Denis Poroy/Getty Images North America
New Era of Shortstop
For the first time since 2010, the Cubs will have a new everyday shortstop. With the trade of Starlin Castro, the torch has now been passed to Addison Russell in the middle of the diamond. When the Cubs acquired Russell, the writing on the wall was that he would be the shortstop of the future in Chicago. That time has now come. Russell is just one of the many young players that contributed in 2015, and bigger things are expected of in 2016. Castro was the longest tenured Cub, so there will be an adjustment period for Russell early on to just take in everything that comes with being the starting shortstop. When Russell took over at shortstop, and Castro slid to second in the second half of last season, the Cubs really took off. Russell did miss the NLCS with an injury, so early on in spring camp the Cubs will hope that their new shortstop shows no lingering effects from that. With a healthy Russell up the middle, the Cubs hope to pick up where they left off a season ago.
Arrieta “pitched like there were three of him on the mound”? What does that even mean? My guess is you found a cool graphic you wanted to use and you forced that goofy sentence in to introduce it.
Regression? Schwarber hit .240, Russell hit .240 and soler .260 with injuries. Not much to regress from with those guys. Don’t forget Baez either