It seems like just yesterday. Cactus League games started and Cubs Nation rejoiced with the return of baseball. Fans watched practice games and fielding drills like idiots on their first trip to the zoo. Now the batters have their timing, starters have stretched out their arms, the front office has dispatched most of the minor […]
Author: Dan Hodgman
A reasoned analysis of Kyle Schwarber’s left field play
For all the members of Cubs Nation that have already wiped pre-2016 Cubs history from their memories, I will remind you about some very recent history: in 2015, the New York Mets unceremoniously swept the upstart Cubs 4-0, ending their season. At this point, I doubt that many Cubs players dwell on that sweep. One […]
Has the fly ball revolution hit the Windy City?
My high school coach complained every time my teammates and I hit a fly ball. He had a temper, and would berate us in the dugout for stupidly hitting the ball in the air. He taught us a level swing that generated line drives or, almost as good, ground balls. There was probably nothing quite […]
How Did Pedro Strop Make More than Dellin Betances in Arbitration?
Baseball arbitration, compared to alternative means of resolving management-labor disputes, represents a remarkable success. At the same time, watching how salary arbitration played out for Pedro Strop as compared to the Yankees’ Dellin Betances, one of the few flaws in the system became apparent. A brief history of baseball arbitration MLB’s salary arbitration system came […]
Addy’s 2016 postseason adjustment is carrying over to spring training and that is a very good thing
It’s funny to describe a player who amassed 3.86 wins above replacement last year as a breakout candidate. Baseball is chock full of good players who contributed that much to their teams’ success. For instance, David Ortiz (3.88) and Dexter Fowler (3.62). And yet, many observers, including a majority of the BP Wrigleycast crew, have pegged […]
Cactus Catchup: All Smiles in Mesa as the Game Begins Again
Sixteen weeks have passed since the Cubs won the World Series, and for many Cubs fans, it felt like sixteen years. Baseball, in its tepid early-spring training form, is back. Even if the weather is not spring-like in most of the U.S., Spring Training games always remind me of A. Bartlett Giamatti’s The Green Fields […]
How Likely are the Cubs to Flop in 2017?
As we get closer to the start of the baseball season, I’ve found myself wondering why I am hopeful, and yet I worry about, the 2017 Cubs season. I am old enough to remember most Cubs seasons of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Each preseason, I felt the excitement of the unknown, like a blackjack player […]
How the Cubs Will Find Places for Javier Baez to Play in 2017
When Javy Baez exploded into the national consciousness in the 2016 MLB playoffs, many Cubs fans chuckled. We had blissfully marinated in Baez’s sensational defensive play for the better parts of 2014, 2015, and 2016. My favorite play? When Baez deked the Dodgers’ baserunners by letting the soft liner drop in front of him for […]