Home Major League Baseball MVPete and the Cubs’ Final Stretch

MVPete and the Cubs’ Final Stretch

By
Rice Cube
-
116

I assume at some point we will pod again and the Cubs’ pitching will stop pissing us off (as much), but the lack of a sweep in Miami, while not totally unexpected (because sweeps are hard no matter the opponent), was still disappointing given that one of the better pitchers on the team decided today was a good day to suck. The day wasn’t a complete wash as the Brewers lost (even if the division odds are close to zero) and the Phillies did too, and then Pete Crow-Armstrong did this:

As you know, Pete is now the second Cubs left-hander to hit 40+ homers in a season since Hall of Famer Billy Williams, and currently has those 40 home runs and 33 stolen bases, so there’s still a chance to get to 40-40 and really enter the realm of legend. At 81-63, the Cubs have 18 games remaining, so that’s about one stole base every couple games. This probably requires Pete to get to first base and stop just there every now and then, which I don’t think he can, by rule, when he hits a home run (though I’m not completely sure on that). Maybe he can steal third every now and then when he doubles, or steal home when a pitcher falls asleep, but yeah we’ll probably need at least seven singles to make it so. Since Shohei Ohtani is sort of broken at the moment, the MVP is most likely Pete’s at this time, but who even knows with these voters anyway.

Speaking of those remaining 18 games, here’s what we’re looking at…

  • 9/7 to 9/9 in Milwaukee
  • 9/11 to 9/13 vs Pirates
  • 9/14 to 9/16 vs Atlanta
  • 9/18 to 9/20 in Cincinnati
  • 9/22 to 9/24 vs Marlins
  • 9/25 to 9/27 in Boston to end the season

Before the series in Milwaukee, the Cubs stand seven games behind the Brewers for the division, and even if they sweep, they are four games back with 15 to play, so that would require a lot of help to make the NL Central crown happen. More likely is the wild card, where the Cubs are five games up on the Diamondbacks and a half game up on the Phillies for now, with tiebreakers against both, so we’ll see how that shakes out, but we certainly would prefer they host the first series somehow. FanGraphs odds suggest the Cubs should hit 90 wins, which they’ll do if they just go .500 the rest of the way (I feel like they’ll do better, but again we’ll see), with just a 1.2% chance to win the division but a 99.5% chance to make the playoffs at all. Securing those tiebreakers certainly help, and (BIG IF) a sweep of the Brewers could also secure the tiebreaker against Milwaukee. The math is tough but possible, so let’s see if Pete gets to 40-40 and if the Brewers take a big dump. It would certainly amuse me.

116 COMMENTS

  36. Rice Cube,

    I’m taking the reductive approach: “Have any of our starters recorded an out in the 8th? Has anything happened that makes me expect that to change today?”

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  38. andcounting:
    Rice Cube,

    I’m taking the reductive approach: “Have any of our starters recorded an out in the 8th? Has anything happened that makes me expect that to change today?”

    I’m not sure how to do a comprehensive search, but a cursory look at the usual suspects suggests the answer might be “zero”

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  39. There’s a very legit possibility that PCA joins the 40-40 list when Atlanta’s in town. The Cubs could stop the game and hold a parade out of sheer petty spite. (dying laughing)

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  40. So that’s 17 games remaining to:

    1) get 5+ HR to match or exceed Derrek Lee’s total and potentially also overtake Schwarber for the MLB homer lead

    2) get those 5 SB to join the 40-40 club

    At this point he just needs to get one of each every 3 games or so, which seems more than doable…exciting!

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  41. Pete also…

    – 3 HR from Ernie’s age 24 HR Cubs record
    – 1 HR from Billy’s lefty HR Cubs record

    Pretty sure he won’t get to Sammy’s overall club record, and my reverse jinx probably isn’t that strong

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  42. Rice Cube: Pretty sure he won’t get to Sammy’s overall club record, and my reverse jinx probably isn’t that strong

    This is the energy I’m looking for. A reverse jinx AND a reverse jinx on the power of the reverse jinx. Perfection!

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  54. andcounting:
    There’s a very legit possibility that PCA joins the 40-40 list when Atlanta’s in town. The Cubs could stop the game and hold a parade out of sheer petty spite. (dying laughing)

    I can’t even remember what prompted the original thing – did Acuna get 40-40?

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  61. Rice Cube,

    Explanation: that’s incorrect.

    William Contreras singles on a sharp line drive. Jackson Chourio out at home on the throw, right fielder Seiya Suzuki to catcher Miguel Amaya. Brice Turang to 2nd. 3 outs

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  64. small sample size etc but my takeaway from the past week is that the Brewers are good at a ton of the little things but ABS challenges is not one of them.

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  96. Like maybe it’s not getting power arms and relying on defense and scraping the barrel but it’s really such a systemic failure that I have no explanation beyond they don’t know what they’re doing anymore

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  97. Rice Cube,

    I know what you’re saying, but a changeup doesn’t have much break to it anyway. Every changeup is a hanger if you know it’s coming. (dying laughing)

    Obviously I don’t really know if they called for either of them in that general location, and I’m sure he didn’t want it that high, but by the time he hit the homer, Chourio had seen that exact pitch thrown in the same general area at the same velocity FIVE TIMES, four from the on-deck circle and one at the plate. It wasn’t a changeup. It was just . . . up.

    (dying laughing)

    That’s a failure on the part of like six different people in the Cubs organization to allow that to happen.

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  100. Rice Cube:
    berselius,

    I don’t understand how nearly every pitching move this year has been disappointing, it’s like they literally don’t know how pitching works

    This is really activating the former part of my brain that didn’t care about the Cubs trading Cease and Archer because they wouldn’t know what to do with them anyway

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  101. berselius:
    Cubs pen moved from 27th in fWAR before the trade deadline to 27th in fWAR in games since the deadline

    Ope, I had the wrong date for the deadline, they actually moved from 27th in the games before 8/3 to 29th in the games since

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  102. AC commenting about the pitch sequencing and the potential of like six different components of the pitching infrastructure fucking up kind of ties into my wonderment about how the pitching gurus and the Pitch Lab etc could just be so systemically bad at this, like at least show them how to avoid the heart of the zone because if the ball goes over the wall your elite defense can’t do shit unless they have magnets and tractor beams

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