Day three of vacation. For today's post, I let my nephew Grady pick the topic. He's a big Cubs fan, so it was no surprise that he chose a Cubs player to focus on. It did surprise me the player he picked was closer Wade Davis.
Davis, the lone Cubs 2017 All-Star, has had an interesting career. Initially a starting pitcher, he made 88 starts from 2009-2013. As a starter, he was not very good: 4.57 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, 6.3 SO/9. But as a reliever, he has been one of the best in the game. Check out these career splits.
Wade Davis
Davis, who turns 32 in September, was traded to the Cubs for Jorge Soler this past offseason. Davis currently has 18 saves in 33 appearances this year. Soler has 14 hits in 29 games. It's pretty early to evaluate the trade, but I think the Cubs have it locked up.
It's been a long time since Davis blew a save—42 appearances, 24 saves, and 40.2 innings to be exact (9/2/16). That had me thinking, what's the longest stretch without a blown save for a closer? How about this 123 game stretch from Eric Gagne:
- 8/28/02 through 7/3/04
- 132.1 IP
- 123 appearances
- 84 saves
- 1.36 ERA
- 0.79 WHIP
- 14.08 SO/9
Baseball is here! And more importantly, that means the over/under game is back. It seems as though everyone is an expert this time of year. Somehow we convince ourselves that we are better at predicting baseball outcomes than everyone else. Well, AFITB is putting that to the test for the third year in a row. Think you know more about baseball than us? You probably do. But go ahead and prove it anyway.