During the Opening Day broadcast, Len Kasper mentioned a Chicago Cubs outfield strategy that they will employ throughout the season. During the eighth inning, and around 11:30 PM Central time, Len mentioned that the Cubs will play their outfielders primarily deep throughout the year.
Typically this is a strategy used when a team is up, late in the game, however this appears to be the main strategy the team will employ throughout the entire 162 game season. This is used to reduce the probability for extra base hits as outfielders would have the opportunity to get to balls in the gap and reduce the chance that balls are hit over their heads.
When Len mentioned this during Monday night’s broadcast, it immediately sparked a debate between my brother and I on why. My brother mentioned how this strategy diminishes Jason Heyward’s defense, and it seemed strange that they would employ a complete strategy to hide whoever is playing left field on a given day.
I immediately came to the realization that the Cubs plan on out-slugging teams, and if you limit teams to singles it becones a lot harder to score enough to keep up.
While I know manager Joe Maddon is smart enough to change things up and the outfield will not use this strategy all the time, but with a team that can score six or more runs a night it could prove to be very smart. It is similar to the cover-2 defense in football, build to bend but not break.
It will certainly be very interesting to see how this plays out for the Cubs. Game one of the 162-0 season down.
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