Bad Batted Ball Luck Becoming Extreme, .500 Feeling, Meet the Mets, Arias, and Other Cubs Bullets

May 30, 2024

Very early game today (12:10pm CT), so be ready.

We’ll dig into the particulars of Shōta Imanaga’s rough night later today, but it definitely stings to see the Cubs lose a game started by Imanaga when they manage to score six runs. Signs of life from the offense are always welcome, though, and the Cubs actually could’ve easily put up eight+. Lotta really good at bats last night, and a lotta really good contact. Of the Cubs’ four barrels in the game, three turned into outs. The Brewers’ four barrels were three homers and a double. The Cubs, in total, had NINE batted balls with an expected BA over .370 that didn’t turn into hits.

I won’t chalk a 10-6 loss up to bad luck, and I definitely won’t contend the offensive slump was about bad luck, but it is inarguable at this point that the Cubs have had some terrible batted ball luck AS PART OF the last few weeks of offensive muck. On the season, the 20 point difference between the Cubs’ xwOBA and actual wOBA is the third largest in baseball. By wOBA, the Cubs “should” have the 12th best offense in baseball. The Cubs actually have had the 8th worst. Yes, they’ve had considerable bad luck.

Christopher Morel was showing it off in the extreme last night, too (including a 405-foot home run robbed), which pushed his xwOBA-wOBA difference to a FREAKING RIDICULOUS 81 POINTS. The largest in baseball. I really hope everyone is paying attention and sees that his actual performance is better this year than the last two years (when he was already good), and that the only difference is terrible, terrible, 99th percentile bad luck.

I guess the Cubs are going to win one and lose one over the next two days, just to make me feel awful about something I said I wouldn’t feel awful about:

Cubs working really hard to force me to stick to my word … pic.twitter.com/ierDyn00CY
— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) May 30, 2024

I know what I was thinking back on April 15 when I said all that, and it’s not that I was wrong. It’s just that when you actually go on the journey to get to this place with a plausibly competitive team, it is almost always going to feel worse than whatever you told yourself in advance. We know that an 88-win team or whatever can meander around .500 for five months and then have just one good month. And we can say, hey, that’s fine if the first two months are .500, given X, Y, and Z factors. I still believe that stuff. But as it has played out, the team has hardly felt like the kind of staying-afloat .500 team that I was envisioning.

Anyway. I guess now they have to stay healthy and get hot, AMIRITE?!?

Never forget, in the depths of your sorrow and despair … it can always get worse:

A bizarre ejection, a bizarre (player) reaction to the ejection, and the commentary on from the SNY Mets crew.

"What has been a bad day all the way around has just gotten worse. (Jorge) López responds by tossing his glove up the over netting and into the crowd." ⚾️🎙️ pic.twitter.com/6bWb7fAOga— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 30, 2024

Following one of their worst losses in recent memory, punctuated by Jorge López losing his cool and firing his glove into the stands, the Mets are delaying media entry into their clubhouse to hold a team meeting.

They're addressing things as we speak.— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) May 29, 2024

I asked Jorge Lopez if he regretted throwing his glove into the stands. Not only did he say no, he then called the Mets “the worst team in the whole f—cking MLB.”

I later gave him a chance to clarify and he confirmed that’s what he meant.pic.twitter.com/Io2Cqh3Bdj— Steve Gelbs (@SteveGelbs) May 30, 2024

Regarding confusion over whether López said he was on "the worst team" or was "the worst teammate," I'm told López later explained his comments as a combination of both: the worst teammate on the worst team.— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) May 30, 2024

The Mets have, by far, the largest payroll in baseball, which will blow past $400 million when you include the luxury tax. They are 22-33, 16.0 games back in the NL East, and 6.0 games back of a Wild Card spot. That doesn’t mean that spending a lot of money is bad, it just means that it isn’t everything.

David Fletcher, amid a gambling probe, has been converted to a knuckleball pitcher at Triple-A. He made his first start (after a couple relief appearances), and wound up pitching very well against the Orioles’ loaded Triple-A roster:

Through 5 innings vs. the powerful Norfolk Tides, David Fletcher has allowed just 2 runs! 52 of his 64 pitches have been knuckleballs! pic.twitter.com/lKqSwRgnCL
— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) May 30, 2024

David Fletcher's first career start on the mound:

5 IP | 3 H | 2 R | 1 BB | 6 K

Please excuse the picture. We have a lot more of him hitting than pitching. pic.twitter.com/oEUaeCe5Mk— Gwinnett Stripers (@GoStripers) May 30, 2024

I don’t know if he’ll ever make it to the big leagues as a pitcher (or if he’ll face discipline before that), but more teams should do this with players like Fletcher! And/or, more players who see that their path to the big leagues just isn’t going to happen for whatever reason, be realistic about it, and start learning the hell out of a knuckleball! Look at Matt Waldron with the Padres – he’s become a knuckleballer and he’s started to have loads of success. There is still room in the modern game for knuckleballs!

A load of potential impact arms have risen from the Double-A to Triple-A bullpen already this year, and Arias is just the latest (Eduarniel Nunez, Zac Leigh, Porter Hodge (now in MLB)):

Fun @IowaCubs addition to the roster as RHP Michael Arias gets his first promotion to AAA.

The former infielder-now-pitcher was 3-0 with a 3.75 ERA in 16 appearances with @smokiesbaseball.— Alex Cohen (@voiceofcohen2) May 29, 2024

Arias, 22, has relatively little pro experience as a pitcher (he converted from being a position player just three years ago), but he’s already on the 40-man roster, and he has a plus fastball and plus changeup. You can easily see the bones there for an impact reliever sooner rather than later.

It’s pretty incredible that this has happened twice in a week, both at second base on an infield fly rule play:

Juan Soto was called for out interference on this infield fly rule play and Aaron Boone was ejected pic.twitter.com/yIlBVB6gZC
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) May 30, 2024

As we learned in the (terribly-called) White Sox-Orioles situation, the umpire does have discretion on these kinds of interference calls. Intent doesn’t matter, but actual interference does. So, to my eye, on this one, the call was correct. It’s bad luck for Soto, because I don’t think he meant to hip check Neto, but he did. After the game, everyone involved seemed to agree, yes, this one was interference.

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Bad Batted Ball Luck Becoming Extreme, .500 Feeling, Meet the Mets, Arias, and Other Cubs Bullets

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