Theo Epstein was on AM 670 The Score on Tuesday, in the hours leading up to the Cubs’ Game Four win over the Cardinals. Though Epstein was careful to note (more than once) how much work remains to be done, the interview was at least partially a victory lap for the Cubs’ chief architect. Epstein […]
Category: Articles
Russell Rests as Cubs Consider Arms Race
It wasn’t quite on the order of the sword of Damocles—the Cubs are too happy right now to feel anything approaching anxiety—but it was certainly an open question heading into the workout day on Thursday: What was Addison Russell’s status? The last anyone had heard of his health was on Tuesday night, manager Joe Maddon was […]
Jon Lester Over Jake Arrieta as Cubs’ NLCS Game 1 Starter: The Right Call for a Reason
Jake Arrieta started on four days’ rest three straight times on three different occasions during the regular season. Until Monday night at Wrigley Field, though, he hadn’t done it four straight times since June 2012. Like most modern starting pitchers, Arrieta is accustomed to an extra day of rest at least every few turns through […]
Bottoms Up
It was August of 2013, and the Cubs were nowhere near a playoff spot. It was just another game in a seemingly endless morass of meaningless competition against a team that was far superior in almost every aspect. The Cardinals were in town and they were in the middle of kicking the crap out of […]
Loose and Deadly Calm, Cubs Celebrate a Leap Forward
Spend any time around this Chicago Cubs club, and you’ll know that they’re a special group. The national media can write all they want about how their youthful inexperience gets in the way of postseason success, but that story gets less convincing with every new team the Cubs leave sullen-faced in the visiting dugout. And […]
Inside the At-Bat: Javier Baez’s Second-Inning Home Run
Great moments… are born from great opportunity. And that’s what you have here, tonight, boys. That’s what you’ve earned here tonight. One game. -Kurt Russell (as Herb Brooks), Miracle It’s hard to know who Kurt Russell/Herb Brooks was addressing in this speech. Some scholars maintain it was the 1980 U.S. Men’s Hockey Team, just moments […]
Playoff Prospectus: Party Time in Wrigleyville — NLDS Game Four
This piece, by BP Wrigleyville’s Editor-in-Chief Sahadev Sharma, first appeared at the Baseball Prospectus main site and is available to everyone for free. We’ve posted a sneak preview here. The plan all along was for this Cubs team to be built on offense. After clinching a trip to the club’s first NLCS in a dozen years, […]
NLDS Game Four Recap: Cubs 6 Cardinals 4
Top Play (WPA): 2015 has not been an easy year for Javier Baez. After struggling through a cup of coffee in the already-sacrificed 2014 season, adversity found him time-and-again this year. That much is well-documented. Through it all, there was never a doubt that the stoic young man from Bayamon—the man with the MLB logo tattooed on his […]
Cubs Embracing New Expectations Even as October Thrills
Look to your left. Now look to your right. One of you failed to predict that the Chicago Cubs would win 97 games in 2015. Reasonable expectations had the club right around .500, with 90 wins a possibility if the kids held up down the stretch. Nobody predicted this—the Cubs on the doorstep of the […]
Inside the At-Bat: Kris Bryant’s Go-Ahead, Fifth-Inning Home Run
Call out the instigator Because there’s something in the air As Kris Bryant’s go-ahead home run sailed into the North Side evening air, one could not help but wonder what Michael Wacha and Yadier Molina had been thinking in throwing him a sixth straight four-seam fastball. This season, Bryant slugged .490 and hit seven home […]