If one were to write a book about the first 72 games of Miami’s 2016 season it would likely be titled Slightly Above Average: The Story of the First 72 Games of Miami’s 2016 Season*. Their record is 38-34. Their third-order winning percentage is .509. Their run differential is even.
Luckily for the Marlins, though, slightly above average is good enough for playoff contention. Entering the weekend, the Marlins are five games back in the NL East, but just one game back of the second wild card. The Fish are contenders, and could pose a formidable challenge, especially offensively, as the Cubs, who are reeling ever so slightly, arrive in Miami for the four-game series starting Thursday night. It will be their only visit of 2016.
The big story for the 2016 Marlins is the very fact they remain competitive in the NL despite the absence of Dee Gordon, and, more significantly, the much-discussed, prolonged slump of their superstar, Giancarlo Stanton. On April 30, he owned a Stanton-like .944 OPS. However, in his 155 plate appearances since that night, Stanton’s hitting .187/.292/.343, with just five home runs and three times as many strikeouts as walks. In 60 games, he’s been worth 1.4 wins, according to bWARP. In 74 games in his injury-shortened 2015, he was worth 4.6 wins. Stanton’s struggles seem tied to his performance against four-seam fastballs, the pitch against which he’s slugged .612 against his career, and sees with far greater frequency of than any other pitch. To keep it concise, Stanton is swinging at more fastballs, but whiffing more and putting fewer in play. It should be interesting to see how the Cubs pitchers attack Stanton, as three of the four starters are primarily four-seam fastball pitchers. However, even with his struggles, he remains Giancarlo Stanton (a .216 ISO in a down year), and there have been signs over the past week that he might be coming around (see What to Watch for).
Last year, the Cubs and Marlins split six games, with Chicago dropping two of three in Miami. In the year plus since that series, I’ve watched a half dozen episodes a week of The Golden Girls on the Hallmark Channel, and while it holds up better than any sitcom of the 1980s, I am ready for some South Florida escapades that don’t involve retirees, almost as much as the Cubs are ready to get back to their prodigiously winning ways. Let’s see how the series breaks down.
*I am currently in the midst of a frenzied bidding war with multiple publishers to write this book. Bob Woodward will not beat me to the punch again!
Probable Pitchers
Thursday: Jon Lester vs. Wei-Yin Chen
Last June at Miami, Lester surrendered a mammoth home run to Stanton on a 92 MPH four-seam fastball that stayed up and over the plate:
On that night, Lester allowed six earned runs on 10 base runners in five innings, and picked up the loss in his second-worst start of 2015. Since that night, a span of 35 regular season starts, Lester has posted a 2.67 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, and a 26.2 percent strikeout rate. He’s entering the series opener pitching as well as he ever has in his career.
Chen is posting the worst DRA (4.26), FIP (4.75), and WHIP (1.34) of his career. This has largely been a product of the lefthander’s horrific June, in which he owns a 1.53 WHIP, 7.78 ERA, and has surrendered seven home runs in four starts. Chen goes to his four-seam fastball about half the time, and has four secondary pitches (sinker, change, curve, slider), each of which he goes to 11-14 percent of the time. In June, batters are slugging .568 against his primary pitch and .683 against his secondary pitches, so not much is working for Chen.
Friday: Kyle Hendricks vs. Tom Koehler
In two starts against the Marlins last season, Hendricks struck out 13 batters and allowed four earned runs in 13 1/3 innings, winning at home, but losing in Miami. This year, he’s more than doubled his four-seam fastball usage to 16 percent, and held batters to a .188 slugging percentage. However, in his two starts against the Marlins in 2015, he threw just 10 combined four-seamers. Will he repeat that trend, or continue to turn to his most dominant pitch of 2016? Hey, tune into CSN to find out!
