Chicago Cubs: The new ‘Daily Double’ of Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo

Chicago Cubs have a different type of player in Anthony Rizzo

Now, Rizzo is no Sandberg of 1984 for a couple reasons. Sandberg was in his fourth year in MLB while 2019 marked Rizzo’s ninth year as a pro. Considering that Sandberg went to bat 636 times in 1984 compared to Rizzo’s 512 times last season, obviously some of the numbers are a little slanted, like Sandberg’s 200 hits compared to Rizzo’s 150 or Sandberg’s 114 runs compared to Rizzo’s 89.

That being said, there are far more similarities than differences between these two players. Those include comparable marks in RBI (Sandberg 84 / Rizzo 94) or doubles (Sandberg 36 / Rizzo 29). How about slugging percentage? Both the 1984 Sandberg and the 2019 Rizzo earned a .520 SLG average.

Just for giggles, I thought I’d look up Sandberg’s numbers when he had nine seasons under his belt like Rizzo did in 2019 and see how the numbers stack up. Obviously this is almost five years after the 1984 season but the results were really close.

Sandberg’s ninth season looks like this: .290 BA, .356 OBP, 30 home runs, five triples, 25 doubles with 85 strikeouts. Last season Rizzo had a .293 BA, .405 OBP, 27 homers, three triples, 29 doubles and 86 strikeouts. You could almost say Rizzo is on his way to a Hall of Fame career with stats that look almost identical to Sandberg’s.

Looking at the numbers in comparison, the new ‘Daily Double’ of Bryant and Rizzo can be even more deadly than Dernier and Sandberg were in 1984 for the Cubs. Add to the fact that this is a shortened season and the Cubs have the one of the top five easiest schedules in MLB and it looks like it’s time again for the… ‘Daily Double!”