important. Hitting a ball hard can be the difference between a hit or a lazy out. A ground ball that is hit over 100 MPH had a much higher probability of making it through the infield than a grounder hit at 90 MPH.
With guys like Anthony Rizzo, Addison Russell, Albert Almora, Victor Caratini, and Schwarber, they’re not beating out ground balls often and need to hit the ball hard. This is a big reason for some of those guys rather low babip’s.
Harder hit balls = hits. The harder the ball is struck, the higher the likelihood of extra bases.
You gotta catch the ball
As much a very balanced offense, strong pitching, and solid coaching were reasons for the 2016 team’s ability to win, potentially the biggest asset was their ability to catch the baseball. They were close to historically good at catching the ball.
That has not been the case in 2019.
The Cubs are 21st in baseball with a -9 DRS. In contrast, the 2016 team finished with 107 DRS, 26 more than the second-place Houston Astros. To further support how important this is, the Kansas City Royals lead baseball in DRS in 2015, won the World Series. 2016, the Cubs led and won the World Series. 2017, the Dodgers, Cubs, and Cleveland Indians were all playoff teams that finished in the top 10. 2018 featured a laundry list of teams that made the playoffs, including the second most belonging to the Brewers who unseated the Cubs in the Central. In 2019, the Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, and Astros are three of the top four in DRS.
This absolutely translates to winning baseball and the Cubs are 44 DRS behind the Milwaukee Brewers, who are 61 DRS behind the Cardinals. Simply put, the 2019 Chicago Cubs are a horrible defensive team.
Can’t pull off the close ones
The Cubs are 19-27 in 1-run games. Even if they were .500 in these games, they would still be playing meaningful games this weekend.
Just how important is it to be able to pull off 1-run wins? Of the eight teams that have clinched playoff spots, only two of them have lost more 1-run games than they’ve won. Those teams, the New York Yankees (18-19) and the Washington Nationals (17-21).
While those two teams are abnormalities, the idea has always been true – good teams win close games.
Even looking at the Yankees, their inability to win those 1-run games is a reason their fans should worry. However, they also have the ability to put up big innings, quickly, making what once was a close game a game that quickly goes the other way fast. Likewise, looking at the Nationals, their bullpen has the ability to change a close game into a blowout as well.
The Cubs hadn’t shown the offensive ability to come from behind and their pen hasn’t been able to consistently lock down leads. Both are signs of complete disaster in close games. Then, of course, there had been some questionable pitching decisions by Joe Maddon.
Just about average
At the end of the day, the Cubs were a just above average team. Their .252 BA is 14th in baseball. Their .332 OBP is eighth-best. Runs scored? 11th in baseball. Their 540 extra-base hits? Ninth. Team ERA? Seventh best. Quality starts? Ninth in baseball. Walks allowed, 17th in the MLB. Their 1,404 strikeouts are good for 14th in baseball.
There is nothing that this team does exceptionally well. When you fail to excel at literally no part of this game, you have the four flaws above, and then you have injury, didn’t improve the roster in the offseason, had several players you expected to play large roles spend months in Iowa refining their skills, players on leave of absences, and all the rest – you get a team that doesn’t compete in October. It leads to the biggest Cubs failed season to date.
Luckily for us Cubs fans, we’re accustomed to saying, “wait till next year.”