Koehler, a week shy of 30, is enjoying the best run of his career. In Koehler’s last nine starts dating back to early May, he owns a 2.59 ERA, .610 opponent’s OPS, and a dramatically improved 1.31 WHIP. He’s always been reliant on his four-seam fastball (about 50 percent of all pitches), but this season he’s upped his slider usage from roughly 13 percent to 21 percent (28 percent with two strikes), and the results have been extraordinary. Batters are slugging .149 against the pitch, and the right-hander has become a league-average pitcher in the process. Last season, Koehler threw just 12 sliders (on 91 pitches) in holding the Cubs to one run on six baserunners in six innings while picking up a win at Wrigley, but expect a few more on Friday.
Saturday: John Lackey vs. Paul Clemens
As you probably know, Lackey since May 1 (1.97 ERA and 0.89 WHIP) has been a very different pitcher than Lackey in April (4.97 ERA and 1.22 WHIP). In these last 10 starts, he’s increased the usage of his fourseam fastball (38 to 46 percent) and curve (7 to 14 percent) and cut his sinker use in half (23 percent to 12 percent). The results speak for themselves (well, maybe not: the results have been good).
Clemens is a big right-hander, who in 49 appearances over three seas4.ons with Houston and Miami, owns a 1.54 WHIP and 5.02 DRA. On Monday, in his first and only appearance thus far in 2016, Clemens allowed three home runs in five innings against the Colorado Rockies. He relies overwhelmingly on a four-seam fastball (67 percent in his career), while mixing in a curve and change. Batters have slugged .662 against his fastball, which includes two of the three home runs surrendered against the Rockies. In his career, right-handed and left-handed batters own a .939 and .829 OPS, respectively, which means if the offense has yet to stop reeling in the first two games, Saturday presents a solid opportunity.
Sunday: Jason Hammel vs. Jose Fernandez
Hammel’s 2015 start in Miami saw him strikeout a season-high 11 batters, while issuing no walks and allowing one earned run in 6 2/3 innings pitched. On that day, he threw a season-high 54 fourseam fastballs, his highest total since May, 2013. It’ll be interesting to see if he follows a similar game plan on Sunday, as he is throwing a career-low 26 percent four-seamers this season.
Jose Fernandez is Jose Freaking Fernandez. I mean, what can you do? In 2016, a combined 83 percent of his pitches have been four-seam fastballs and curves, and batters are slugging .259 combined against the two pitches. However, despite Fernandez’s otherworldly numbers (1.84 DRA), offenses have found some success early, both in plate appearances and games. Batters own a .536 slugging percentage on the first pitch, and a .280/.351/.361 line in the first inning. In fact, in the first inning, Fernandez’s ERA “balloons” to 3.21 and his WHIP is nearly 1.50. On Sunday, look for Cubs hitters to be aggressive, especially in the early innings.
What to Watch for
If you haven’t already, get to know the Marlins outfield, because they could be a nuisance this weekend. While Stanton has looked merely mortal, the Marlins are still being paced offensively by what is one of the NL’s most productive outfields. Entering Wednesday, their outfield ranks first in on-base percentage and OPS, second in slugging percentage, and fourth in walks and walk rate. Christian Yellich (.316/.404/.491) and Marcell Ozuna (.321/.373/.565) are having monster seasons. Ichiro Suzuki is closing in on 3,000 hits, owns a .313 TAv, and has already been worth more wins, according to bWARP, then he was total from 2011-2015. And despite a slow start from Stanton that has his TAv 35 points below his career average, he could be round back into form. Before an 0-for-5 on Tuesday night at Atlanta, Stanton had gone 9-for-23 in his previous six games, matching his total number of hits in 20 games from May 14 through mid June.
We haven’t mentioned the Marlins bullpen, but it’s decidedly mediocre, ranking between sixth and tenth in the NL in most pertinent relief categories. However, they rank third-to-last in walk rate (11.0 percent), so it might behoove Cubs hitters to be patient in the middle and later innings.
Broadcast Info, Game Times
All times are Central Standard Time
This weekend series features a veritable smorgasbord of start times and networks. The first two games will be on CSN, with first pitches scheduled for 6:10 PM. Saturday’s first pitch is at 3:10 and can be seen on WGN. The series wrap ups Sunday on ABC 7, with the action getting under way at 12:10. Enjoy the games!
Lead photo courtesy Steve Mitchell—USA Today Sports.