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Cubs Player Profile: Javier Baez

Position:  Shortstop, Third Base, Second Base 2015 Stats: 28 G (74 MiLB GP), .289/.325/.408, .268 TAv, 0.4 WARP, 1 HR, 4 R, 4 RBI (MLB stats only) Year in Review: This feels like the only reasonable place to start: For everything he endured in 2015—injury, heartache, and the assured internal struggle of watching his friends succeed at the highest level before he […]

MLB: Pittsburgh Pirates at Chicago Cubs

Seven Surprises from the 2015 Cubs Season

The Cubs have already surprised a lot of knowledgeable people by winning 97 games and making the playoffs this year. How did they do it? A lot of it was pretty predictable: Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant led the offense, while Jon Lester put together a very good season after a rocky start. But a lot of […]

MLB: Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh Pirates

An Exercise in Hopeful Caution: The Young Cubs and PECOTA 10-Year Projections

There are lots of exciting things about the Chicago Cubs this season, and in my opinion the most exciting among them is this: Despite their sizable and ever-increasing odds of making the playoffs (86.3 percent, as of this writing), fans have every reason to believe that the 2015 major-league baseball season will be the Cubs’ worst  in […]