The BP Annual’s blurb on Gleyber Torres includes a cautionary aside: “When you’re scouting [Torres’s] stat line, remember the following key considerations: age relative to level, position, and the fact that you really shouldn’t be scouting his stat line.” While cute, it’s salient advice nonetheless: low-level minors stat lines are almost never useful in scouting players […]
Category: Articles
Embrace the Target: The Cubs’ Bullpen Options Are Good in 2016, Pt. II
Early last week, I reviewed the Cubs’ late inning bullpen options, or at least those options as they appear during the trial period that is known as Spring Training. With the amount of depth and flexibility the Cubs have on their bullpen roster, this is a neverending discussion with a large range of possible outcomes. And […]
Found in Translation: Gleyber Torres
Gleyber Torres has come a long way in just the two years that he’s been in the organization, and the Cubs’ top prospect is still just 19 years old. That should tell you something about the Venezuelan shortstop, and help explain why so many Cubs fans are excited about his future. When he was 16, he […]
Dexter Fowler’s Impact on the Race for the Roster
One short month ago, I wrote about the Cubs’ cramped roster situation, and laid out the various scenarios that might unfold before we get to a final Opening Day roster. The front office had already had an incredible offseason, bringing in top-level talent at three different positions via free agency, and adding an intriguing arm in […]
Looking Ahead: The (Possible) Story of the 2016 Season
Each baseball season tells its own story, and though many of the superficial details are similar year to year—all seasons start in the spring and end in the fall, for example—no two stories end up coming out quite the same. It’s important, therefore, to actively resist the temptation to assign any sort of label to the 2016 […]
Cactus Catchup: It’s March in Mesa
All the Dexter Fowler excitement concluded by the time our Cactus Catchup #2 went live, so I’ve been left without much in the way of good news to report. Even so, the Cubs have everybody in camp and little tidbits of information are beginning to roll in as the team prepares to begin its slate […]
Tested in Crucible of NLCS, Cubs Move Forward With Single Purpose
It was Shane Victorino who set me down this path. Last Thursday, reports emerged that the 35-year-old outfielder had agreed to join the Cubs in camp in Mesa in exchange for a shot at the big-league roster on Opening Night in Anaheim. There’s a number of reasonable ways to react to that news, of course, but […]
Schwarber and Soler’s Contact Issues are Different, the Same
Well. The Cubs have had quite a busy few days, when it comes to the outfield, and we now know that Kyle Schwarber, Jason Heyward, Jorge Soler, and Dexter Fowler are going to spend the bulk of the time roaming the outfield grass at Wrigley Field. But we’re also left with a lot of questions […]
Maybe Ben Zobrist and Jason Heyward Should Bat Sixth
INTERIOR of Dexter Fowler’s living room. Fowler is on the speaker phone with his agent. CASEY CLOSE So it looks like 3 years, 33 million is the best Angelos is gonna do. DEXTER FOWLER I guess that’s what I’ll have to go with. There aren’t any other offers? CASEY CLOSE None that I’m aware of … […]
Weird in 2015, Cubs Expected to Stay That Way in 2016
Last year, at another site, I noted that the Cubs were, by one measure, extremely weird. In that article, I looked at eight team measures—strikeout rate, walk rate, home run rate (for pitchers and for batters), baserunning ability, and defensive ability—which are roughly united in that they all can be defining characteristics of a given team. […]