Perhaps you saw the ending to Puerto Rico’s Tuesday night victory over the Dominican Republic in the second round of the World Baseball Classic. Perhaps you witnessed Javier Baez make another improbably good and unreservedly fun play. Perhaps you even questioned the veracity of that play’s result. But then again, perhaps you didn’t. For those […]
Category: Articles
Spalding And The Baseball Tour
AG Spalding’s preoccupation with making baseball America’s game began perhaps in 1874 when he toured Great Britain with the White Stockings. The trip achieved limited success, but its potential led Spalding to plan another, more vast trip in 1888. He gathered the Chicago White Stockings and various opposing players called the All-American team, and set […]
Has the fly ball revolution hit the Windy City?
My high school coach complained every time my teammates and I hit a fly ball. He had a temper, and would berate us in the dugout for stupidly hitting the ball in the air. He taught us a level swing that generated line drives or, almost as good, ground balls. There was probably nothing quite […]
AG Spalding And The Birth Of America’s Game
For decades, baseball has been known as America’s Game, and many young fans have been raised reciting the 1975 Chevrolet commercial that placed baseball in the American pantheon with apple pie and hot dogs. In 1889, concerning this connection, Walt Whitman wrote, “it’s our game: that’s the chief fact in connection with it: America’s game: […]
Looking Back on Tomorrow: Chicago Cubs
This piece originally appeared on the main site as a part of a series that previews each team with the question “How will this team be remembered?” PECOTA Cubs Projections Record: 93-69 Runs Scored: 765 Runs Allowed: 651 AVG/OBP/SLG (TAv): .249/.326/.418 (.267) Total WARP: 42.4 (17.1 pitching, 25.3 non-pitching) No Cubs team will operate under […]
Kris Bryant: Defender Extraordinaire
It probably goes without saying that Kris Bryant has defied even the loftiest of expectations at the Major League level. Originally drawing comparisons to a player like Troy Glaus, Bryant has broken into a league all his own by turning in two of the best rookie and sophomore campaigns that we’ve ever seen. Of course, […]
Cactus Catchup: What’s Happ-ening?!
As we move into the midst of Spring Training, Joe Maddon is beginning to lead the Cubs to a little more normalcy. Starting pitchers are beginning to get into a more typical rotation, and lineups are beginning to solidify. The Cubs split their four games from Friday to Monday, winning two tighter games against Colorado […]
The Candelario Conundrum
The road to the majors has been a long one for Jeimer Candelario. The switch-hitting infielder has toiled in the Cubs’ organization since he was signed in October 2010. Candelario finally had his coming out party in the 2015 Arizona Fall League, hitting five homers in 21 games for the Mesa Solar Sox while logging […]
The Tenth Percentile Cubs
PECOTA currently projects the Cubs for 93 wins, 12 more than the 81-win Pirates, who are projected for second place in the NL Central. Rarely is a team so heavily favored in a division, but for a team in the Cubs’ position, it makes sense. Centerfield is the only position that projects below 2.5 WARP, and, […]
How Did Pedro Strop Make More than Dellin Betances in Arbitration?
Baseball arbitration, compared to alternative means of resolving management-labor disputes, represents a remarkable success. At the same time, watching how salary arbitration played out for Pedro Strop as compared to the Yankees’ Dellin Betances, one of the few flaws in the system became apparent. A brief history of baseball arbitration MLB’s salary arbitration system came […]