It’s easy to forget that Yu Darvish is on the Cubs, and he will be an important part for years. Having eight starts in a season will do that. Not being around when all the drama hit in September is another. The little nugget that only three of those eight starts were any good is […]
Tag: 2018
The 2018 Cubs: I still liked them better than Steinbrenner
The 2018 Chicago Cubs did not end well. Given how things turned out on the field, it would have been as satisfying to conclude the 2018 Wild Card Game with Gary Pressy playing “Don’t Stop Believin’,” Scott Oberg winding up to deliver an 0-2 pitch to Albert Almora, and the ESPN feed suddenly cutting to […]
Joe Maddon Will Be Back… And He Should, But Needs To Lose The Fear
As if there wasn’t enough emotional rubble smoldering from the Cubs surprising and shockingly quick exit from the season, before the wild card game started there were irksome smoke signals that Joe Maddon could be out of a job if the Cubs were out of the playoffs. One came to pass, the other did not. […]
Epitaph: Sometimes The Best Isn’t The Best
It’s an oddity of North American sports, or at least three of them I guess, that we have such long regular seasons, and yet they are all defined by a handful of games after that regular season. MLB, the NBA, and the NHL play for six months, but those six months go without much meaning […]
Spreading The Love: The Cubs and Plate Appearances
There’s certainly a lot that’s unique about the Cubs. For three years now, we’ve wondered how the Cubs will cram in ABs for all the players they have. And generally, it’s worked itself out. While we complain about teams having three- or four-man benches these days thanks to bloated bullpens and injuries and a terror […]
What You Don’t Know About The Cubs Offense Won’t Kill You
The Cubs are now 10 games over .500 a third of the way through, meaning they only have the seventh-best record in the league. Even considering that the Cubs have played the least amount of games of anyone, there has been a lot of monkey-in-a-zoo activity out here in the fandom wilderness—especially before their recent surge. […]
Who Is 2018 José Quintana?
With one out in the fifth inning on Saturday, Joe Maddon exited the dugout and strolled to the pitcher’s mound. The Cubs skipper was about to pull José Quintana after only 83 pitches and the game tied at three, despite the bullpen’s generally overworked state. It was a contentious move, and there was a bit […]
Pedro Strop’s Success So Far
I’ll go ahead and apologize for Pedro Strop’s outing against St. Louis last week. I proposed an article on his early season success a week ago; we put it on the schedule for today. Only then did I remember the Cardinals were coming to town—and that I’d just dared them to bring their Voodoo with […]
The Back Half of Jon Lester’s Contract: What We Can Expect
When the Cubs signed Jon Lester in December 2014, it signaled a turning of the corner for the franchise. Even though it is widely accepted that free agent pitchers older than 30 are the riskiest and the least efficient way to spend money in baseball, the Cubs were ready to compete with their emerging positional […]
Slow market could bring Jake Arrieta back to Cubs
Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is gone, and the New Year has begun, yet none of the top-tier free agent starting pitchers or position players have been signed. Many around the game believed that after the Giancarlo Stanton and Shohei Otani sweepstakes resolved the market would open up and some of these players would come off […]