Things happen. Bullpens aren’t perfect, and more often than not, when a team loses a game that was resting on the shoulders of a bullpen arm, said pitcher is going to take some heat. Unfortunately, last week’s shocking loss to the Cardinals fell on the shoulders of Cubs reliever Pedro Strop. All runs surrendered are […]
Day: July 17, 2015
The 2015 Ballad of Jon Lester: Start No. 18
Date: July 11 Opponent: Chicago White Sox Location: Wrigley Field Introduction Typically, I open the Ballad with a remark so witty or a pop culture reference so inspired that it likely causes my reader to say, “I try to be a supportive dad, Andrew, but there’s limits.” In the final Ballad of the season’s first […]
The 2015 Cubs Are the Most Talented Cubs Team at the Break Since 2008
Abstraction is an analytical tool that, almost by definition, is very bad at explaining individual events but very good at explaining the big picture. Meanwhile, talent—and specifically, talent which is related to playing baseball—is almost certainly something best understood at the macro level. It makes sense, then, that the more you abstract from actual results […]