{"id":165441,"date":"2025-09-18T12:56:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T12:56:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/165441\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T12:56:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T12:56:06","slug":"cubs-sign-legendary-base-stealer-to-be-secret-weapon-in-the-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/165441\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs sign legendary base stealer to be secret weapon in the playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cubs sign legendary base stealer to be secret weapon in the playoffs<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a><\/p>\n

The Chicago Cubs are looking for every advantage they can get as the postseason looms.<\/p>\n

One area they’ve made a last-minute investment in? Base stealing.<\/p>\n

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The Cubs recently signed veteran Billy Hamilton, one of the best swipers of this generation.<\/p>\n

Hamilton is currently at Triple-A Iowa, where the wheels clearly still work:<\/p>\n

Hamilton hasn’t played in the majors since 2023.<\/p>\n

He originally broke in with the Cincinnati Reds, for whom he played six seasons.<\/p>\n

After that, Hamilton bounced around to the White Sox, Royals, Braves, Marlins, Twins, Mets and Cubs.<\/p>\n

He stole 56 or more bases in four consecutive seasons from 2014 through 2017. But he never quite had the hitting ability to go with his prodigious speed.<\/p>\n

Hamilton is a career .239 hitter with a .617 OPS.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

But the Cubs aren’t looking at him to hit. They’re looking at him to take those uber-important extra bases, akin to Dave Roberts in the 2004 ALCS for the Red Sox.<\/p>\n

Hamilton is certainly capable of that.<\/p>\n

Can the Cubs afford to give a roster spot to such a specialist? We’ll see what they actually decide to do when playoff rosters come out.<\/p>\n

But it’s an intriguing idea, for sure.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Switch-hitting should be impossible, but Cal Raleigh makes it historic<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cubs sign legendary base stealer to be secret weapon in the playoffs originally appeared on The Sporting News…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[99941,1993,479,2319,4284,9890,23560,363,28624,99,99942,36362],"class_list":["post-165441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-billy-hamilton","tag-cal-raleigh","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-dave-roberts","tag-marlins","tag-mets","tag-mlb","tag-red-sox","tag-sports","tag-triple-a-iowa","tag-white-sox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}