The Press Box - Ep. 125: The Rise of the Chicago Cubs With Mallory Rubin and Rany Jazayerli

Episode Date: June 8, 2016

The Ringer's Mallory Rubin and acclaimed baseball writer Rany Jazayerli on the Chicago Cubs’ historic season and their chase to emerge as the best team in MLB history. Remember to subscribe to the 'Ringer MLB Show' feed! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is Mallory Rubin. Deputy Editor of the Ringer.com, a wonderful new website that you should frequent. Today, we're joined by Rani Jazeerley, who is a dermatologist by day and an outstanding baseball scribe occasionally by night. And today, Tuesday, June 7th, we were gifted with a piece on the Chicago Cubs. So we wanted to have you on to chat a bit about that piece and talk more about what's happening at Wrigley Field this year. So welcome to the show. Thanks, Valerie. Yeah, it was one of those pieces to write that was just so easy because the Cubs are just,

they are just a treasure trove right now of fascinating, you know, 40 and 16 as we talk, and you can make the argument that they actually are underachieving relative to their record. That was one of my favorite parts about the piece that you wrote, where, you know, you set it up as, here is the simplest way to sum up how good this team is with facts that should be mutually exclusive. Number one, the 2016 Chicago Cubs are on pace to challenge the all-time record for victories in a season. Number two, they are underachieving. Like that contradiction simultaneously defines what's happening with this team this season

and sort of defies our ability to logically explain it. It is crazy. I mean, they're on pace right now to win 116 games, which would tie the all-time Major League record. And, you know, we've seen teams, Star Trek Tigers started 35 and 5 in 1984. You know, the Seattle Mariners, I think they were 47 and 12 at one point during the 2001 season. So it's not simply that they're winning, you know, more than two-thirds of their games at this point in the year. It's that they're doing it by just steam rolling over every team winning games by five. I mean, they've lost 16 games.

Seven and five of them have been by two runs. They've lost four games all year by three. runs and more. That to me is the stat that sums up this team more than anything. Four games all year in which they basically didn't have, and that's just, that we ran through the numbers in the piece, but it's essentially unprecedented in 100 years for a team to play this well in terms of how many. Where does drafting Hector or Rondon as your top closer rank among the worst fantasy baseball decisions somebody could have made this year? You know, you look at that, you're like, this is an upper-cross closer and a great team. It's not a bad move, right?

Well, it's looking like one now. So Cubs are so good that they are taking the conventional wisdom of, you know, closers on good teams will earn a lot of saved. And they're basically saying, no, we're going to win by so many runs that he's never going to get a safe situation. But he is, you know, in in for inning, he's probably one of the 10 best, maybe 10 best relievers in baseball at this point. Well, five is really good against imaginable. They've made so many the trades they've made, the free agents they've signed,

I went through the piece. I tried to find any. I mean, you know, signing Edson, he, you know, he was not good for the Cubs, and eventually they released him, and that was a lot of money thrown out the drain. You can nitpick decisions, but there really aren't that many decisions that the Cubs would want to have back, and they've made so many smart moves building this roster. None of these guys were on the Major League roster when it's now one of the greatest teams we've ever seen through two months of this season. I don't feel bad for you for taking Hector Rondo because he's a really good pitcher, and I assume he will get more saved.

How good this team is that they're just aren't. Do you think that Jed Hoyer should get more credit from the masses than he does? I mean, obviously people who are deeply embedded in the baseball community are always going to mention his name alongside Epstein. But, you know, I think that among casual baseball fans and just sort of general sports fans, it's always about Theo. It's always about what Theo's done here in Chicago, what Theo did in Chicago, what Theo did in Boston. Do you think that's sort of a fair representation of the situation, or do you think that Hoyer is sort of like just in an unfortunate situation where he's always going to live in the more famous guy's shadow? Yeah, I mean, he does get short-triffed. I mean, I'm as guilty of this

as anyone because when I write about the COBO, in part because the narrative is just talk about the, because, of course, he was the GMFTA, a more succinct Hall of Fame application for an executive than to just to write two lines. The first line says, in 108 years or whatever. I think the narrative, but you're right. I mean, Jed was assistant to the CEO in Boston, and he is technically the general manager now. And any of these decisions always made mutually. And I think this is something we're seeing in a lot of front office, the Dodgers. You know, everyone talks about Andrew Friedman.

Well, he's on Zaidi. But these modern front office, they seem to function as a team very well together and to when the team makes the trade. So speaking of trades in the draft, you know, the MLB draft is this Thursday and we're not too far away from the trade deadline. I mean, the season is evaporating as it always does. And this is a, you know, outstanding team as we just outlined on pace to potentially topple the all-time regular season wins record. But it's not a perfect team, right?

