Kyle's Right, The Cubs Find Another Way To Go Cheaper
Programming Note: A reminder, I'm headed out of town on Wednesday for an extended weekend, planned long before I decided to launch this track record of my descent. So Thursday's newsletter will likely only be a preview of the Hawks-Stars game, and there will be no newsletter Friday or Monday. Thanks for your understanding.
Sector 1901 - Kyle's Right
A 69-point pace wouldn't seem to be much to get excited about (no, I don't ever make that joke because A. it's played out, and B. the actual act forces one to concentrate too heavily on one half to enjoy the other, whatever way). And yet when Kyle Davidson tells our guy Black Pilled Benny Pope yesterday in the Sun-Times that he sees improvement, it's quite rightly the case. It feels a little odd to read after the Hawks basically spent most of their two games against the Kings and Ducks getting run over and just having more pucks go in (thanks Darcy), but the numbers are there overall.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this season so far is the defense is much better. It's improved enough that the Hawks have been able to withstand Petr Mrazek basically being replacement level (0.3 goals-saved above expected) without totally collapsing. Before the season, most would have thought if Mrazek didn't perform at least a couple miracles that the Hawks would be close to winless. Not so.
Let's get to the meat of it. Last year, their expected-goals against when adjusted for venue and score at even-strength was 3.00. It's 2.62 this year, an improvement that would have seen them leap from 30th in the category last season to 20th. 20th obviously isn't anything to crow about, nor is the 22nd standing they have this season, but it's way better than it's been. A journey of 1,000 miles and all that.
An early-season trend of the Hawks giving up a lot of attempts but limiting the good chances has somewhat evened out as the season has gone on, as they rank 22nd in both Corsi-against and expected-goals against. And through the first 13 games, the Hawks have been able to keep their own slot from becoming an all-night rave as it was last year:
Boy what's going on on the right side of the Hawks' zone? Oh, T.J. Brodie plays there. Seriously, that's probably small-sample size noise but we'll follow it as the season continues.
On a more micro-level, it's one thing for the Hawks to improve and another to make sure it's the players they need to engineer that improvement doing so. There is value in the whole ship rising of course. For one, getting more experience playing in close games is valuable, though losing them all doesn't really do much which is why Saturday was encouraging. Two, just an overall better platform gets the younger players used to what NHL hockey should look like as they're moving forward.
But it's one thing for just a couple vets who aren't long for this town having good seasons, and another when the pillars of the future are. On that count...still pretty good! Alex Vlasic's defensive numbers have held pretty much the same (2.51 xGA/60 this year vs. 2.54 last year). But he's done that while sometimes playing a new role of being the more aggressive of the pairing he's on and with a variety of partners, and with a drop in his offensive zone starts. All good there, as we can safely say that Vlasic's game is expanding.
Wyatt Kaiser only has 32 games last year to look at, but his xGA/60 has dropped from 2.68 to 2.52, while only starting a third of his shifts in the defensive zone, a seven percent drop from last year. Kaiser does seem to get better with every game
If you care about this sort of thing, Connor Bedard's xGA/60 has also dropped from 3.19 to 2.93, which isn't great (264th among forwards who have played 100 minutes so far), but at least it's going in the right direction.
But with Bedard, it's the other end of the ice we really care about. As a team, the Hawks have improved a bit in the attacking zone, going from 2.1 xG/60 to 2.33 this season. Yes, Bedard only has three goals on the year, but that's going to change soon. Bedard's shots per 60 at 5-on-5 are up nearly 50%, from 7.2 to 10.4. His attempts per 60 are up from 14.9 to 18.2. And his ixG/60 has risen from 0.89 to 1.19.
That second mark is top-25 in the league among forwards, and that's still with not really playing with any other top-line level talent (sorry Teuvo, it hurts to say that but let's be real). Imagine what that number could be when the Hawks trade for Kaprizov in the summer (I kid I kid...maybe). His shooting-percentage has dropped three points from 11 to 8, and the kid is just too talented to shoot below 10 percent for a whole season.
In Pope's article, Davidson also waxes lyrical about Lukas Reichel. And it's easy to do, because Reichel is so fast that it's easy to notice him when he does something well and that tends to accentuate those moments to more than they're actually worth. It feels a little in the same neighborhood of Ryan Poles using Hard Knocks to try and inflate Velus Jones Jr.'s trade-value, because none of Reichel's metrics are all that encouraging.
His xG% is still below 40 percent, and while he is getting more chances than he was last season (it would be impossible to get less), his xGA/60 is 3.62. Which is worse than 2023-2024. Yes, he occasionally makes more things happen in the offensive zone than he was, but this is still a player with a long way to go.
Opposite side of the spectrum, Arvid Soderblom is 11th in the league in goals-saved above expected in just three starts.
Overall though, Kyle's right. The Hawks are still bad, but aren't woeful. They probably calculated they'd get a little more from Mrazek than they have, which was always an iffy projection but also the kind of one a team like the Hawks make. We'll see what Brossoit brings. No, it isn't that much more pleasant to watch, but it is better. It just might not feel like it.
Between G-Man And Nisei - The Cubs Find Another Way To Go Cheap
The Cubs were probably hoping that with the Bears once again sending the town into angry orbit, and with the World Series just ending, most fans would just kind of turn off for a little bit. But The Athletic's Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney had a story cataloging yet another way the Cubs want to pretend to be small-market.
The TL;DR version, or conclusion, is that a team shouldn't try to top the Milwaukee Brewers by trying to do what the Milwaukee Brewers do better than the Milwaukee Brewers do it. I guess I should have known that was always the plan when the Cubs stole the Milwaukee Brewers manager, and got distracted by throwing more money at him than any other manager in MLB.
The Cubs are paring down their MLB scouting department, as well as scouts for the upper levels of the minors, to be replaced by more analytic and video-driven employees and models. And this isn't some new school vs. old school debate.
The question is, why wouldn't the Cubs have a robust department in both categories? What would they lose by having more information? It's certainly not a cost that an organization like them should notice or feel the need to cut.
The advantage the Cubs have over the Brewers, and really over most of the National League aside from two or three teams, is their resources. They should be able to overwhelm the competition in the division with the sheer size of everything they can afford. And they are able, they just don't want to.
When you read "unlike the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees" and "more like Milwaukee, Tampa, and Cleveland" and you're the Chicago Cubs with one of the most expensive tickets in baseball that still doesn't prevent you from drawing millions, it's the wrong direction. Cleveland wins a shitty a division full of morons all the time, though it could be argued that the Cubs can't even manage that much. And seeing as how the Guardians' success has continued since Carter Hawkins came to Chicago, it's fair to wonder how vital he was to it.
That article goes on to mention how the Orioles and Astros, two other teams miles ahead of the Cubs, are expanding their scouting network at the moment.
The impression here is that the Cubs are just doing this to do it, and to save nickels while they're swimming in bills. Certainly Jed Hoyer hasn't proven he can do more with less. He hasn't even proven he can do the same with the same. This is an unserious organization in just about every way.
