Position: Starting Pitcher, tenure track 2017 Stats: 7-5, 3.03 ERA/3.89 FIP/3.31 DRA, 7.9 K/9, 3.5 WARP Year in Review: One of the curses of maxing out in the upper 80s with your fastball is that no matter how many times you prove that you’re one of the best pitchers in baseball, everyone in the game […]
Category: Articles
A Game with the 1870s Cubs
Three years after the full professionalization of the 1867 Cincinnati Red Stockings, Chicago created its first professional baseball team, The Chicago Base Ball Club, quickly dubbed the Chicago White Stockings. The team fared well in its first two years, but was forced to quit the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players at the end […]
Expansion and Realignment Are Not As Easy As They Look
In the past two weeks, several sports outlets ran articles about comments made by commissioner Rob Manfred regarding the possible expansion of major-league baseball. While Manfred did not say that expansion was imminent, he did add that the stadium situations in Oakland and Tampa would have to be rectified before any expansion could take place. […]
Coaching Staff Shakeup Surprise!
The Cubs front office struck out in a bold new direction on Thursday, letting go of both hitting coach John Mallee and third base coach Gary Jones, just days after parting ways with longtime pitching coach Chris Bosio. Taking Mallee and Jones’s places are Chili Davis and Brian Butterfield, respectively, both most recently with the […]
Offseason Player Profile: Jon Jay
Editor’s Note: This is the first of BP Wrigleyville’s offseason player profiles. Over the next few months, we’ll review every player on the Cubs’ roster this year one-by-one and look ahead at their potential roles next year. First up: Jon Jay. Position CF/LF 2017 Stats Avg OBP SLG TAv FRAA VORP WARP .296 .374 .375 […]
Diagnosing the Bullpen’s Walk Problem
Chris Bosio will be plying his pitcher whispering craft in a city other than Chicago next year, and it’s sort of the bullpen’s fault. Before walking the entirety of the Washington Nationals and Los Angeles Dodgers’ rosters, the Cubs bullpen was solid. They were one of the better relief units in the league, actually, ranking […]
The 2017 Season and Passing The Torch
The emotions of a fan are often thought to be a continuum, ranging anywhere from happy to sad to angry. Fans have varying degrees of these emotions when it comes to the outcomes their teams see. In reality, though, their emotions are far more discrete. The team wins, or the team loses. Those outcomes are […]
What Could Be the Top MiLB Storylines to Follow in 2018?
The top two storylines in 2017 for the Cubs’ minor league system were the trades of top prospects Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease to the White Sox and Jeimer Candelario and Isaac Paredes to Detroit. As a result, there was a dramatic shift in the tenor of the Cubs’ farm system. Now, the top prospects […]
Feeling Blue: The Cubs go down, but have more bullets in the chamber
During my years as a young athlete, my old coach used to tell my team a phrase prior to making us run. That phrase has came to mind while watching the Chicago Cubs this postseason. “Life is hard, not right but true. Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you,” This season, the bear […]
NLCS Game 5: Dodgers 11, Cubs 1
It is official. We now have scientific proof. 2016 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 2017. Unfortunately, the 2017 Dodgers are also > the 2017 Cubs. Tonight was going to be a tough task with the Cubs taking on Clayton Kershaw in an elimination game. As you know, Kershaw is the modern day Sandy Koufax, so the best conceivable strategy […]