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About this blog

New Blog, Who Dis?

Here's the 5W's (Who, what, when, where, why) for this blog. I'll provide a real name for the blog soon. 

Who

I'm Dr. Robert Conan Ryan, although I won't make you call me Doctor. I've had many nicknames, and hopefully a new one will emerge from this blog. I hold a Ph.D. in Business Administration from U Pittsburgh and an MBA from U Delaware. My primary work involves academic research and teaching strategic management, entrepreneurship, business ethics, and management; however, I have a thorough background in economics. I've taught at 5 universities so far. I am a lifelong Cubs fan who was tempted to become a baseball economist when a student at U Delaware in the 2000's. We had two world-renowned baseball economists then.  

What

This is going to be a somewhat advanced blog with a high reading level - no clickbait here. I intend to tackle perspectives that are unique in Cubs media - not outlandishly unique, but generally counter to popular narratives. I emphasize three primary topics. First, over-rated/under-rated strategies for roster construction and team building. Second, applying strategic principles from outside the sport to unearth insights, such as from fields of business or economics. Third, pushing baseball metrics in new directions to unearth hidden advantages/disadvantages - especially, team-level stats. 

When 

I expect to release new pieces 2-4 times a month. 

Where

We shall see if I fit in here at northsidebaseball.com! 

Why

Because you won't see the same analysis anywhere else. My approach is to dispel media myths about conventional baseball strategy. Some fans will say: "finally, someone said it". 

 

 

 

Entries in this blog

Transactions and Roster Construction

Predicting the Cubs Wins for 2026: Revisiting My MOJO System

Hello Cubs World,  It is about time to give you my division standing predictions for the Cubs and their rivals.  Before I do so, let me remind you that at the beginning of the 2025 season I scored the Cubs at 92.5 Wins, and the Cubs did, in fact, land at 92 Wins whereas PECOTA had them at 90.5. I also predicted the Brewers at 90 wins (+8 MOJO), outperforming PECOTA's 82; however, they had a generational overshoot of expectations.   My MOJO Chemistry system adjusts PECOTA for 6 com
Transactions and Roster Construction

A critical look at the Cubs batting order: RE24 and other musings

Hello Cubs World,  Dr. Robert Conan Ryan here - your resident management/entrepreneurship professor and economist.  I've been having tons of fun playing with simulations of batting orders, including revisitations of classic ones like the 1927 Yankees; similarly, I've looked at modern roster patterns that don't resemble anything anyone would recognize 100 years ago.  My quest: to unlock counter-intuitive and superior results that hunt for a classical/modern synthesis.  Here's three
Transactions and Roster Construction

Speculations on the Cubs Bench

Hello Cubs World,  let's spend a bit of time analyzing the bench.  Before we get started, let's recall that the Cubs have had a below average hitting bench for years now. Jed Hoyer has spent most of the past five years collecting glove-only (not even glove-first) players for those roles. The exception was Patrick Wisdom- a completely reverse guy who had all the power we ever wanted, but never truly mastered any position. His supposed spot, third base, was actually his worst, by far. Le
Transactions and Roster Construction

How's the Bullpen Swiss Army Knife Coming Along?

Hello Cubs World, in this blog entry I'll quickly review the "locked in" members of the 2026 13-man pitching roster, plus the top  minors/injury arms on standby. Taking a hybrid approach, we will look at both the role each pitcher will play and the "swiss army knife" value of the player - which, if you've been following my writing, is really all about having a maximally diverse set of nasty pitches and pitching styles.  TLDR Version: I project a #5 MLB Rotation, #10 Bullpen. Great Swis
Transactions and Roster Construction

Re-doing the Cubs 2026 Pitching Staff: The Swiss Army Knife Approach

Hello Cubs World, My first news article will be dropping in a few days. Keep your eye out for it! In the meantime, I'm raising an issue here: What would be the BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE bullpens, if Hoyer focused solely on that issue this offseason? It is incorrect to only add WAR and chase strikeout kings. You need a Swiss army knife approach to a good bullpen and actually squeeze more WAR from team chemistry. You need to generate matchup outs, because no team - even the Dodgers or Mets -
Transactions and Roster Construction

The Simplest off-Season Plan for Cubbies

Hello Cubs World,  we all know there's many unknowns in an early off-season - surprise trade block activity, market values, player attitudes about joining certain clubs, and various subtle factors that fans simply cannot access. That being said.... Let's take the simplest approach to revising the Cubs roster for 2026 and look for only the obvious additions necessary - and think like Jed Hoyer. don't even waste time on possibilities that He wouldn't embrace.   Cubs have a solid tea
Management Topics

Been a long time but I am back

hey Cubs World, Its been a while but I am back. Woo! and I got a shoutout as runnerup for best community post. Nice.... Anyhoo/// let's check how we did in teh regular season predictions... Zips predicted 90.6 wins for the cubs. So basically 91.  I predicted 92.5 - it would have been 95 if Steele was an impact arm all year. I correctly surmised we'd lose one of our top 2 starters.  How about my predictions for the rest? Well, my biggest over-reach was Kyle Tucker. I tho
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Transactions and Roster Construction

Who Should Replace Vidal Brujan?

