Ever since the release of Moneyball, one of the most popular buzzwords in major league baseball has been “market inefficiency.” For over a decade, fans and analysts have been captivated by the endless quest to identify teambuilding trends that everyone else in MLB is missing. Unfortunately, for most of that time, the Cubs lagged behind the […]
Category: Articles
The Arrieta Changeup: An Old Friend, Not Seen Since Milwaukee
Last night, Jake Arrieta did something disgusting. It was so disgusting, in fact, that the guy he did the disgusting thing to could barely even react—he just put his head down and wordlessly walked away. I’m speaking, of course, about the changeup Arrieta threw to strike out Mike Trout in the fourth inning of last night’s […]
Inside the At-Bat: Anthony Rizzo’s First-Inning RBI
Welcome to the first regular season installment of Inside the At-Bat, a BP Wrigleyville series that began amid a flurry of typos and Brooks Baseball graphs in the late night hours (Eastern Standard Time!) following each game of the 2015 postseason. In 2016, it will not appear every night, but we’ll be checking often during the season’s biggest series, […]
Game 1 Recap: Cubs 9 Angels 0
This was fun. Let’s get to it. Top Play (WPA): “When you go, we go.” That’s what manager Joe Maddon said to Dexter Fowler before every one of his at-bats during the 2015 season, and it is (presumably) what he said to him today, shortly before Fowler began the Cubs’ 2016 campaign with a sharp double down the […]
Opening Day 2016: Roster Transforms in Just A Year
A lot has happened in the 364 days that have passed since Opening Day 2015 at Wrigley Field, and for this Cubs organization, the changes that have come have been fairly profound. A team’s Opening Day roster almost always varies from year to year. But more often than not, it isn’t vastly different from one Opening Day […]
Hope on a Chicago Morning
Hope. Hope upon hope. Hope met, ever-so-recently, with a reality that just might be able to justify it. Hope that springs out of a century of nearly unremitting despair, punctuated by brief moments of brilliance and a deep, abiding love. Love of a city, rising high above the heart of the country, that draws in the great […]
In Praise of Miguel Montero: The Tim Meadows of the Chicago Cubs
The Beatles had George Harrison. Late 1990s Saturday Night Live had Tim Meadows. The 2015-2016 Cubs have Miguel Montero. It seems unavoidable that every great institution has a forgotten contributor. That is, a member of the organization who, upon initial consideration, would not be mentioned as the most valuable, indispensable, or aesthetically pleasing to watch. Be […]
Cactus Catchup: This Is It
Mercifully, the games that count will start in just a matter of days, and while the official Cactus League season wrapped up on Wednesday at Sloan Park, there are still a pair of exhibition games in Las Vegas left before the Cubs start their season on Monday night in Anaheim. True to form, the last […]
Cubbie Springs: A Brief History of Spring Training Stats
Spring Training stats don’t matter, right? Well, sure, they don’t count. But that’s not the same as not mattering. For players that aren’t expected to make the roster or are seeing Major League competition for the first time, it most definitely matters. It’s a chance to build up some confidence that they can indeed play […]
BP Unfiltered: Mental Skills on the North Side
This roundup, originally published on the main site as a “BP Unfiltered” feature, highlights work previously published here at the site. If you read the pieces already, take the time to enjoy them again. If you missed one or many, sink your teeth in. We spend a lot of time—here at Baseball Prospectus, and elsewhere […]