The questions have been rolling in ever since our debut of Ask OV last week so we are definitely going to have to hire an intern or something. I mean, first I had to do the Facepalm yesterday and now this. It's gotten to the point where I'm thinking of bringing MB back on board (at half-pay, naturally). But for now, Let's just get to the questions:
Let's say you were allowed to spend up to the luxury tax threshold (I'm guessing it's $189MM since that's what the Yankees want to get under) on the MLB team. How would you turn 2013 into a contender through free agency and retaining or calling up whoever doesn't suck in-house?
That all depends what it would cost to get a decent magic wand and some hitmen that could fix some leaky faucets in St. Louis, Milwaukee, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh. Those guys ain't cheap.
How many games are the Chicago Cubs projected to win?
One very early projection has the Cubs winning 70 games and finishing in 5th place 19 games behind Cincinnati. I, personally, have been predicting they will lose 100 games, which means they'll win 62. I base that on the assumption that the current team will lose at least two veterans to trades before deadline.
When do Cubs trade Marlon Byrd?
There are so many variables it is near impossible to predict that. I doubt that even if Theo and Jed know for sure they want to trade Marlon Byrd, they wouldn't be able to tell you with 100% certainty when it would happen. For one thing, the market for Byrd isn't exactly red hot. Nobody is calling Jed at all hours of the night begging for a deal involving Marlon Byrd. It's not that he's a bad player, but he's not exactly a difference-maker. And that leads to the next question:
When do the Cubs call up Brett Jackson?
They don't seem in a real hurry to clear space for Jackson, so unless Brett goes down there and starts hitting the crap out of the ball like he says he's going to AND the Cubs start slowly enough that fans start demanding some sort of glimpse of the future, they seem to be content to let him stick down there for awhile so they can keep him under club control for a little while longer. Best case scenario is we see a Starlin Castro-like situation where they call him up in May, but I doubt we see him before the All-Star break.
How early for bleacher seats to Red Sox Cubs?
If the meaning to this is "How early should I buy bleacher seats for the Red Sox/Cubs games?", the answer is two weeks ago. If this means, "How early should I show up to get a decent seat in the bleachers for Red Sox/Cubs games?", the answer is, how soon can you get to the park? Seriously though, the gates open two hours before the start of the game, and for popular games, there are lines forming outside the gates well before that. I don't sit in the bleachers anymore, but if I did, I'd probably try to get in line as early as possible and see if the crazy dude talking about how his hat is 7-2 when he wears it during afternoon games would share his bologna sandwich.
Why? Seriously, why?
This is going to take a little more interpretation, but I think they are asking why we are so awesome. I think it is mostly because we can't help it.
How often does Ask OV have to appear to make it seem like creating the banner wasn’t a waste of time?
Almost there. Not quite.
* Bonus *
Search Term of the Week
"huge boobs anal"
Suburban kid wrote:
Yeah – I think we all needed a drink before we went on or something. We’re usually pessimistic, but yesterday was a really gloomy episode. This is what Samardzija does to us.
josh wrote:
I would hope so, but where does the stats come into this? I don’t want decisions made entirely on stats, but I don’t want decisions made entirely on scouting either. We tried that already.
(dying laughing)
I think it was RC who asked that question so I will try to take a stab at answering it prior to the season.
I (dying laughing)ed at that search term when I saw it.
@ mb21:
It was an RC question. I felt a little bad half-assing it, so it would be good to actually make a full post out of it. It’s an interesting question.
Huge boobs anal. That is all.
@ mb21:
The stats say we suck this year, completely. Plus, I don’t know if Sveum is really a stats guy. What move is within Thoyer’s power to make at this point? They could talk to Sveum about it, but if their manager is really insistent that Jeff deserves a chance, maybe they want to trust the guy rather than dictate. I really have no idea what the dynamic is, I’m just saying I don’t know what you can do from a GM perspective except essentially give Jeff his walking papers. They could try putting him on wavers, or whatever they’d need him to do to go to Iowa to prove he can start, but if he doesn’t clear, you’re back where you started, and you basically publicly said “We don’t trust our management team.”
