Two episodes in, and ‘House of the Dragon’ is just straight up succeeding. I didn’t think I could be this sucked in so quickly after the debacle that was the end of ‘Game of Thrones,’ but they have pulled it off so far. Even when last night’s episode intro’d with the GOT theme song, I was like, yeah, cool, this feels right and good and earned. Shocked myself.
This is a well-considered chart overlay from Jordan Bastian on the first year of Seiya Suzuki in the big leagues. When Suzuki is making contact, he’s succeeding. When he’s whiffing, he’s not. True for many players, but it’s a pretty stark one-to-one for Suzuki this year:
Overall on the year, Suzuki is hitting .252/.331/.419/109 wRC+, which is good enough for his first year transition into the big leagues, but is not what you would need to see going forward from a bat-first right fielder (and/or, we’d need to see some improvement defensively, where he has looked average or slightly below). More power, in particular, is necessary.
Speaking of which. The period Bastian references for the most recent stretch of good results – the last 14 games – Suzuki has been SMOKING the ball (average exit velo is 93.5 mph), and has had solid results, but not a lot of slugging. I think there’s some bad luck there, as his average launch angle during the same period is totally fine (12.4 degrees), and his barrel rate is a solid 10.5%. You’d expect to see an ISO much higher than .150 based on that quality of contact. So either there is some other factor at play here (his hardest contact is on the lower-end of his launch angle, maybe?), or there has just been some bad luck on the extra-base hit side of things the last two weeks. If we see the power production take a big step forward the last month, we will credibly be able to say that it wasn’t just the last month of the year that he finally started really hitting for power. That’s what I’ll be watching most from him going forward.
Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy spoke with NBC about how the team is thinking about innings limits for guys like Justin Steele and Keegan Thompson, when they’ve already exceeded previous career highs. It’s a delicate balance:
“We’re definitely aware of that,” pitching coach Tommy Hottovy said. “We try to communicate as much as we can with the players just about how they’re feeling. We know we don’t want to push these guys to a crazy limit. But we also know that every inning we get this year is just going to help with the volume for next year ….
“I think if we want to do what we want to do next year, these guys are gonna be a huge part of it. We obviously want to protect them. We also want to make sure they understand what it’s like pitching late in September in some really meaningful games. We’re going to monitor that over the next couple of weeks and make a determination based off of everything that we’re getting. I’d love for them to finish in some capacity.”
As long as the risk of serious injury – i.e., the kind that completely messes up the offseason (or more) for the pitcher – is measured exceedingly carefully, it’s OK to push young arms past their previous highs, since that is how you build for the years ahead. That said, even getting these guys up into the 120 to 130 innings range is a whole lot, and sets them up reasonably for 150+ in 2023. Maybe not quite where you’d hope they could be if it’s a deep, competitive run, but an increasingly standard level for starting pitchers. In other words, it’s not a lock nowadays that rotation members healthily can exceed 150 innings anyway. In 2021, there were just 51 pitchers who topped 150 innings (less than two per team). In 2019, it was 70. In 2018, it was 74. If you’ve got two or three starting pitchers who top 150 innings in a given season, you’re not really falling behind.
Ian Happ believes the CBA being settled, combined with a little more distance from the pandemic, is why we’re seeing more extensions around baseball. As Happ told the Tribune: “Especially now that you’re at the beginning of a five-year period where things are set, I think that it’s easier for teams to go out and create cost certainty than it was in the last couple of years, especially during the pandemic, and then leading up to a negotiation where you’re trying to figure out exactly what the landscape is going to look like. Now that there is a little bit more certainty, generally what the rules are going to be for five years, that’s why you’re seeing guys and teams go out and try to create more certainty for themselves over the next five.”
We’ve talked about the Cubs and Nico Hoerner, the obviousness and desirability of an extension there, but what about Happ, himself? The calculus is very different, as Happ is just one year away from free agency and is less versatile defensively, but if you believe Happ is becoming a more complete bat this year and will carry that forward for the next several years, it’s not inconceivable that he would want to lock down a multi-year guarantee in a range the Cubs are comfortable with. Happ has talked about how much he loves being in Chicago.
The flip side there is that, organizationally, the Cubs’ strength in the minor leagues is in the outfield. Almost to a ridiculous extent. In order to justify extending Happ, there would probably have to be a belief that a number of the top outfield prospects in the system will wash out, a number will be traded, and a hypothetical Happ deal is simply too great of a value to pass on. It’s pretty hard to see all of that coming together, as much as I like Happ as a player. I think this offseason will be very interesting as far as Happ and the Cubs go, since they’re going to have to talk to him anyway because of arbitration, and you also wonder if the trade rumors from midseason will be revisited (then again, are the Cubs really going to want to lose his bat in a year they hope to be competitive?).
If you missed the major overnight news, the MLBPA is pushing to unionize the minor leagues. It’s a big, big deal, whether or not the effort succeeds.
And if you missed the roster news for later today, Jeremiah Estrada and Brendon Little are coming.
See, Marcus Stroman wants Shohei Ohtani on the Cubs:
Josh Hader got blown up again, and some of the numbers are just nutty:
We’ve reached the unthinkable point of even ASKING whether Hader might get non-tendered at the end of the year. He’s due a substantial raise on his $11 million salary (arbitration is cumulative, not just about a terrible recent second half), and that seems like a huge bet on a reliever that might have some serious issues. Of course, the flip side is that if you can get him right, he’s one of the best three or so relievers in baseball, and any team with playoff aspirations for 2023 (besides the Brewers) would love to have a guy like that.