Each year, as the MLB regular season begins, analysts and managers alike caution fans to avoid taking their team’s early results too seriously. They’ll tell us, “We haven’t played that well, but it’s only April … championships aren’t won it April.” Or, they’ll say, “We’ve started well, yeah, but we won’t know anything about this […]
Category: Articles
John Lackey Has Become A Man In Need of Few Pitches
Brevity, as it so often has been said in sentences much shorter and more concise and less redundant and less repetitive than this one, is the soul of wit. For John Lackey, brevity was the soul of his 2015. Last season, among qualified starting pitchers, Lackey ranked third in pitches per plate appearance (3.49) and […]
Cactus Catchup: The First Week
Editor’s Note: Twice-weekly, while Spring Training continues, we’ll be running a ‘Cactus Catchup’ that runs down all the comings and goings in Mesa, Arizona. This is the first installment. Spring training technically got off to its official start last Friday, February 19, on the day that pitchers and catchers were expected to report. However, most […]
Boom or Bust? Evaluating Individual Upside and Downside, Pt. I
There is something about a 65 degree day in February that I don’t think people who live in warm climates can possibly fully appreciate. It’s the signal of so many things: spring, blooms, warmth and of course what I yearn for most: baseball. It’s impossible to be angry on a day like today. There is simply so […]
Embrace the Target: The Cubs’ Bullpen Options Are Good in 2016, Pt. I
Last week, I wrote about the wealth of bench options the Cubs have available to them in 2016. Happily, the team finds itself in exactly the same circumstances with respect to its bullpen, which is loaded with dozens of pitchers competing for just a few spots. Sure, the final composition of the ‘pen isn’t locked in […]
Covering All The Bases: Epstein’s Winning Formula
Last summer I watched Jake Arrieta no-hit the Dodgers, and it was awesome. But it wasn’t as exciting as Carlos Zambrano’s no-no seven years prior. That one had all the drama going for it: an emotionally erratic hurler with control issues, coming off extended rest, aiming to snap a 36-year dry spell by Cubs pitching. […]
“I Want Us To Think Well”: Joe Maddon’s Biggest Spring Concern
Something is different in Cubs’ camp this year. For the first time in recent memory, Chicago has a team that can reasonably be expected to win a World Championship when the book closes on 2016. If they don’t win a championship, in fact, it’ll be because something went wrong with a very good team (as it […]
Power, PECOTA, and the 2016 Cubs
One of the coolest benefits of writing for Baseball Prospectus—and there are a few, hashtag humblebrag—is that I get early access to the PECOTA projections, which were just released by BP last Tuesday. This allowed me the time to pore over the projected numbers for the Cubs and drool about the power potential therein. It shouldn’t […]
Re-Examining One Particular Thing About Dusty Baker
The 2016 season looms as one of the most anticipated years in Cubs history. Rarely has this fanbase ever gone into spring training with more legitimate excitement and hope. However, 2016 also marks the return of Dusty Baker to the managerial ranks. As if to remind us that sometimes, hope is dumb, and it hurts us. Of […]
Javier Baez, Eye Level, and Guessing at the Bottom of the Zone
Two years ago, Javier Baez was not a good major-league hitter. Over 229 plate appearances in 2014, he put up a .169/.227/.324 triple-slash line, with nine home runs and a glaringly awful 41.9 percent strikeout rate. That’s really, really bad. But things got better. Last year, although he hardly reached his ceiling, it’s fair to say that […]