Point Blank – May 16, 2017
It is time for a serious look at the Cubs defense (this sure as hell ain’t 2016 anymore)…The Spurs scored 75.9 PP48 after Kawhi Leonard left the game on Sunday…The Cubs are not the only defense to go into a post-World Series decline
Spurs/Warriors Game #2 takes prominence on the betting boards tonight, and it is a challenging one for the handicapping consciousness, largely because interpretations of Sunday’s opener require some finesse. But there is one particular expectation I have for tonight that still has a pinch of value left. Then it will be on to detail just how much worse the Cubs defense really has been so far in 2017, now that there have been more than enough balls in play for a proper measurement. The answer is rather enlightening – is it possible that the decline with the gloves has cost the team a little more than one full run per game? And guess what – the Indians left their gloves on the field in the World Series as well.
SAN ANTONIO/GOLDEN STATE #2 – Will history record properly just how well Kawhi Leonard was playing before he got hurt in the opener
Through 2.5 quarters of Game #1, Kawhi Leonard was having one of the best games I had seen anyone play in a long, long time. In 23:54 of court time he had 26 points, eight rebounds and three assists, yet he may have been even more effective defensively in ways that don’t lend themselves to statistical measurement. If you want perhaps the best perspective, how about the Net PP100 when he was on the floor, simply startling numbers considering the opponent and the venue -
PP100 Off Def
Leonard in 128.2 92.0
You just don’t see the likes of that often. Yes, a bit of that had to be attributed to the Warriors needing to shake off early rust, but it was the aggressiveness of Leonard that helped to exploit that rust. Then he left, and it all turned inside-out.
The Spurs were out-scored 58-33 the remainder of the way, across 20:53 of court time, and it was a full-floor issue – bad San Antonio offense created opportunities for Golden State to run off of either turnovers or the defensive glass. From the time that Leonard left the Spurs had twice as many turnovers (8) as assists (4), and in the fourth quarter they lost the battle of the boards 12-7, fast-break points 8-0 for the Warriors in that time.
Patty Mills laid it out well - “I think it was the pressure. They upped their defensive pressure, and we kind of got rattled from that, not knowing what to go to and being organized.”
This is where the absence of Leonard is compounded by not having Tony Parker around – the two guys that the offense would run through at crunch time of a close game weren’t there. Mills is not a proto-type point guard, being more of a #2 in a #1 body, and even if he was there may be a bit of a fatigue issue for him, after playing 37:17 on Sunday (Mills was 0-3 from the field, without an assist, over 10:36 of the fourth quarter).
What does Gregg Popovich do? A lineup without Leonard/Parker was able to race through Houston in Game #6, but that may have told us far more about the concentration level of the Rockets than the ability of the rest of the Spurs roster to adjust. Now they are in against a far tougher defense, and also one that is forewarned because of what happened in the close-out at Houston.
For tonight I expect Pops to go out of his way to slow things down, not just reducing possessions as a natural way of closing a talent gap, but of balancing the floor to make sure his defense can get back and get set. That wasn’t happening in the latter stages on Sunday. Going deep into the shot clock isn’t a great option against this class of defense on the road, but when a team is a 14-point underdog they have to pick their poison.
There is a wild card on the Golden State side of the equation, the likelihood of Andre Iguodala missing – an MRI on his left knee showed no structural damage, but since Game #3 is not until Saturday it may be in their best long-term interest to give him the time off. What will Steve Kerr do? On Sunday it was Shaun Livingston playing the entire fourth quarter.
Yes, I said Kerr, not Mike Brown, and this is one talking point I believe is important – he has been with the team each of the last four days, including that halftime talk on Sunday, and when asked about the player rotation if Iguodala can’t go here is how Brown answered - “Steve gives everybody an opportunity. He feels comfortable with whoever is on the floor. It could be Matt. It could be Ian playing more. We’re talking about Pat McCaw, who started for us in the past, when (Kevin Durant) was out.”
I believe there is enough value, even after the adjustments, to play #719 San Antonio Team Total Under (9:00 Eastern), with 98.5 available in the morning trading and value holding down to 98. I don’t expect to see much early pace or offensive success from the Spurs, and I also don’t expect this game to be as close as the opener, which helped keep tonight’s Total on the high side because of an end-game that produced 19 points across the final 2:25. This time the closing possessions may merely be dribble-outs.
Item: Now it’s time to talk about the Cubs defense
When the Reds take the field in Wrigley this evening they will sport a better record than the Cubs, and the odds of that being the case would have been a long-shot before the season started. A big reason why there has been a decent Cincinnati showing, despite three expected members from the starting rotation being on the DL, is that the defense has been MLB’s best, as noted here last Tuesday. It is the reason for the Chicago decline that now needs to come front and center.
