Cubs are struggling to hit breaking balls, and the league knows it

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Rahimi & Grote Show 13 min 4 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 3 months ago

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What are the Cubs' struggles with breaking balls?

Mark Grote 0:00

Rahimi, Harrison, Grody. Midday's Tidal 2. On Chicago Sports Radio 1243 Discord. Deep drive to right off the bat of Ian Happ. It's got a chance. Gone. Ian Happ with a line drive. Home run to the seats and right. Out toward right center. And that's a big one. The Cubs lead 5-2.

Leila Rahimi 0:26

Yeah, you can see how Ian Hap broke off that ball. You could say that. Did I hear Paul Wall was at the Cubs game to see the Astros? Did you guys not know about this?

Unknown 0:37

I saw Lawrence had a picture of it, I think, on Instagram.

Leila Rahimi 0:39

Yeah, there was a video of it. Paul Wall was at the Cubs and Astros game.

Unknown 0:42

I missed that. Damn.

Leila Rahimi 0:44

I am really upset, as you can imagine.

Unknown 0:49

You love you some Paul Wall, huh?

Leila Rahimi 0:50

Yeah, I actually met him. He was a very nice guy. More chill than his power on the microphone.

Unknown 0:56

I hope we get some of those Riot Fest acts here on the score.

Leila Rahimi 1:00

Layla and I are just, I'm still buzzing. Mark and I are very excited about the Riot Fest lineup. But I also like the Lollapalooza lineup. I like music.

How have opposing teams adapted their pitching against the Cubs?

Unknown 1:08

Yes, you do.

Leila Rahimi 1:09

Yeah, I think you do too.

Unknown 1:11

I love music.

Leila Rahimi 1:12

You know, if only we had a music station that you and I could work at.

Unknown 1:15

Yeah, like down the hall or upstairs.

Leila Rahimi 1:17

I know, I feel like that might be big for us.

Unknown 1:19

Coming soon, WXRT will be down here on the same floor as us.

Leila Rahimi 1:23

Oh yeah, that's right.

Unknown 1:23

Get to bother them even more.

Leila Rahimi 1:25

I'm excited about that idea. Yeah, me too. And all of their vinyl.

Unknown 1:28

They're calming us.

Leila Rahimi 1:29

They're pretty cool.

Unknown 1:30

Yeah, they are.

Leila Rahimi 1:31

In the meantime, we made jokes about it. You know, there's the, you guys are just too much of a team, Cubs. Here you are streaking together. Here you are streaking together, good or bad. You're striking out together. The team that suffers together stays together. There are some jokes to be made. But at the same time... There's also some baseball science that goes with this. And this was from Mike Petriello, the very respected baseball writer. It's worse than you think. The headline is, how many breaking balls? The way teams are pitching Cubs is historic. And these numbers are absolutely significant. And he begins by saying, it's not exactly a secret for the last decade or so.

What does the data say about the Cubs' performance against breaking balls?

Leila Rahimi 2:13

Fastball usage across the majors has trended down significantly. Throw it harder but use it less is a pretty succinct way to sum up pitching right now, and that's pretty easily seen when fastballs, foreseams, and sinkers are thrown on average at 94.4 miles an hour, but they're only seen 46.8% of the time. Those are both extreme marks in the pitch-tracking era dating back to 2008, where it makes it highly likely that they are the most extreme marks of all time, too. We start with that by simply saying the Cubs are seeing a lot more breaking balls right now isn't good enough without context. They're seeing them a lot. Last April, Chicago batters saw breaking balls on 28% of pitches. This April, it's 32%.

Leila Rahimi 2:57

And in May, it was 37%. Now, Mark, this to me speaks to the concept of when you have similar hitters, And when we talk about the idea of making contact but having modest pop, then it stands to reason that the scouting reports are going to start to repeat themselves. That what you're seeing out of pitchers is going to have to repeat itself. It's up to the pitcher to still make the pitch. You can't hang a curveball. Your breaking ball has to be on point. You have to hit your spots. But when you do, it seems like you can almost ensure that this lineup will struggle again.

Unknown 3:39

The good news, I can give you the bright side of this as we go on in this article, is that he points out that the April Cubs, remember the April Cubs? The April Cubs, as he writes.

Leila Rahimi 3:52

Are you meaning the 20 and 3 Cubs?

3:54

Yeah.

Unknown 3:55

Yeah, the one that was capable of firing off a what? A 10-game winning streak. Two of them. Or two. So he does write here at the end of the article, the April Cubs were actually quite good against breaking balls, rating fifth in run value, plus nine against them.

Leila Rahimi 4:14

I like calling them April Cubs, by the way.

Unknown 4:16

Yeah, the April Cubs were so good.

Leila Rahimi 4:18

Yeah, I really liked April Cubs. May Cubs, I'm not a fan. Let me ask you a question.