So looking at the current roster, taking into account, you know, the Schwabber injury, possible regression candidates, which we can talk about a little bit more. in a few minutes here, what do you identify as the chief need moving forward? What should this team look for in the draft when it comes to restocking the farm system? What should this team potentially be looking for in July? The trades have already begun. The White So, what pieces does this team need, if any? The question, and if anything, this is, if you're looking for a potential weakness for the team,

in a sense, this might be it in that what makes this team might think so good. They don't have a lot of needs. Right. You look at like the Royal. They went out mid-season. This team, they're on their lineup right now is Jason Hayward. What they need is for Jason Hayward to start hit.

Hit a home run last night. You're heating up. Well, exactly. All the way up to 220. You would think it's coming around. He's been a very exasperating. A rookie had a 3-93 on base percentage at 18-home run. He was 20 years old at the time when he was 22.

He had 27 home runs. And you're thinking this guy's going to be. And he's been a star because of defense and right field is just power just has never really come. And, I mean, you know, slugging lower. And he's still only 26 years old. He's still at that age where he could very easily crushing it. And I think the Cubs, you know, it's certainly not, it's not like they're going to bench him, right? The three year, and he can opt out after three years.

I mean, he's in that lineup. But there's really no one else in that lineup that you're going to look at and point to and say, we need to upgrade there. Maybe left field. I mean, you know, Salare was not great before he got hurt. that would be a position where if they could get one bat, Schwerber's injury, while they've been able to, you know, paper over pretty darn damn well. I mean, they could use a big thumper, one more big thumper. At the rotation, nobody in the rotation of an ERA over three.

Who exactly are you going to replace? They've only used five, you know, injury to the rotation. The entire season without, are they really going to want to give away a lot of, you know, the upcoming free agent class, the guys, the pending free agents are the guys that you typically trade for at mid-season. I don't see a – you know, every team can always use an extra reliever, but realistically, you know, Hector Ron Don's great. You know, Trevor Cahill's been good. Travis – they don't have a lot of neat. I guess left field would be the one, but it also means that there's not a lot of upgrade.

But when you're 40 and 16, do you really need to upgrade? I guess it would be the question. Right. Okay. A couple follow-up questions, one about left field and one about the rotation. With the rotation, you know, you mentioned the possibility, obviously that's always present with pitchers of injury. But what about the prospect of regression? Like, I look at Jason Hamill in particular, you know, with a FIP that's like a run in a quarter,

a run and a half higher than his ERA. And that just screams regression candidate to me. I mean, obviously they don't need Jason Hamill to be a mid-toos ERA guy to continue winning. But when you look at Hamill, Lackey, and Hendrick, all exceeding expectations and pitching at a, you know, ace-ish caliber level, you know, basically putting up, obviously not Arieta level stats, but any of these guys could be a number two on, you know, half the teams in the league right now. Is that really sustainable when the career marks don't really indicate that that's what Jason Hamill should be doing at this point? Or that that's what John Lackey has left in the tank.

I mean, you make a good point about how, you know, that's actually an issue for the team as a whole. I mean, the team ERA is 260. The team FIP is 332. and to me the central question of, if you want to ask the question, is this team going to continue to win at a historic pace? You know, the central question is that defense or is that luck? Right. Because that is where defense manifests.

If you are runs, then you would expect from play and out. The thing with the Cubs is, you go around the diamond. I mean, it looks like a good defensive team. It does not look like a historically great defensive team or maybe even a little lower than that. Now, the league average is around 296, you win the 262. Mr. Russell's a good shortstop. Jason Hayward is exceptional. Until this year, the numbers suggest he's improved.

The Cubs have moved him back. But, you know, Chris Bryant is considered a goal over at third base. He's even played a little bit of left field this year. So trying to reconcile the numbers with Cubs using analytics at a level that you and I are not proprietary data. They're really going to be able to be. The offense has been very good. They've got the most runs per game in the league. But I'm not sure.

If it's not, they'll still like me. You want to see history. You want to see this team when 150 staff has to continue. So the point you're just making about the defensive performance and the impact that that's had on the pitching staff actually connects quite nicely to the other question I wanted to ask about left field. I'm almost afraid to put this thought out into the world because of the bad karma that might come my way as a result. And I want to be clear that I do not necessarily personally believe this. I just think it's worth discussing. Is there an argument to be made that losing Schwarber potentially helped more than it hurt because the offense has.

been able to survive without his bat, but the defense hasn't suffered from his glove. Interesting thought. Remember the way you played defense last year against the Mets and the NLCS, you know, it wasn't pretty a type. Right. a lot more runs as well. I don't know that they'd be worse, but I don't think they'd necessarily be better.

