Brewers Series Preview

My classes are over and the Brewers are coming to town!  It's the battle for last in the NL Central!

In the race for badness, the Reds are definitely looking like the team that is best at being the worst.  The Reds' offense has been abysmal to the Brewers only just kinda ok performance.  The Reds starters have posted a better ERA thus far, but they've matched the Brewers in badness according to peripherals.  And their bullpen has the clear lead in suckitude by both runs allowed and DIPS-based estimators.

The two teams' rest-of-season projections are both very close, with FanGraphs projecting only slightly fewer wins over the rest of the year.  That, plus the slightly better Brewers record, has the Reds at a very solidly bad 0.0% playoff odds, while the Brewers have a still-almost hopeful 0.2%.

So, yes, Reds all the way at being bad!

Position Players

Zack Cozart is making himself into quite a nice trade chip.  Yes, his BABIP is inflating his numbers, and he never will enjoy taking a walk, but he's showing good power and no apparent ill-effects from his surgically-reconstructed knee.  His fielding has looked solid on TV, and his too-early-to-be-worth-much UZR is in the positives, as is his base running metric.  He's been a legitimate catalyst at the top of the Reds lineup thus far, and over the past two years he has hit .283/.321/.480 in almost 300 PA's (not including yesterday's home run!).  If he's still a plus defender, and it looks like he is, that's quite a nice player.  A lot of contenders would be thrilled to have something approximating him at shortstop, and I hope they'll pay accordingly.

This is still a pretty nice offense.  Scooter Gennett is out with an oblique injury, and Aaron Hill has been a black hole thus far at third.  Nevertheless, everyone else has looked pretty good at the plate.  Chris Carter was getting a lot of attention from the statcast guys at the start of April, and he's been thumping the ball thus far just like so many thought he would.  I don't know if he'll keep this up, but the Brewers have to be thrilled at the prospect that he might have figured out how to hit at the major league level.  Ryan Braun is hitting like old times, and Jonathan Lucroy has been doing his thing.

Probable Starters

Chase Anderson was one of the key acquisitions of the Jean Segura trade this past offseason, and he was expected to step into the rotation as a steady #3-#4 starter.  He's not quite been that thus far, though he's been a heck of a lot better than the giant, steaming pile of suck that has been Alfredo Simon.

Tim Adleman had a magical day in his last start.  Let's just assume that he'll continue to strike out 27% of the opposition while avoiding walks.

I've been pretty happy with Brandon Finnegan thus far.  But I'm surprised, having just been watching his starts and not focusing on numbers so much, that his strikeouts are so low...and his walks so high.  His change-up has looked good to me.

John Lamb was my offseason mancrush.  But his velocity was not where it was last season during his debut start, and I thought his curveball looked like it had far less bite.  Maybe he'll be better next time.

Bullpens

Not much to say here!

So far, anyway, this has been a solid pen for the Brew Crew.  Tyler Thornburg has been striking everybody out, and Jeremy Jeffress gets nothing but ground balls, so that's a good start.  The rest haven't been quite so impressive, but it's all small sample size land.  Chris Capuano is the only lefty in the pen, so the Reds lefties don't have a lot to fear in late innings.

So, we have two teams in a transition period.  One is run by David Stern, an up-and-coming analytics-oriented GM who heralds from last year's great triumph of sabermetrics.  And the Reds are run by Walt and Dick.  It'll be interesting to see how all of that goes for the two teams in the coming years.


By way of acknowledgements, this post is brought to you by Rogue Sriracha Hot Stout Beer.  It is better with food than by itself, and I mostly drank it alone.

Cubs Series Preview

The Reds head to Wrigley Field tomorrow to take on the Cubs in a long, four-game series.  The Cubs entered the season as a popular up-and-coming pick on the basis of both their outstanding cadre of almost-ready position prospects as well as an active offseason that saw the acquire or sign Jon Lester, Jason Hammel, Dexter Fowler, and Miguel Montero.  Perhaps as expected, they have seemingly taken that step forward this season and are locked in a dead heat with the Pirates for second place in the NL Central, albeit well back of the seemingly untouchable Cardinals.  They've played almost exactly according to their preseason projections (record-wise, at least), and are projected to have a better-than-even chance of landing a wild card playoff spot.

As good as this season has been for them, however, their underlying numbers aren't quite as strong as their record.  Their offense has been well below-average thus far, with the Reds taking a clear advantage in power.  Their starters have been excellent and their relief corps has been "fine," but it would seem that they are in need of some offense if they want to make something of this season.  The nice thing about having the kind of youth they have, of course, is that one can hope for better things in the future.  I think they've got a realistic shot.

