Hey everyone, Welcome back to another edition of the Cubs on Tuesday podcast.

It was a fun weekend.

We had Anthony Rizzo coming back home retiring as a Cub.

He's sitting in the bleachers.

Funny enough, moyses Is Biastero's first career home run to left field goes to you guessed it, Anthony Rizzo in the bleachers.

I could not believe it as I was watching the game.

Line drives straight to left field.

Rizzo stands up screaming, I got it, I got it, hits him right in the palm and flies back immediately to the row behind him.

Of all the fans and the bleachers, of all the days from Moys's to hit his first career home run, it was Rizzo's retirement day and it went straight to Rizzo.

Just a hilarious scene.

Of course, like the magic that Rizzo brings to Wrigley never see to amaze me.

We will talk more about Moist Spy Stars in this episode.

Overall, the vibes are positive Cub's magic number.

After winning Monday's game in Pittsburgh, It's three players are getting healthy.

Jameson Tayon returned.

He pitched well in that Monday game.

You have Michael Soroka returning, who also pitched in Monday's game, did not give up any runs.

You have Porter Hodge returning from injury a couple of weeks ago.

He's continuing to show signs of stable velocity, although he kind of had a little bit of a shaky outing Monday night, but we'll get into it.

The next step really is just getting Kyle Tucker back and getting Saya Suzuki back from whatever illness he has, and you enter the last few days, the last week of the season, and you try to feel good about yourself going into that three game wild card, presumably against the Padres and hopefully at Rick Lee.

So today's episode is gonna be broken down into four chunks.

Each chunk probably about four to five minutes each.

The first chunk, we're going to talk about that bullpen.

We're going to talk about Porter Hodge, We're going to talk about how correct council is used back into the bullpen since Palencia was injured.

And then we're going to go into the second chunk, and we're going to talk about Matthew Boyd.

We're going to roll Matthew Boy's conversation into a playoff context and bring in Kate Horton's recent success to talk about who is in line for perhaps the number two start or the number one start.

The third chunk is going to take a bird's eye view at the offense.

We're gonna just touch up on PCA, talk about Moyses Biastero's discuss what the lineup could look like as soon as next week should Kyle Tucker return and say Suzuki come back healthy.

And then the fourth chunk is frankly setting the stage.

We have two more weeks left in the season, two more weeks, and before we get into this, savorite guys, we have more or less stress free baseball for the next two weeks.

I know there's home field on the line.

It's not as if it's like fully stress free, but the playoffs don't start for almost three weeks.

The Cubs are destined for a playoff spot that every day wins and losses and the impact of each game is a thing of the past in a way, the season's kind of over.

The regular season is kind of over.

So personally, I'm just enjoying this.

I'm enjoying having daily baseball because I know, once November hits.

Once December hits, it's cold outside, it gets dark early in the evening, stays dark early in the morning.

And there's some December and January days where I'm like, man, you know, it would be nice to have a one to twenty baseball game, more have a late evening game that beautiful, warm Wrigley Field.

So I'm enjoying this.

There's still a lot to talk about, and let's get into it.

Since Daniel Palencia went down, the question was who takes his place?

Is it going to be Brad Keller?

Is it going to be Caleb Thielbar.

At the time of Palencia's injuries, both Tealbar and Keller had ear rays of two point one.

They were among the most productive relievers in baseball since then.

Here's how correct Council has used the bullpen and see if you can notice a pattern here.

For example, on Wednesday, Andrew Kitchers gets to save against the Braves, faces the back end of the lineup.

After Brad Keller pitches the eighth inning against the top guys in that lineup, the two through four hitters off day Thursday, Friday, Rays come to town.

Andrew Kittridge once again, he gets the save.

Brad Keller once again faces the more difficult part of the lineup just before Kitchridge gets the ninth innion.

Saturday rolls around.

Kitchridge does not pitch.

Brad Keller pitches, mitigating damage.

Okay, after brad Keller pitches Saturday that clocked in three or four days pitched Andrew Kittridge on Sunday, guess what he gets to save nearly has an immaculate inion.

Fast forward to Monday.

Andrew Kittridge does not pitch Brad Keller.

He pitches faces a basis loaded situation with the game on the line after Porter Hodge unfortunately looks shaky Monday in the ninth inning, and Keller locks it down.

The pattern that you see is twofold number one.

Brad Keller is getting the part of the lineup that is the most difficult in the highest leverage.

So if the more difficult part of the lineup is the eighth Inian, well he's pitching the eighth inion.

Second, look at how the usage is being done recently.

It's a seesaw.

Brad Keller pitches Saturday, Andrew Kittridge pitches Sunday.

Brad Keller pitches Saturday and the roles are also defined based on accessibility as well.

This is what I think Craig's going to try to examine how well it works out before the playoffs.

I imagine that in one scenario it will be a lineup determinant who pitches the eighth in nieth inion.

