While the Cubs position players have had a fantastic first half, returns have been less than great on the pitching front. With ~60% of the season in the books, Jon Lester leads the pitching staff with 1.0 fWAR. I’ll go into individual player recaps below, but one thing I’ve been wondering for a while is why there has been so …
Cubs 8, Brewers 0 (4/5/2018)
OSS: It's the Javy Baez show. Three Up 1. Javy Baez walked 3 times, scored from 1st on an error, and was generally awesome. He had a rough go of the first series of the year, so it's nice to see him with his first-ever 3 walk game. 2. Jon Lester was really good tonight (Ron Coomer's player of the …
NL Central Offseason Whip-Around: Milwaukee Brewers
I've been my usual lazy self and not paid much attention to the goings on around the league this offseason. At least MLB has obliged by keeping things pretty quiet. Finally we take a look at the Brewers, who started winning ahead of schedule last year and missed out on some pieces they could have used to bootstrap that process. …
NL Central Offseason Whip-Around: Cincinnati Reds
I've been my usual lazy self and not paid much attention to the goings on around the league this offseason. At least MLB has obliged by keeping things pretty quiet. Next we'll take a look at the Reds, who have Joey Votto and a quietly decent bullpen and not much else. 2017 Record: 68-94 2018 Projected Record: 72-90 Top projected …
NL Central Offseason Whip-Around: St. Louis Cardinals
I've been my usual lazy self and not paid much attention to the goings on around the league this offseason. At least MLB has obliged by keeping things pretty quiet. Next we'll take a look at the Cardinals, who somehow still employ Mike Matheny. 2017 Record: 83-79 2018 Projected Record: 87-75 Top projected hitter (ZiPS): Marcell Ozuna, 3.1 Top projected …
NL Central Offseason Whip-Around: Pittsburgh Pirates
I've been my usual lazy self and not paid much attention to the goings on around the league this offseason. At least MLB has obliged by keeping things pretty quiet. I'll start by taking a look at the Pirates, whose window has firmly shut. After three straight playoff appearances (and no series/WC wins), the team is back in the sadly …
Second Look: New Cubs Pitchers
It’s no secret that the Cubs have struggled to draft and develop pitching, so it’s nice that they have been willing to spend freely to fill in the gaps. Sahadev wrote about the team’s struggles in December (subscription required, h/t Fangraphs), with a pretty remarkable chart. The problem with this chart is pretty simple: contenders are not particularly interested in …
The Scrap Heap – Winter Meetings
It was an ice cold stove for most of the offseason, but things finally picked up after Shohei Ohtani signed with the Los Angeles Angels of Disneyland on the eve of the Winter Meetings. Cubs Moves The Cubs picked up a pair of relief pitchers and a injury project that could see some time in the pen late this year: …
Where We Stand Now
I'm bringing back this feature from the olden days…if only because we need a new post. I'm stealing this format mostly from the 2015 version of this post, which credits shawndgoldman for the original regular feature. Record: 43-45, 5.5 games back of the Brewers and tied with the Cardinals for second place in this shitshow of a division. The actual …
The 25: Jake Arrieta
Previous programming note from Myles: Now that the season is fast approaching, and I've started to get the itch to talk baseball again, I'm hoping to pick up the pace. Hopefully I can convince the other writers to do the same. I'm going to take a look at the 2017 Cubs, starting with the best players and taking a descending …