It’s Jeff Samardzija Time! – Cubs Game Thread

In Game Threads by aisle424237 Comments

The 2012 Cubs are about to jump the shark.  Sending Jeff Samardzija to the mound is about as desperate an idea as when TV shows add Ted McGinley or have the Very Special Pregant Woman Gives Birth in a Stopped Elevator episode in an effort to boost ratings.

The lineup that Sveum has constructed to stop the Cubs from going 0-3 for the first time since the 0-14 start in 1997:

RF Kim DeJesus' husband

2B Beardy McDFA

SS Chosen One

LF $19 Million Man

3B Umm…. Ian Stewart

1B The Hair

CF Wyrd

C Soto's Backup

P 

Just Let it Happen.

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  3. Suburban kid

    Also, MO, I want The Scotsman hitting high in the order. I want to see what the new guys got. Dewitt and Byrd can hit at the bottom for all I care. They have proved themselves mediocre in two Cub seasons.

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  7. Mercurial Outfielder

    Also, I said LaHair should be hitting higher, not Stewart. Stewart is just as shitty as DeWitt.

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  34. Mercurial Outfielder

    Z has settled down some. His control, especially. Just doesn’t seem to have any pop to his stuff, though, at least on Gameday.

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  37. Mercurial Outfielder

    I really don’t understand why Bronson Arroyo doesn’t get fucking tattooed every time out. He is the definition of a junkballer.

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  46. Mercurial Outfielder

    He’s doing a nice job of keeping that fastball in on the hands. I guess if you’re going to throw an arrow-straight 4-seamer, you better be able to keep them from pulling it.

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  52. Mercurial Outfielder

    What I’m anxious to see with F7 is the 3rd and (hopefully) 4th times through the lineup.

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  55. Mercurial Outfielder

    If F7 think he can chuck belt-high 4-seamers up there without penalty, he’s got another thing coming. That Ramos AB was playing with fire.

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  64. Suburban kid

    The bottom of the second went faster than the commercial break between innings in the NYY/TBR game.

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  70. Mercurial Outfielder

    Control getting spottier by the inning, but he had a 2-seamer/cutter working that inning.

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  88. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ Rice Cube:
    Yeah, he’s walking a pretty fine line with his fastball. Reminds me of Z, really. If he loses the handle on that thing just a bit, it’s all going to go pear-shaped.

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  98. Mercurial Outfielder

    The undue adulation of F7 is about to reach critical mass. We should all get hold of a shovel.

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  104. Mish

    Pena went dong today and nearly had another one, fan interference double. That’s two this weekend. (dying laughing)

    Once this Bulls game is done I can see how Captain Morgan is doing out there.

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  109. WaLi

    Oosthuizen (who?) hit an albatross in the sexist Master’s tournament to take the lead. An albatross is rarer than a hole in one. Pretty crazy.

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  110. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ Rice Cube:

    Yeah, he really has. But there’s as much cause for concern as there is for optimism, IMO, on the strength of this start.

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  114. WaLi

    So over under for Cubs as a team HR this season… 50? Is that too high? Do you think the league HR leader will have more than the Cubs total?

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  120. Mercurial Outfielder

    3rd time though the heart of the order. Interested to see what and how F7 does.

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  136. bubblesdachimp

    Bubbles got Keith to play along

    keithlaw ‏ @keithlaw Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
    Yep. Better command down than when I saw him two weeks ago. “@jonf1220: @keithlaw You watching Samardzija by any chance?”

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  137. Suburban kid

    Great play by Stewart.

    Congrats to F7 on making it through 7 for the first time.

    Let’s remember the heart of the nats lineup includes xavier nady.

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  146. DamageControlFreak

    Why is da Shark still pitching?
    80 pitches should be more than fine for his first big league outing ever (kinda) and his spot in the bottom of the 7th would have been perfect tfor a pinch hitter.

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  148. Mercurial Outfielder

    F7 is about to find what the pressure of irrational expectations from the Cubs’ fanbase feels like.

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  152. bubblesdachimp

    keithlaw ‏ @keithlaw Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
    I don’t know, stuff looked pretty electric to me. “@caryatid62: @keithlaw Jeff Samardzija #smallsamplesizealert”

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  181. Mercurial Outfielder

    Well, you keep bombing 4-seamers down the middle of the plate, you’re going to pay. He’s been playing a dangerous game all day long.

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  185. Mercurial Outfielder

    The fun part is, everyone will blame the homer on Castro and ignore the fact that F7 has been daring people to hit that 4-seamer all day.

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  188. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ Rice Cube:
    Gameday had it dead down the middle. Belt-high, heart of the plate. You throw that pitch to a guy like LaRoche, you deserve the results.

