This piece, by BP Wrigleyville’s Editor-in-Chief Sahadev Sharma, first appeared at the Baseball Prospectus main site and is available to everyone for free. We’ve posted a sneak preview here.
The plan all along was for this Cubs team to be built on offense. After clinching a trip to the club’s first NLCS in a dozen years, team president Theo Epstein discussed how he and his staff once envisioned these bats all coming together and leading this group to great places.
“We’d write out the lineups on a cocktail napkin at 2 a.m. in some (crappy) hotel bar thinking where we might get these guys in the draft,” Epstein reminisced while celebrating with his team after a 6-4 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. “Then we get them and we put them up on the white board in the board room and start to get pretty excited. Then in spring training you see them play together for the first time and you start to get really excited. Then the regular season happens and we take off. Now you see those guys playing together and beating the Cardinals in the Division Series. It’s just insanity.”
Epstein’s on point: This is all insanity. Javier Baez taking a John Lackey two-seam fastball on the outer edge of plate the other way for a three-run homer in a big second inning. Kyle Schwarber launching a Kevin Siegrist four-seamer over the right-field video board. For the second evening in a row, the offense put on a show with the long ball and will get the headlines, but as general manager Jed Hoyer told me, they weren’t alone in this one.
“Everyone’s talking Baez, everyone’s talking Schwarber,” Hoyer said. “They deserve all that, but I do think the bullpen was MVP of the game.”
Bullpens are always an interesting study, but the group used by the Cubs on Tuesday afternoon was quite the eclectic collection. First came Justin Grimm, who was acquired from Texas two summers ago when the Cubs sent Matt Garzasouth. Many believed that manager Joe Maddon would have a quick hook with starter Jason Hammel, and after he walked the leadoff man in the third, the Cubs skipper walked to the mound and called for Grimm.
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Lead photo courtesy Jerry Lai—USA Today Sports.