I just don’t think there’s much Thoyer can do from a GM perspective. It’s as much a test of Sveum’s management team’s ability to judge talent at this point as it is a test of Jeff Samardzija.
Also, klaw didn’t even see him pitch. He “heard” about a magical transformation. I’m not putting any stock in that quote.
If I’m the manager, I’d probably be convinced to put Jeff in the pen. But maybe Thoyer wanted Sveum as a guy who would stand up and challenge them, to give the FO another kind of dynamic. It would be interesting to be in on the team meetings right now just to figure out how they all feel about this. Sad when the most exciting thing about a team is how the FO feels about a single crappy pitcher.
@ Aisle424:
It’s okay, I think your response was probably more realistic than a whole-assed answer (dying laughing)
@ josh:
We just traded Pena. You’re playing Hatteberg.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/03/24/is-there-already-a-rift-growing-between-bobby-v-and-ben-cherington/
Probably a non-story and business as usual between GM and manager, but I guess this will be a running item for the Red Sox.
@ Aisle424:
Yeah I agree. In fact, I’m not doing much today so I can start looking into it.
@ Rice Cube:
Yeah, but it’s not fair to ask Hoyer or Theo to be Billy Beane.
@ josh:
They don’t have to. They have more money than Billy Beane.
FYI for all Chicago-area pet owners.
http://beta.local.yahoo.com/news-pet-owners-worried-squirrel-poison-traps-north-side.html
josh wrote:
I agree with that. You have to give the manager enough rope to hang himself. If the GM is always intervening then you can’t look a manager in his face and fire him. It has to be the manager’s decision, which is why I’m certain this doesn’t reflect poorly on the front office, but rather a poor choice in who they hired to manage the team. That can be easily fixed and I’m guessing it happens no later than the end of this upcoming season.
Between this decision and the Cubs looking even more stupid on the bases than they have in the last 5 years combined, Sveum isn’t going to keep his job for too long.
Suburban kid wrote:
Me neither. Even if he’d seen him I wouldn’t put much into it considering the size of the sample.
@ Rice Cube:
Beane hires guys he can control. I think it’s bullshit, but if those guys are willing to put up with it then it’s their problem.
Just listening to WTF. Awesome point by Julie about how they mentioned at the Convention that no jobs would be won in spring training because the stats are useless. And here we are. Several people have won jobs. Unreal.
Rice Cube wrote:
This.
mb21 wrote:
How often do scouts see any player? It’s never more than once or twice. I’m quite skeptical of the Samardzija move, but come on.
Mateo ——-> shut down for 10 days. Soreness is the same as he was feeling when he was shut down last year.
Berselius wrote:
It’s a scouts argument that Samardzija is different this spring. You can’t make a stats argument at this point (maybe you could have after only ten innings).
If the argument is that people have seen him be different than he was, then you need actual witnesses. (apart from biased, interested parties from the team’s management).
Angels are frontrunners to get Roy Oswalt. I’m not sure if I should be surprised or not.
@ Mish:
You rang?
@ Rice Cube:
This happened to my girlfriend’s boss’ dog.
When I run the world, the punishment for criminal violations would match how much of an asshole you were to other people committing the offense. Most things would stay the same; murderers, rapists, securities frauds, etc. are all assholes. But something like this would probably get you the death penalty.
Also, taking up two seats on a crowded train with your bag would be like 10 years in prison.
Rice Cube wrote:
Don’t worry, Mystery Team will end up signing him.
Mish can rest assured that smoking marijuana by yourself in a condo would not be criminalized under this system. (dying laughing) Unless you watched the prequels while doing it.
@ Berselius:
The Angels were a Mystery Team (dying laughing)
Rice Cube wrote:
Now that we know the Angels are interested, Oswalt cannot sign with them. The only deals that happen are ones you don’t hear about
/Yellon logic
Bowden is reporting that Sveum has picked Marmol, Wood, Russell, Dolis, Coleman for the bullpen, and Lendy Castillo could get the last spot.