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  189. Mercurial Outfielder

    I don’t know if Lee or Pena save the throw. That was a terrible throw Castro uncorked.

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  196. bubblesdachimp

    What an outing by shark. Based on the impression of twitter his shit was that good. I got blacked out

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  197. Mercurial Outfielder

    Well, that outing from F7 is puzzling. He located his 2-seamer superbly and had a nice changeup early, but he was playing with fire with the 4-seamer and didn’t seem to have any special command of his breaking pitches. Lots and lots of fastballs.

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  199. Mercurial Outfielder

    This start reminds me of the first time F7 came up. We all oohed and aahed at the electric stuff and the 95+ fastballs…and then he pitched a few more times.

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  203. bubblesdachimp

    @ Mercurial Outfielder:

    You could be very correct MO. I just saw a lot of the nasty factors and the looked good. Slider looked solid and he didnt walk anyone. I will take all the positives i can. Not to mention Ketih and Kevin were pretty impressed

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  205. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ mb21:
    He pitched well, got helped by good defense from Soriano and Stewart. Made the most of his chance, for sure. He threw a lot of fastballs, and after the 3rd innings, he was putting a lot of them up and over the plate. He was able to keep them off the fastball with his change for a while, then with his slider for a bit, but his most consistent pitch in terms of location was probably the cutter/2-seamer he was throwing.

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  210. mb21

    @ bubblesdachimp:
    I don’t know how good a metric it is. This is from Mike Fast last year:

    Here’s what I found about the average Nasty Factor for the various results of pitches when I checked earlier this year:

    NF Result
    42 In play, out
    41 In play, run/no out
    41 Swinging strike
    40 Called strike
    40 Foul
    38 Ball

    So a ball in play and an out is the highest, but a swinging strike is less and a called strike is less than that.

    Perhaps at the extremes it tells us something. I don’t know. I’ve never paid a lick of attention to it so I don’t know and I don’t care, but based on the average here I’m not sure it tells us anything.

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  211. mb21

    the thing I like most about F7’s outing is the percentage of strikes. That’s a good sign. Still just one start, but at least we have something at the MLB level as a starter to start discussing.

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  212. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ GBTS:

    It tastes like confirmation bias with a bit of sample size and a dash of Thenatshaveareallyshittyoffense.

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  213. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ mb21:
    Yeah, he was bombarding the strike zone today. That’s probably the best indication we have of his alleged improvement.

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  214. Mercurial Outfielder

    @ bubblesdachimp:
    No, there’s a bunch of other shit thrown in. From MLB:

    The Nasty Factor evaluates several properties of each pitch, and rates the “nastiness” of the pitch on a scale from 0-100, based in part on the success or failure of opposing hitters against previous similar pitches. The Nasty Factor incorporates several different factors for each pitch, including:
    Velocity — The greater the pitch’s velocity — as compared to that pitcher’s and the league’s range of speed for that pitch type — the greater the nastiness;
    Sequence — The more the pitcher mixes up his pitches, the greater the nastiness… and certain pitch sequences are nastier than others, too;
    Location — The closer to the edges of the strike zone is, the greater the nastiness, while pitches closer to the middle of the plate, and farther away outside the strike zone, decrease in nastiness;
    Movement — The more movement the pitcher applies to the pitch — as compared to that pitcher’s and the league’s range of movement for that pitch type — the greater the nastiness.
    The Nasty Factor also adjusts for how often the pitcher has faced the current batter during the game, as well as how often he has used the same pitch type against the same batter in the current at-bat and previously in the game.

    There’s so much noise in that number, I doubt it’s useful for much at all. Basically, it tells what we could already see: the pitcher is pitching with movement.

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  216. mb21

    @ Mercurial Outfielder:
    Based on Mike’s research I think it’s clear the result weighs heavily. An out is more important than anything. A swinging strike or even a guy caught off guard with a pitch taken for a called strike are less than balls put in play that are turned into outs. This tells me that it doesn’t have much value. Like I said, there could be value at the extremes, but I doubt it.

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  222. bubblesdachimp

    @ Mercurial Outfielder:

    I agree with yall 100% It is not the end all be all. I think it gives a rough estimate of would you want a batter to have to make good contact. Like i think i saw a marmiol slider get up to about a 98 last year.

    Just another tool to combine with the other ones to give us a more accurate impression of what we are seeing

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  230. mb21

    @ bubblesdachimp:
    Didn’t the Red Sox get off to something like a 2-9 start last year and then were in first place not long after? We’re 3 games in. Other than knowing the Cubs have won 1 and lost 2, I don’t have the foggiest damn clue what the record of another team is (other than the Nationals).

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