In addition, I do think it also depends on accessibility.

So, for instance, if Brad Keller is used in three or four days, no matter if the lineup is the top guys going into the middle of the order, maybe Kittridge because he's a little bit more arrested, Well, he's gonna get those batters.

That appears to be the current formula.

Caleb Theobar's role has more or less stayed the same.

He's being used in high leverage against lefty parts of the lineup, but also just kind of that bridge between the middle of the seventh inning to the ninth inning.

And then there's Porter Hodge.

Let's spend a few minutes on Porter Hodge.

He has been throwing significantly faster since returning from Iowa.

Since returning from his multiple injuries this year.

Before the injury, he was throwing ninety four to ninety five miles per hour.

Since coming back, he's throwing ninety seven and in some games ninety eight, so the range is about two to four miles per hour faster since returning from end.

Also pay attention to this.

We're gonna get more information about this, I believe as the time goes on the next week.

But his breaking pitch is different.

It's not just a little bit different.

I'm not squinting at this.

It is significantly different.

Porter Hodge was a pitcher last year who got a lot of attention because he had that quintessential huge sweeper.

This pitch averaged almost eighteen to twenty inches of horizontal break and he was thrown it around eighty three to eighty four miles per hour.

Now, he was still showing that before the injury this year, but he's coming back up and that sweeper is being thrown with like ten to twelve inches of horizontal break.

It's also not dropping that much.

And this came to my attention because I'm watching the game and sometimes i have like the Game Day on or Baseball Savanta, and I'm tracking, like what pitches are being thrown, and I'm seeing these fastballs.

Classify these eighty seven eighty eight miles per hour.

I'm like, that's not right.

Those aren't fastballs.

Those got to be breaking pitches.

So, you know, I go on my computer, I'm like, what are these?

These are not sweepers, like these are not what we've seen in the year past.

And sure enough, it seems to be like this new breaking pitch is just being thrown faster, so about two to three miles per hour, more fast than before the injury and last year and two.

It's not dropping that much, it's staying in the zone more and it just has less sweep.

So I find that fascinating.

I'm not sure if that's an intentional change.

If I had to guess, I would probably say it is just because the movement profile is so wildly different, and that intrigues me.

And I know he almost listened.

He almost blew the game Monday night.

Let's be frank about it.

They're up for nothing.

Comes in, loaves the bases up, Breg Keller get him out of the jam.

So I understand that, But there are relievers, as we've known over the years, all of a sudden it clicks.

I mean it clicked for Hodge last year with the command.

I think there's also a scenario in which CORECT council is toying with the idea of this clicking and you know he's get any feedback from the coaches, get any feedback or MSS time and Iowa, they know what's going on.

And should porter Hodge have success with maybe this sharper breaking bitch.

Well again, we'll hear more about this, and I want to overspeaker and whether it's intentional or not, But generally speaking, should porter Hodge have success in the next two weeks.

I'm not saying he's going to regain the closer role, but you're already seeing COREK Council try to use him in higher than expected leverage for someone who's returning from injury in Iowa.

So fast you know what the ceiling is for him.

Keep your eyes on that.

Now, let's move on to the starting rotation.

So Matthew Boyd Kate Horn, those are the two guys gonna used in the same conversation.

Kate Horn's trending up, Matthew Boyd maybe is trending down.

So here's Boy's last five starts.

August nineteenth against Milwaukee, four earned runs, just under six innings, the twenty six against San fran just under six innings, five runs against the Rockies on the thirty first, four runs and six innings rebounds against Washington on September sixth seven innings, two runs, and against Tampa Bay five innings, four earned runs.

Not what we saw sharpness wise going through most of the year.

So the question everyone is asking is BOYD regressing?

Is he reverting?

Is he becoming fatigued?

What do we make of these last five starts?

Is this cause for concern?

And so one of the ways that I try to address this question is I look at every single one of his pitches thrown this year, and I try to find general patterns that separate out each individual pitch.

So how is this done?

Well, you can download every pitch from Baseball Savant and every single stackast metric associated with that pitch, and I can throw it through an algorithm and out pops up just a general two dimensional figure, okay, And all I can see is different dot's all over the place on X access and Y access, and I can color code each pitch and each pitch type by time.

So if I start seeing, for instance, a gradient of pitches, just deeter off into the distance.

Oh, I know Okay, there's a pattern going on there that is not like the rest of the pitches.

What's going on, and it's not looking at one individual metric, it's every single stackcast metric shrunken down into just two variables.

And when I did this encouragingly, number one, the fastball looked more or less the same and the change up looked more or less the same.

This is from just a pure stuff perspective.

Then the two changes that I saw as a function of time or sliders and curveballs.

So those are the two pitches just from crunching everything together that appear to be the most different.

Granted, the fastball location has been slightly down over the past two months, and overall location across all pitch types have been different.

But there is something.

