The Opposite of the Angels

One has to wonder what fans of the Cubs would’ve said if a little birdie foretold of Marlon Byrd, Starlin Castro, Carlos Silva, and Tom Gorzelanny’s seasons in the springtime. Sure, Angel Guzman would still be out, but with those four contributing so much, the Cubs would have to be contenders. To steal a bit from Carson Cistulli, if the Cubs’ fan on staff, the illustrious Bryan Smith, had his druthers, this Cubs’ season would disappear.

The list of disasters for the Cubs this season is long and stretches from Carlos Zambrano to Aramis Ramirez to Derrek Lee and beyond. We have this nifty little metric on the leaderboards and player pages called “Clutch”. Essentially, it measures if a batter hits better or worse in – you guessed it – clutch situations than they normally do. The Cubs as a team are hitting worse. Far worse. Like -5.88 wins worse.

The most critical offenders are Geovany Soto (-1.96), Tyler Colvin (-1.06), Lee (-0.95) the departed Ryan Theriot (-0.84), Alfonso Soriano (-0.75), and Ramirez (-0.50). As it turns out, those six batters account for nearly 50% of the Cubs’ high leverage plate appearances. Whenever that much of your lineup is having serious issues hitting in big spots, trouble is bound to ensue. At first blush, with the talent on this roster, it looks like a feature of the offense that regression and a fresh slate will ostracize. Slight problem there: that last sentence could apply to eight of the last ten seasons and now nine of the last eleven. Here are the Cubs’ Clutch scores dating back to 2000:

2010: -5.88
2009: -4.98
2008: 0.90
2007: -3.10
2006: 0.10
2005: -2.63
2004: -6.52
2003: -2.15
2002: -5.96
2001: -0.85
2000: -3.79

That, folks, is a total of -35 wins. The Angels have become spectacles of clutch hitting perfection. If you take their Clutch scores since 2000 and add them all up, you won’t reach 20 wins and if you only add up the positive values you fall four shy of 30. The Cubs are essentially the anti-Angels but to a higher degree. If someone were to ink a holy book of unclutch named The Book of A-Rod (ironically, of course), the 2000-2010 Cubs would be all up in that.

There does not seem to be a common thread either. They’ve had four different managers over this span, numerous hitting coaches – including the highly praised Rudy Jaramillo – and even a couple of general managers. Maybe everything, from teaching to evaluation and preparation methods remained the same, but that seems unlikely. This phenomenon drains on players homegrown and free agents signed alike. It appears to hold no discrimination for age or position. The only thing constant is that it has zapped the Cubs for the last decade plus and the answer as to why is mystifying.