Last April 17th, BP Wrigleyville, then in its infancy, commemorated Kris Bryant Day by looking back at the debuts of some of the franchise’s most iconic players. Despite our initial wariness about celebrating yet another holiday manufactured by the greeting card companies, we came together to celebrate and put the heralded prospect’s arrival in historical context. Following […]
Author: Andrew Felper
Cactus Catchup: If You Think You Look Hot
Life—regardless of your age, race, gender, or socioeconomic status—is full of uncertainties. It’s these unknowns awaiting you that make life both exciting and terrifying, often in equal measure. Other than serving as a long-winded intro for a writer in the throes of a bloc, it is my way of assuring you in the midst of […]
Cactus Catchup: These Ones Don’t Count
Beware the Ides of March (or at least a few days before). While modern day Arizona might bare only a faint resemblance to Caesar’s Rome, the Cubs dealt with a few minor setbacks this week. First, Albert Amora was pulled from drills on Wednesday after experiencing back spasms. The team, however, has ruled out any […]
John Lackey Has Become A Man In Need of Few Pitches
Brevity, as it so often has been said in sentences much shorter and more concise and less redundant and less repetitive than this one, is the soul of wit. For John Lackey, brevity was the soul of his 2015. Last season, among qualified starting pitchers, Lackey ranked third in pitches per plate appearance (3.49) and […]
Alex Gordon: Potential Offseason Target
Position: Outfield 2015: .271/.377/.432, .299 TAv, 2.9 bWARP (limited to 104 games and 422 plate appearances after missing nearly two months with a groin injury) Customarily, I don’t like to ladle out hot takes, but this being Thanksgiving week, I want to share my bounty of steaming takes with you, the BP reader. Gather around, everybody, […]
Cubs Player Profile: Travis Wood
2015 Stats 54 G, 100.2 IP, 3.84 ERA, 3.91 DRA, 28.2% K%, 9.3% BB% Year in Review If there is one thing baseball writers and analysts love, it’s spending hours on Twitter discussing their favorite television show (on a related note, head to @AndrewFelper for my vitally important thoughts on Fargo and Brooklyn Nine-Nine). If […]
Free Agency, Trade, or Both: Nobody Pitches for Free—Assessing the Cubs’ Pitching Situation
“Regarding our starting pitching, the topic sentence is: we would like to add more quality pitching.” —Theo Epstein (October 22, 2015) There are four guarantees in life: death, taxes, people overusing “death and taxes” to make their points, and the need for starting pitching depth. No matter the era, teams—especially contending teams—crave starting pitching. In the […]
Cubs Player Profile: Jon Lester
2015 Stats 205.0 IP, 3.34 ERA, 3.89 DRA, 25.0% K%, 5.7 BB% Year in Review On the morning of May 6th, the Chicago Cubs were not reeling, but they were in a funk. They were losers of four consecutive games, including the first two of a four-game set in St. Louis. It was just the first […]
Inside the At-Bat: Lucas Duda’s First-Inning Home Run
I know that evenin’s empire has returned into sand Vanished from my hand Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet I have no one to meet And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming I’m not sure if Bob Dylan is a […]
Inside the At-Bat: Kyle Schwarber’s Eighth-Inning Pop-Out
In baseball, momentum is a fleeting, unsustainable commodity. It can last a game, an inning, or, at the absolute least, one pitch. As we discovered in the eighth inning of Game Three of the NLCS, when the momentum ceases in a pitch, it’s as deflating as it is sudden. If the Cubs had a standout offensive […]