Top Play (WPA): I wish I was writing about something different here, but I’m not. This game looked like it might be the Cubs’ to win—see ‘Key Moment’, below—but it slipped out of their grasp seconds after the ball slipped out of Hector Rondon’s right hand and collided, shortly thereafter, with Joey Votto’s bat. That home run (+0.485) […]
Author: Rian Watt
That’s So Cub: A Look at the Top August Contributors and Moments
It’s the beginning of September, which not only means that kids head back to school and beer gardens become a lot less fun, but also that I, as I have since the beginning of time the beginning of the season, will sit down and write about the top Cubs’ contributors and moments from the previous month. If you want […]
What’s Up With: Fernando Rodney
Acquiring Fernando Rodney by trade in exchange for the proverbial PTBNL, as the Cubs did yesterday, is the baseball equivalent of buying a beat-up Ferrari for a fixer upper and putting the charge on your AmEx. Best case scenario, you’ve got a Ferrari and you don’t have to pay until the bill comes due (at which […]
Miguel Montero and the Vagaries of Variance
On Friday afternoon, Miguel Montero’s throw to second base tailed off into center field, allowing the Braves’ Andrelton Simmons to advance to third base. It was the sixth inning of a one-run game, and so I was understandably upset. So upset, in fact, that I lashed out with some ungentlemanly language, using an epithet (#Cubes) […]
Game 123 Recap: Cubs 2 Indians 1
Top Play (WPA): You know what it is! Kris Bryant’s second walkoff home run of the year (and first that I didn’t attend in person) sent the Cubs home happy (+0.469). After Jon Lester barely missed a Maddux (complete game shutout, less than 100 pitches), the mood at Wrigley was somewhat dark. Chris Coghlan and Anthony Rizzo had […]
The Road They’ve Traveled: George Plimpton, DRA Run Values, and the Cubs Rotation
One of my favorite baseball books is George Plimpton’s 1961 classic, Out of My League. Plimpton, the founding executive editor of the Paris Review—and an enormous baseball fan—took it upon himself to pitch batting practice to the 1958 National League All-Stars a few hours before they took on the Junior Circuit at Yankee Stadium that year. Plimpton […]
Game 121 Recap: Cubs 9 Braves 7
Top Play (WPA): Miguel Montero has earned a reputation among Cubs fans—deservedly so—for his hard-nosed play, his Twitter glories, and his #OppoPop. The last of these was on fine display today, as he untied the game in the seventh inning with a blast to left field that barely made it into the basket (+.281). That brought the Cubs […]
An Exercise in Hopeful Caution: The Young Cubs and PECOTA 10-Year Projections
There are lots of exciting things about the Chicago Cubs this season, and in my opinion the most exciting among them is this: Despite their sizable and ever-increasing odds of making the playoffs (86.3 percent, as of this writing), fans have every reason to believe that the 2015 major-league baseball season will be the Cubs’ worst in […]
Calm Kyle Hendricks No More Volatile Than You’d Expect
On Friday, August 14th, I found myself on Twitter. This happens a lot. It’s not localized to Fridays, honestly, or to Augusts, or to days which fall a fortnight into their respective months. It’s just something I do from time to time. And on this particular Friday, I spotted on my timeline the following tweet: I […]
Game 115 Recap: Cubs 6 White Sox 3
Top Play (WPA): It was a very weird moment. Kyle Schwarber, who has been tearing up the league, was on deck with a runner on first and Dexter Fowler up, and the White Sox chose to walk Fowler intentionally—putting runners on first and second—to reach Schwarber with two outs in the bottom of the fifth inning. […]