On the face of it, the Cubs seem to have their catching situation covered in both the short and the long term. Last year, Miguel Montero—the big-league incumbent—was the fifth most-valuable catcher in the game, as measured by WARP (3.92), and his 13.9 FRAA ranked fourth, defensively, at the position. Meanwhile, Willson Contreras, the Cubs’ top catching prospect, broke out in […]
Category: Articles
The Cubs and the Next Few Offseasons
Cubs fans are rightly excited about the upcoming season. It’s all that most want to think about, and, really, after years of thinking about the future, it absolutely makes sense to enjoy the present. Front offices don’t have that luxury, though. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned about the Cubs’ brain trust over the past several years, it […]
A (Very) Early Look at the Cubs’ Draft Options in 2016
It’s February. Baseball is still a ways away, unless you’re watching amateur ball. But the Cubs’ front office is busy. One of the things they’re doing—among many, many others at this time of year—is gearing up for the draft by evaluating their farm system and understanding their organizational needs. They’re also off and scouting any potential high school […]
PECOTA Day: Why Addison Russell Boasts the Most Interesting, Least Useful Cubs Projection
Addison Russell had a profoundly weird rookie season. You can tell it was weird, because Russell (a right-hitting, slick-fielding middle infielder who hit for surprising power but struck out a ton) got Christian Yelich (a left-hitting corner outfielder whose standout skill is his pure hit tool) as his fifth-closest PECOTA comp for 2016. Freddie Freeman […]
Meeting in the Middle on the Language of Baseball
On April 13th of last year, in the bottom of the 10th inning against the Reds, Arismendy Alcántara hit a bases-loaded squeaker that was just good enough for a Cubs walk-off win. It was his first hit of the season after starting 0-for-16 at the plate, and it was hard to tell whether there was […]
Introducing BP Wrigleycast
I love me a good origin story. So, five years ago, when I read the very first post for this newfangled site called Grantland, I was smitten. In that post, Bill Simmons tells the story of how Jimmy Kimmel, Simmons, and Kimmel’s inner circle drove down to Hollywood from San Diego on the night Kimmel’s […]
A Century Later, Spalding’s International Legacy Still Unresolved
The other night, I found myself watching the Nagoya Chunichi Dragons play the Gwangju Kia Tigers. I also kept an eye on the World Baseball Classic qualifiers that just wrapped in Sydney. I followed news of the Gurriel brothers defecting from Cuba last week, and wondered what the Cubs’ chances were for signing Lourdes. At this point in the […]
A Call to Arms: The Next Wave of Prospects
At this time last year, most Cubs-related excitement flowed from the promise of the Cubs hitters looming on the horizon. We had already seen bits of the handiwork of Jorge Soler and Javier Baez during the 2014 season, and anticipation for the arrival of Kris Bryant (after, of course, a brief stay in Des Moines) was whetting our […]
What a Slutter Does, Has Done, and Might Do for Jake Arrieta
The slider. The cutter. The slutter. It goes by many names. Since arriving to the Cubs in 2013, Jake Arrieta has worked with Chris Bosio and the coaching staff to hone his best pitch into a weapon—a heat-seeking missile darting away from bats and toward the catcher’s mitt. It’s helped him transform into not just an […]
Kyle Schwarber: Baserunner Extraordinaire
Do you ever have those surreal moments when you find yourself somewhere strange, and the series of events it took to get you to that place seem unfathomable? My day job involves extensive international travel that takes me to some of the farthest regions of the earth, so this happens to me regularly: Where am I? How […]