For the most part, the wife and I have been eating our meals at home with infrequent trips to the grocery store every 1.5-2 weeks, but there are a couple of planned exceptions. We’ve used Fridays as our night to support one of our random local restaurants with a bigger-than-necessary orders (that’s extremely important and delicious), and we’ve been eating out with some additional fast food/pizzas/takeout meals over the weekend.
But that reminds me: Today’s the day for those who live near or around Clinton, Iowa to visit the home of the Clinton LumberKings for some ballpark food to go!
Seriously, that’s a thing you can do today:
At ESPN, Buster Olney runs down the top-five hit-by-pitches in MLB history and although the list, itself, is a fascinating trip, the story behind Olney’s No. 1 ranking, Craig Biggio, got me thinking about a certain Chicago Cub: “Because the closer he was to the plate, the more that he’d be hit, and Biggio was hit often. Twenty-two HBPs in the strike-shortened 1995 season, 27 in 1996 and 34 in 1997, each a league-leading total. As Biggio explained recently on the Baseball Tonight podcast, he also recognized how his shift in the batter’s box spiked his on-base percentage, a welcome byproduct; in eight of the 10 seasons beginning in 1995, he scored 100 or more runs, twice leading the league.”
Whom does that remind you of? Anthony Rizzo, of course! The Cubs first baseman has been hit a total of 145 times in his big league career, which already ranks 19th most all-time. Though, the top-5 consistency didn’t start until his third season with the Cubs (2014), when he began to move in to better cover the far side of the plate, and then really ramped up in 2015-2016, when he began the more familiar hulking over the plate position with which we’re familiar today:
2014: 15 HBP (4th in MLB)
2015: 30 (1st)
2016: 16 (4th)
2017: 24 (1st)
2018: 20 (3rd)
2019: 27 (1st)
As you can see, Rizzo has led the league in HBP on three separate occasions and hasn’t finished outside the top-5 in six straight seasons. Perhaps that helps to explain his .388 on-base percentage during that stretch, which ranks 8th highest in all of MLB. You gotta be one tough dude to take that many off the body year-in and year-out, but if you can manage it legally and in the spirit of fair competition, it can really help your overall production.
Okay, this is my new favorite article: At ESPN, Keith Law (scout) and Eno Sarris (stats) got together to examine and explain each of the famous “Five Tools” a baseball player can possess from both the scouting perspective and an advanced analytics perspective. It is extremely fun, very illuminating, and highly educational. The five-tool, 20-80 scouting scale is something I think we all believe we have a firm grasp on, but it’s more complicated than meets the eye, particularly when it comes to the “hit” tool.
Among the interesting revelations, Albert Pujols has been a 20-grade runner (lowest possible score) for several years, and that’s the only tool for which a player can earn a 20 grade and still be a Major Leaguer. Relatedly, Sarris concedes that despite attempts to quantify game running speed with advanced tracking systems and data, some of the original old school methods proved to be more accurate and predictive! How about that?
Oh, and Kyle Schwarber has one of the top-three best outfield arms by one advanced analytic that accounts for “the speed and location of batted balls to the outfield and how often base runners advance extra bases (advances), don’t advance the extra base (holds), or get thrown out trying to advance (kills)” and even includes park factors.” Pretty cool. It’s not just about runners testing him, his arm is legit.
At MLB.com, Will Leitch tried to identify each club’s best player of the 1990s, and although there are some plausible alternatives, Sammy Sosa takes the honor for the Cubs. Mark Grace (36.2 WAR) was probably more valuable overall than Sosa (34.8 WAR) and Ryne Sandberg (27.3 WAR) was just around the bend, but it’s hard to argue with Sosa. Of course, you have to wonder how much his 25.9 additional WAR and 238 more home runs thereafter (2000-2004) factored in.
Speaking of which, who was the Cubs top player from 2000-2009? Sosa’s 25.9 WAR did technically lead the position players, though Aramis Ramirez (22.4) and Derek Lee (21.4) were obviously crucial. Carlos Zambrano (27.7 WAR) earned the most overall WAR that decade, but Kerry Wood (18.9) and Mark Prior (16.3) are certainly notable. All things considered – including my own personal bias – I’d go Derek Lee. Very open to comments on that, though. We could do the same thing for the 2010-2019 decade, and although Kris Bryant might be the obvious choice (he’s probably the correct answer), Anthony Rizzo was here for more than 400 more games than Bryant this past decade and out-earned him in terms of total WAR: 29.7 to 27.8. Bryant is definitely the more valuable player with the higher upside and better individual seasons, but I’ve got to go with Rizzo given the tenure and timing.
Related:
Isn’t that just a funny list? Kyle Hendricks surprisingly leading over Arrieta and Lester, Jeff Samardzija still in the top-5, Jose Quintana doing his best to battle the haters. Funny list.
The folks at MLB Trade Rumors have begun looking ahead to the 2020-2021 free agent class with a focus on center fielders, who should be of particular note to the Cubs. Obviously, we all hoped Ian Happ would have been able to use the 2020 season to take over that role, but we don’t know how many games will actually get to see this season, let alone if Happ is going to be able to run with it. Moreover, with Schwarber (and Kris Bryant, for that matter) scheduled to be a free agent one season later, the Cubs may need to start considering a free agent outfielder as soon as this coming offseason anyway. George Springer and Starling Marte are at the top of the class, and Jackie Bradley Jr. sorta catches my eye, but they’re all on the wrong side of 30. MLBTR has much more on each.
Finally, here’s why players need a ramp up period before returning to action (LOL):
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