(670 The Score) You can take general manager Jed Hoyer's candor about the Cubs' struggles how you want, either finding his unflinching awareness reassuring or allowing yourself to be even more concerned as some truths about his team's recent play are laid bare.
Hoyer joined the Bernstein and McKnight Show on 670 The Score on Thursday, and he made it as clear as possible that the current level of play in evidence over the last month isn't up to their standards.
"It feels like we let opportunities to win get away," Hoyer said. "Kind of sloppy. That's what's frustrating. We've got to make fewer outs on the bases, catch the ball better, take care of the ball better, not give up as many free runs and obviously we need to get some big hits. We haven't been very good at that the last four or five weeks."
Struggles in high-leverage plate appearances aren't just a trend for the Cubs, however. They're better described as a characteristic, and even for some strong offenses that have scored plenty of runs. The concepts of clutch and choke in opportunistic situations are the subject of argument, with most baseball analysts agreeing that a hitter able to remain oneself rather than revert to something lesser is an ability, the idea that "clutch" is defined essentially as "absence of choke." But the Cubs aren't good at hitting to their expectations when at-bats matter more.
"Our situational hitting has has still been a source of frustration," Hoyer said. "This is sort of a broken record. What year is this? It seems like every year but 2017, we've struggled with guys in scoring position. It doesn't feel like we give our best at-bats in those situations. That's just something we have to keep working at, keep getting better at."
Numbers tell the story, when we look at what Fangraphs.com calls their stat for "Clutch." It defines it in their glossary as "how much better or worse a player does in high-leverage situations than he would have done in a context neutral environment." It adds that it "also compares a player against himself, so a player who hits .300 in high-leverage situations when he's an overall .300 hitter is not considered clutch."
The calculation involves Win Probability Added relative to leverage index, and the Cubs are 24th in MLB at -2.92 this season. They were 25th at -4.65 in 2018 and 26th at -5.50 in 2017. Even their timeless championship team was 24th at -3.62 in 2016. The question, of course, after churning through three hitting coaches and numerous assistants, is why this keeps happening.
"It's just a frustrating thing about our team," Hoyer said. "We haven't excelled in those situations, and those are the situations that matter. I do think we change some behaviors when we have guys on base. Certain guys might chase more in those spots, certain guys might get a bit more pull-conscious, certain guys may get more passive. I think it's something we're constantly looking at. We have to make it so we're not changing our behavior in a negative way."
So what many Cubs fans have been noticing and feeling is both borne out in the data and understood as an ongoing headwind by those in charge. Even an offense that's largely successful when judged by broad numbers can ultimately be hamstrung if it can't come through in the handful of times that games present those chances.
"There's no magic formula to get better at hitting with guys in scoring position," Hoyer said. "But we need to do a better job as a team or we're not going to get where we want to go."
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's Bernstein & McKnight Show in midday. You can follow him on Twitter @Dan_Bernstein.