The loss of Schwerber, I think it hurts if they have another injury, like it's heard, you know, that's one less guy, the team that is treated reason, have time to get into this in the article. They have injuries, they can move guys around, Tommy Westella, on an OPS of 865, and he's, you know, essentially a bench guy, play.

That Caesar has hit 333. He's not as good as he's played there, but he's filled in at times and guys are hitting so well. which again is another reason why they'll probably I'm curious of all the truly eye-opening amazing stats that you dug up for this article which one just wowed you the most like which one were you like I can't believe this is real

I must have made a mistake here this is just insane I think the fact that they are 27 and 4 in games decided by three or under more and they're 20 and 3 in blowout which is nuts but it's not unprecedented the 1939 Yankees who are considered 41 and 6 truly great teams. It's hard to beat by five. To be 27 and four in three-run games, I mean, three runs is nothing. A team loses a game six to three.

Nobody's going to call that a blowout. The Cubs have lost four games like that all year. That is, to me, what is just astounding. It's a testament to how good they're pitching, averaging less than three runs allowed per game, right? So you're not going to lose by three runs if you haven't given up three runs. Right. But it's just, I've never seen anything remotely like that.

The thing that really stood out to me is the Twitter poll that we put out on the phone today, which I'll just, you know, this is ongoing. I think I voted for the asterisk. This is ongoing. So the numbers might change by the time people listen to. But let's just share with the listeners where things stand at the moment. So the question was, is this the year for the Cubs? So far, 23% have said yes.

Okay. So that's coming in last. 24% have said don't want to jinx it. 25% have said never. And currently leading the pack, 28% of voters chose an asteroid will strike. Too close to call, Alarie. Yeah, I mean,

Cubs fans, non-Cubs fans, I think everybody is just so confused by what's going on. I mean, this is sort of the point of the pieces. The immovable object of their history more than any team of this team is going to be massive. area, cats and dogs living together. This is going to be, October's going to be a frightening time, I think, to be an American

and anything is possible. You know who I feel bad for? The Pittsburgh Pirates, because for years, for years, the pirates. The Clint Hurdle Invitational, that's what we call the wild card game. It's just unbelievable to have to finally get that

franchise into contender shape, to put out, to field a winner, and then to have to finish behind the Cardinals every year, must have been agonizing enough, but now the Cardinals are sitting there in third, and the Pirates are nine and a half games behind the Cubs. The Pirates are really good. They're pretty much already fighting for a wildcard.

I mean, they've hosted, think about it, they've hosted the wildcard game three years in a row. They won it the first year. And, you know, that was, and then went on and gave them LDS. The second year, it was a one game winner, take all, guess who they got to see? Madison Bumgarner. Yeah, that didn't go well. then who did they see last year? Again, winner-take-all, Jake Arellia Rietta. And now they're nine and a half games or whatever behind, you know, the Cubs, even though they're on pace

out. No, I completely agree. The piratography for them being in the National League, disguising what is really a really good team on a... It's brutal. Sorry for all you Bucks fans out there. Okay, so I do want to ask you a couple questions about the Royals before we let you go. But last question on the Cubs, you did an excellent job of presenting eye-opening data, explaining how this team was built, of projecting what might come the rest of this season. But what is your actual prediction? Let's put it out there. Where would you have voted in the Twitter poll?

You said you thought you think you picked the asteroid. But is this Cub's team going to win 117 games? Is this Cubs team actually going to end the streak and win the World Series? If you had to put money down now, where are you going? God, you know, the outcome of that, you know, even if they really, the odds of winning two years of the last team hesitate to make any of the defense. Based on that, they should actually be better than 40 and 16. They should be about 43.

If I had to guess right now, I would. What a letdown? Only 110 wins. I know. It sounds crazy. I can't believe I'm even saying, predicting a team to win 110 games in early June. Like so much could go wrong still.

But between the depth fact that you have so many teams in the National League that actively aren't three stages of rebuild with a winning record. So when they get to play, you know, more games against them. Okay. A team that is not going to get to 110 wins, your Kansas City Royals defending world champions, having a little bit of a tough go of it so far with the injuries. I would just be a dereliction of duty if I didn't check in

and ask how you're feeling about the season, how you're surviving all of these DL stints, and how you're feeling about the team moving forward. Only two and a half games behind the Indians, despite everything that's gone, wrong so far. And only one game out of the way, by the way, I'm not conceding, they're not getting

110 wins. I can't see nothing. Yeah, it's, I don't want to say predictable, but I mean, for everything that has gone right for the last two seasons with a leg injury, but that after the lineup, this year, you know, I see another month, it was an ACL. So, you know, one play.

