The Cubs

Really, do we need to say anything else?

I’ll admit it. I have a perhaps unhealthy dislike of the Cubs. I tend not to watch their games when there are other options on MLB.tv and if I do watch them, I’m certainly not watching their feed. Obviously the best thing in baseball is when the Cardinals win, but a day where the Cubs lose is pretty good as well.

Which is why the last 1/2 decade (well, more 2015-2018) was so difficult to swallow. Putting up with the Cubs being good is one thing, but dealing with them being better than the Cardinals? It’s so much worse. I really, really was hoping for Cleveland to win in 2016, hoping against hope against that late rally. The fact that the world, in general, has been on a downslide since that World Series is not at all unrelated, I don’t believe.

Here we are again, facing those baby bears in the blue. You’ll hear a lot about the fact they haven’t been to Busch since 2019, as if that means this is a team unrecognizable from the one that watched the Cardinals clinch the NL Central in front of them. (If you are reading this on the web instead of the email, that cover picture of the Cardinals is from after that game, when they trolled the Cubs by recreating what they’d done when they clinched at Busch in a year past.) The rivalry starts up again and any loss, at least for me, is doubly painful.

The Last Time We Met…..

As noted, all the games last year were in Wrigley Field, given that Chicago tried to come into town and the Cardinals decided they’d rather be infected with a contagious disease causing a worldwide pandemic rather than play them, which, fair.

The Cards split the 10 games against Chicago last year, losing three of five in the first series they played then (obviously) winning three of five the second time around. That last series saw Yu Darvish outduel Jack Flaherty (though Flaherty did get the benefit of a rare Matt Carpenter home run), the Cardinals sweep a double header (the first game had Adam Wainwright surviving two Ian Happ homers, the second showcased homers by Paul DeJong and Tyler O’Neill in the same inning), Jon Lester give up homers to Tommy Edman and DeJong in a five run outing, and then St. Louis drop the finale because they couldn’t hit Kyle Hendricks, per usual.

Winners and losers in the last game the Cubs played in Busch? Jack Flaherty and Derek Holland, neither of whom will appear in this series.

The Opponent

The Cubs seem to be in a fairly precarious position. They have a lot of their core eligible for free agency at the end of the year. Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Javier Baez could all be wearing a different uniform in 2022, not to mention lesser lights like Zach Davis, Joc Pederson, and Jake Arrieta. (Pederson and Arrieta have mutual options, which would seem likely one of the two sides will exercise no matter how the season goes.) Even Craig Kimbrel and Willson Contreras could be on the fringes of this discussion, as Kimbrel has a club option for 2022 and will be a free agent after next season.

Which means that there comes a time when the front office has to decide if they are in it or if they need to start selling pieces. Which means this weekend could be a push one way or another. The Cubs come into town three games out. A sweep by St. Louis (hey, it’s the weekend, they are known to do things like that) could put them closer to Pittsburgh than the Cardinals. Of course, a sweep the other way and that race that looked to be settling into a two-horse race between the Redbirds and the Brewers gets a gate crasher.

Chicago started off the season with an atrocious offense but much like St. Louis they have warmed up as the weather has. Not counting yesterday’s game against the Nationals, they are in the middle of the pack in homers (just two behind the Cards) and ninth overall in OPS, a mark that can’t all be explained by the fact that Rizzo actually stands on the plate in every at bat. They can put up some runs.

The question is, can they put up more runs than their pitchers, notably their starters, give up? The Cubs rank 19th in baseball with a 4.26 ERA, but their starter ERA is 5.10, worst in the National League. For Pete Kozma’s sake, people have figured out a way to put up runs against Hendricks, who has a 5.27 ERA. (Please note, that will likely not be the Hendricks that shows up to Busch this weekend.)

