It's the third NLCS in a row for the Cubs, and a rematch of last year's showdown. It's hard to believe that the Dodgers won more games than last year's Cubs team, despite that 1 for 21 stretch or whatever it was earlier this year. This team is pretty fucking good. The Cubs find themselves in pretty much the same …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (68-58) at Philadelphia Phillies (46-80)
Finally free of the last of the anti-stat GMs, the Phillies set about to be the next big teardown and rebuild team. They had a promising season in 2016, as some of their young talent hit the bigs, and maybe things were starting to look 2014 Cubs-ish about them. In 2017, pretty much everyone not named Aaron Nola took a …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (59-54) at Arizona Diamondbacks (64-50)
I had been planning to take a long weekend and catch this series in Phoenix. Instead, I ended up shelling out hundreds of dollars to repair rodent damage to my car, and will be watching from home. I feel like I should present the repair bill to the cat. Team Leaders Cubs OBP: Kris Bryant (.390) ISO: Anthony Rizzo (.246) …
Series Preview: St. Louis Cardinals (46-49) at Chicago Cubs (49-45)
If the 2016 Cubs truly are back, it's hard to think of a better litmus test than a home series against the Cardinals. Of course, the Cardinals have been disappointing relative to non-BP expectations as well this year. The main thing that has taken a step back is their offense, which trailed only the Cubs in wRC+ among NL teams …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (38-37) at Washington Nationals (45-30)
The Cubs are in the middle of a brutal scheduling stretch that has just three home games in a span of three weeks. At least the Nationals are only the penultimate team during this stretch, rather than the capper. Who the hell schedules back to back four game road series like this? Good job, good effort, MLB. Though it's not …
Series Preview: Colorado Rockies (38-23) at Chicago Cubs (30-28)
I feel extremely vindicated in my confidence that the Rockies were going to be good this year. Please disregard any comments that I may have made in the podcast to open the season about how they would end up with a worse record than the Padres, that must have been deceptively edited. Oddly enough, the Rockies record is not built …
Cardinals 6, Cubs 7 (6.14.17)
OSS: Cubs complete the sweep of the Cardinals behind a big day from Ian Happ. Three up: Ian Happ launched two homers off of Michael Wacha, driving in more than half the the Cubs runs. One of them even had runners on base. The novelty! Based on what few innings I've seen he looks credible in CF too. Albert Almora …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (25-24) at San Diego Padres (19-33)
Well that was, uh, not great. At least the Cubs transition from playing one of the best teams in the league to one of the worst. Weird shit tends to happen on west coast road trips though, so who knows what will happen. The Padres are as bad as their record, with the second worst offense in baseball by wOBA …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (25-21) at Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles (27-20)
The Dodgers pitching is tops in the league, which is not a huge surprise, but their offense is way better than I would have guessed as well. They were fourth in the NL in offensive production last year, and are right there again in 2017. Turner, Grandal, and Seager are having big years as expected, but they are also getting …
Series Preview: San Francisco Giants (19-26) at Chicago Cubs (22-20)
As much grumbling as there has been at the Cubs slow start, this series offers a stark reminder that it could be much worse. The Giants season can be summed up with the fact that Giants ace Madison Bumgarner, who has been out since late April due to a dirtbike accident, has the team's third highest offensive WAR on the …