Bad news concerning Carlos Marmol: According to a report in the Domincan Republic, Cubs closer Carlos Marmol is being accused of Domestic Violence. — David Kaplan (@thekapman) January 31, 2013 More on this as it develops, but if true this could be a hairy situation. I've been debating whether or not to throw a control issues joke in here, but …
2013: Are the Cubs .500?
Last year, the Cubs won 61 games. In the offseason, Chicago made the following signings: Edwin Jackson Scott Baker Carlos Villanueva Scott Feldman Nate Schierholtz Scott Hairston Dioner Navarro Kyuji Fujikawa The rest of the team is more-or-less intact: the Cubs basically had no free-agents (they traded everyone that was going to be a free agent of worth). There aren't …
Assume the Position: 2nd Base
I'm pretty excited about the lower levels of our second basemen, but that's not to say that everything is roses. There's a good chance that the entire upper two levels of minors turns over completely by the end of the year (save Watkins, who might actually graduate to the majors by the end of 2013). Filling those gaps will be …
Assume the Position: First Base
First base looks to be quite a bit rosier for the Cubs than catcher does. They Cubs have a budding star at the top and some very intriguing options at the bottom. Last Year 2013 Career Name Age AVG OBP SLG wOBA pwOBA AVG OBP SLG wOBA MLB Rizzo 22 0.285 0.342 0.463 0.349 0.368 0.245 …
Assume the Position: Catcher
We are getting very close to catchers and pitchers reporting. We might have one or two moves of significance until that point, but I'm going to assume that our team is essentially what we have in front of us. That being said, I'm going to take a broad look at every position to seem what we have there, both now …
Better Know a Cub: Lendy Castillo
I actually like Lendy Castillo a fair bit. Lendy Castillo was signed by the Philadelphia Phillies in 2006… as a shortstop. He actually showed considerable promise on the defensive side, but could not hit to save his life. 2007: 684 OPS 2008: 566 OPS 2009: 453 OPS After it was apparently there was no way he was going to hack …
Young Minor Leaguers in the Cubs system
This is something interesting to document that doesn't deserve a real post. I was curious to see what Cubs are "young" for their level. So, what I've done is gone through each minor league system the Cubs contribute to and looked to see if any Cubs are in the Top 10. Here are the results. Note: only prospects who had …
The 2012 Free Agency Team
This has been a pretty bare year for free agency. Aside from Greinke and Hamilton, there haven’t really been the impact talents available like in previous years. That’s only going to get worse. However, there is something interesting to note. For under $150 million, a GM could have signed an entire 25-man roster out of free agents and won over …
When is a win worth more?
I was thinking about Michael Bourn this morning, because I need psychiatric help. It kind of struck me that the Cubs could use Bourn more than most other teams… but taking a common approach to free agency, we shouldn’t be offering him more money than any other team (Bourn’s worth is more or less a constant), especially because we are …
Milton Bradley charged with 13 misdemeanors
All around nice guy Milton Bradley has been busy lately. Bradley denies the charges against him, brought by his soon-to-be ex-wife (the two are in the middle of a contentious divorce, no doubt brought on by the fact that he’s around the house quite a bit more often now). Milton Bradley is probably not a good person.