There are just under 100 games left in the Cubs’ season, and the differences between this year’s team and last year’s team have become more obvious as the remaining number of games dwindles. One evolving aspect that is more difficult to see, however, is the way in which the 2017 Cubs are “versatile” or not. […]
Tag: Versatility
Baez at Nine: The Cubs’ Most Versatile Player
It’s been talked about at length through the offseason and into spring training, and the early part of the spring training schedule hasn’t done anything to cool it down. Javier Baez is playing the part of Ben Zobrist, circa 2008, on this Cubs team. We already knew he could bring out a golden glove at shortstop, […]
The 25th Man: Assessing the Race for the Roster
It’s January, a month that lacks any modicum of decency in Illinois. It’s currently -2 degrees as I write. Our football team is eliminated, and our basketball teams are stuck in the same purgatorial existence they’ve been mired in for the past decade. Free agency is generally wrapping up, with the most exciting names already collected by new teams. The […]
Life at the Margins in the Cubs’ Outfield
The Cubs, it appears, are done with their major offseason moves. That’s not a bad thing—lord knows they’ve done enough already—but it does mean that the present period, running roughly between the end of Cubs Convention and the beginning of Spring Training, lacks a certain something when it comes to news. Namely, news. But that doesn’t mean that […]
Creating Depth and Versatility, Cubs Build on Strong Present
The question of how to improve a youthful, 97-win, NLCS-reaching baseball team has been the driving force behind our work here at BP Wrigleyville this offseason, and we’ve generally tackled it in terms of identifiable weaknesses of the 2015 Cubs: contact hitting, outfield defense, and starting pitching beyond their two aces. But the 2015 Cubs […]