Position Players

Zack Cozart's injury was heartbreaking to watch today.  I'm no doctor (not that kind, anyway...), but it looked to me like he hyperextended his knee pretty badly when he slid/missed first base.  That makes one worry about an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury, which is often repaired with surgery.  I don't know recovery times off-hand, but my hunch is "long."  It's so frustrating, because Zack Cozart had somehow transformed himself back into the player we all hoped he might be when he broke in with the Reds: a brilliant fielder and a solid hitter with very good power for a shortstop.  It was only 200 plate appearances, but it's hard to have watched the amazing turnaround he's experienced thus far in 2015 and not think that something has clicked for him.  With 1.6 fWAR, he's already topped his total from 2014, and has only received a modest boost from his fielding in that metric this year.  His .202 ISO is easily the best of his career, as is his walk rate (despite his claims about being more aggressive).  His ground ball rate is down, his strikeouts are down, and he's not even showing a strong BABIP (low for his career, though consistent with a more fly ball heavy approach).  Here's hoping he can completely heal from this injury, even if he misses the rest of the season, and doesn't see a loss of mobility sap his fantastic range.  Best wishes on a full recovery, Zack.

...As for the Cubs, Anthony Rizzo is fantastic.  Kris Bryant has been pretty much as-advertised and will be fun to watch this series.  Addison Russell has recovered pretty nicely from his disastrous start and almost has his batting line back to league average.  David Ross is the best catcher the Reds ever released.  And Starlin Castro probably needs to be worried about his job, as the Cubs have other middle-infield options in the minors and Russell looks ready to go.  The Reds catch a break this series with Reds-killer Jorge Soler on the DL.

Probable Starters

Tsuyoshi Wada is sort of the penultimate soft-tossing lefty, and there's an argument that the gap between his ERA and his peripherals is due to his low velocity.  I've long been a Jason Hammel fan (he's an old fantasy guy of mine), and it's great to see him having such a nice year.  He has the best xFIP of any starter in this series, and his duel against Johnny Cueto could be really fun to watch.  Finally, while I don't have much to say about Kyle Hendricks (a soft-tossing, control righty), I'm looking forward to a rematch between the pickoff-challenged Jon Lester and zippy skippy Billy Hamilton...assuming Hamilton is healthy enough to play by Sunday.

Bullpens

It's pretty hard to argue with with Reds' decision to demote Jumbo Diaz given his mind-numbingly frustrating tendency to give up the long ball this season.  But it was still the case that he has the best xFIP and best SIERA on the staff.  They stuck with him through June, however, and used him almost always in high-leverage situations.  Remember when he hit 102 mph in his last appearance, right before giving up the big hit?  I still just love that guy.  Hopefully he's ridiculous-dominant in AAA and makes it back up sooner than later.  I think the Reds would be foolish to give up on him.

Cubs pen: it's been pretty strong.  Justin Grimm has been a strikeout-and-walk machine this year, and looks like the bullpen suits him a lot better than the rotation.  They have a pretty impressive cadre of long-men between Travis Wood and Edwin Jackson.

Cozart's success from being...more aggressive?

Tom Groeschen had a nice article over the weekend pointing out Zack Cozart's excellence this year.  With 1.4 fWAR in the bank, Cozart has already surpassed his 2014 total, and seems on his way to cracking 2.0 fWAR for just the second time in his career.

Asked what he's doing differently this year, Cozart said this:

"I'm just more aggressive," Cozart said. "Not going up there looking to take a lot of pitches and fall behind in the count. Last year I felt like I got 0-1 and 0-2 a lot without even swinging the bat. This year I'm on the attack. I'm actually seeing a lot better pitches to hit, for that reason. 

"I'm getting in better counts and being able to put good swings on them."

Hmph.  I've long thought that Cozart's problem was that he was too aggressive.  And, in fact, Cozart's walk rate is actually up quite a bit this year:

...which is not exactly in keeping with the "more aggressive" remark.  But that's not really his point, right?  He's claiming that he's showing higher swing rates on pitches in the zone, and as a result, pitchers aren't challenging him as much early?

Let's look at plate discipline stats.

I know it's hard to read.  Sorry.  You can see it bigger by clicking the image, or going to FanGraphs.

So...his Zone Swing percentage is actually down.  His overall swing percent is down.  In fact, even his swing percentage outside of the zone is down.  That doesn't fit his story.

The only thing that really does fit is that, this year, he is seeing fewer first-strike pitches.  I don't know if that's a sampling issue (has he faced pitchers with poor control?), or if it's because he's hitting so much better so far this year than he has during his career.

When I read that quote, I hoped this would be one of those fun times when we can go to our data and see the adjustment a player has made.  Unfortunately, there's nothing here that really jives with Cozart's claims.  Maybe it was just something to say to a reporter.  Or, maybe that's what Zack actually thinks he's doing, regardless of how it manifests in his actual results at the plate.

Whatever he's doing, I hope he can keep doing it, because it's been fun to watch him hit with authority this year.