Probably going to be Wells in the last spot though
@ Suburban kid:
That’s clearly photoshopped, but I enjoyed it anyways.
Giants are shopping the Cajun Connection
Larry Jones ———> torn meniscus an hour before his retirement press conference
@ Berselius:
Are they offering them as a package deal? (dying laughing)
I can’t wait for the Cubs to trade Randy Wells and realize 2 weeks into the season that Jeff Samardzija still sucks. And so does Rodrigo Lopez.
@ Berselius:
Don’t they realize that silent “t’s” save runs?
On a related note, Starlin is changing his last name to “Castrot.” It’s pronounced the same as “Castro,” but is expected to increase his value by 0.5 WAR/year.
Sotot, Sorianot, Castillot,
@ Suburban kid:
It’s the new market inefficiency.
@ ACT:
(dying laughing)
@ Berselius:
They can’t possibly be thinking about trading Wells, right? I know he’s not the super duper ace that some thought he could be after his rise from nowhereland to big leagues, but he doesn’t make much money and he’s the 3rd or 4th best starting pitcher the Cubs have in spring training.
Madson ———> TJS
Marshall ———–> Reds closer
@ mb21:
There have been no rumblings that they’re going to trade him. Just a lot of people jumping to conclusions on twitter based on the pen announcements today.
@ Berselius:
I hope they had insurance.
@ Berselius:
It’s pure speculation but there’s a method to the madness I suppose.
@ mb21:
It’s perplexing. I can’t explain it. Again, I’d love to be a fly on the wall, just so I could know what’s really going on there.
From K Law
The Cubs threw reliever Alberto Cabrera, who has one of the most electric fastballs I’ve seen from a prospect in a long time — but doesn’t have much else. That fastball was 95-97 for two innings with plus-plus sinking life, and he was around the plate with it a lot more than you’d expect given its movement
On the minor league side on Wednesday, Cubs shortstop prospect Javier Baez, No. 95 on my top 100 and their first pick in the 2011 Rule 4 draft, showed unbelievable power with a big home run to the opposite field at Fitch Park where he didn’t even fully square the ball up, only to have it take off when it left his bat.
@ Rice Cube:
Oooh…I guess you can’t get insurance on a one-year deal.
If i were a reds fan i would be mad about how they are handling Chapman. But then again Dusty is the manager
Wow. Sveum apparently said that Volstad gets the final spot in the rotation. This is like a nightmare. I’m pretty sure the front office is a lot brighter than it was in the past, but the field manager is infinitely more stupid than anything we’ve seen.
@ Berselius:
More money, but nothing to spend it on. If they had spent $50 targeting Cespedes, we’d all be way more pissed. Having spending power only yields so much, when the opportunities aren’t there. I guess they could make a run at Roy Oswalt or someone like that. The really good pitchers don’t come up for sale very often and it’s usually less a matter of money and more a matter of having good prospects when they do come up.
Dempster, Garza, Maholm, Samardzija, Volstad
(dying laughing) I don’t know how anyone in charge of putting together a rotation could get it so wrong. I couldn’t care less about who starts opening day, but the 3rd or 4th best starter on this team is in the bullpen.
The Cubs just topped Zambrano to the bullpen.
@ mb21:
Except Maholm is the #5 starter. I’m rationalizing this as him coming off an injury so they might want to limit his innings, but that made me scratch my head.
@ bubblesdachimp:
Why? The odds Chapman becomes a good starter are significantly higher than the odds of F7 becoming one. If trying F7 in the rotation is acceptable, trying Chapman is brilliant.
