One of the Cubs' Best 2021 Games, Trayce Thompson, and Other Random Stats

 I miss baseball. I'm not trying to be whiny, but it's a fact. Sure, the Cubs signed 12 IFA prospects on Saturday. But you know what, that's really not the same thing. I miss the activity of signings and trades and rumors, plus the upcoming Spring Training that will probably be postponed. Anyway, I'm also pretty bored after having gone over everything that's been repeated several hundred times. 

So, I decided to do some Cubs' stat browsing and try to find some interesting things that you'll be interested in. I was not unsuccessful, and some of the things I found actually got my attention.

The Cubs' Best Stat Game

Now, from a fan's perspective the Cubs' best game of the year might be their no-hitter against the Dodgers, or ones that included some Schwindel walk-offs. But from a stat perspective, the Cubs' best game was April 23rd, 2021, against the Brewers at Wrigley.

Of course, this was back when the Cubs had their core group, plus the additions of Pederson and Marisnick that they added before the 2021 season. Kyle Hendricks was on the mound for Chicago, against the Brewers' starter Brett Anderson. And you know what? The Cubs' offense exploded.

Anderson lasted for only 1/3 inning after giving up 3 runs and an injury. Josh Lindblom came in next and allowed 8 runs in 3.2 innings and was replaced by Rasmussen/Perdomo/Yardley/Robertson who allowed 4 runs the rest of the game. The final was 15-2, with Hendricks only allowing 2 runs in 6 innings.

The reason it was the Cubs' best stat game was not just because of the score, but rather the kind of hitting the Cubs' batters did.

• Rizzo, Contreras, Baez, and Marisnick all hit a HR, and 6 doubles were hit as well, including 2 by Hoerner. The Cubs had a total of 17 hits that night.
• That game was the Cubs' best Barrel% of the year, with a 28.1% Barrel percentage. 
• It was their best game with XBA, with a 0.377 XBA that game. Their next best was a 0.326 XBA vs the Braves.
• It was their best game with XSLG, as they had 0.766 XSLG that game. Their next best was a 0.630 XSLG vs the Cardinals.
• It was their best game with both XWOBA and WOBA. They had a 0.510 and a 0.576 respectively, better by quite a bit than their next best vs the Braves.

So basically, it was their best game in offense with all the slugging, extra base-hits and Barrel rate. Plus the fact that it was verses the Cubs' big division rival, the Brewers, and that the Cubs reached 15 runs that game.

Remember Trayce Thompson?

Thompson came up from the minors and had 28 AB with the Cubs towards the end of the season. He elected free agency when the offseason started, but I came across the surprising fact that he "led" the Cubs in several stats (even though he had limited AB).

This is what he led the Cubs in:

• .400 OBP
• .714 SLG
• .453 WOBA
• 35.8 Barrel%
• 58.8 HardHit%
• 92.3 MPH EV

I see power plus contact in those leaderboard stats. Even though the Cubs don't have him anymore, I thought I'd just throw this out here because it was pretty neat.

The Speed on the Team

I thought I'd look to see who was the fastest on the Cubs (and who was the slowest), and this is what I found:

1. Nico Hoerner. 28.8 ft/s, which is in the top 9% of the league. I knew he had speed, but boy he's pretty fast.
2. The next leaders were in this order: Fargas, Hermosillo, Thompson, Wisdom, Madrigal, Giambrone. They all had a 28.0-28.3 ft/s sprint rate.
3. The slowest on the team was Robinson Chirinos, who had a 24.8 ft/s sprint rate.

Anyway, that's the main things I wanted to share, and so thanks for reading and supporting this blog!