In the last stretch of the off-season—for me, the part that stretches from the Cubs Convention in mid-January until pitchers and catchers report a month later—there’s a lot of nervous chatter, inane conversation, and debate over the most minor of details involving baseball players and teams. While it would be nice to have real baseball […]
Category: Articles
The Four Swingmen of the Cub-pocalypse
Yesterday, my fellow contributor Stan Croussett sketched a picture of the 2016 season in which the Cubs give a decent amount of starts to three of their swingmen: Trevor Cahill, Clayton Richard, and Adam Warren. A combination of contract incentives, comments from the front office about their prospective usage, a need to rest the workhorse […]
Jason, Get A Popup!
For a player who finished last season with relatively modest results, we here at Wrigleyville have spilled a fair bit of ink over Jason Hammel. It can be difficult to pinpoint exactly how to feel about his stint with the Cubs, and I believe it is this curiosity which leads to our continued efforts to dive into the tumultuous nature […]
Your Best Against My, Uh: The Back End of the Cubs’ 2016 Rotation
Over the past month we have learned that Trevor Cahill and Adam Warren have been told–Warren explicitly and Cahill via contractual incentives–that they will be used as starting pitchers during the 2016 season. But how can this be, when the Cubs made it a priority to acquire a clear the rotation arm in John Lackey as well, […]
A Brief Note
Hi there. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been directed here by Twitter, in which case you know what this is about. If not, let me fill you in. Earlier today, and with my approval, Matt Trueblood—who’s written for this site since its inception—published a piece in which he argued that the Cubs should consider not […]
The Case for Not Extending Theo Epstein
When Theo Epstein left the Boston Red Sox and took his new position with the Chicago Cubs in late October of 2011, he wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe to explain his choice to Red Sox fans. He opened by citing Bill Walsh (the football visionary who innovated the West Coast Offense), who believed […]
A Paranoid Look at Javier Baez’s Offseason
I’ve cracked the case, you guys: Javier Baez is getting traded and I’ve got proof. The front office has been trying to keep this a secret for months, but I’m here to expose the conspiracy. I even had to dig into some Spanish-language sites to get you the full scoop. If you don’t hear from […]
Increasingly, Youth Being Served in Chicago
It has seemed to me for a number of years that Major League Baseball is getting younger. Could you imagine, just a few years back, a hot prospect promotion engendering more fan interest than a marquee free agent signing? It happens these days. I recently wondered, though, whether the league’s greening is a phenomenon that shows up in […]
The 25th Man: Assessing the Race for the Roster
It’s January, a month that lacks any modicum of decency in Illinois. It’s currently -2 degrees as I write. Our football team is eliminated, and our basketball teams are stuck in the same purgatorial existence they’ve been mired in for the past decade. Free agency is generally wrapping up, with the most exciting names already collected by new teams. The […]
Life at the Margins in the Cubs’ Outfield
The Cubs, it appears, are done with their major offseason moves. That’s not a bad thing—lord knows they’ve done enough already—but it does mean that the present period, running roughly between the end of Cubs Convention and the beginning of Spring Training, lacks a certain something when it comes to news. Namely, news. But that doesn’t mean that […]