The Chicago Cubs spent a tremendous amount of money last offseason, as they correctly identified the beginning of an open window of contention their young, cost-controlled players gave them. I argued that even the larger contracts that the Cubs signed (namely Jason Heyward, John Lackey and Ben Zobrist) all angled towards keeping the Cubs’ longterm […]
Day: January 27, 2017
BP Annual Retrospective: A Decade with Rich Hill and Jeff Samardzija
“There’s no limit to how .480 this team could be.” This might sound like a sneak preview of the Marlins or Diamondbacks chapter in the upcoming Baseball Prospectus 2017 annual, but in fact was the first line of the team comment on the 2007 Cubs. Yes, the team outlook was just a little different a […]
Is a Cubs “D-Peat” Imperative?
“If we catch the ball and pitch the ball like we did last spring and this year, we shall ‘D-Peat.” — Joe Maddon While talking about his team’s historically great defense in 2016 at the Cubs Convention earlier this month, we were blessed with the latest Maddon-ism: “D-Peat”. It is clever not only because of its double […]