2024 Cubs Heroes and Goats: Game 63

I play a game called Out Of The Park baseball. I first read about it a couple of years ago in my email via an offer I received to play test the game for free in exchange for writing about the game. I didn’t take that offer, because you’re not here to read about my game play. That said, it sparked my curiosity. Those who haven’t played but are familiar with Strat-o-Matic baseball, particularly the computer version, will recognize it as a similar game.

I tend to play in General Manager mode and play through seasons relatively quickly. I focus on managing the roster, making trades, signing free agents and juggling the roster around injuries. I like to play from a given point of history and then play at least a decade or two before something frustrates me and I start from scratch. I almost always play as the Cubs, though I did have one really nice playthrough on the Tigers where I eventually won four championships in five years building from the carnage of the 2003 season.

Why I do bring this up here and now? Sometimes, regardless of how good you are at all of those transactions, you build a lemon. You might have past and future All-Stars. Past and future Cy Young and MVP award winners. You might even have a few Hall of Famers. Sometimes, you have a bunch of very good pieces and when you look at the puzzle, it’s just off and for some reason they just don’t win.

The good news, when you are playing a game, is that you have the opportunity to maybe trade an expiring contract or two, an unmotivated, selfish or disruptive player, and reshape your roster over the course of a few years. You can end up better positioned for the next season which might only be an hour or two away. At minimum, you get a higher pick in the draft, rather than always picking at the end of the round where even when redrafting with the benefit of hindsight, there isn’t always difference making talent at the end of the round.

Despite that “opportunity,” even when playing a game it’s frustrating to see a season “lost” off of the career of those star players you’ve worked to put together. I can’t imagine how frustrating it has to be for Jed Hoyer and his people right now. With nearly 100 games to go in the season, surely nothing is over. We can all say it until we are blue in the face. Get in and you never know. And believe me, the benefits of reshaping your roster never outweigh getting to experience the playoffs. So I’m going to go down with this ship hoping that it can pull out of its nosedive and correct course.

That said, it’s hard to look at this team and not see that puzzle where the pieces just didn’t go together properly. It isn’t carved into stone that Jameson Taillon, Kyle Hendricks, Drew Smyly and Adbert Alzolay are all varying levels for varying reasons of ineffective pitchers. At least on the pitching side there is are a plethora of intriguing options coming through the system. There is hope for growth and change there.

On the offensive side of the equation? Christopher Morel has the look of an ascending star. The defense can be unsightly at times, but I’ll double down my enthusiasm on Christopher in that he appears to be sustaining his significant improvements at the plate even through this stretch of the results not being there. So many hitters, young or not, get thrown off and start making changes when they are hitting into a lot of bad luck. It’s easy to say it when you are one of dozens saying it, but Christopher Morel is WAY too talented to sustain a .212 BABIP. Those balls he strikes well are eventually going to find holes. He is more due for progression than anyone I can think of in recent memory. And I’ll point out that at .205/.316/.400 he already carries a wRC+ of 105. If he maintains this approach, he should terrorize the league in the second half.

Pete Crow-Armstrong has all of the skills to be a star, but he’s presently stuck in the no man’s land that is way better than Triple-A and not quite ready for the big leagues. I’d still rather see him here, going through the growing pains with your top coaches and talent around him. When the light goes on, he has game-changing talent. And I have no reason to think that light won’t go on.

After that? It’s hard not to be at least a little disappointed with the rest. I thought we might see a 20-40 season out of Nico Hoerner. He also has a wRC+ of 105 and I’m reminded that offense has been down a bit in the first half of 2024 across baseball. Nico too is running a BABIP that is about 30 points below his career average. Here again is a guy who drives pitches and has good speed. If anything, his BABIP should run a little hot. Ian Happ is a guy that has been a star player through most of his career but can’t sustain well enough to take that step forward to superstardom. Dansby Swanson seems like that type of player too. It’s too soon to label Seiya Suzuki that way, but a theme emerges.

This team has a lot of players that sit in the three to four stars range. But none really take the step to being that five-star, superstar player. The best teams have not one, but multiple superstar players or at least players having a superstar season. It’s not like there is a superstar player store where you go and get takeout.

