One of the Cubs' few weaknesses last year was their individual performances against power pitchers, as was highlighted by both Buster Olney and Fangraphs. As Olney notes, the Cubs struggled against fastballs 94 mph or higher, but the Fangraphs article put that into context and that specific shortcoming seems to have been overstated a bit. However, it is still hard to ignore that the Cubs struggled against power pitchers in general. Using the chart below, Baseball Reference defines a power pitcher as top 1/3 of the league in strikeouts + walks, which is imperfect, but I think it fits well with the Cubs particular troubles, as we will describe later in the piece. When it come to their performance against such pitchers, the Cubs had just a combined 89 sOPS+. That weakness was exposed against the hard-throwing Mets.

(Click to enlarge)

Now, you might say that every team performs worse against power pitchers and you would be right, but that little s in front of the OPS+ number we used from Baseball Reference means it is already adjusted for that particular split. It already reflects how the Cubs fared in comparison in the rest of the league against the same group of pitchers. In other words, the Cubs 89 sOPS+ vs. power pitchers is adjusted with the league as a whole, with the average team having an sOPS+ of 100 vs. power pitchers.

The Cubs made just two additions to their lineup -- Jason Heyward and Ben Zobrist -- but both have had a good track record against power pitchers. Zobrist, in fact, hit .299/.367/.498 vs. those types of arms in 2015. That translates to a 179 sOPS+ when compared to the rest of the league. Zobrist has been above average in these power matchups for the past few years, including marks of 127 and 120 in the prior two seasons.

Jason Heyward, on the other hand, had a down year (87 sOPS+ and is only a minor upgrade to Dexter Fowler (84 sOPS+) in these types of matchups -- but that appears to be something of an aberration as Heyward has had sOPS+ of 156 and 131 in the previous two seasons against power pitchers. He is also important because of how good he is in general (power, finesse, or anywhere in between) against RHPs in particular (131 sOPS+), whereas Dexter Fowler was about average when compared to the rest of the league (102 sOPS+). That's important when you note that the Mets 4 top starting pitchers were all right-handed.

In addition, Anthony RIzzo (153 OPS+) and Kris Bryant (144 OPS+) performed well above league average. That makes at least half the Cubs who have been above average hitters against this type of pitcher -- but many Cubs, including Kyle Schwarber (80 OPS+) were below average while Jorge Soler (59 OPS+), Javier Baez (52 OPS+), and Addison Russell (58 OPS+) were well below average.

Now some of that has to do with inexperience and learning to catch up to the speed of the game. Kyle Schwarber already has a relatively short swing and he should continue to improve as he gets reps. Jorge Soler and Javier Baez still need to learn to shorten their swings with two strikes -- they also need to lay off that hard slider away, a common secondary weapon of power pitchers. Baez actually made progress in that respect. He was abysmal in 2014 -- but his still low OPS+ in 2015 indicates he still has plenty of room for improvement.

But speaking of improvement, we saw big progress from Soler in the postseason as he and Schwarber both showed they could handle the Mets heat. In fact, they were the only consistent offensive threats in that series.

The Cubs do have some options for the regular season. They could mix and match. If Soler struggles again, Chris Coghlan (101 OPS+) can spell him vs some hard-throwing RHPs and Tommy La Stella also performed well, albeit in a very short sample size (125 OPS+ in just 17 PAs). They could give him some starts at 2B and move Zobrist to the OF. But if the Cubs want Soler to continue to make progress, they will have to keep him in the lineup as often as possible.

When it comes to the Baseball Reference numbers, I think it is more an indication of inexperience than any inability to catch up to heat. Miguel Montero managed to put up an average sOPS+ against power pitchers and I don't think anyone would say he has a quicker bat at this stage of his career than Baez or Soler. BRs definition of a power pitcher leaves room for interpretation. As I alluded to above, power pitchers -- especially those who walk a lot of hitters -- often rely on breaking balls outside the zone and indeed, it seems that Soler struggles more with breaking and offspeed stuff than the hard stuff, according to Brooks Baseball. This is the percentage of whiffs on pitches in those 3 categories (click to enlarge).

The same was true, albeit to a lesser degree, with Javier Baez, Kyle Schwarber, and Addison Russell. But getting back to Soler, it is interesting to note the huge drop in whiff percentage in October. It lines up with what we saw with our eyes: Soler stopped whiffing on breaking balls because he stopped chasing ones out of the zone. And when that happened, he suddenly didn't have any trouble at all against power pitchers. In fact, against the Mets formidable quartet in the postseason, Soler posted a 1.250 OPS that included an .833 slugging percentage.

We also see something interesting with Kyle Schwarber. Nobody seems to think he struggles with hard stuff at all. The Mets didn't pitch him that way and the graph below, which charts the number of pitches seen by type (hard, breaking, offspeed), indicates that pitchers around the league felt the same way. They went away from the hard stuff as the year went on -- the hard stuff gradually dropped from around 75% all the way down to 50% by October. That tells us all we need to know about whether advanced scouts think Schwarber can handle good fastballs.

For 2016, I see the Cubs big 5 (Zobrist, Heyward, Rizzo, Bryant, and Schwarber) handling the hard stuff just fine and all have a good chance of putting up above average numbers against power pitchers -- and there are signs that perhaps Soler saw the light in October as well. And while Baez still has a long way to go, he showed significant improvement from 2014 to 2015. Addison Russell seems to have the ability to make adjustments, so we'll see if he too can make a jump in year two.

An interesting addition in this respect by 2017 or perhaps late this season would be Willson Contreras, who has a short stroke, the discipline to lay off of stuff outside the strike zone, and the willingness to go with the pitch --- all of which helped contribute to a low 11.9% K rate at the AA level. Another potential addition, Albert Almora, made even more contact with strikeouts in just 10.4% of his plate appearances.

As for the immediate future, the Cubs have added a couple of hitters with a proven track record against power pitchers and I believe that as the young Cubs hitters gain experience, adjust to the speed of the game, refine their approach, and get to learn MLB pitchers, that weakness will diminish over time. Hopefully by this October, there will be even fewer ways to get past this team.