Hello Cubs World, you know it. I know it. We all know that Vidal Brujan is a placeholder - a disposable glove guy.  Brujan hasn't done anything to force himself onto the field - he's just burning lowest leverage innings.  So let's get to it. Hoyer has the usual two choices: acquire or promote a bench player.  Team Needs  There's a few ways a bench player could improve the team.  1) Another power hitter   2) Righty killer platoon LHB at 2B, 3B, or LF - Matt Shaw hits only .658
Transactions and Roster Construction

How's Genesis Cabrera?

Hello Cubs World, looks like we scooped up a lefty. I'm thrilled that the Cubs are pushing for 3 lefties in the pen- it is the next critical step towards fielding a top 10 bullpen. Most elite bullpens have 3 or 4 lefties, and the Cubs have been running with 1-2, while leaning heavily on righties that play well against both handed hitters. Well, as clever as that moneyball solution has been for saving a buck, it has a hard ceiling- for the Hoyer Cubs, Cubs struggle hard to crack a top 10 bul
Transactions and Roster Construction

Early Season Checkup: The Q1 Performance of Cubs B-Ball (Part 4, STARTING PITCHING ANALYSIS)

Hello Cubs World,  I dragged my feet on this one because the starting rotation is, like most other teams, a work in progress with injury issues.... that's just pitching in modern baseball. But its time to get to the point: how have they done, and what can we do about it? (Note: I'm also going to do an analysis soon of all the offseason misses - the guys the fans and media wanted us to pursue, and those we didn't, and where we'd be if we had made better choices).  How They've Done, Thro
Transactions and Roster Construction

Early Season Checkup: The Q1 Performance of Cubs B-Ball (Part 3, PLAYER ANALYSIS)

Hello Cubs World, let's skip right to it shall we? The Stats keep fluctuating. Cubs keep putting up monster numbers of runs, efficiently. Their bullpen keeps cracking. But lets go head and finish a quick analysis to see the likelihood of sustained success for each player.  General stats worth discussing (fundamentals that drive beyond WAR, OBP, SLG, OPS): I provided Fangraphs rankings, minimum 90 plate appearances, for each players' xwOBA, Home Runs, and Defensive WAR contributi
Management Topics

Early Season Checkup: The Q1 Performance of Cubs B-Ball (Part 2, the POSITION PLAYERS)

Hello Cubs World,  I've been thoroughly enjoying the North Side Baseball articles. As usual, they provide the best information NOT behind a paywall. Lucky fans. Seriously, everyone should try to promote the site and expand the readership. And I encourage site donors to push for more site marketing somehow! Thanks.    Back to our regularly scheduled programming. (For you kids younger than 40, this was a thing that was said when a radio or tv channel was interrupted by an emergency techn
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Transactions and Roster Construction

Early Season Checkup: The Q1 Performance of Cubs B-Ball (Part 1)

Hello Cubs World,  I'm just thrilled to provide another blog entry regarding the Cubs. I'm less thrilled by the bullpen antics. But before I get into player details, let's just stop and appreciate a few basic predictions I made at the team level and how they have panned out. My Off-Season Expectations: Team Position Player Rankings The Cubs are performing up to expectations in the field, at bat, and baserunning. The most important overall offensive statistic for the regular season is
Transactions and Roster Construction

New Uniform?: A Smart Compromise

Hello Cubs World, I had to jump into this conversation.  As a Business Professor, I'm always looking for the bottom-line opportunities.  Here's my suggestions, based on all the news I've read on this matter: 1) Pinstripes is the Late Season Look The new home uniform has visual appeal on television, but is a bit less popular with merchandising, for a few reasons. First, when we think of the Fall Classic, we can only ever picture our teams in their most "formal looking" attire. Pin
Transactions and Roster Construction

Interlude: How Good was the Bears Draft?

Hello Cubs World,  I know this is a baseball site. You know this is a baseball site. K.  But I'd venture to guess at least half of the people around here support the Bears, too.  And coming off two early-season losses to the Phillies, and several bullpen changes, I'm in a "wait and see" mode to analyze the Cubbies. We have every reason to love our lineup, and our starting rotation is holding up fairly well ....except Ben Brown. I've been criticizing him since the offseason as a mere
Transactions and Roster Construction

Why Nicky Lopez?

