Hopefully the site is back up and running for good now. Our host, Dreamhost, had a DDoS attack on one of its data centers. This led to multiple extended outages at Obstructed View beginning on Monday for a few hours and then Thursday for much of the day. They have reportedly made some hardware changes, which will supposedly protect against …
Jeff Samardzija Shut Us Right Up
Holy. Shit. I still can't believe I saw what I saw today at Wrigley. Jeff Samardzija basically told us to take our small sample sizes and shove them up our collective asses. As we expected to meet the new F7, same as the old F7, he went out there and looked pretty damn good all day. I'm not ready to …
Looking Back on Opening Day
Yesterday was my 15th straight Opening Day, and if I recall correctly, the 15th straight year I have frozen my ass off at Wrigley Field for the first game of the year. To be fair, I'm sure there has been a somewhat warm Opening Day among those 15 years, but I sure as hell can't remember when they happened. Yesterday …
Cubs start season on left foot
Ryan Dempster threw 7.2 impressive innings today as the Cubs beat the Cubs. I imagine the Cubs will be beating themselves a lot this season so they're just getting us used to it right away. Dempster allowed only 2 hits, but 1 of those was a ball that Jeff Baker didn't feel like bending over to field. Baker, playing because …
Random Opening Day Thoughts
This current roster couldn't even bring a smile to an easily excitable child. If you look at the lineup we'll see most frequently it's a little depressing. Darwin Barney. Bryan LaHair. Ian Stewart. Marlon Byrd. David DeJesus. Some of them have some value, but who is going to watch a game to see those guys in action? I'm a half …
Cubs 6th Best Since 2007 In Free Agent Signings
Matt Swartz has published a very interesting article about buidling an organization. I've said for several years now the idea that the Cubs under Hendry just handed out contracts like candy was ridiculous. Yes, there were some bad contracts. Name one GM who has been around for a decade without some bad free agent contracts. The Cubs current President gave …
Will The Cubs Resemble Hoyer’s Padres?
Those of us who follow the Cubs a little too closely know by and large what to expect from the 2012 version: mediocrity will hold sway. Bountiful and unabated mediocrity. The question that has kept us on the edge of our seats over the past roughly five months is: “how will the new front office put its stamp on this …
How good is the Cubs rotation?
Player IP Matt Garza 193 Ryan Dempster 188 Paul Maholm 165 Chris Volstad 155 Jeff Samardzija 122 The Cubs opening day rotation is set with news that Randy Wells and Travis Wood have been optioned to AAA. That left Jeff Samardzija and Chris Volstad to join Ryan Dempster, Matt Garza and Paul Maholm. Using our playing time projections and the …
OV 2012 Predictions: An Attempt at Unrediscreditation
What kind of a discredited blog would we be if we didn't occasionally put our collective butts on the line by making wild and highly improbable predictions about a 162 game season? We'll see which one of us is most scarily accurate and which of us is most hilariously wrong. The winner gets their OV salary doubled. The loser, of course, …
Other transformed Cubs
With Jeff Samardzija's "transformation" I thought it would be fun to find other Cubs player who have transformed this spring. Joe Mather: With a .412/.455/.745 batting line through today, he's established himself as a completely different ballplayer. We know this because he's had 55 plate appearances and that's absolutely enough to know whether or not a transformation has taken place. …