Position: First Base 2015 Stats: 160 G, 701 PA, .278/.387/.512, .328 TAv, 5.2 WARP Year in Review: This February, Rizzo came into spring training hoping to build upon a breakout 2014 season in which he slashed .286/.386/.527 over 616 brilliant plate appearances, slugging 32 home runs to go alongside a .335 TAv and 5.5 WARP, good for the 15th-best WARP […]
Tag: Anthony Rizzo
Rubbing Mud: The Rizzo Post-Mortem ($)
This piece, by BP Wrigleyville’s Matt Trueblood, originally appeared on the Baseball Prospectus main site, where it was available exclusively to BP subscribers. We’ve posted a sneak preview here. If you had to put your finger on a single reason why the Cubs were swept by the Mets in the NLCS this week (and more […]
Bottoms Up
It was August of 2013, and the Cubs were nowhere near a playoff spot. It was just another game in a seemingly endless morass of meaningless competition against a team that was far superior in almost every aspect. The Cardinals were in town and they were in the middle of kicking the crap out of […]
Fight Club: Don’t Mess with These Cubs
As we saw in the Wild Card game on Wednesday, things can get heated in the playoffs. An inside pitch here, an angry glare there, and soon you’ve got punches. Fisticuffs. Headlocks. Shiners. And so on. We don’t endorse baseball fights, and of course we don’t want anyone to get hurt, so this is all in good fun. […]
That’s So Cub: A Look at the Top September Contributors and Moments
It’s the beginning of October, which not only means that Halloween is around the corner and you might even hear the first ominous tinkle of mall Christmas music, but also that I, as I have since the beginning of time the beginning of the season, will sit down and write about the top Cubs’ contributors and moments from the previous […]
Splitting Hairs and Homers
My long personal nightmare is over. It ended a week or so ago, actually; I just didn’t have time to tell you so until now. For the first five and a half months of this season, Anthony Rizzo had a better OPS against left-handed pitchers than against right-handed ones. In 2014, that was true even […]
Can Rizzo Really Hit Lefties This Well?
Earlier this week, fellow BP Wrigleyville writer Matt Trueblood and I had a fun conversation on Twitter regarding Anthony Rizzo’s true hitting prowess versus left-handers. The crux of our “argument” rested in my belief that Rizzo can continue to hit lefties as well as he has this season, while Matt casts a bit of side-eye […]
Theo the Trader: Evaluating Epstein’s Trades During His Cubs Tenure
There was a time when baseball fans joked, “Why would anyone ever work a deal with Billy Beane? Beane wins every time.” In evaluating Theo Epstein’s performance as an exchanger of talent on the Cubs behalf, the same question holds true. For every significant Cubs trade transaction in which Epstein has been involved, it seems […]
That’s So Cub: A Look at the Top August Contributors and Moments
It’s the beginning of September, which not only means that kids head back to school and beer gardens become a lot less fun, but also that I, as I have since the beginning of time the beginning of the season, will sit down and write about the top Cubs’ contributors and moments from the previous month. If you want […]
Hot Hot Heat: Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Pitchers Who Throw Fire
It’s easy to look back and laugh now, but there was a time when people genuinely worried that Anthony Rizzo would never hit a good fastball. He was struggling to hit anything harder than 90 miles per hour, and if that had remained true, it would have been a very real death knell for him. […]