The Mound Men

Friday: Kyle Hendricks (3-4, 5.27 ERA, 5.62 FIP, 5.18 xERA) vs. Carlos Martinez (3-4, 4.35 ERA, 4.01 FIP, 5.29 xERA)

Saturday: Adbert Alzolay (2-3, 4.62 ERA, 4.57 FIP, 4.16 xERA) vs. Miles Mikolas (no line)

Sunday: Zach Davies (2-2, 5.58 ERA, 5.22 FIP, 6.86 xERA) vs. Adam Wainwright (2-4, 4.63 ERA, 4.91 FIP, 3.85 xERA)

—xERA courtesy of FanGraphs

Hendricks, of course, has been a Cardinal killer for quite some time. He’s 9-3 with a 2.88 ERA in 20 career starts against them, including one of his three career shutouts. That career mark is even a little misleading because since 2016 (so removing his first four starts against them), he’s 9-2 with a 2.48 ERA. We mentioned he shut down the Cardinals last year and it was standard Hendricks fare—eight innings, seven hits, one run, no walks, four strikeouts. This year, though, he’s almost been perfectly oscillating. Three runs in three innings his first outing, zero runs the second. Seven, two, seven, one, six, one. Last time out, he shut down the Tigers for a run over eight innings, which even with the lesser competition is a concern that he’s on track. However, the time before he got hit around by Pittsburgh so…..

The Cardinals saw Alzolay twice last year with mixed results. His first time, which was also his first start of the season, saw him go five innings, give up two hits and an unearned run, and strike out six. The second, he walked five and give up two runs in less than three innings, leaving after he walked Matt Carpenter with the bases loaded. He’s been pretty consistent this year, almost always giving up 2-3 runs in 5-6 innings. Last time, he got a win by allowing three runs in five innings against the Nationals.

For as much as the Cards don’t want to see Hendricks, they are fine with Davies. He’s faced them 10 times in his career as a Brewer and has a 4.55 ERA in those games. That counts a 2016 where he had a 1.66 ERA in three games. Without that, the career ERA jumps to 7.58. He was actually effective in the last game he pitched against the Cardinals back in 2019, allowing two runs in five innings. Still got the loss, though, because Milwaukee couldn’t score off of Dakota Hudson, Giovanny Gallegos, and Andrew Miller.

The Cardinal side as questions, of course, and you have to hope Martinez and Mikolas will be ready to jump into major league competition after dealing with the IL (for over a year in Mikolas’s case) and that Wainwright’s outing in San Diego was a once-off and not the actual start of a decline.

The Hot Seat

I am not one to make wild claims or one that tends to overreact, at least I hope I’m not, so when I say I would not be surprised to see Tyler Webb waived before the end of the weekend, you can hopefully realize that I’m not speaking completely out of my backside. Webb has struggled mightily all year long, and while the ERA is much worse than any of the other metrics, they aren’t great either (5.88 FIP, 5.32 xERA, 7.53 xFIP). Webb is also basically the definition of a replaceable player. He’s right at 0.0 fWAR for his career.

The Cardinals are going to need to make roster room for both Mikolas and Martinez. There are people that could be demoted—Seth Elledge, Jake Woodford, Lane Thomas, even Max Moroff (though given the uncertainty around Paul DeJong’s return, maybe not that one). That’s probably what the Cardinals will do, especially since waiving Webb before the return of Andrew Miller (something that, to compound the problem, no one is clamoring for) means you’d only have Genesis Cabrera as a left=handed pitcher.

However, do you trust Webb to come into any spot where you’d want to actually use a lefty? Webb has walked 10 of the 36 lefties he’s faced, a much higher rate than what he’s done against righties. His one homer allowed is against a left-hander. With the three batter minimum, a LOOGY isn’t as needed anyway.

I expect the Cardinals will actually keep Webb and demote Woodford and probably Thomas, figuring they need more arms. I just don’t know if keep Webb is really worth it. At least Woodford can give you innings if you need them in a blowout.

(After I prepped this part, the Cardinals sent down John Nogowski, which makes sense and probably keeps Thomas and Moroff around for a bit.)

