Point Blank – August 22
It will take a lot of Luck for the Colts to win…Jason Heyward got the weekend off; should the Cubs extend that…Donald Trump managed to increase his chance of winning the Election, and also increase his chance of losing by a landslide, in the same week…Stephen Strasburg may need a week off…
This will be our last Monday of waking up without a live regular-season football board to sort through, the NCAA in full swing next week, and there is indeed Hawaii/California to look forward to this Friday, though the nature of that matchup makes it a difficult ATS projection. Today there are takes across various fronts, continuing the NFL team-by-team tour; a quick discourse on an aspect of lineup utility on the MLB front that not only matters long-term for the shrewd handicapper, but has the Chicago Cubs face a particular issue today; and our Monday update of the U.S. Election Power Ratings, with a twist this time.
With a long read ahead there is a need for the jukebox to supply a little background, and it was an easy button to press today. Last week’s tribute to the Tragically Hip brought a lot of excellent commentary and discussion across the threads, and this week we begin the way that they ended, “Ahead by a Century” being the final song from a memorable evening in Kingston. The tone throughout was high-energy with a vibration of a celebration, not allowing the occasion to become somber, and if this was the last time folks will see Gord Downie and his bandmates on a grand scale, they went out in style (it looks like the CBC is now denying access to the video, which we can certainly respect) -
No dress rehearsal, this is our life...
Item: The Colts surrounding Andrew Luck were not very good in 2015, but neither was he
The 8-8 ride form Indianapolis last was anything but an average team playing average football – it was a major roller coaster in which the Colts were good enough to out-score the two Super Bowl teams in regulation within a span of six days in early November (27-24 over Denver and 23-23 into OT at Carolina), and also had the dubious distinction of back-to-back road losses by 35 points each just a few weeks later. Of course when Luck misses nine games that can happen, a player that may mean more to his team than any other, largely because the rest of the squad is not exactly loaded with talent.
Let’s set some perspective first by detailing those other position groups, and a good way to do that are from the pre-season ratings put together by the hard-working folks at Pro Football Focus showing where each unit is positioned compared to the rest of the NFL -
RB: #29
WR/TE: #22
OL: #16
DL/LB: #26
DB: #20
It is difficult to fault any of those placements. It is when the folks at PFF come to Luck that the task of properly power rating this team is made even more challenging.
While they do rate him #9 among all QBs, their takeaway from 2015 was anything but positive - Luck played in just seven games last season, after missing Week 6 with a right shoulder injury and the final eight games with a lacerated kidney and torn abdominal muscle. His play in the seven games he was healthy for was certainly not up to expectation, as he ranked 35 out of 36 QBs in passing grade (through Week 9), threw the second-most interceptions (12), had the worst PFF QB rating and the lowest adjusted completion percentage (which takes into account drops, throwaways, passes batted at the line of scrimmage and hits that alter throws).
The truth is that when Luck did play he wasn’t very good, the Colts going 2-5 and his passer rating at a career-low of 74.9. Where did that 74.9 place him? At #32, right below Colin Kaepernick and right above Nick Foles. Some of those early struggles were Luck playing through an injury, and some of them are also an issue of the supporting cast. But for as bad as that cast is, the team did manage to go 6-3 when he did not play, Matt Hasselbeck putting together an 84.0 passer rating.
Luck is healthy again, and it will put one of the season’s most intriguing early Eye Tests directly on him. With such a pedestrian supporting cast he is going to have to play extremely well for the team to make a run at the playoffs, and for as limited as the roster is, it was Luck’s own play that made them worse in 2015, instead of better. The early schedule is favorable for a turnaround, with the opportunity of perhaps a 4-1 before back-to-back division road showdowns at Houston and Tennessee, and in 2014 I might have projected Luck as the kind of QB that could navigate those waters and bring those wins home. It would be wrong to make that assumption this time.
Item: Jason Heyward will probably play tonight, but should he?
The particular issue for Heyward is that he has simply not been very good, arguably filling his spot in the lineup about the same way that Luck played QB in 2015. After his batting average plummeted to a punchless .225, with only five home runs (the last of those came back on June 11), Joe Madden decided to give him the weekend off in what was a rather bizarre move given the schedule draw. Let’s start with Maddon first -
“He’d (Hetyward) be the first one to tell you he’s not happy with his offensive output. But if you’re standing in the dugout — and if you don’t know anything else about (his) batting average — you look at our record and you look at him in right field. I can’t be more comfortable with this guy (out there) while we’re playing baseball. He’s such a good baseball player. He’s such a great teammate, (plus) all the things he does that I believe are really important to victory, to a winning attitude, a winning team.”
You can understand Maddon wanting to back his player, but there are some questions about the logic of the statement, and the timing of the benching. If you need a player to break out of an offensive slump, how in the hell do you decide that a series at Coors Field is the time to sit him? Yes, the Rockies started left-handers in two of the three games, but it is not as though platoon splits have been the issue – Heyward has put up slightly better numbers against left-handers across all three slash line categories.
Where Maddon falls down is noting that the Cubs have been winning with Heyward in right field, and that there is some correlation. Yes, his defense has been superb, with only Adam Eaton playing the position better this season. But in terms of offense, of the 20 players at the position with enough at-bats to qualify, he is dead last by a wide margin. That can be a problem when it comes to RF, and the usual offensive utility the position brings. It is usually a place to hide a player with a mediocre glove but a strong bat, and as such some perspective is called for.
