In 2016, The Cubs Finished Dead Last In This Statistic

According to MLB.com, the Cubs finished dead last in miles flown during the 2016 season.

Why is this relevant you ask?

A study published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found a link between jet lag and performance. Sleep scientist Ravi Allada of Northwestern University analyzed 4, 919 games, finding that teams that traveled East performed worse than those that traveled West.

One of the interesting things found was that jet lagged home teams performed worse than jet lagged visiting teams. An example would be the Cubs (traveling east) returning home from a west coast series and playing like shit at Wrigley during April of 2016. After playing Anaheim and Arizona, the Cubs were damn near no-hit at home against the Reds before Addison Russell saved the team with a three-run shot to eventually win the game.

An after effect of jet lag?

Possibly.

There was no sound explanation for this besides the fact that upon returning home from the east, players schedules are usually much more flexible compared to when they are on the road.

The Cubs traveled the third fewest miles in 2015 and the distances are yet to be released for 2017 but Cubs fans can expect the team to fall near the bottom of the list again.

Here’s the full ranking.

One of the few statistics that I’m OK with the Cubs falling near the bottom of the list.