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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

Cubs Land Ryan Brasier: Why I love this move

Hello Cubs World, WELL ISNT THIS CONVENIENT!!! Jed's Dead with Delight Man, did this play right into Jed Hoyer's hand. You couldn't author a better situation for his brand of dealmaking = more importantly, it is a great fit for our swiss army knife approach to the bullpen. He wasn't even the worst 26th man on the Dodgers roster, just the odd man out for Kirby Yates by a small margin. Three lesser pitchers have Dodger jobs simply for role reasons, and the rest are projected to vie
Transactions and Roster Construction

Here's a Fun Topic: Who Should Replace Canario?

Hey all!  I appreciate all the readers of my first blogpost. I won't typically post twice in two days. I figured I'd keep this new blog momentum rolling, though, with a fun topic. In my first post I argued that Paul Dejong would be the best 1 year sub at 3B because of his combination of glove and power. In this Scenario, Shaw starts at Second for Hoerner and then slides into a platoon at 3rd with DeJong. We still haven't sorted out the other two bench spots: 1) The 5th outfielder; 2) The le
Transactions and Roster Construction

Matt Boyd, now Colin Rea: What is This Strategy Anyway? 

Matt Boyd, now Colin Rea: What is This Strategy Anyway?  Let's get right into it, shall we? Many fans were disappointed by this dual signing of backend starters. Fans ALWAYS want to fill from the top of the depth chart - they wanted a new #1 or #2 (Max Fried, Garret Crochet) or at least a #3 to leapfrog Taillon (Walker Buehler, Luis Castillo). But there's more reasons to NOT do this than to do this - especially given the organization's strategy to cap salary at the tax line. Let's reflect o
Transactions and Roster Construction

How's Jon Berti as a Cub?

Hey folks,  let me clear my desk of the Tanner Scott issue first.  I'm none-too-happy about missing on Tanner Scott (and Kirby Yates, btw), but at least we "tried". I Think the Dodgers paid the right price. I had Scott as a 65 MM player on 3 years or 75 MM on four years (when you're in the bullpen, that extra guarantee is well worth a lower AAV). Dodgers went 4 years, 72 MM. Let' keep in mind, on a 4 year bullpen contract, you're paying for 1 year of injury time, whereas on a 3 year, y
Transactions and Roster Construction

How Good is Michael Busch?

I'm taking a sidestep from the roster construction discussion for a moment to reflect on the upside potential of the dynamic duo of Pete-Crow Armstrong and Michael Busch.  Although the media has fallen in love with PCA already, they have been strangely silent about Busch.  Well, there's at least one clear reason for it: baseball media has greatly devalued the first base position in recent years. I mean, look at Pete Alonso's struggle to land a 30 million dollar year. Advanced statistics rea
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

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

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

What stat is the Cubs' biggest need for improvement in 2025?

Hello Cubs world,  in prior posts, I've made the argument that our pitching is gonna be fine, so long as we land another serious closer/setup player to split duties with Hodge. The Cubs were 10th in starter ERA, and 6th after the All-Star Break. Their bullpen was stellar in August and September as well.  Long story short, this team needs to slug.  It can't play with the big boys without big bats. Let's take at look at last year's team slugging rankings. You will notice a clear pattern
Transactions and Roster Construction

Is Ryan Pressly Enough to Tip the Scales?

Howdy Cubs World- let's talk Pressly. [ Uh huh huh. ]  (Oh by the way- paid writers are mostly paid to edit. Unpaid writers give you a good enough draft.) Ok, first, the good news. we DID get a GOOD closer/setup veteran with a couple of elite pitches. Facts. And, he's got a resume of incredible work under pressure. He's a guy with a baller resume that you're glad to have in a post-season run.   The bad news: He's almost as risky as Hector Neris Last Year.  I hate to be a down
Transactions and Roster Construction

Assembling a Great Bullpen: Some Basics

Hey Cubs world,  I've spent my initial time blogging here about the Cubs moves for 2025. However, sometimes its good to pause and reflect on general principles of baseball and how to build winning teams.  In this post, I discuss a few basics of bullpen construction that fans often overlook.  Beating Rival Teams: Targeted Bullpen Design Wins Above Replacement is a generic approach to roster construction, and for that reason, can't be precise. If this were all that was necessar
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. 
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

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

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
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

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

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

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
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