Dispatches From The Front

Evan Altman writes for the Cubs Insider site and, thankfully, is able to view this rivalry as an enjoyable thing, not that all Cardinals fans are idiots and the like. (Well, if he does he’s at least polite enough to not tell it to my face.) I asked him to give a little update on the Cubs from the point of view of someone that actually does watch them every day. This is what he had to say.

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The Cubs are still a flawed team by just about any assessment, but they may be playing their most balanced baseball of the season heading into the weekend in St. Louis. That's because they're finally getting production from two outfielders who'd previously been weighing the offense down. Since returning from the IL on May 4, Joc Pederson is batting .400 with a .916 OPS in 55 plate appearances. The IL likewise sparked Ian Happ, who has five home runs in his last seven games after hitting just one homer in his first 25 contests.

Also performing well is a bullpen being anchored by several young pitchers, particularly rookies Justin Steele and Keegan Thomson. Fellow rookie Tommy Nance has likewise looked good since being called up. All three boast high spin rates and excellent movement on their pitches. That sets it up for Craig Kimbrel, who is finally back to being the elite closer we remember from Atlanta, San Diego, and Boston.

There are, however, some clear weak spots with this Cubs team. They've dealt with myriad injuries over the past few weeks that have thinned out the depth of the roster. Even if some of those issues don't shelve a player for 10 days, little tweaks and strains could limit them over the weekend. The rotation has also been an issue, though the strong bullpen play has mitigated those inconsistent starts for the most part. That's a different story if Kyle Hendricks and Zach Davies have finally caught their respective grooves, and Adbert Alzolay has been very good so far this season.

What had been a boom-or-bust squad through the first month or so of the season has morphed into a steady unit that can win in a variety of ways. Rather than relying on the homer for content, they use the longball to punctuate a contact-based narrative. And instead of praying Kimbrel manages to avoid homers, they trust a group of rookies and castoffs to hand the ball over to Dirty Craig. Then again, they are more than capable of laying an egg or two at inopportune times.

Assorted Crudités

The Cubs are the only other team in the NL Central with a positive run differential, something that has just come about recently. It’s still less than half of what the Cardinals have, however.

The most expensive contract on the Cubs roster right now is Jason Heyward. I loved Heyward when he was here and thought there was a real case for signing him. That’s a bullet dodged. Yeah, there’s that speech that might have motivated the Cubs to win the Series, so it’s not been a completely great thing, but if you think the criticism around Matt Carpenter has been bad…..

Not only has Tommy Edman played every game, he’s played every inning of every game. Even Nolan Arenado gets a breather in the late innings of blowouts, but not Edman. So far, it hasn’t caught up to him too much. It looks like the slump he was in is starting to dissipate as well.

Paul Goldschmidt has three three-hit games in May and is slashing .317/.377/.524 for the month.

Dylan Carlson still doesn’t have an extra-base hit since his double on May 1. He is 5-12 with two walks in his last three games, though.

Random Links

Currently listening to: Cardinals Off Day Episode 8: Off-Day After Dark. The Bens added Kyle Reis in this episode to talk about the minors and I love whenever Kyle gets a chance to be on a podcast and talk about prospects. Also, fair warning to the podcasters that read this, I’ve already locked him down for Musial right after the draft.

Currently reading: Nothing knew, still working through my various reads such as Hochman’s book and Baseball Prospectus. I will be on vacation in June so hopefully I can finish at least something by then and have a new book to put in this spot.

Personal: I was glad to fill in for Tara on Chirps this week. Thankfully Alex didn’t ask me about the R2-D2 autobiography until way late in the game, otherwise I might have gone on quite a tangent about some of the ideas I have for said book.

I am also getting somewhat modern and setting up a home media server at home, which means digitizing the official Cardinal DVDs I have of World Series games, etc. I converted Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS yesterday and will be sure to test that one out once I get everything set up.

Allen and I recorded Musial last night, so be sure to check that out!