Something I wrote about in seasons past was the negative impact of the Twins switching Joe Mauer from catcher to 1B, in that he could put up the same offensive numbers but it would cost the team in terms of lineup utility. Mauer had a “plus bat” as a catcher, given the offensive mediocrity that comes from that position league-wide, but became a “minus bat” at 1B, a spot that needs to produce about as much with the wood as any.
How bad has Heyward’s offense been? There are 156 qualifying players so far this season, and in offensive WAR Heyward is #150, the six players below him all being shortstops. That is rather embarrassing. But what about if we simply chart players in RF for a proper measure –
AVG OBP SLG OBP
Heyward .225 .304 .313 .617
MLB .258 .329 .431 .760
The comparison is not pretty, is it? While Maddon noted the team placement in the standings with Heyward playing, it really is a case of just how good the rest of that roster is. Yes, he has had a productive career up to this point. But if there is a World Series on the line a team has to put their most productive players out there, and unless Heyward shows any indication of his bat producing anything more than ground balls to the right side of the infield, his best position may be sitting somewhere near Maddon in the dugout.
Item: 2016 U.S. Election Power Rating goes to Democrats -675* (* - but the odds of an Electoral College rout may have increased)
There was some intrigue across the political front last week, with Donald Trump promoting Kellyanne Conway to campaign manager and Stephen Bannon to campaign CEO, and it has led to some interesting discussion in terms of adjusting the Power Ratings. In what is a bit of an anomaly, I believe the moves actually increased Trump’s chance of winning in November, hence the slightest of tweaks from -700 to -675 for the Democrats, but at the same time also raising the prospects of what could become an Electoral College landslide. So let’s get to it.
One of the notions that has been repeated here each Monday is that of the “ground game” advantage the Democrats have, a far more savvy machine that is also more committed to the process ahead, Trump’s candidacy being more of an island without having the full Republican infrastructure behind him. As such the time from the conventions until the first debate were going to be a long cycle in which the Democrats could gradually build their advantage by grinding away, the Trump campaign lacking a counter. That had indeed been the case in the post-conventions cycle, and perhaps it was in seeing that momentum that led to the moves that the Trump campaign made last week.
Here is the gist – if Trump is going to win, it almost has to be via attack on Clinton. Something noted often here is that Trump himself just does not have a resume to run on, especially with his business history becoming even more of an open issue, and he and the Republican Party have not come together with anything resembling a platform. Hence why the Power Rating reached -700, with the expectation of the weeks ahead taking a relentless toll. Now it may become a “scorched earth” campaign, and while it is still a major long-shot for that to work, the political equivalent of a Hail Mary pass, it at least provides an opportunity that was not on the table previously. Of course, there is a downside…
The problem with a more aggressive campaign is that it can backfire, and if it does the Electoral College map may see Red draining from the veins. Traditionally-strong Republican states like Arizona, Georgia, Missouri and South Carolina may all be in play at this point, and if the Hail Mary is botched the EC margin could end up being considerable. The particular downside is that the more negative the attacks of the Trump campaign become, the more likely that Republican candidates lower on the ballot will be given a polite option to distance themselves from him. So from our modeling the overall race drops to -675, but the “pick’em” EC projection goes to Democrats 350 Republicans 188, which is the highest it has been.
In the Sights…
(UPDATING: The switch from Strasburg to A. J. Cole for the Nationals has us out of play here...)
Stephen Strasburg has been a major topic across these threads recently, with signs showing that he really could use a pass through the Washington rotation to get fresh again. That is not Dusty Baker’s way, so Strasburg is headed out there again tonight, as is a potentially vulnerable Dylan Bundy for the Orioles. Yet the betting markets have brought this one down to where 8.5 can be found as low as -105 this morning, and that makes the call #968 Orioles/Nationals Over (7:05 Eastern).
The gist on Strasburg is that his injury-shortened 2015 season prevented him from building the stamina that a full campaign brings for a still young pitcher, and after getting off to a brilliant 15-1/2.63 over his first 20 starts, he looks low on fuel right now. The last three outings have been a grotesque 0-3/14.66, about as bad as it ever gets for a performer of his abilities, but note that there was nothing all that fluky about it – it has been a 2.57 WHIP across that span, and of the 17 batters he faced at Coors Field in his last outing, 12 reached via a hit or a walk. Across those three games Strasburg’s pitches have been both down in velocity, his fastball a half mph below the full-season norm (but consider it worse than that, since he has had early exits when he should have been as fresh as possible), while his GB% of 29.6 across those games pales compared to the 39.5 for the full season. Even if he can rebound with better stuff, the Orioles in Camden provide a difficult matchup, and the Nationals bullpen lacks form.
Meanwhile Dylan Bundy is off of a rocky start against the Red Sox on Wednesday when he only struck out two of the 25 batters he faced, allowing a pair of HRs as the Boston offense got to him for five runs across 4.1 frames. Bundy has only gone beyond the 6th inning once in seven starts, and while the Brach/Britton back-end of the Baltimore bullpen has been sublime it was an awful weekend for the middle relief corps, which will have to play a role here. With Bryce Harper having regained his stroke on this road trip, going 11-27 with eight walks, including a pair of HRs and only four strikeouts, what had been an under-achieving Washington offense is also right place/right time for our purposes here.
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