Cubs News: Vegas Win Totals & Kyle Hendricks' 2019 Contract
Some good news early this morning for Cubs fans:
That’s the number for Hendricks’ 2nd year of arbitration and I’ve got some thoughts on it but first…
Quick Refresher: generally, most MLB players do the first 3 seasons on a league minimum deal, and then the next 3 seasons they negotiate 1-year deals with the team. The 1-year deals are known as Arbitration Years. When a player is under contract with a team during this point in his career, the team is said to have control. After this period, the player enters free agency.
Hendricks signing at $7.405 for his 2nd-year is historically high. For context, Jake Arrieta holds the record for a 2nd-year starting pitcher at $10.7M in 2016, and that was after posting a .86 ERA in his last 20 starts of 2015 en route to winning the Cy Young. So all considered, $7.4M for Hendricks seems fair.
In the last 4 years, he’s made 119 starts posting a 3.54 ERA, 132 ERA+, 14.0 WAR, 1.11 WHIP and a 53% quality start percentage against MLB average of 47%. And over that time, the Cubs have won almost 60% of his starts. It’s obvious the defense likes playing behind him and as I’ve said 1,000 times before, that can impact the club offensively because it helps the lineup get into a rhythm and tempo with the game. Every player will tell you they want to play behind a pitcher that moves the game quickly and pounds the strike zone.
Hendricks has pitched well in the postseason too: he’s made 10 starts with a 2.98 ERA and nearly identical walk/strikeout ratios to his regular season career. More impressive is that he’s had to battle a short leash and zero trust from Joe Joe. So credit to Hendricks for doing his job knowing that Maddon’s got an itchy trigger finger on the bullpen phone.
Personally, it would be nice to see Hendricks get extended next season because I think he’s the kind of guy that can pitch effectively in the rotation for at least another 7 seasons. But at the same time I don’t know how much you’d save in that process. Fortunately I can sleep soundly at night knowing that Theo & Jed are the ones responsible for all this shit and not me.
The Cubs are averaging 97 wins since 2015 and there’s nothing to go along with this sentence. I just want to remind you of that they’ve won more games than any other club in that time. It’s always helpful to remember that when you want to complain about Bryce Harper or at least that’s what I tell myself: 97 wins a season.
From 2011-13, the Cubs *averaged* 96 LOSSES.
Finally, the season win/loss totals have come out and Vegas set the Cubs total at 89 which is low, right?
The Reds have gotten better, the Pirates had the best in-division record last year, the Cardinals are better and the Brewers are better on paper. Allegedly. This is a lot less about the Cubs and a lot more about the Clubs they have to play 18 times a year. Obviously I’ll be pounding the over, but it’s important to draw some caution around what naturally seems like a very low number.
Personally, my action is more about Theo. He’s been running an MLB franchise for 16 years, 3 of which were rebuilding seasons. Here are the win totals in those 13 “non-rebuilding” years for Theo-run teams: 95, 98, 95, 86, 96, 95, 95, 89, 90, 97, 103, 92, 95.
As a big numbers guy you have to like that data. Cubs in 4.