Continuing with the Cubs tradition of signing relatively safe picks for next to nothing, the Cubs have signed Dioner Navarro to a 1-year, $1.75 million contract. SportsBettiing.ag might say this is a good sign, but I'm just wondering why they're paying him that much money. ; Dioner Navarro spent most of 2012 in the Reds minor leagues and signed for …
Getting to Know: Scott Baker
Name: Scott Baker Position: Starting Pitcher Role: Pretty much slotted in as #3 starter for the moment Bats/Throws: Right/Right Opening Day Age: 31 Uniform Number: He's only ever worn #30 for the Twins, but Travis Wood owns that one right now. What was his best game in the Majors? His best game probably came in 2007 when he took …
Free Agent signings from last year
The Cubs weren't very active last winter and the moves they made were relatively safe. They placed their bets on the likes of Paul Maholm, Reed Johnson and David DeJesus so as far as safe bets go, these are about as safe as it gets. Perhaps the Cubs ought to look into more sports betting online ideas to help improve …
Cubs sign Scott Baker
According to MLBTR, the Cubs have signed Scott Baker to a 1-year deal. Baker missed the entire 2012 season after undergoing elbow ligament replacement (Tommy John surgery). His last start was August 8th, 2011 and he made 2 appearances in late September that year as a reliever. Prior to his surgery, Baker was quietly putting together a very solid MLB …
Have the Cubs Hit Rock Bottom Yet?
We all knew that the methods the Superfriends were employing to build up the overall strength of the entire Cubs organization was going to get ugly at the major league level. Theo and Jed came in and immediately started implementing a long term strategy, which in many cases, was very damaging to the short term quality of the team. We …
Fangraphs Top 15 Cubs Prospects
It's that time of the year, so Fangraphs released their version of the top Cubs prospects list right behind Baseball Prospectus' list from a few days ago. In case you are wondering, I'm sure OV will have our own top Cubs prospects list just as soon as the search teams find DJ and we can chain him back up to …
Cubs interested in Brandon McCarthy and Shaun Marcum
We first heard about the Cubs possible interest in Brandon McCarthy a couple days ago and Gordon Whittenmeyer is confirming the Cubs interest, as well as throwing another name out there: Shaun Marcum. With starting pitching the Cubs’ primary focus again this winter, they already have expressed interest in Athletics right-hander Brandon McCarthy, who was having a good season until …
Should the Cubs go after Jacoby Ellsbury?
Over in Bostonland, the beat writers either know something about the Sox willingness to trade Jacoby Ellsbury or they're trying to create a story about trading Ellsbury. There doesn't appear to be any kind of information that lead one to believe he's on the trade block, but it's been talked about here and here. The second article actually says (in …
Cubs interested in Brandon McCarthy?
It was mentioned last night that the Cubs are interested in Brandon McCarthy. I have two things to say. Date On Date Off Transaction Days Games Side Body Part Injury 9/6/12 10/12/12 DtdDL 36 26 – Head Surgery 6/20/12 8/10/12 15-DL 51 43 Right Shoulder Strain 6/8/12 6/19/12 DTD 11 9 Right Shoulder Soreness 5/18/12 6/2/12 15-DL 15 13 Right …
The Manager's Record from the Bill James annual
One of the first things I do when I get the Bill James Handbook is look at what's called The Manager's Record. It includes several statistic that the manager controls and it's a good way to compare a manager to what the league average manager did. There are some issues though. The personnel on the team makes a huge difference …