Over the weekend, the Cubs claimed reliever Ryan Cook off waivers from the Red Sox. A few days before that, he’d been profiled for BP Boston’s “Rebuilding the Red Sox” series by BP’s Ryan P. Morrison. Given that Cook is now a Cub, we thought you’d enjoy reading that brief profile here at Wrigleyville. Ryan […]
Category: Articles
Denard Span: Potential Offseason Target
When the Washington Nationals declined to offer Denard Span a qualifying offer on Friday evening, it opened the field of potential suitors for the purest center fielder on the free-agent market even wider—though, given the lingering questions about the health of Span’s hip, it might also have inflated his asking price beyond the point at […]
The Beer List: Oh So Needy Edition
This is The Beer List. It’s an opportunity, once every two weeks or so, for the staff here at BP Wrigleyville to get together (virtually, of course) and debate one small, usually quite open-ended, question. Despite the strenuous efforts of certain members of the crew to make it so, it has nothing to do with beer […]
Free Agency, Trade, or Both: Nobody Pitches for Free—Assessing the Cubs’ Pitching Situation
“Regarding our starting pitching, the topic sentence is: we would like to add more quality pitching.” —Theo Epstein (October 22, 2015) There are four guarantees in life: death, taxes, people overusing “death and taxes” to make their points, and the need for starting pitching depth. No matter the era, teams—especially contending teams—crave starting pitching. In the […]
Upon the Retirement of Aramis Ramirez, Great Cub
I remember exactly where I was for the greatest moment of Aramis Ramirez’s career, one of the most memorable games in the past decade of the Chicago Cubs. The promise of the 2006-07 offseason remained unfulfilled on June 29, 2007, as the Cubs scuffled midseason, a game below the .500 mark and 7.5 out of […]
Cubs Player Profile: Starlin Castro
Position: Second base/Shortstop 2015 Stats: .265/.296/.375, .243 TAv, 1.5 WARP Year in Review: After Zack Moser’s profile of Addison Russell on Tuesday, we now turn to the player that Russell ostensibly replaced: Starlin Castro. The full-season stats you see above aren’t exactly misleading, but it truly was a tale of two seasons for the enigmatic Castro in 2015. It might […]
Cubs Look for Runs in the Outfield, Try Not to Lose Any
Imagine you’re in charge of a health intervention, and you have the choice of two programs to implement over a population of 600 people. If you implement Program A, there’s a 100 percent chance that you’ll save 200 lives, but a zero percent chance that you’ll save the other 400. If you implement Program B, on […]
Cubs Earning More, Spending Better as Rebuild Continues on All Fronts
In my day-to-day career, I am a Vice President and Senior Financial Adviser for a Wall Street firm, and I spend most days helping my clients achieve their financial goals. In many cases, those clients are entrepreneurs who are acquiring or growing existing businesses, and they look to me to help them secure the capital resources […]
Cubs Player Profile: Addison Russell
Addison Russell Position: Shortstop/Second Base 2015 Stats: .242/.307/.389, .252 TAv, 1.57 WARP Year in Review: As he laced a flyball off the base of the left-field wall, made his way around second, found that extra gear, and sprung himself airborne as he dove into third base, Addison Russell could have hardly imagined it would be […]
Contact Probably Not Key to World Peace, Might Help the Cubs Win Anyway
How do you greet a friend? With a hug? A handshake? A kiss? Whatever it is, in all likelihood it involves contact. Oftentimes, this greeting, however it’s made, can be very telling; it’s a small but crucial bit of information. That’s item one. Item two? Studies show that newborns thrive on skin-to-skin contact with both mother and […]