Although some components can be open to interpretation, the 2016 Cubs may have been the best defensive team in MLB history. They had the highest rating ever on PADE (Par Adjust Defensive Efficiency), allowed the lowest BABIP I have ever charted at .255, no other team even close (the Blue Jays were #2 at .282), and at places that are not precise because they call for human judgment, like Total Zone Rating (Baesball Reference) and Ultimate Zone Rating (Fangraphs), even there a significant gap existed between Chicago at the #2 team.
But that was 2016, when Dexter Fowler was patrolling CF, the infield was gobbling up everything in sight, and Kyle Schwarber wore a glove for less than one full regular-season game. There has been a decline in 2017, which almost had to happen because 2016 would have been so difficult to repeat, but the dropoff has been a rather staggering one. Let’s look at those four measurements -
PADE BABIP TZR UZR
2016 #1 .255 (1) #1 #1
2017 #19 .298 (21) #19 #14
The fact that TZR and UZR are several places apart are one of the reasons why they still beg for some caution, but the key is that they each show how substantial the decline is.
It isn’t just about the changing pieces in the outfield, but the fact that the infield has also not approached the 2016 levels, especially Addison Russell at SS and Anthony Rizzo at 1B. And yes, Schwarber has been pretty darn bad in LF, not to mention that disappointing .179/.313/.343 slash line. Despite his enormous potential, there is the fact that he only played in 17 games at AAA, and 2016 was almost entirely a washout, which means an extreme lack of seasoning for him both at the plate and in the field.
OK, so how does one put this into the best perspective, which is often an issue with wrapping the hands around defense? Let’s look directly at pitches thrown and run prevention, and in this case xFIP is a good standard. It balances the impact of home runs, since the defense can’t make those plays, and attempts to measure what the run allowance for a pitcher should be, were baseball to be fair when contact is made. Let’s look at some key ingredients first, to see how the Cubs pitching staff has thrown the ball compared to that 2016 run –
K% BB% GB% LD%
2016 24.3 8.3 46.9 20.7
2017 24.3 9.3 45.9 21.1
Rather consistent, isn’t it? I don’t highlight Line Drive% often because it is one of those categories that calls for a degree of human judgment, but we should be able to rely on some season-to-season consistency in that tracking. The consistency from the above counts shows in xFIP below, but then look at ERA -
ERA xFIP
2016 3.15 3.73
2017 3.83 3.74
That is a rather significant increase of a little more than two-thirds of a run for every nine innings played, despite the pitches thrown seemingly not having changed much. But we are not done yet. The 2017 Cubs just happen to have committed the third-highest number of errors, and have allowed more unearned runs than any other team –
UE Runs Per Game
2016 .28
2017 .68
Add that increase with the increase in ERA, and the Cubs are allowing slightly more than one run more per game, despite the pitching ratios not having changed all that much. And the raw numbers show exactly that, a 4.6 allowed so far off of the 3.4 of 2016. That is how much defense matters. Will the infield play eventually get back near the level that led to the World Series? Perhaps. But it is a far different cast in the outfield, and that may matter even more when the weather gets warmer, and the ball carries more in Wrigley (like this evening, with first pitch around 80 degrees and the wind blowing to left-center).
In the Sights, Tuesday MLB…
Speaking of defensive declines off of a World Series appearance, how about the 2017 Cleveland Indians –
PADE BABIP TZR UZR
2016 #10 .289 (6) #2 #5
2017 #29 .306 (26) #12 #26
So on a night in which both pitching and defense can be vulnerable The Tribe are laying too much of a price, and that calls for #911 Tampa Bay (6:10 Eastern) at +150 or better (there is as high as +161 out there), about a half of a unit in play because of the favorable rate of return.
Terry Francona had not had a chance to use bullpen key cogs Bryan Shaw, Andrew Miller or Cody Allen for several days, so it wasn’t necessarily bad baseball for him to get all three some work on Sunday, despite having a big lead against Minnesota, perhaps with the confidence of having Carlos Carrasco going on Monday, which might mean another evening in which the bullpen might not be needed much. But Carrasco was injured and 100 pitches were called for by that bullpen, including Shaw (52 pitches the last two days), Miller (41) and Allen (27) all working again. That means fatigue ratings across the board, which are problematic when Danny Salazar is starting.
Salazar continues to throw some of the toughest pitches to hit in MLB, part of it because of great stuff, but also in part because hitters just can’t lock in with his command is all over the place. Salazar’s 11.0 BB% is a career high, and it isn’t as though he has lost his way once or twice – through seven starts his best PPI was 17.2. As such there has been an inability to eat innings, just 5.1 frames per start, and a patient Rays offense that is #3 in BB% should be an ideal style opponent to play into him.
Jake Odorizzi doesn’t bring much sex appeal to the marketplace, but at 593 MLB innings it is a 3.69 ERA and 3.96 FIP that is more than good enough to trust at this price point. Odorizzi has opened 2017 with career best counts in BB% and SWS%, a unique daily-double that may be showing indications of a higher degree of confidence in attacking hitters in the zone, and with only middle reliever Chase Whitley carrying any kind of fatigue rating, the Tampa Bay bullpen is better-set for the latter stages.
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