On Sunday afternoon, Theo Epstein released a statement explaining that the Cubs had bought out Jason Hammel’s 10 million dollar option for next year. The statement, in full, is copied in the tweet below: The #Cubs today announced that the club has declined the 2017 option on Jason Hammel’s contract. pic.twitter.com/sJ22n2VQ8N — Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) […]
Jason Hammel’s 2016 season has had its ups and downs — more downs, lately, than ups — but on the whole it hasn’t been helped by the fact that he’s been part of what has been a historically good starting rotation. Hammel currently ranks 40th in ERA (minimum 100.0 IP) for starting pitchers across all of […]
We all have questions about Jason Hammel. Why is he giving up so many home runs? How did he get so into Pearl Jam? What is the real story behind his first and second half splits? There are a bounty of questions surrounding the lanky Cubs right hander, but most importantly right now, at the […]
Recency bias, or the tendency to give disproportionate weight to something that just happened, seems to hit baseball fans and analysts especially hard. People who follow baseball (despite everything we know about sample sizes) unfortunately still fall all too often into the “what have you done for me lately” trap instead of accounting for a player’s […]
When Jason Hammel went out to the mound for his first start of the second half of the season last Saturday, a lot of fans watched with anxiety over what the results might look like. The long-held and frequently cited theory is that, as soon as the schedule officially moves across the midpoint, Hammel turns […]
Quietly, Miguel Montero and Jason Hammel have been huge parts of the Cubs’ success over the last two seasons. Montero was worth 3.9 WARP in relatively modest playing time last year, and has been worth 1.3 WARP already this year—in addition to which, he’s been Jake Arrieta’s partner in crime, Willson Contreras’s mentor, and one […]
The Cubs rotation has been the driving force behind this team all season. As the club got off to a near-historic start, it was powered largely by a pitching staff with historic run prevention rates. There were questions marks, though, about how sustainable this level of performance was given the low .258 BABIP allowed by […]
In nearly any other year, more of the space here at BP Wrigleyville would be devoted to lauding the early success of Jason Hammel, who, in some ways, has outshone his colleagues in the starting rotation, but we are in the midst of a pitching showcase from Jake Arrieta that is otherworldly, so the work of […]
It now appears that Kyle Schwarber will be Jason Hammel’s personal catcher for some portion of the 2016 season, and possibly all of it. That’s the plan, anyway, according to (variously) the Chicago Tribune and Comcast SportsNet. Why? Let’s think about this first from Schwarber’s perspective. For one thing, the Cubs want to give Miguel […]
2015 Stats 170.2 IP, 3.74 ERA, 4.61 DRA, 24.2 K%, 5.6 BB% Year in Review If you’re like me, you probably only glanced over the above line: Jason Hammel’s 2015 stats. But take another look and really soak it in. Outside of that DRA—which is certainly concerning—Hammel had a damn fine season, and definitely one worthy […]