Given all the feel-good stories the 2016 Cubs have provided and the up-and-coming studs that populate most of the roster, it’s been easy to gloss over the guy whose baseball career is trending the wrong way. Last year, Miguel Montero was one of the veterans who helped elevate a young Cubs’ clubhouse, providing value behind the plate […]
Tag: Miguel Montero
Montero or Hammel Could Be Casualties of Cubs’ Long-Term Plan
Quietly, Miguel Montero and Jason Hammel have been huge parts of the Cubs’ success over the last two seasons. Montero was worth 3.9 WARP in relatively modest playing time last year, and has been worth 1.3 WARP already this year—in addition to which, he’s been Jake Arrieta’s partner in crime, Willson Contreras’s mentor, and one […]
Cubs’ Catching Situation Provides More Questions Than Answers
Very few people would confuse Tim Federowicz for Jonathan Herrera, at least up close. But if you look from a distance and squint a bit, you might just see the resemblance. Herrera, you’ll recall, spent the entire 2015 season on the Cubs’ big league roster despite making it into just 73 total games and starting […]
BP Instant: Miguel Montero to the Disabled List, Tim Federowicz up from Iowa
On Thursday morning, a few hours before the Cubs took on the Milwaukee Brewers in the finale of a rain-shortened two-game set at Wrigley Field, the team announced that Miguel Montero would be placed on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to Monday, and that Tim Federowicz had been called up from Triple-A Iowa to take […]
Fatigue, Platoons, and a Prospect: Cubs Catching Sans Schwarber
Kyle Schwarber was never going to catch more than a couple dozen games this season. Even as the end of Spring Training revealed the Cubs’ plan to hitch Schwarber’s catching starts to Jason Hammel’s starts on the mound, the former Hoosier’s catching development—which some began to view with cautious optimism last season, a testament to […]
In Praise of Miguel Montero: The Tim Meadows of the Chicago Cubs
The Beatles had George Harrison. Late 1990s Saturday Night Live had Tim Meadows. The 2015-2016 Cubs have Miguel Montero. It seems unavoidable that every great institution has a forgotten contributor. That is, a member of the organization who, upon initial consideration, would not be mentioned as the most valuable, indispensable, or aesthetically pleasing to watch. Be […]
Back Tap: How Miguel Montero Rediscovered His Opposite-Field Power
When the Cubs acquired Miguel Montero in December 2014, I was higher on the move than most. I had even written an article encouraging precisely that course of action, a few weeks beforehand. I pointed to Montero’s phenomenal numbers as a pitch framer, but also to the fact that the Diamondbacks had overused him, contributing […]
Willson Contreras Has His Work Cut Out for Him in 2016
On the face of it, the Cubs seem to have their catching situation covered in both the short and the long term. Last year, Miguel Montero—the big-league incumbent—was the fifth most-valuable catcher in the game, as measured by WARP (3.92), and his 13.9 FRAA ranked fourth, defensively, at the position. Meanwhile, Willson Contreras, the Cubs’ top catching prospect, broke out in […]
Miggy the Mentor
We are good. That’s the first thing that many Cubs fans learned about Miguel Montero, who was traded from the Arizona Diamondbacks to the Cubs in December of 2014. Montero, now somewhat famously, rushed to Twitter that day to let everyone know how excited he was to be with the young squad of blossoming hitters. […]
Cubs Player Profile: Miguel Montero
2015 Stats 113 G, 403 PA, .248/.345/.409, .279 TAv, 4.0 WARP Year in Review If ever you needed a reason to dismiss Wins Above Replacement as a worthless construct that misses the point in every possible way, a good way to start would be by visiting the Baseball Reference page for the 2015 Cubs. There, […]