Let me be clear up top. I like the guys at BleacherNation.com. They’re smart, good-looking, generally a good smell. They know a lot, aren’t pushy about it. So you shouldn’t disregard anything they have to say. And they care. So when they say something is to worry about, it’s because they’re worrying about it. Tuesday, […]
Tag: Playoffs
Second City October: NLCS Game Five, The Climb
In what was likely Jake Arrieta’s final start as a Cub, he managed to stave off elimination for one more day. It was a fitting sendoff for a guy whose last four years have rivaled Greg Maddux’s best four years with the Cubs. Without Javier Baez’s pair of dingers and leaping catch on an errant […]
NLCS Game Three Recap: Dodgers 6, Cubs 1
The thought going into tonight’s game was if the Cubs could win, they’d be right where they were a year ago: down two games to one after getting their offense shut down by elite Dodger pitching. There was reason to be confident in the Cubs’ chances of taking game three. They had home-field advantage, and […]
Emotional Moments: NLDS Edition
Some might seek to rank the Cubs’ best playoff moments with leverage index, taking a stab at quantifying the emotional heft of each moment. Others might take a look at certain games or players, weighing the impact of a player’s contributions, or crafting stories of games that drove us to despair and unbridled celebration, those […]
Things That Scare Me; Things That Don’t
Being something resembling a serious analyst essentially requires an immediate surrendering of your “fan card.” It is for good reason, as fans tend to see things through their own biased lenses, failing to care about rational analysis during emotional moments. At BP Wrigleyville, the majority—but not the entirety—of the staff are Cubs fans. We aren’t […]
Inside the At-Bat: Lucas Duda’s First-Inning Home Run
I know that evenin’s empire has returned into sand Vanished from my hand Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping My weariness amazes me, I’m branded on my feet I have no one to meet And the ancient empty street’s too dead for dreaming I’m not sure if Bob Dylan is a […]
Playoff Prospectus: The Lions In Winter—NLCS Game 4
This piece is a preview of a larger recap of the game, by BP’s Jeffrey Paternostro, which first appeared on the Baseball Prospectus main site as part of their “Playoff Prospectus” series. Sadly, it will be the last of its kind involving the Cubs in 2015. We hope you enjoy. Or, at least, don’t cry. Every […]
Eventually, Every Party Ends
My son hates leaving parties. The second I broach the topic and let him know that our departure is imminent, the tears start to well up and it’s hard to stop. My response is always the same. “Sawyer, nobody likes to leave a good party. You think I like to leave a party? But eventually, […]
That Wasn’t the Measure of the Experience—Game 171 Recap: Mets 8 Cubs 3
There’s a scene in an episode of The West Wing, from Season Four. A good friend of President Bartlet’s administration, Karen Kroft, recently lost a heartbreakingly close election to keep her seat in Congress, and Communications Director Toby Ziegler is trying (more or less) to apologize for that. He’s trying to convince her that her ouster was the […]
Playoff Prospectus: NLCS Game Four Preview
This piece, by BP Wrigleyville’s Rian Watt, is the Cubs-specific portion of a longer LCS preview jointly written with Matt Trueblood. We’ve posted Rian’s section by itself here; if you’d like to bone up on your ALCS knowledge, head over to the full piece here. We hope you enjoy. The Cubs will take the field in Chicago […]