Hello Cubs World, I'm sure you were rooting for Gage Workman. I know I was. He looked good at the plate. He hits lefty. He plays key positions for which we need solutions. But Gage's errors were even worse than Shaw's. Shaw had several errors in a small sample, even worse than we expected from the failed campaigns of Chris Morel and Patrick Wisdom in 2023 and 2024. Workman managed to outdo him by committing two errors vs the Dodgers in a single game that cost us a hefty lead - that gam
Transactions and Roster Construction

Too-Early 2025 Hitting Projections

Hello Cubs World, It's about time to make some revised projections! First, I will review my early guesses for the first 20 games and see how close I was. Then, I'll give a revised "injury free" guess at the rest of the season. I'll keep it simple since we have a long way to go. I will give a deeper analysis around game 40ish.  I Always say that you need 40 games before you know your club identity- especially pitching. But let's give it a shot. I didn't give exact numbers for each playe
Transactions and Roster Construction

My Northside Community Award Speech

Hello Cubs World, So happy and proud to have won a Seiya Suzuki Bobblehead doll for my little slice of this website.  Before I get into future baseball insights, let me give my gratitude to this community. It's a cool corner of the net that should be expanded. I gave it a trial run and I am glad we found each other eye-to-eye. This is a voluntary dues paying club waiting to happen.  Let me walk you through my interpretation of my community blog award as a random human being you do
Transactions and Roster Construction

So, how's the pitching NOW?

Hey Cubs World, Ill get back to evaluating the position roster performance after game 20 of the season. This is a short piece about the state of the pitching.    Here's a list of insights so far: The starters 1) No worries about Steele. Sure, Steele has struggled with health, but those struggles are minor. He's looked consistently like a top starter when healthy, and he will come back to 100 percent by Mid-May. He'll still give us 25 starts this year and earn his keep. 
Management Topics

Goodbye Spring: Hitting Expectations for the First 20 Games

Hello Cubs world,  on this blog I'll be laying out revised expectations for the Cubs 2025 Season. Hopefully I'll routinely update those expectations as the season progresses. It is a bit early to say too much about pitching -there's not much correlation between March and season performance. As usual, my goal here is not to predict what Craig Counsell will do, but rather what he OUGHT to do, if he wants to take advantage of the current hot/cold patters of Spring player performances. It is a
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Management Topics

Let's Get Pumped to Win the Division

Hello Cubs World,  After dissecting Hoyer's strategy for the past three months, I came to the conclusion we are the clear division favorite this year; moreover, even if missing on the division, we are a practical lock for a wild card. So, let's high five about that.  In today's blog piece, I'll go over reasons to really be pumped about this team. Top 12 Reasons to be Excited. 1) Fangraphs and Zips predict Cubs as third-best overall record in MLB.  Enough said- that's a strong
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Transactions and Roster Construction

Justin Turner: Why am I "meh"? Part Two

Hello Cubs World,  I'm sending off an academic publication this weekend! Its always a big landmark moment. Academic studies can take months or years, with the average turnaround time dramatically varying by field. I'm a business professor, and our publication rates are much slower than hard scientists. Its normal for research faculty to produce 1 "b" quality journal paper every 12-24 months, and in addition to that research, producing 1 "a" quality paper every 3 years. However, only about 1
Transactions and Roster Construction

Justin Turner: Why am I "meh"? Part One

hey Cubs world,  I just got finished a rousing game of Company of Heroes and saw Justin Turner was scooped up by the Cubs. Nobody's mad at the deal, but some people are surprisingly PUMPED, as if this move was the "big difference". Also, I hear a lot of "good price"!  Sorry guys, but for me, this is the equivalent of being pumped about Caleb Thielbar after missing on Tanner Scott. Sure, I like Theilbar as an interesting option. His only down year happened to be last year, however, and
Management Topics

Competitive Tiers: The Landscape in 2025

Hello Cubs World,       I was in the middle of prepping my slow cooker for chili, and an interesting thought exercise popped into my head.  Every once in a while, seismic shifts occur in a sport's competitive landscape: expansion teams, relocations, ownership change, and the like. Pretty soon, the collective bargaining agreement will expire. In 2 years, we could see a shuffling of many rules, especially related to player salary tax/cap/veterancy structures. However, teams are already p
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Management Topics

Assad's Camp Injury: A Blessing in Disguise?

Hello Cubs world,  like everyone else, I'm curious how this final roster shapes up. Given the short amount of time remaining to make deals before the season starts, I'll just wait and react rather than make any more predictions or analysis of the roster composition.  Assad and Birdsell Injury News Fans were a bit surprised to hear about these two injuries at this exact moment, given that the action is pretty light in early February. Javier Assad is facing an oblique injury and Bir
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