I’m of the impression that the talent level of this team is in the 83-87 win range. But here’s the dirty little secret about any statistic. It’s found in that stat class that you may have avoided or at least hated somewhere back when you were in school. Standard deviation. Even if I say that a team is likely about an 85 win talent team, that still means that without getting into truly remarkable outcomes, that seasons with 90 or 80 wins aren’t shocking. Seasons with 95 or 75 wins aren’t off the charts crazy.

When you do something like bowling, you see the deviation in a short amount of time. You might be a 150 bowler and throw a 200 game mixed in with a pair of 125s and you are right at average for the day. But that kind of variance over a long. slow burn like a baseball season? It can be really frustrating to watch.

Hopefully, this narrative has been more entertaining than watching the Cubs be overmatched again last night. Bringing it around, when I reach June in my game with a team that I thought was a championship contender and they’ve been overmatched more days than not is pretty frustrating. Jed Hoyer and his crew neither have the ability to fast forward to the next season nor just start up a new simulation from scratch and start all over. Hopefully, they can find some corrections on the fly, because right now this team is in trouble.

Let’s find three stars from this game.

1. Seiya Suzuki was the only Cub with two hits and they were a double and a two-run homer. My concern with Seiya is hat he’s walking less and striking out more. That is usually not a recipe for success. All of his numbers are worse than career averages.
2. Christopher Morel’s BABIP is amusingly held down by the definition of the stat. A home run is a perfectly good outcome, but isn’t measured by the stat. Christopher had a two-run homer and a walk. The one ball in play was an out.
3. Cody Bellinger had a double and scored a run. Cody’s production is well off of his 2023 season and a country mile from his out of this world 2019 season.

Game 63, June 6: Reds 8, Cubs 4 (31-32)

Fangraphs

Reminder: Heroes and Goats are determined by WPA scores and are in no way subjective.

THREE HEROES:

• Superhero: Christopher Morel (.197). 1-3, HR, BB, 2 RBI, R
• Hero: Seiya Suzuki (.129). 2-4, HR, 2B, 2 RBI, R
• Sidekick: Cody Bellinger (.029). 1-4, 2B, R

THREE GOATS:

• Billy Goat: Javier Assad (-.227). 5⅔ IP, 27 batters, 7 H, 2 BB, 5 R, 7 K, HBP (L 4-2)
• Goat: Luke Little (-.132). ⅓ IP, H, BB
• Kid: Pete Crow-Armstrong (-.112). 0-4

WPA Play of the Game: Elly De La Cruz’s three-run homer in the third inning turned a 2-0 Cubs lead into a 3-2 deficit. (.213)

*Cubs Play of the Game: Christopher Morel’s two-run homer in the sixth turned a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 lead. (.205)

Yesterday’s Winner: Mike Tauchman received 261 of 267 votes.

Rizzo Award Cumulative Standings: (Top 5/Bottom 5)

The award is named for Anthony Rizzo, who finished first in this category three of the first four years it was in existence and four times overall. He also recorded the highest season total ever at +65.5. The point scale is three points for a Superhero down to negative three points for a Billy Goat.

• Ben Brown +11
• Shōta Imanaga +9
• Javier Assad +7.5
• Jameson Taillon/Mark Leiter Jr./Michael Busch +6
• Miles Mastrobuoni/Nico Hoerner -5
• Matt Mervis -6
• Miguel Amaya -8
• Adbert Alzolay -10
• Kyle Hendricks -19

*Assad drops down to third and Morel moves out of the bottom group. Five consecutive games the Cubs starting pitcher has been the Billy Goat. It’s hard to win when that happens. Dansby Swanson was the Billy Goat in game 53 on May 26. That was the last time any hitter was in the bottom spot. The pitching is killing the Cubs right now. I can’t keep having to write about the starter being charged with five runs and expect to write about winning baseball.

Up Next: Justin Steele (0-2, 4.10) will make his eighth start of the season, still looking for a first win. Steele started this stretch of rough pitcher starts. His was five runs, but four of them were unearned. For those not keeping track at home, Cubs starting pitchers have been charged with exactly five runs allowed (earned or not) in each of their last five games.

Nick Lodolo (5-2, 3.11) just beat the Cubs on Sunday and now will try to do it twice in succession.

This would be a fabulous time for Justin Steele to find his ace form. This team needs to win with pitching and defense.