There's a pattern in the data that's up for the coaches to try to decipher that is such ingesting the two pitch types responsible for just change over time is the curveball and the slider.

Now there's two ways to interpret this, optimistically and pestimistically optimistically as well.

He's made a career on the forcing fastball, the sinker, and the change up.

Those are his money pitches.

The slider is a new addition this year, a little bit tighter, and the curveball, while it would be great to have, if you can face mostly rities with the forcing fast change up the stinker, you can still get guys out.

But over the next two weeks, if you're curious about Matthew Boyd's you know, projection and how the Cubs are viewing them, dial in on those breaking pitches.

Are they located well, are they looking like they're breaking consistently?

And if they are, even if the results aren't coming.

Let's say, like, you know, he's not getting shut outs every start, but if you're manually tracking those pitches and you think they look consistent, I would say that's a good sign.

As far as Kate Horn goes, we're seeing basically what you expect, seventy five eighty pitches every single start, throwing changeups to left handed batters, sinkers more to right handed batters.

Stuff looks great, velocity looks great.

As a matter of time in terms of what correct Council thinks about using Kate Horn in a playoff series, Let's see how the next two weeks shape out with Matthew Boyd, fatigue, etc.

Now in terms of the offense.

A lot of discussion about Mois's biasterios, and it's all deserved.

I mean, going into today's game, Monday's game, he had over thirty played appearances, he's batting over three hundred, just had his first career big league home run, and he looks the part.

He looks hitterish, he looks like a big league hitter with that swing.

So then the question is, well, what do you do with him?

Say Sezuki, right now, he's sick, he's physically ill.

Hopefully comes back soon and maybe the time up could be a good thing for him.

Tucker is capable coming off the injured list on Tuesday, but size point towards him not doing that.

The hope as he comes back at some point towards the back end of this week.

I think Crect Council is just going to as he is with the pitchy staff, see how things shape out.

For now, Bias stereos will get opportunities.

If Saya comes back and he looks healthy, well, then say we'll probably get opportunities due to the track record.

Kyle Tucker will be your staple two to three hitter in the lineup, and the matchups are going to work its way out.

If everyone is clicking, I'm talking PCA shaw Dan's by nigo Ian Everyone Saya bias stereos is not going to get those at bats.

That's just how it's going to work.

It's hard to interpret what a sample of thirty plate appearances is, especially when you have a track record of your two three four hitters, having you know, thirty plus home run paces for most of the year.

We did see Pi Crow Armstrong start to emerge a little bit out of that funk.

Monday night had a double off the center field wall.

Next plate appearance, destroyed a Horme run to the Riffield bleachers, had a nice bat flip to go with it, or a bat drop, whatever you want to call it.

That was good to see from Pete.

He's been an interesting watch over the past six weeks.

In some respect, he looks like Saya, and what I mean by that is Saya during his struggles, has been passive.

His walk rate was nearly twenty percent over the last month, strikeout rate twenty percent in the last month.

That's Saya's.

Similarly, Pecrow Armstrong's chase rate went down from forty five percent to like thirty percent.

Contact rate hasn't really changed either.

He's just not slugging.

And so when I see signs of slug which we did, by the way, before the knee injury where he felt the ball off his kneecap, it leaves me a little hopeful.

Of course, we need to see more of it, but we know what the capacity is for Pete c Armstrong.

So if he's showing a little bit of signs of just slug again, you get to the playoffs, the environment changes on a dime.

And I genuinely mean this, I don't think we should gloss over that fact.

It is a completely different stressful environment.

No one's thinking about your stats anymore.

Pictures are amped up, you're amped up.

It's a tangible feeling, and that triggers a huge emotional response, which of course is going to trigger a significant physical response.

I think Pete is one of those guys where it could go really good or really bad.

On the contrary, he Goo Horner, for instance, seems like the opposite where he's going to be stable no matter what's going on.

If it's Game seven of the World Series or game one is spring training, Niko is probably gonna to be the same at BET but for PCA, he's one of those players where you can see just when stress is high, it could really unlock something very volatile in both a good and bad way.

And that's kind of my overall takeaway about this Cup's offense.

It's a volatile offense.

It's a season defined by extreme highs and extreme lows.

Extreme highs all the way through the All Star break and extreme lows up until really right now, injuries from Tucker Saya, extreme volatility, PCA extreme volatility, Matthew Shock, extreme development.

Dansby Swanson is a streaky hitter.

This is a streaky Cups team, but once you get into the playoffs, it's about Max's capacity and randomness and hoping that the ball fall its your way and being anchored by a consistent pitching staff.

The Cubs appear to have a lot of pitching options going into the playoffs, and they appear to have a lot of hitting max capacity options that could get right.

I'll wrap up here.

We'll talk next week in the Cubs on Tuesday podcast.

This time next week we will be a playoff team.

As always, Go Cubs.