@ Rice Cube:
Yeah, he’s starting the 5th game only because of the injury. He was the 3rd pitcher named in the rotation so he’s the number 3. Samardzija was the 4th (dying laughing)
@ mb21:
I think limiting innings due to previous injury was smart. I can’t even imagine what they will do with Wells. They acquired so much pitching depth that I guess they could toss him in a trade, but that doesn’t make sense to me. I guess they could give him the bullpen test since he had an injury last year too, but it seems more reasonable to put him in Iowa to stretch out in case F7 or Volstad fail.
Or else they’ve just decided to completely punt 2012 and don’t give a shit what goes on at MLB, and everything they’re telling the media is sugarcoated lies.
Mish wrote:
Thats really par for the course. It started with Pizza hit milf and alien porn sothis should be expected.
Coincidentally, have yall seen the great new huge boob anal porn that came out last week?
@ mb21:
Oh i think i wasnt clear. I would be enraged if i was a reds fan that we were wasting Chapman in relief.
However I would be worried about Dusty letting him start as well
bubblesdachimp wrote:
I can see how your comment would be lost in translation.
/foreign country meme’d
bubblesdachimp wrote:
I wouldn’t be. Blaming him for injuries to Kerry Wood is absurd. Prior? Perhaps a case could be made, but you could take any long time manager and there are going to be pitchers who broke down unexpectedly.
I wonder if the Pitcher Abuse points data is available for him
Rice Cube wrote:
Is this true? To my knowledge, they acquired one starting pitcher in Chris Volstad. They signed a bunch of others to minor league deals, but all teams sign players to minor league deals (spring training rosters are huge). I keep seeing people talk about pitching depth, but I don’t see it. After Dempster and Garza there’s just a lot of question marks. Maholm lost velocity and while I like the signing, he could easily be the worst starter in Cubs camp. That’s why I think Wells could easily be the 3rd best starter. It’s a toss up between those two.
When Rodrigo Lopez is your 7th starter, I think your depth flat out sucks. I’d say the Cubs starting pitching is 3 deep: Garza, Dempster and half of Wells and Maholm. What sucks even more is if you go 8 or 9 deep you’re still not getting to Jeff Samardzija.
The Cubs went from bizarro to bizzaro^2. Maybe Sveum thought they weren’t being backwards enough. It’s just odd.
bubblesdachimp wrote:
It is, but PAP is useless. I can tell you who is going to be high just by looking at other stats. It’s a useless statistic.
@ mb21:
I agree that the plan is wack, and I guess by “depth” I mean “random guys that they can plug into the rotation on their way to the #1 pick”. I’ll take a wait-and-see approach.
@ mb21:
Travis Wood?
And yes, I also think the Cubs depth blows. Not to mention that we had a sterling example of that just last season.
@ GBTS:
I have no problem with that. (dying laughing)
@ Berselius:
Forgot about him. Another pitcher better than the team’s #4 starter.
@ Berselius:
I think the depth was better last season. You at least had 3 guys at the top of the rotation expected to have FIPs below 4. You then had Wells. Trey McNutt was coming off his strong 2010 season and didn’t appear to be too far away from reaching the big leagues. This year you’ve Garza and Dempster at the top. Then you have a couple other decent pitchers in Maholm and Wells with a whole bunch of shit after that.
Is Samardzija a lock? The thing’s I’ve read seem to be saying that the final rotation spot is still open.
Or are you just saying you’d take Wells over Volstad?
@ mb21:
I think it was better last season too. Just trying to point out that depth can disappear in a hurry.
3 groundouts and a opposite field flare for T. Wood in this first inning.
Yonder Alonso is a very bad defender.
Rice Cube wrote:
New opening day starter
@ Berselius:
Book it!
@ Rice Cube:
No wonder we’re getting the pizza hut porn hits
The Cubs are about to manufacture a run.
http://ivyenvy.com/?p=6942
Wood just unleashed a wicked curveball.
That one was not so wicked. Ouch.
Who let Sveum drink out Quade’s coffee cup? Doesn’t THoyer know that the stupids are contagious?
