In the aftermath of the recently announced deal with the city to renovate Wrigley Field, Theo Epstein spoke to the media about its potential benefits to the team: Our payroll now is third in the division. That’s fine. But it should be first in the division. So this is one of the ways that we’re going to get there. It …
Series Preview: St. Louis Cardinals (90-72) vs Philadelphia Phillies (102-60)
St. Louis squeaked its way into the playoffs thanks to a late-season collapse by the Braves. Again, I find it crazy that there are 2 NL Central teams in the playoffs. Team Overviews Team stats, with NL rank in parentheses Cardinals Phillies wOBA .332 (1st) .316 (6th) UBR 4.0 (5th) -5.7 (14th) UZR -29.8 (15th) -10 (9th) DRS -13 (11th) …
Chicago Cubs @ Los Angeles Dodgers
GamedayBRef Preview Cubs wOBA wRC RS Dodgers wOBA wRC RS Starlin Castro .330 .52 -.03 Jamey Carroll .346 .59 -.02 Darwin Barney .297 .39 .03 Jerry Sands .326 .50 .00 Marlon Byrd .334 .51 -.01 Andre Ethier .374 .65 -.01 Aramis Ramirez .347 .54 -.03 Matt Kemp .356 .57 -.02 Geovany Soto .353 .55 -.01 Juan Uribe .322 .44 .01 …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (12-15) at Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles (14-15)
Team Overview Dodgers team stats (NL rank in parens): wOBA: .310 (11th)UZR: -2.9 (10th)DRS: -11 (11th)SP FIP: 3.77 (8th)SP xFIP: 3.64 (5th)RP FIP: 4.52 (16th)RP xFIP: 4.09 (12th) Batters: Player wOBA ZiPS wOBA 2B Aaron Miles .270 .272 LF Jerry Sands .252 .326 RF Andre Ethier .430 .374 CF Matt Kemp .460 .356 3B Juan Uribe .305 .322 1B James …
Series Preview: Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles (10-10) at Chicago Cubs of Chicago (9-9)
Team Overview This is where I would normally talk about what the team’s done, but anything that the Dodgers have acoomplished this year is overshadowed by the legal battle that is shaking up between the McCourts and MLB. It’s going to be a big mess. If MLB does take over, I hope that they appoint current MLB VP of operations …
Matt Garza is not this bad or this good
The start to Matt Garza‘s career as a Cub has not gone as planned. After giving up Chris Archer, Robinson Chirinos, Hak-Ju Lee, Brandon Guyer and Super Sam Fuld, the Cubs Cubs were expecting big things from Garza. He’d been a very good pitcher for a few years now and was moving from the AL East to the NL Central. …