The Cubs are a very, very good team, and playing a pretty bad team like the Angels to open the season highlighted that nicely. Top Play (WPA): By the time Anthony Rizzo stepped in against Andrew Heaney in the top of the third inning, the Cubs had already put two runs on the board. It […]
Author: Matthew Trueblood
Back Tap: How Miguel Montero Rediscovered His Opposite-Field Power
When the Cubs acquired Miguel Montero in December 2014, I was higher on the move than most. I had even written an article encouraging precisely that course of action, a few weeks beforehand. I pointed to Montero’s phenomenal numbers as a pitch framer, but also to the fact that the Diamondbacks had overused him, contributing […]
Travis Wood: Trustworthy Bullpen Linchpin, or Flash in the Bullpen Pan?
Last season, an emergent Travis Wood played a huge role in the Cubs’ mid-season bullpen revival. A unit that staggered out of the gate turned into one of the league’s best for (most of) the rest of the season, and one of the key turning points was Wood’s demotion into a relief role in mid-May. […]
Dexter Fowler Re-Signs With the Chicago Cubs: How Does Their Outfield Work Now?
Dexter Fowler is a Chicago Cub again, after some kind of pro wrestling story arc played out over the course of perhaps 45 minutes on Thursday afternoon. Which, wow. There’s a lot of emotion here. That’s what makes this story so fascinating, and we’ll have a lot more coming on the site here in the next […]
For the Chicago Cubs, Maybe Ben Zobrist Should Bat Ninth
In ‘Batting (Dis)Order,’ the chapter of The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball that deals with optimizing lineups, the authors hit the nail on the head in the introduction: “To understand the impact of your possible choices,” they write, “you have to understand the environment in which you are working. Context.” That’s true, of course, and it’s […]
PECOTA Day: Why Addison Russell Boasts the Most Interesting, Least Useful Cubs Projection
Addison Russell had a profoundly weird rookie season. You can tell it was weird, because Russell (a right-hitting, slick-fielding middle infielder who hit for surprising power but struck out a ton) got Christian Yelich (a left-hitting corner outfielder whose standout skill is his pure hit tool) as his fifth-closest PECOTA comp for 2016. Freddie Freeman […]
How Does David Ross Fit on the 2016 Chicago Cubs?
David Ross batted .176/.267/.252 for the 2015 Chicago Cubs. He’d only batted .184/.260/.368 for the 2014 Boston Red Sox, but the difference in the last figures in those two slash lines is everything. His .203 True Average in 2015 was the 10th-worst among players who went to bat at least 150 times, not quite Christhian […]
The Case for Not Extending Theo Epstein
When Theo Epstein left the Boston Red Sox and took his new position with the Chicago Cubs in late October of 2011, he wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe to explain his choice to Red Sox fans. He opened by citing Bill Walsh (the football visionary who innovated the West Coast Offense), who believed […]
Coghlan in the Machine: Is Chris Cross?
I need to tell you something, but first, here’s your grain of salt: I was in the Cubs’ clubhouse just once during the 2015 season. My sample size, as a reporter and as an observer of the team’s clubhouse culture, is entirely contained in one road game in June, and that’s a woefully insufficient sample […]
Catchella: The Cubs’ Catchers in Statistical Perspective
Today is the day, on our national parent site, on which we unveil our new and polished catcher framing, blocking, throwing and slowing (of the opponent’s running game) stats. It’s a festival of nerdiness we’re calling #Catchella, and you should head over to get a broader sense of what it entails. In the meantime, though […]