Assad Better Than the Line, More Morel Throws, Higgins and Gomes Combo, Rucker and Leiter, and Other Cubs Bullets

Sep 08, 2022

The NFL season starts tonight, with Bills-Rams on NBC. Since the Chicago Bears are clearly going to compete for a playoff spot in the NFC this year, you’ll want to root for the Bills in this one. I am being only 4% serious.

As discussed in the EBS, Javier Assad’s earned run total last night (4 over 5.1 IP) doesn’t really reflect how well he pitched. In that way, it was kind of the inverse of how his first two starts went – scoreless, but he wasn’t locating particularly well or getting swings and misses. Last night, by contrast, I thought the pitches looked really good, the location was mostly solid, and there were nine whiffs among his 89 pitches (and 6 Ks). The 25% CSW still needs to improve, and he did get beat up when his slider or cutter wound up belt high (they just aren’t quite nasty enough pitches to get by big league bats when they aren’t located well). Overall, though, I thought that was the best he’s looked in the big leagues so far: a capable depth starter, to my eye, and a guy who should probably stay on the 40-man through the offseason.

Oh, also? Throw in the fact that two of the earned runs charged to him came after he’d left the game, and it’s all the more defensible as a performance (one of the runs temporarily being an unearned run because of an error – again, after Assad had already left – and then converting into an earned run because of a later hit … ERA sure can be silly sometimes).

It was already the subject of discussion, and then Christopher Morel went out last night and had more throwing problems at third base. It has reached – exceeded? – early-season Jonathan Villar territory, and while I’m not necessarily concerned long-term about Morel’s ability to play all over (including third base), I do wonder if you reach a point where you start doing harm to a young player’s development by letting him keep throwing the ball away out there when he’s clearly not in a great place with the arm. I bet the Cubs are asking themselves that question today.

That’ll be a heavy offseason project for Morel, when it’s a little easier to get those mechanical changes to stick. Much harder to do it in-season – because the body will default to its automatic rhythms, and if you’re switching among positions, you have even less time to really get that muscle memory in place for multiple types of throws.

Outstanding play at first base last night from P.J. Higgins:

PJ Higgins showing out at first base! pic.twitter.com/bLLkrq8xUy
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) September 8, 2022

On the year, over 174 plate appearances, Higgins is hitting .223/.291/.395/92 wRC+, which would absolutely play as a back-up catcher who can also play at the infield corners in a pinch … assuming he handles the catching part of the job really well. That part is hard to say, because the metrics kinda hate him this year (small sample), but I’ve heard he works really well with pitchers on game-calling, game-planning, and adjustments. I’m guessing we’ll find out pretty quickly in the offseason if the Cubs are comfortable proceeding with a Higgins-Yan Gomes pairing behind the plate in 2023. Willson Contreras’s free agency remains a wild card in the process.

Speaking of Gomes, the 35-year-old catcher (who does still rate out very well defensively) put together a four-hit night, raising his season slash line to a … oh … still-pretty-awful .233/.259/.348/67 wRC+. There’s some grace there, because the league average catcher is hitting .228/.298/.368/89 wRC+, but obviously it’s still been a limitation. I don’t know that you would bet on a huge bounce-back next year at his age, either. Which is to say, if the Cubs aren’t going to bring back Contreras, and do plan to pair Gomes and Higgins behind the plate, they’ll have to make sure the offense is significantly upgraded elsewhere.

Michael Rucker, who pitched well last night, has a 3.15 ERA since his last call-up about a month ago. The strikeout rate has continued to slip, though, down to just 17.3% during that stretch (he’s succeeded mostly because he’s kept the walks down (7.4%) and the BABIP is quite low (.207)).

Meanwhile, fellow edge-case reliever Mark Leiter Jr. has a 1.45 ERA over the same period, with better peripherals. Not that they are directly competing against each other for an offseason 40-man spot, but it’s notable that one big difference between the two is that Rucker will still have minor league options remaining in 2023, while Leiter would be out of them.

(Also: yes, we will absolutely be doing deep dives on the 40-man roster, the Rule 5 Draft, and prospect protection decisions. I’ve been trying to wait a little deeper into September to get into the nitty gritty, because a lot of these edge case decisions could change over the next month. That’s how close some of the calls will be: every little bit of data – performance or health – is going to matter in some cases.)

On July 30, shortly before trading away closer Josh Hader, the Milwaukee Brewers had a 57-44 record and a 4.0-game lead in the NL Central. Just over a month later, the Brewers are 71-65, and trail the Cardinals in the Central by 9.5 games. They are also now 4.0 games back in the Wild Card race. There is a certain arrogance that accompanies trading your superstar closer at midseason in a year like this, and the players’ reaction to the deal said a whole lot. Hader’s been terrible with the Padres, but I think it’s silly to assume the same would’ve definitely been true with the Brewers, or that the impact in the clubhouse didn’t matter. Either way, I can’t say it bothers me to see the Brewers fall so swiftly and deeply.

written by

Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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