Top Play (WPA): It’s not really noticeable until you look carefully, but the ivy-clad brick walls in the Wrigley outfield are capped, just above the yellow-rimmed wire basket, with a two-foot deep rim of smooth concrete painted in the deepest green. For most of its history (to be fair, it’s a short one—that rim was re-poured this past […]
Author: Rian Watt
What’s Up With: Tommy Hunter
On Sunday, July 24, 2016, the second-best left-handed outfielder ever born on November 21st in Denora, Pennsylvania, will stride across a dais in Cooperstown, New York, and into baseball immortality. I can say that with such certainty, before a single writer has called his name, because the 630 home runs he hit over a dazzling 22-year […]
Game 109 Recap: Cubs 8 Giants 6
Top Play (WPA): This was a really fun game, though it got a little hairy at the end. The Cubs had a lot of opportunities to score, and made the most of them. No-one, perhaps, enjoyed the offensive explosion more than Kris Bryant, who’s had a rough go of it at the plate lately. In the […]
That’s So Cub: A Look at the Top July Contributors and Moments
It’s the beginning of August, which means not only that the dog days of summer are officially here, 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 a brief technical summary of […]
Thinking About a Jake Arrieta Extension
There are two things you should know about Jake Arrieta before we begin, and they are: since joining the Chicago Cubs in July of 2013, he has been (1) very good, and (2) very inexpensive. Let’s start with very good: in the 343 innings he’s pitched since the midseason trade that brought him over from […]
Game 99 Recap: Rockies 7 Cubs 2
Top Play (WPA): It’s not quite accurate to say that this game was a disaster from the start, but that’s only because Dallas Beeler had been announced as Tuesday’s starter a few days in advance and so it’s probably more accurate to say it was a disaster from whenever that happened. Beeler was flat-out dreadful, allowing four runs […]
Game 96 Recap: Phillies 5 Cubs 0
Top Play (WPA): Nobody is going to read this recap. Nobody, because the mighty have fallen. 7,921 games after Sandy Koufax last threw one against them, at Dodger Stadium on a cool September night, the Chicago Cubs have fallen victim to that extraordinarily rare baseball accomplishment: the no-hitter. Cole Hamels, the Philadelphia starter, was masterful today, striking out […]
DRA, cFIP, and the Cubs Rotation Going Forward
Would it surprise you to learn that Chicago Cubs starters have been among the best in baseball in 2015? If so, it shouldn’t. Their 3.38 staff ERA ranks fifth in the game. Their 3.22 FIP is second, as is their strikeout rate. They have walked fewer batters, as a percentage of the total they have […]
Game 93 Recap: Reds 9 Cubs 1
Top Play (WPA): The trouble with unitary categories like ‘single’, ‘double’, ‘triple’, and ‘home run’ is that it’s very easy to believe that they tell you more than they do. When you hear that a player hit a double, for example, your mind probably immediately fills with visions of well-struck line drives to the gap in left-center, when […]
Game 90 Recap: Cubs 4 Braves 1
Top Play (WPA): Jonathan Herrera. What can I say about him that hasn’t already been said, often somewhat rudely, by the joyless denizens of Twitter? Honestly, not much; he seems like a nice guy and a good teammate, but a .256/.274/.341 line coming into play today is hard to get too excited about, especially when it comes […]