r/CHICubs • u/StrandedonTatooine • 12d ago
The season stat no one is talking about
After the first season of ABS, these are the MLB leaders for projected runs lost due to defensive ABS challenges:
- Seiya Suzuki - 5.7 runs
- Shohei Ohtani - 5.5 runs
- Ian Happ - 5.2 runs
- Michael Busch - 5.1 runs
- Brett Baty - 3.5 runs
The Cubs occupying 3 of the top 5 spots is just painful to see.
17
u/catsironskilletz 12d ago
Does defensive ABS means pitcher/catcher appeals? This would indicate these three are too conservative and don't protect the zone. Is that fear of weak contact vs. accepting of a worse count or K?
11
u/immoralsupport_ 12d ago
If the pitch was ABS challenged by the catcher that would indicate that it was a pitch that was borderline in terms of being in the zone, so likely indicative that these players were going against the conventional wisdom of “swing at anything close with two strikes” and instead were taking pitches they didn’t think they could hit, willing to take the chance that it was a ball as a likely better outcome than swinging at it and potentially whiffing or making weak contact.
I don’t think that’s a totally wrong strategy, but it may need to be adjusted for the ABS era as the chances those pitches end up being balls ends up going down.
3
u/catsironskilletz 12d ago
Hmm. Seems like Seiya is actually good enough to deal with this given his overall numbers. Busch might not be good enough and needs to expand a bit/adjust his approach. Especially as a 1B who needs offense to play.
5
u/immoralsupport_ 12d ago
Seiya has always had a very passive approach, in past years the talk was always about how he got called on a ton of strike threes that weren’t in the zone, so this is basically the reverse of that
2
u/StrandedonTatooine 12d ago
It’s almost as if the umpires spent the summer trying to give Cubs a break and catchers weren’t having it.
1
u/catsironskilletz 12d ago
Is Happ's data available in L/R split? I wonder if he's even worse as an RHB on this, too.
-1
u/PlanxtyDawg 12d ago
Happ is way over-rated and a liability at his salary level and no trade clause. He is like Jason Hayward 2.0....big salary , good defense and subpar offense . If he wants to stay with Cubs he better be ready for a big pay cut and platooning.
20
u/Liion_Ronin 12d ago edited 12d ago
Seiya was consistently hosed at the plate by Umps making bad calls
"According to Statcast, entering play on Saturday, of players who have seen at least 2,500 pitches outside the zone since 2022, Suzuki is second in all of baseball with 6.5 percent being called strikes. That’s just a tick below Wilmer Flores who is at 6.6 percent. They’re the only two players above 6 percent in baseball during that time." (NYT, 2024)
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5706835/2024/08/18/cubs-seiya-suzuki-called-strikes/
4
u/MCDFTW Coo-Coo Coomer 12d ago
It seems like after ABS, pitchers miraculously started hitting the corners, and all the bad calls that went against him turned into actual strikes that were either called or unsuccessfully challenged. I remember thinking that ABS would end the trend discussed in this article, and instead it seems to me that pitchers just started hitting their spots more consistently against Suzuki in particular.
1
8
u/ParadisePete 12d ago
This would go hand in hand with a team that is willing to accept walks, wouldn't it?
10
u/Siggy778 12d ago
Nobody gets dotted more than Seiya. I swear every pitcher saves his best pitches for him.
1
5
u/RichInBunlyGoodness 12d ago
Can you explain what exactly is this analysis? Not swinging at strikes? Not taking balls? Not challenging balls called strikes? Challenging strikes called strikes? What exactly are we talking about?
9
u/ZZachj THEO BLESS 12d ago
This tracks the eye test. Seiya is incredibly bad at protecting the plate and gets caught on called strikes a lot.
3
u/doowadittie 12d ago
I love Seiya but he would become passive as all get out with two strikes. Numbers aren’t fully out yet but I’m gonna guess he will have about a .195 avg with two strikes on him. For comparison, the top hitter w two strikes Luis Arraez is a hundred points higher than him in the same situation.