Jon Heyman @JonHeymanCBS Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
andrew cashner has been hit of #padres camp, reaching 100 mph each game. likely to be 8th inning guy this yr, start in ’13
i hope he can start. I wish nothing but the best for him
Hoyer in the booth
Nice throw, tough hop. Tie game.
I think hell just froze over. Brenly has complimented Soriano’s defense TWICE today
Travis Wood seemed to field his position well today.
Trever Miller did not LOO.
@ Berselius:
Either that or he’s had his chain yanked by the new corporate masters.
Looks like they’re bullpen testing Wells here
Berselius wrote:
What a weird, arbitrary rule.
Nice double play by Barney there.
Berselius wrote:
(dying laughing)
Holy baserunning fail.
@ Rice Cube:
That was… bizarre.
Mercurial Outfielder wrote:
I think Quade is 10 times the manager Sveum is. As silly as Quade was early last spring when he said the team was going to run, he quickly backtracked on that after seeing how bad they are. Not Sveum. This team is running even though they should be playing station to station baseball.
@ mb21:
I withhold judgment until I see what he does in the regular season.
And, of course, a lot of managing consists of things we can’t see.
@ ACT:
Yeah, but it makes no sense to me to have this team running as they apparently have so far. Add that to the fact that he’s made a complete mess of the rotation and it’s difficult to imagine him being a better manager than Quade and I thought he sucked.
@ mb21:
I don’t know how you can make that assumption without playing one regular season game.
That and Quade was one of the worst Cubs managers I’ve ever seen. He was obviously overmatched in a number of areas and probably didn’t even deserve a chance to manage.
Every baseball fan should see this movie:
@ mb21:
I think it’s a push, but I haven’t seen much of Sveum. However, the bunting BS, the insistence on being stupidly aggressive on the bases and the “rotation” he’s assembled give me little hope
I have no problem with the bunting contest. All teams practice bunting; Sveum tried to make it fun.
Louisville —> Final Four barring a collapse
@ Rodrigo Ramirez:
I thought and still do that Quade was considerably better than some here were giving him credit for. We have to remember that the team sucked last year. That makes a manager look worse than he is. They also had a shitload of injuries to the rotation early on. Quade never came close to making a decision as poor as F7 being in the rotation. We haven’t seen a Cubs manager make as poor a decision as that in at least 10 years.
Several players have earned spots on the roster based on limited playing time in Arizona even though it was said by the executives that would not be happening. I can’t imagine Theo and Hoyer are very happy with Sveum right now.
That said, the real evaluation begins when the season does. Maybe he’s just doing stupid shit right now so fans expect stupid shit. I don’t know.
Quade had some merits. The Cubs’ leadoff hitters lead the league in OBP last year, and that was largely by design. The Cubs also got good production out of the no. 2 slot (thanks to Castrot). The team also chose its stolen base opportunities pretty well (second-to-last in steals, but a 75% success rate).
ACT wrote:
That’s what I remember more than anything. The team limited its outs on the bases because Quade realized this team could not run. He didn’t realize it early on, but by the second week in spring training he said they won’t be running.
I like how Quade settled on a quasi-platoon with Fuk and Reed. If Sveum doesn’t do the same with Reed and DeJesus, I’ll conclude that Quade is smarter.
@ mb21:
This is a slightly different team than last year. A few new guys have speed where speed was lacking. I think there’s room for more aggression on the bases. I haven’t followed closely enough. Sveum might be thinking two years down the road, or by midseason it will slowly improve. I don’t know though. I don’t guess it matters. The team could be the baserunning champions of baseball and still finish dead last.
I’m not excited about Sveum either. I’m just trying to feed the hope monster. I think the team will be more entertaining for how shitty it is. I’ll justify this by pretending like that was Thoyer’s plan all along.
The things I’ll remember most about Quade was his poor decision making regarding the bullpen and when to take out starters. And maybe most importantly the lack of respect he received from players which made the team look somewhat chaotic with little direction.
I’m reserving judgement on Sveum for now, but I will agree it does not look too promising.
