Congratulations are in order for the Cubs, who rode yet another dominant Jake Arrieta performance to a 4-0 win over the Pirates to advance to the NLDS, where they’ll face another division-rival — the Cardinals. As Cubs fans celebrate and Bucs fans mourn, here’s a look at some notes on each of the two teams…
- Travis Sawchik of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review took a look at how the Pirates constructed their latest winner, noting the huge amounts of surplus value they got for relatively low-cost acquisitions such as Francisco Cervelli, A.J. Burnett, Francisco Liriano, Jung Ho Kang, J.A. Happ, Joakim Soria and Joe Blanton. Perhaps most interesting is Sawchik’s description of how Liriano came to re-sign with Pittsburgh. Awakened by a 3:30am phone call from agent Greg Genske, Liriano learned that the Pirates had upped their offer to $39MM over three years. Genske advised his client to wait, as the Royals and Astros had both made three-year offers as well, and both the Cubs and Red Sox were showing interest, too. Liriano, however, declined. “I said, ’No. Go ahead and take it,'” Liriano recalled. “I told my agent talk to the Pirates as much as you can, because I wanted to be back.”
- In an effort to explain Arrieta’s emergence as one of the National League’s premier arms, Fangraphs’ Eno Sarris examines a notable change in his pitch profile from 2014 to 2015. As Sarris points out, Arrieta has flipped the usage of his two-seamer and four-seamer and now greatly favors the former over the latter. Beyond that, Arrieta’s shown a willingness to throw his two-seamer/sinker in the zone to lefties and righties alike, and he’ll use the pitch to challenge hitters as well as front-door/back-door them for called strikes and weak contact. The result has been one of the game’s most effective pitches and Arrieta’s emergence into the national limelight and NL Cy Young race.
- David Ross hit just .176/.267/.252 for the Cubs this season, but ESPN’s Wayne Drehs spoke to Ross, his teammates and the coaching staff about the value that Ross brings in the clubhouse and the difference he’s made in dealing with rookies, young stars like Anthony Rizzo and veterans like Jon Lester. Every teammate of Ross spoke glowingly about his emphasis on accountability and his relentless quest to make sure that there’s not a day when anyone on the team is giving any less than 100 percent on the field. Manager Joe Maddon called Ross the best clubhouse presence he’s ever seen, and Rizzo tried to characterize the impact of Ross’ leadership. “It’s one of those things … [Ross] doesn’t demand respect — he earns it,” Rizzo explained. “He lets you know in a nice way, and he’ll get on you in a rough way if he needs to. I tell him all the time I just want to go out and prove to him I can bring it everyday.”
I can’t wait to see which team Ross will hilariously manage after his career is over.
If Ross was smart, he’d stay around Madden for a few years and learn.
Congrats to the Cubs, should be fun series, hopefully of clean baseball.
Really unfortunate for the Pirates to have these great teams the last 3 years and not advance past the NLDS. They have the core in place to make a couple more runs, but you never know when things will head south.
NLDS? Last two years they didn’t advance past the WC game……lol
As a Cubs fan, I said this before last night’s game and nothing has changed my mind: They need to re-seed the playoffs. It’s a travesty to baseball that one of the three best teams in MLB is eliminated at the end of a one-game playoff, and that two of the three best teams will be eliminated by the time the first round ends. The playoffs are enough of a coin toss as it is.
Making winning the division mean less is a far smaller evil in my mind than this outcome, even if it doesn’t happen every year.
If we’re going to have divisions, then winning your division should give you the advantage over non division winners.
However, the best thing would be to get rid of divisions all together and gave a balanced schedule for every team. But baseball (or any sport) isn’t trying to crown the best team champions, or we wouldn’t have any playoffs, at all. Division races and wild – cards have been a huge addition in revenue and fan interest for baseball. It’s not going anywhere.
Oh, please! Bucs are just a regular season team. They don’t know how to win in playoffs.
Pirates had the Cards on the ropes in the 2013 NLDS, and the momentum escaped them, so they DO know how to win in the playoffs.
They won 98 games and that record would have clinched the NL central division in any of the last several seasons. Jake-from-state-farm is an absolute buzz-saw right now, regardless of his opponent.