1
u/Bluellama44 12d ago
He hit .172 with 2 strikes this year, I'm not sure about 2026 but in 2024 the league average with 2 strikes was .171
1
u/doowadittie 12d ago
Well daggum he was prolly above league average there. Since u have the numbers what was his avg on 3-0 counts. The numbers I saw from a couple years were horrible.
2
u/Bluellama44 12d ago
According to a post the league avg after a 3-0 count is about .420, Seiya hit... .200! Though your sample size is 15 ABs and 34 PAs. Good call
1
3
u/immoralsupport_ 12d ago
Is this only runs lost due to deciding TO challenge, or does it mean they lost runs by deciding not to challenge (aka should have challenged more) as well?
3
u/dsalmon1449 Chicago Cubs 12d ago
They still had such a good offense. This is impressive to me. Wonder how year 2 ABS goes
3
3
u/Bluellama44 12d ago
Feel like this is worth mentioning, Seiya's 3rd in the league in this metric. He went 12-5 in challenges this year
8
u/CuriousCubSixteen Baaah 12d ago
No one is talking about it because it's a bad stat. Hitters have no control over when an umpire makes a bad call and the other team challenges it.
-1
u/augustwest700 12d ago
Yes but it indicates that we aren’t challenging on high leverage pitches. Like a strike 3 that barely hits the edge of the zone with someone on 2nd. Or challenging pitches in the zone basically just out of pride. Felt like Busch had a lot of challenges just to save some face after getting caught looking
3
u/MidvaleDropout 12d ago
You're talking about offensive challenges.
0
u/augustwest700 12d ago edited 12d ago
No I hear what you’re saying, it’s hard when a catcher is overturning a ball to a strike. Just trying to say that they’re clearly getting complacent looking at pitches in the zone if they’re getting overturned that often. Clearly just waiting on the ump to call a ball. Just happened way too often this season it felt like
2
u/rudiecantfail_ Zaidmaniac 12d ago
This team seemed to have ZERO 2 strike approach and this seems to back that up. No protecting, no hitting the ball where it’s pitched, no choking up. They wait for “their pitch.” Up and down the lineup. It was power or nothing and we ended up with the latter.
2
u/KnickedUp 12d ago
Guys who take the most pitches will obviously be high on this list. Seiya swings less each year. The Cubs also saw the most pitches in baseball as a team. Thats the organizations approach
2
u/Excellent-Pitch-7579 12d ago
For those 3 Cubs, this works out to be 1 run every 10 games. I’m guessing this might cost us 1 win over the entire season. The stat I’m more concerned with our 28 blown saves. If we could just cut that number in half, our record would be about the same as the Brewers.
2
u/I-I_I-I_I-I_l-l Shota Imanaga Defense Force 12d ago
This is a stat I'm not that concerned about actually. I'm not convinced that the current system is here to stay. I think this is a bridge period until we get to some fully automated balls-and-strikes.
Maybe worth trying to work on this with our guys a bit. But I hope this by no means factors into our roster decisions moving forward.
1
1
1
u/moncoboy 12d ago
Is there a stat that shows how the batter fared against elite pitchers? Feels like we got a lot of hits off lower tier pitchers
1
1
u/fatcatdonimo Chicago Cubs 11d ago
and how tf are any of those guys executing "defensive" challenges??
1
u/PlanxtyDawg 12d ago
Off the subject, but Counsell was terrible playing small ball. It seemed the only guy on the team that could bunt was Amaya. It creates pressure. CC seemed to always waiting for the long ball. The Brewers are good at it. That said they had a huge offensive year, but situationally they might have won several games with bunting at the right time.
-3
68
u/augustwest700 12d ago
Felt like Seiya and Busch got caught looking on strike 3 more than anyone on the team… curious how many of those they should have challenged