Travis Wood has been a mainstay in Chicago since he was traded for in December of 2011, from the Reds in exchange for reliever Sean Marshall. Now the longest-tenured Cub, Wood filled in admirably as a starter in the rebuilding years, then transitioned to the bullpen midway through the 2015 season. Wood was excellent out […]
Tag: Travis Wood
Should The Cubs Trade For A Lefty Reliever?
The Cubs entered play on Sunday with a record of 39-15, so it requires squinting to pinpoint any areas that require improvement via trade. The most discussed area has been the starting rotation, but the longer the season wears on, the Cubs’ existing starters appear as desirable or more than most of the options likely to be on […]
The Rest of the Way: The Pitchers
Last week, I took a little liberty with statistical definitions and imagined what each member of the Cubs offense would slash the rest of the way if, at the end of the season, they were to hit their PECOTA projections and career averages. What did we learn from that exercise? For one, despite the name […]
Mike Trout vs. the Chicago Cubs: How Four Men Conquered one Los Angeles Slugger
Mike Trout vs. the Chicago Cubs. It’s perhaps something that was only in the periphery of our minds amid the excitement of Opening Day. It didn’t quite dawn upon me, in fact, until just before first pitch: we were about to witness Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester wage their first battles of the season against Mike Trout, […]
Travis Wood: Trustworthy Bullpen Linchpin, or Flash in the Bullpen Pan?
Last season, an emergent Travis Wood played a huge role in the Cubs’ mid-season bullpen revival. A unit that staggered out of the gate turned into one of the league’s best for (most of) the rest of the season, and one of the key turning points was Wood’s demotion into a relief role in mid-May. […]
Competition in the Cubs’ Rotation? Maybe Not.
Now that we’re four games into spring training, it’s time for the worst and least-fruitful discussions to begin: the early looks at “position battles.” The Cubs’ main position battle is for the final two starter spots, which features incumbents Kyle Hendricks and Jason Hammel—who have the inside edge, to be honest—along with new Cub Adam Warren, […]
Embrace the Target: The Cubs’ Bullpen Options Are Good in 2016, Pt. II
Early last week, I reviewed the Cubs’ late inning bullpen options, or at least those options as they appear during the trial period that is known as Spring Training. With the amount of depth and flexibility the Cubs have on their bullpen roster, this is a neverending discussion with a large range of possible outcomes. And […]
The Four Swingmen of the Cub-pocalypse
Yesterday, my fellow contributor Stan Croussett sketched a picture of the 2016 season in which the Cubs give a decent amount of starts to three of their swingmen: Trevor Cahill, Clayton Richard, and Adam Warren. A combination of contract incentives, comments from the front office about their prospective usage, a need to rest the workhorse […]
Your Best Against My, Uh: The Back End of the Cubs’ 2016 Rotation
Over the past month we have learned that Trevor Cahill and Adam Warren have been told–Warren explicitly and Cahill via contractual incentives–that they will be used as starting pitchers during the 2016 season. But how can this be, when the Cubs made it a priority to acquire a clear the rotation arm in John Lackey as well, […]
Cubs Player Profile: Travis Wood
2015 Stats 54 G, 100.2 IP, 3.84 ERA, 3.91 DRA, 28.2% K%, 9.3% BB% Year in Review If there is one thing baseball writers and analysts love, it’s spending hours on Twitter discussing their favorite television show (on a related note, head to @AndrewFelper for my vitally important thoughts on Fargo and Brooklyn Nine-Nine). If […]