Series Preview – Chicago Cubs (13-18) vs Milwaukee Brewers (13-18)

In Series Previews by berselius57 Comments

I liked the Brewers chances of winning the NL Central this year, even without Fielder, given the loss of Pujols and Carpenters injuries and my general distrust of the Reds pitching staff. They've had some awful luck so far though, and it looks like it's not going to happen. They've lost three of their key contributers (SP Chris Narveson, SS Alex Gonzalez, and 1B Mat Gamel) for the season to injuries, and given how they (wisely) empties out their farm system to go for it while their window was open the past few years there's not much to replace them. When Cesar Izturis is the answer, you don't want to know the question. Though he still might be an improvement over Yuni (dying laughing).

The Cubs are coming off back to back series wins against two of the top teams in baseball, so things are looking up!

Pitching Matchups

Friday: Matt Garza, RHP (2.67, 2.95, 3.00, 3.40) vs Randy Wolf, LHP (6.68, 4.68, 4.76, 4.42), 7:10 PM CT

Wolf was the Brewers "big" signing a few years back when they signed him to a ~3/30 deal. It doesn't look so great by fWAR  in the first two years of the deal (2.2) but it's bang-on the value by rWAR.  The Brewers have a club option on him for $10m next year which probably won't be picked up. His strikeout rate has continued its age-related decline and he's been knocked around by opposing batters, though his BABIP is at .361.

Garza had his last start skipped by the flu, which led to a competent start by Travis Wood and another Blake DeWitt DFA. Garza has had some good batted ball luck, and of all his numbers the most encouraging so far is his 45% GB rate. He's had only one bad outing all season, a 6 R, 2 HR outing in Miami.

Saturday: Chris Volstad, RHP (6.55, 3.37, 4.11, 4.41) vs Shaun Marcum, RHP (3.41, 3.44, 4.04, 3.47), 12:05 PM CT

Volstad hasn't had much luck either way on batted balls (.296 BABIP), it's been more of a sequencing thing (46.3% LOB). Maybe he's having trouble pitching out of the stretch. Despite his peripherals, he looked genuinely lousy in his last start. He's given up at least three runs in all of his outings, and most of them have happened in the first inning or two.

Marcum has been solid since the Brewers picked him up. He is an extreme fly ball pitcher, but manages to suppress HR anyway.

Sunday: Jeff Samardzija, RHP (3.03, 2.61, 2.93, 4.06) vs Marco Estrada, RHP (4.50, 4.91, 3.53, 3.95), 1:10 PM CT

Estrada was pushed into the rotation by Narveson's injury. He posted solid numbers as a starter in the minors, and has been meh to okayish as a reliever in the majors. He's been mostly a flyball pitcher in the majors, which is a part of his big HR rate.

I never would have guessed that Jeff Samardzija would be the Cubs pitcher I'm most excited to see this season.

Position Players

Not surprisingly Ryan Braun leads the team in wRAA. But what is surprising is that the next two biggest contributers are the Brewers catcher, George Kottaras and Johnathan LuCroy. Nyjer Morgan has been the biggest negative contributer, posting a .208 wOBA in 80 PAs. Overall the offense is middle of the pack in the NL.

Defensively, no one has been particularly impressive, though both UZR and DRS think poorly of Rickie Weeks's defense. Their team defensive numbers rank 14th in the NL by UZR and 13th by DRS. They're missing defensive wizard (and offensive black hole)

 

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Comments

  1. mb21

    The Cubs are coming off back to back series wins against two of the top teams in baseball, so things are looking up!

    I haven’t been paying attention, but are there people who are seriously thinking this team can contend based on having a good week? The team is tied for last place.

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  2. mb21

    Volstad has gotten screwed when it comes to sequencing. Hopefully things begin to even out with him. His FIP looks a lot nice than anyone could have expected so I expect both his FIP and ERA to regress.

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  3. Aisle424

    mb21 wrote:

    I haven’t been paying attention, but are there people who are seriously thinking this team can contend based on having a good week? The team is tied for last place.

    we SAID: Things. Are. Looking. UP. period. EXCLAMATION POINT!

    Prove us wrong.

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  6. josh

    I’m glad to see you guys have embraced the Hope Monster. My life plan is pretty much:

    1. Invent the Hope Monster
    2. Post erratically
    3. ????
    4. Profit

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  8. Aisle424

    My hope for the season is that the pitching isn’t a complete mirage. Obviously Dempster will not continue to lead the league in ERA, and if he does, he won’t be doing it for the Cubs for long because he WILL get traded unless he vetoes it. Samardzija is still an X factor, but he does seem to be better than any of us thought he could be. If he’s a decent 3/4 starter, I’m fucking thrilled. I like Maholm and I still like Volstad, and Garza is Garza. That’s not bad top to bottom.

    They aren’t going to the playoffs with it, but if you run out a couple of very good pitchers, and the rest decent pitchers, you can win some ballgames and not be a total embrassment.

    That’s what my goal for the team is: not to be a complete embarassment.

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  10. ACT

    Whoa, I just realized the Cubs lead the league in Defensive efficiency. After finishing dead last a year ago.

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  12. mb21

    @ Aisle424:
    They still have a horrible offense. Despite their awesome starting pitching, defense and baserunning this team is still tied for last place. The hitting will probably regress upwards while the rest regress in the other direction. “On pace for” at this point is silly, but they’re on pace for 68 wins, which I think is what you predicted if I recall correctly. In the end I expect a similar overall performance to what they’ve done so far, but it’s likely it will be done in a slightly different way.

    I know as fans as we have a tendency to be hopeful and I am as well, but we could look at any team who put together a 70 win season and find a week or two in which they played very good baseball. It’s inevitable when you play 162 games. This is still a very bad baseball team.

    I agree it’s nice to see F7 performing so well and if he can even be a decent 3/4 as you say it helps the team improve down the road.

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  13. josh

    @ mb21:
    I know you’re trying to temper expectations, but this team is going all the way.

    No, not really, but it’s still feels good when you have a good week. It kind of enhances that feeling when you know that we’re coming up on the inevitable week or two where they play like crap. It’s like you want to see how long the magic can last. It’s like knowing you’re about to die, in a way. It makes life that much brighter and sweeter.

    May have went too far on that last bit.

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  14. ACT

    The Cubs’ starting pitching has been near the middle of the pack (in terms of both ERA and SO/BB). Their bullpen has also been mediocre ERA-wise, but ranks dead last in SO/BB. (Dolis is emblematic of this disconnect.)

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  16. Aisle424

    Given what we’ve seen from Samardzija, Maholm & Volstad (and given the depth of Wells and Wood in the minors), I probably would have changed my prediction to about 69-70 wins. Which is still bad, but not an embrassment. I thought they would lose 100. I really did. Now, if they do, I’m going to be pretty disappointed because I don’t think this is 100 loss team given that we now are pretty sure both LaHair and Samardzija are better than we thought they were. Hell, we had Samardzija at negative WAR. If he even gives 2.5 WAR that’s a gain of 3 wins more than we thought.

    It’s also not out of the realm of possibility that the other pitchers except Garza exceed their projections by 1 WAR, so there’s 3 more wins. Combined with the offense getting better (because it almost has to), I’d probably make a different prediction knowing what I know now.

    I’m officially sticking with the 100 losses though.

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  45. josh

    Dozed off with the Cubs down one after some shittiness and the closer coming out. Wake up to see the Cubs with the god damn lead.

    The bottom of the ninth could be very painful.

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