But I think it's more than just the team has quietly gotten kind of Using farm system five years, part of what helped them win. Those guys aren't old, but they're not young anymore. Kane is 30, 33, and Fonte's. They have not, they've had a very stable lineup last couple years. They haven't really, some of that is catching up in between. The fact has really been, it's been in the tank.

I mean, the bullpen has been phenomenal, as it goes. Yeah. It doesn't make it. Chris Young has given up 17 home runs in 41 inning, which is a neat trick, but not a good one. He got hurt, and G in the rotation. So, it's no way around it. I feel like Duffy is finally, like, showing those flashes. Duffy has actually been the one revelation.

He has not walked a batter in his last four starts. Yeah, and he's striking out. Which is unbelievable for a guy whose biggest problem, since he was a rookie, is he doesn't throw enough strikes. I mean, the left-hander who throws 96 miles an hour. He has one of the minds of any left-hand starting pitcher in the major league than it has for years.

It's not just he walks guys. It'll be the fifth inning and he's thrown out of one pitch. was very good as we expected him, because the kind of stuff that we went three innings or were stretching out of the walk to anybody. He has really turned a corner. And I don't want, you know, I don't want to put pressure on a guy

that's kind of mid-career. That's a lot to put on a guy like Duffy. But the kind of person so far, the one really big spot. The American League is wide open, you know, whereas the national league you have half a dozen teams that aren't even trying. Really, every team in the American League

that might get you. I have spent the last week, week and a half full of regret for not bidding an extra dollar or two on Whitmeryfield and my AL only keeper league because put in a $3 bid, which I thought was reasonable at the time. He went for a camera number four or five. He, exactly. He's been delightful. I love him.

He is, of course. Came up and hits over 400 of the September call up, a guy who not really a prospect who kind of came out of nowhere. Who is that? He's not a great prospect, but he can play everywhere on the dime, infield, outfield, those really fast team steals and AAA. And he'll hit single and he'll, you know, he'll hit behind the team player.

He's a delightful guy to have on your roster, but you really don't want it to be your everyday starting second baseman. And that's sort of what he'd become with. Things get desperate in an AL-only keeper league. Desperate. Let me tell you, it is bleak and gray out there. All right. This was delightful. Is there anything else?

Is this the League of Dorks, by the way? Yes, this is the League of Dorks. This is my first year in the League of Dorks. Jeff Chow, R-C-O-O. and I are sharing a team, and we are amazingly actually not terrible. We had sort of like just accepted that we would have to basically pull an Epstein-Hoyer and, you know, lose before we could win, build the team for the future. And we're kind of, I don't want to jinx it, but we're like, we're not out of it.

So we have some choices to make about. Are you ahead of Bill? As of last night, we are ahead of Bill. I don't think it's going to last. I probably shouldn't even say that. All I only know about his League of Dork team is what he tweets out, and he has not been tweeting out a lot of positive vibes from his team. It's, you know things are desperate when you're spending $44 on James Shields.

That's not a great place to be. Let's see. Yep, we're in sixth place, and Bill's team is currently in seventh. So who knows how long that'll last, but right now we're ahead of the boss. What a, what a time. What a time to be alive and playing fantasy baseball. Let's keep back to ourselves. We don't want to rub that in his face too much.

it'll be a good way to find out if you listen to this. So, all right. I would ask you if you think that Manny Machado is going to be the MVP of the American League, but I already know the answer is yes. So why waste my time or yours or the listeners, you know? I think we're going to be your guest, Ben. Yes, I think you will. This was delightful.

You know, other things, I don't want. I mean, I'm a royal fan which I have to a major season. Indeed. So him. Oh, I do. I wish he was ours. I cherish him every day, as Tate can attest. My professional work wardrobe is essentially just alternating between Game of Thrones T-shirts and Manny Machado Shersies.

So now you guys are all caught up. Casual workplace, you know? Well, I'll, I'm still, I'm sorry. I think I've got to beat there. Keep those, like, gold royals jerseys that they're wearing in check. Those are horrible. We get it. Oh, come on.

Like, we get it. All right. You won. Congratulations. That's what's so great about. about those. What's so great about winning a championship is no matter what the rules do they wore those spring training hats with the crown over the KC opening days. You can complain all you want, but you can't argue that they don't have the right to do it.

Like, when you're the champions, you can get away with anything. It's true. The Royals, and as you know, they're a fan. It's basically the actual baseball jersey equivalent of an emoji. Like, that's sort of what they're doing. They're just putting like emoji crowns and emoji flammy. decals and emoji trophies like all over their jerseys it's very strange but I support you I want you to be happy and I'm I'm really glad that we were able to share this time together

and I hope we can do it again soon bye guys