The Brewers are so annoying. Even though the Cubs (16-9) are seven games over .500 and winners in 9 of their last 12 games, including a three-game sweep of the Astros, there’s Milwaukee (16-8) … just quietly sitting there a half-game higher in first place.
Didn’t we steal Craig Counsell to stop this nonsense?
I guess the difference this year is that they’ve been “earning it” in more obvious ways. It’s too early for this to be predictive, but just to give you a sense of how things have played out to date, the Brewers (+35) have the fourth highest run differential in baseball through their first 24 games. As a team, they’re slashing an incredible .264/.343/.421 (115 wRC+, 4th) overall, with William Contreras turning into an absolute monster: .365/.446/.573 (183 wRC+, 5HRs and 22 RBI already).
And while their rotation has been merely average, their bullpen has been lights out all year (2.73 ERA, 0.8 WAR). The Cubs bullpen, by contrast: 3.71 ERA and -0.4 WAR. But wait a minute … it doesn’t quite feel that way lately, right?
As pointed out by Aldo Soto, since the end of the Padres series, the Cubs bullpen has actually been lights out in terms of results: 1.93 ERA (4th best) over 51.1 IP (7th most). And it feels like a lot of that is due to some recent moves in the ‘pen, both transactionally and in terms of roles. For example, none of Keegan Thompson (7.0 scoreless innings), Ben Brown (3.0 scoreless innings), or Hayden Wesneski (6.1 scoreless innings) were part of the opening day bullpen, but all three have all made significant contributions there lately. Meanwhile, Yency Almonte (5.0 scoreless innings) has been deployed more aggressively and has been responding really well.
The Cubs also moved Adbert Alzolay out of their closers role, and he’s responded with two scoreless, hitless, walk-less appearances against Miami and Houston, with just a HBP to his name. And frankly, he can’t come back (to the best version of himself) soon enough. Because even though Hector Neris has converted back-to-back saves, you cannot watch these games and think he’s the answer as closer. His command is off, his velocity remains down, and he isn’t fooling batters at ALL. That’s why we’re seeing all these long plate appearances – foul ball after foul ball after foul ball … and then a walk.
Looking under the hood, I can see that opposing batters have made contact on a staggering 96.9% of pitches Neris has thrown in the zone this season, which is tied for the 9th highest in MLB. And he’s starting behind the count more than all but two relievers (3rd lowest first-pitch strike rate). With all that plus more walks (9) than strikeouts (8), the traffic is mounting — a 1.78 WHIP on the year (29th worst among all 208 qualified relievers). It’s not a good idea to keep him in the closer’s role.
But I also know there still isn’t really an obvious answer. We’ve gone over this before, but the Cubs most dependable reliever right now, Mark Leiter Jr., is probably still best served being deployed at any high-leverage point in the game, and otherwise saved for huge moments against left-handed batters. Everyone else is either not there right now (Alzolay, Neris), not a closer (Brewer, Almonte, Little), or is more of a long-man (Wesneski, Thompson). Brown has the stuff, but might actually be in the rotation(?) still. And Thompson could be that guy, but I don’t know if we’re quite there yet.
As for Hayden Wesneski … we’ll have more on him later today. He’s been a stud. Not a solution to closer, but so so good.
The Cubs two most valuable position players by WAR this season? Nico Hoerner (125 wRC+, 0.9 WAR) and Mike Tauchman (164 wRC+, 0.8 WAR). One day after homering twice, Tauchman reached base four times yesterday and is now slashing .298/.437/.491 for the season. He has the 8th highest OBP in MLB among qualified hitters. I have no idea how he’s doing it, but with Seiya Suzuki and Cody Bellinger both out, he picked a great time to be great.
Pete Crow-Armstrong met the fan who caught his first big league hit and home run after the game, signing his game-used bat in a postgame meet and swap:
I case you missed it, the Chicago Bears drafted Quarterback Caleb Williams first overall last night. And you can already get his gear. He’ll wear No. 18 and hopefully become the first good Bears quarterback, like … ever.