Green Passed Away, Russell and Sliders, a Fantastic World Series Video, and Other Bullets

Mar 23, 2017

3.5 hours.

That’s my sleep counter for last night, after two slightly longer, but still far too short nights of sleep the preceding two nights, thanks to the World Baseball Classic (and aggressive early-waking kids). So, there was a late-night write-up for the WBC, a podcast to record this morning, other posts to pop out … and you’ll forgive me if the Bullets are a little later than usual.

And if they are marginally less coherent …

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Former Cubs GM Dallas Green passed away yesterday, and Cubs Chairman and Owner Tom Ricketts released a statement:

#Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts on the passing of former GM Dallas Green. pic.twitter.com/5k0vzpxtSz

— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) March 22, 2017

A very interesting read from Eno Sarris at FanGraphs on Addison Russell’s second half in 2016. Nope, it’s not about the power surge we’ve discussed so often. It’s actually about how pitchers realized he was feasting on their sliders, and started (1) throwing them less often, and (2) started working them down and away more frequently. The result: “Only six players experienced a bigger drop-off in their second-half slugging percentage on sliders than Russell did, declining from that attractive .578 slugging mark featured above to a .286 figure in the second half. This while seeing fewer sliders, swinging at more of them, and whiffing less often when he did swing.” In other words, it would *seem* that Russell’s early success against sliders emboldened him to swing even more often at sliders, despite the ones he was seeing being harder to hit with authority. So, he still made lots of contact against sliders … but it was weaker contact. Pitchers’ pitches. That kind of thing. At least, that’s what the data looks like. Something to keep an eye on for early 2017.

Incidentally, Russell is Keith Law’s breakout pick this year at shortstop.

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Ben Zobrist was scratched last night because of a stiff neck, and is day to day (Cubs.com).

Anthony Rizzo played in a minor league game yesterday instead of the big league one, and, like Kyle Schwarber, Rizzo bunted for a base hit against the shift (Cubs.com).

This is a fantastic fan-view video of the final out of the World Series, which I hadn’t seen before:

Attention #Cubs fans:

Want to be a part of our @CSNOriginal #CSNReignMen?

Reply with YOUR Game 7 celebratory videos to be included! pic.twitter.com/kH23Wtc5Kz

— CSN Chicago (@CSNChicago) March 19, 2017

Over at Baseball is Fun, the Red Sox had a very, very difficult drill for their catchers to try to perform. And Michael found these virtual reality/360-degree videos that MLB created, which are unbelievable. I did not know they were a thing, and you should definitely check them out and dream about the future possibilities.

If you missed it, Theo Epstein was named the World’s Greatest Leader. Seriously.

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USA! USA:

If you want to celebrate Team USA's win in the WBC, there's championship gear now available: https://t.co/8rXn0GTVKY pic.twitter.com/neQH1I9Kxz
— Brett Taylor (@BleacherNation) March 23, 2017

Luis has your TYL Bears Bullets here.

Almost single digits:

Obligated to notify you whenever these go on sale: those small-but-powerful Etekcity lanterns are on a huge sale today at Amazon.

written by

Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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