@ Rodrigo Ramirez:
That’s what I remember too. Seemed like every single time he left the starter in an inning too long. Of course, he had the world’s shittiest bullpen, except for Marshall, to contend with.
@ josh:
It’s worth noting that Quade gave the bullpen more innings (and the starters fewer) than most teams.
@ ACT:
No one said his starters were any good, except Garza. It’s hard to tease out what was shitty managing, and what was having a terrible team.
Yeah, it’s easy to wish the Cubs starters had even fewer innings; they ranked dead last in starter ERA, but were middle-of-the-pack in reliever ERA. I doubt, however, that other managers would have pulled them much earlier (indeed, no manager of any team did).
The only team that had a habit of pulling starters earlier than Quade did last year was the Orioles, whose pitching staff was the laughingstock of the Major Leagues. If Quade was stupid in this regard, at least he wasn’t uniquely stupid.
Rodrigo Ramirez wrote:
There are 29 other managers who are regularly complained about with regards to bullpen usage. It’s a valid complaint for sure, but it’s the same one we hear for every manager.
I don’t much care about the lack of respect. It’s like we said following the 2010 season: that the players respected Quade and WANTED him to be the manager in 2011 was meaningless. They only supported him because the team won under his management in 2010. We said that as they lost, which we knew they would, he’d lose that support. And he did. So did Lou. And Baker. By the end of the 2012 season we’ll be hearing the same kind of disrespect for Sveum that we hear for other managers. It’s all about winning and losing.
Rodrigo Ramirez wrote:
Despite my criticisms here, I am doing the same thing. I don’t have high expectations based on what he’s done so far, but it’s spring training.
josh wrote:
Agreed. We also only have 1+ season of Quade managing and he managed a shitty team.
mb21 wrote:
This is my own personal opinion but the learning curve with Sveum should be a little larger than it was with Quade who spent a number of seasons with the club prior to managing. That’s why I expected a bit more from Cuey.
It’s also worth pointing out that most managers are idiots. They play the hot hand. They pay too much attention to small samples. They look at the wrong stats. They care about how someone does on Tuesday day games or Saturday games that start at 3:49. All I really ask for a manager at this point is to play the best players.
Cubs’ video guy actually in dugout collecting data on laptop:
An Ohio State University —> verge of Final Four
@ Berselius:
So on the playing time survey I gave Mateo 0 innings. I really don’t see this guy going anywhere, even without the injuries, but oops, they’re back.
@ Rice Cube:
Hooray!
I was hoping Dempster got the opening day start. I think it should go to veteran if possible as an honorary mark of respect type deal, especially if he’s a leader type.
I think the protocol should be that if the longest standing member of the team in the rotation should get opening day if he is the first or second best SP on the team. If he’s the third best and the first two aren’t very good anyway, then I’d even give it to him then. Another situation could call for a league veteran getting the ball even if he is new to the team – if the other members of the rotation aren’t any great shakes.
If there’s a young SP who is miles ahead of the others (like a Strasburg), then fine, give him the ball.
Garza may be the best, but he’s not a million miles better than Dempster. He’s only been on the team a year (and what an unmemorable Cub year), while this is the funnyman’s ninth season as a Cub. I’ve also never felt like Garza was going to be a Cub for very long, and I still feel that way, so why make a fuss over him.
I’m actually sick of Dempster as a personality and as a Cub, but I give him his due here. He deserves the honor.
Haven’t watched The Walking Dead, but from what I’ve read it doesn’t come close to Breaking Bad. Yet BB is only up 51% to 49%: http://www.hulu.com/bestinshow/2/2
@ Suburban kid:
Cool. Story. Brah.
@ Suburban kid:
I don’t know. I really don’t care who they give it to. You want to win the first game, I guess, kind of like starting out in the lead pack in a marathon or something. Give it to the guy you think will win it for you.
If anyone was watching the Bulls game too tonight…wow.
new shit: http://www.obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/some-thoughts-on-opening-day-starter-and-brett-jackson.html