NEWSLETTER
Made the mistake of letting myself listen to most of ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ in the car this morning, and now it is THOROUGHLY stuck in my head.
• Alec Mills’ really nice run in the rotation has hit a wall here at the end of the season, with another rough outing last night in Pittsburgh. He’s been particularly brutal in September:
Mills: "To be honest with you, I think this is probably one of the worst stretches I've ever pitched. It's pretty frustrating. I think a lot of it may have to do with not really commanding — glove side of the plate to lefties especially."
— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) September 29, 2021
• It’s one of those “not a secret” stretches, as he’s struggled because he’s suddenly getting torched at the plate. His walk rate and strikeout rate are normal. He’s just getting good old fashioned crushed, with every discernible metric regarding the quality of his contact tanking. Hard contact. In the air more. Barrel rate. On and on. All pretty bad in September.
• Mills attributes it mostly to his command against lefties, and – as has been the case with him in the past – that sure sounds right. This month, lefties are hitting .333/.385/.650 against him, whereas righties are at .275/.302/.425. He’s always had REALLY pronounced splits, so that’s expected (and also, those numbers against righties are way worse than his usual line). And I’m not actually sure he’s been that much worse against lefties in September – in August, they hit .400/.455/.600 off of him! We just didn’t quite notice the damage because (1) he faced far fewer of them in August as compared to September, and (2) their efforts translated into far fewer actual runs (which is looking like it might’ve been a fluke).
• To me, it all suggests that the problems we’ve seen in the past for him against lefties haven’t been addressed – and maybe can’t be at this point – and it means that you would have to continue to be very judicious about his deployment in the future. He’s typically been so dominant against righties that you’d love to have him in the rotation in the right match-ups, but it can be difficult to coordinate that over a full season (especially if, for example, you had another guy in the rotation with similar splits (Adbert Alzolay)). You dream about him developing a better cutter or changeup, or figuring out some other pitch/grip/tweak that’ll help him succeed against lefties, but I’m sure it’s been worked on extensively for a long time.
• Maybe the secret sauce is going to be acknowledging the reality (lefties are gonna hammer him in the zone), and thus getting him to just be more nibbly against lefties. If it means more walks, so be it. For all his struggles against lefties, the walk rate is still only 7.6% this year. When you’re getting slugged as badly as he is by lefties, that walk rate could probably stand to be higher and the tradeoff would be worth it. And if you’re more nibbly, you also might see a modest increase in strikeout rate and soft contact.
• So those pre-game injury announcements sure sucked last night. Thanks to Michael for being on game coverage, so I didn’t have a chance to say much. But you probably know the drill in any case on the two big ones: (1) it sucks that Keegan Thompson won’t get another start to show whether that HUGE uptick in whiffs was something he found (and not something that hurt his dang shoulder in the process!); and (2) it sucks that Nico Hoerner is clearly not right still, and now he might not get these last few at bats.
• On Hoerner, a crazy thing we realized while recording the latest episode of ‘Onto Waveland‘ – at this point, Frank Schwindel (216) doesn’t have THAT many fewer Cubs plate appearances than Nico Hoerner (378). And Patrick Wisdom (375) basically has the same amount. Heck, Rafael Ortega has been platooning for part of one season, and he’s already up to 310. I cannot overstate how few PAs Hoerner has had (and that’s not even mentioning how he has the least minor league experience of any of the guys the Cubs have called up the last 10 years).
• The Cubs were right to target Casey Sadler when they did, but unfortunately couldn’t get him over the hump in the pandemic season. He’s way over it now with the Mariners:
Casey Sadler, 94mph Paint. 🖌️🎨
26th consecutive scoreless appearance (Mariners franchise record). pic.twitter.com/j8rn50fkUJ
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 29, 2021
• Noah Syndergaard finally made his season debut, returning from Tommy John surgery, and he was bringing it:
Noah Syndergaard's season debut: Strikeout, strikeout, groundout. 10 pitches. Fastball at 96 mph.
Syndergaard tipped his cap to fans behind the Mets dugout, an excited crowd that gave him a standing ovation.
— Deesha (@DeeshaThosar) September 28, 2021
• Please don’t extend him a Qualifying Offer, Mets. I would like the Cubs to be the team that gets to sign him to a short-term, show-out type deal (he’s probably my singular top realistic target for the Cubs this offseason), and I don’t see them doing it if the price includes their (high) second round pick and a chunk of their (limited) IFA money. Of course, the flip side is, if you’re the Mets, don’t you make him that offer? It might cost you $19 million for one year, which *COULD* sting if he doesn’t come back strong, but that’s your worst case scenario. Among other other possibilities: he accepts it and pitches great on a one-year deal; he signs elsewhere and you get a draft pick; he fears what might happen to the market and he actually re-signs with you on a compelling long-term deal.
• Air purifiers, vacuums, books, memory drives, and more are among your Deals of the Day at Amazon. #ad
• If you missed the BIG Bears news, they’re buying Arlington Park.
