NL Central Discussion

[Underachiever]

Maybe the Pirates should stop trading pitchers with the Rays. From an article:

Robert Stephenson-When he joined the Rays in a trade for infielder Alika Williams on June 2, Stephenson brought with him a career 4.91 ERA, a 9.6 K/9 and a 4.2 BB/9. He has proceeded to dominate with Tampa Bay while completely altering his pitch mix, which now includes a dominant cutter. Stephenson’s chase and whiff rates both rank in the 100th percentile this season, while his strikeout rate ranks in the 99th percentile. With a 1.40 ERA and a 32-to-3 K/BB ratio in his past 20 appearances, the 30-year-old has started to receive higher-leverage assignments out of the Rays’ bullpen of late.

[StearnsFTW]

Cubs score a run on a blown popup.

 

This is going to he annoying if they win.

[sveumrules]

Pretty crazy that the Cubs were hot (13-5 in their last 18) coming into their series against the cold DBacks (3-7 in their last 10), yet Chicago’s still lost the first three games scoring a total of four runs.

It’s almost enough to make me believe baseball is gonna baseball and trying to extrapolate small samples of hotness or coldness is of limited utility since the switch can flip at any time with little forewarning. 

[StearnsFTW]

46 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Pretty crazy that the Cubs were hot (13-5 in their last 18) coming into their series against the cold DBacks (3-7 in their last 10), yet Chicago’s still lost the first three games scoring a total of four runs.

It’s almost enough to make me believe baseball is gonna baseball and trying to extrapolate small samples of hotness or coldness is of limited utility since the switch can flip at any time with little forewarning. 

I find your hypothesis specious at best.

[nate82]

I thought the Cubs were yet again supposed to be in first place in the NL Central after this weekend?  This is like three weekends in a row where the Brewers were supposed to be looking up at the Cubs.......

[adambr2]

Brewers/Cubs tiebreaker notes when they go into the final series of the year:

 

1) A 4 game or more lead would obviously render the series moot. 

2) A 2 or 3 game lead would require a sweep by the trailing team to steal the division. 

3) A 1 game lead by either team or a tie going into the series are all effectively the exact same thing - whichever team wins the series would win the division. 

[LouisEly]

Since July 1st, the Cubs are 38-25.

The Brewers are 36-23.

The Cubs have gained exactly zero games since July 1st.

Anything can happen in a 3-4 game span.  But in baseball it is really hard to gain significant ground, even over a span of two months.

[torts]

Fly the L in Chicago!

[wiguy94]

I feel like this does a great job of illustrating the current state of the Central division race. Record each team needs to finish with 90 wins.

Brewers - 11-10

Cubs - 14-5

Reds - 17-2

If Brewers play a game above .500 ball the rest of the year the Cubs would need to go 14-5 and win the final series against us to win the division.

[StearnsFTW]

Thr fat lady ain't singing but she's warming up.

[Brewcrew82]

 

[sveumrules]

3 minutes ago, Brewcrew82 said:

https://x.com/jeffpassan/status/1701232724235747389?s=46&t=6qHppUIKVZAHrSmvysdA1A

PCA looked like a legit CF defender when I saw him in Wisco last summer.

Had a 136 wRC+ and 24.0 K% at AA this year, but that scaled back to a 105 wRC+ and 29.7 K% at AAA.

[Team Canada]

Since it's not embedding at least for me:

Big news in Chicago: Top outfield prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong is being called up by the Cubs, sources tell ESPN. The plan is for him to be activated on Tuesday. Cubs are gearing up for a playoff run, and their best prospect will be there with them.

[wibadgers23]

Before anyone asks about Chourio, Crow-Armstrong is two years older, was promoted to AAA over a month ago and has been playing quite well there. Was just never in the cards for Chourio to debut this year.

[Jopal78]

1 hour ago, Team Canada said:

Since it's not embedding at least for me:

Big news in Chicago: Top outfield prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong is being called up by the Cubs, sources tell ESPN. The plan is for him to be activated on Tuesday. Cubs are gearing up for a playoff run, and their best prospect will be there with them.

That’s the Cubs for you, Crow-Armstrong doesn’t play a position of need for the Cubs.  They’re 4 best hitters in terms of OPS+ are Happ LF, Bellinger CF, Suzuki RF and Morel DH.
 

They could move Bellinger to 1B and PCA to CF, but then that takes away at bats from Tauchman and Wisdom two additional productive players. 
 

[CheezWizHed]

Might be a motivational move too... Hey guys, we are all in and bringing up our top candidate to show we are all in. Ignore that we would've brought him up next year anyway and we had a random 40 man roster spot open anyway...

 

[Playing Catch]

I am a believer that the kids need to be exposed to winning baseball, and important September baseball. It gets beaten into their heads that the season is a marathon, not a sprint, but EVERY team in the chase sprints through the finish. I suspect that the Cubs want him to experience that.

[sveumrules]

Adbert Alzolay to the 15 day DL with a forearm strain.

Cubs will be without their closer for at least the next two weeks.

[StearnsFTW]

6 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Adbert Alzolay to the 15 day DL with a forearm strain.

Cubs will be without their closer for at least the next two weeks.

Hopefully they won't miss him at all.

[owbc]

The Cubs are in a complete free fall now. 

https://x.com/JesseRogersESPN/status/1705060426109640935?s=20

[sveumrules]

NL Central Odds.

Brewers = Gold
Cubs = Blue

[StearnsFTW]

8 hours ago, sveumrules said:

NL Central Odds.

Brewers = Gold
Cubs = Blue

 

So.......pretty much wire-to-wire.

[sveumrules]

2 hours ago, StearnsFTW said:

 

So.......pretty much wire-to-wire.

Yeah, looks like we passed STL on April 4th at 48.4% to 44.1%. Cards got close a couple times following that, but after hitting 36.3% on May 27th their season was pretty much over as far as the computers were concerned. Looking at BRef, the last time they were over .500 this year was on April 2nd when they were 2-1, so their season has essentially been over from the beginning.

Even when the Brewers had bottomed out at 34-34 on June 14th, they were still at 46.8% to win the division.

Reds peaked at 36.8% on July 8th. Cubs hit 33.3% a few times - Aug 6, Aug 8, Sep 6 - but have seen their odds evaporate after going 3-10 over their last 13 while the Brewers went 10-4 over the same stretch. 

Ultimately neither the Reds nor Cubs were able to maintain their hot streaks long enough to overcome the surrounding mediocrity. Outside of a 49 game stretch from late April to mid June where they went 20-29, the Brewers have played at a 67-37 clip the rest of the season. 

The Cubs longest run was going 50-28 from 0609 until 0906, but they started the season ten under at 26-36 and have hit another rough patch recently with the aforementioned 3-10 rut they are in.

Reds were just too streaky in general. W3, L3, L3, L6, W5, W3, L4, W5, L4, W3, W12, L3, W3, W5, L6, W5, L6, W3, L3, L3, W3. That's 91 total games (59% of their schedule) where they were embroiled in some kind of streak or another, going 50-41 while streaking with that twelve gamer putting them over the top. In the 63 games (41% of their schedule) where they weren't streaking they've gone 29-34.

 

 

[LouisEly]

16 hours ago, sveumrules said:

NL Central Odds.

Brewers = Gold
Cubs = Blue

 

Waiting for Ryne Sandberg to say in an interview that the Cubs have skidmarks in their britches.