Matt Garza returns tonight

Garza is back and ready to go tonight, bumping Villanueva to the bullpen. The Cubs say Villanueva will be used in long relief, but given how their late inning options have sucked lately I'd rather see him in the late inning mix with Fujikawa and Transformed Kevin Gregg. Suddenly the Cubs pen doesn't looks quite as bad as it did. The Cubs are reportedly DFAing Michael  Bowden to make room on the roster. Too bad it's not Shawn Camp instead. He'll be on a 85-90 pitch limit, per Sveum (via Sahadev Sharma).

Dale Sveum: "We're not a young team"

Not really sure what prompted this quote, other than maybe people writing off bad play to the inexperience of youth. Sveum went on to say that Rizzo has played a year in the majors, plus a bunch of minor league seasons, so he's not a Young Player either. The only player I can think of that would be considered young under his criteria is Bryce Harper (laughing). Or Castro three years ago. 

Department of There Is No News to Report

One of the big stories over the last few days involved a fan throwing a beer on her spouse in the bleachers following a HR. Not going to link anything because this news is dumb. I've seen lots of people joking that spilling perfectly good beer is grounds for divorce. Luckily Old Style fits neither the adjectives "good" or "perfect" so that relationship is safe. 

Kevin Gregg must have blue-colored goggles

‘I love the vibe that’s here,’’ Gregg said of his desire to return to the Cubs. ‘‘I love the attitude, the approach. I wish everybody else had the same opinion. I think people on the outside look at us as a rebuilding team because of last year, so a lot of fans and media are looking at what is two or three or four years down the road. Well, as players, we’re about now. We want to do it now. We see potential in this clubhouse now.’’

It's hard to believe that Gregg might even be trade bait at the deadline.

In case you missed it

There was spirited debate over the weekend about who the Cubs should pick in the draft. Count me in the Mark Appel camp, if he's available. Generally speaking I'd go with bats > arms, but since Appel is already so close it seems like a no brainer to me. I wouldn't be surprised if there's relatively less praise on him this year because all of the draft evaluators already discussed him at length last year.

Albert Almora is headed to Kane County

Given how relatively disappointing the team has been this year, it will be nice to have another guy with a good shot to succeed.

Ian Stewart speaks on his plummet down the depth chart

Sounds like he's happy to just kick back on the bench and earn his $2m. This piece over at the Des Moines Register also says he's taken Vitters under his wing, and discusses briefly his thoughts on his CBA-bargained 72 hour mini vacation (in short – no big deal). 

The post OV Daily Facepalm 5.21.13 appeared first on Obstructed View.

The Matt Garza trade, revisited

Bruce Miles has a piece looking back at the Matt Garza trade over at The Daily Herald. I still go back and forth on the trade myself. On one hand, it was emblematic of Hendry crippling the future in a futile attempt to save his job. The Cubs were not going to be very good in the future, and from a strategic standpoint it was a dumb trade to weaken an improving farm system to improve a 74 win team to a 76 win team. On the other hand, I never really thought much of the prospects that the Cubs sent to Tampa. Archer had a history of walking the planet, and had merely improved from 'awful' to 'average' in his breakout 2010 season, and his minor league ERA/FIP numbers look propped up by an unsustainable HR rate. I'm still not sure why so many prospect evaluators love Hak-Ju Lee as much either, seeing as he can barely hit the ball out of the infield, though he is a plus defender and base thief. Chirinos, Fuld, and Guyer all had ceilings as backups on a big league roster. 

To be fair, I didn't think Matt Garza looked like that great of an asset at the time either. He was a fly-ball pitcher moving from a pitchers' park to a place where the wind is often howling out, and had just seen a big drop in his strikeout rate. Instead, Garza set career bests in strikeouts and ground ball percentages after moving to the Cubs, drastically changing his pitch mix. I'm not sure how much credit to give to the Cubs for these changes. Were it not for the most recent injury (injuries), the Cubs could have received a decent amount back for Garza, especially considering how the new CBA has made it difficult to get top-line starting pitching in free agency. Of course, the old front office wouldn't have known this at the time of the trade.

Tony Campana doing Tony Campana things

Steal ALL the bases! The Cubs let another Young Player get away my frents. Just like that Corey McGee kid and Brad Fucking Snyder.

Movin' on up

With the Cubs recent three game winning streak, they have improved to 9-14, which puts them…still in last place in the NL Central. They are currently behind Miami (5-19), Houston (7-14), San Diego (8-15), Toronto (9-16), and Seattle (10-16) for the top pick in next year's draft. But we can say that the Cubs are just as good as the LAAoAoDoKVoAoR, who share an identical 9-14 record. 

Injury Updates

Ian Stewart is still stinking up the joint with the I-Cubs. He's hitting .100/.243/.133 and giving Brett Jackson a run for his money in K%. He missed a game or two this week with an elbow injury on a HBP that made it tough for him to throw.

Matt Garza is already feeling better from his 'dead arm' issue earlier this week. He threw off flat ground on Friday, and his hoping to finally make a minor league rehab start on Wednesday, if there isn't yet another rainout/setback.

Kyuji Fujikawa threw a bullpen session on Friday, and should make one or two rehab appearances before coming back to the team, presumably as the closer.

Rizzo tinkering with his swing

In this piece by NDB Paul Sullivan, he notes that Sveum and the hitting coach went over some video with Rizzo on Friday and found a mechanical flaw in his swing. He went on to crush two homers that night, IIRC both against lefties. Keith Law mentioned that something was up with his swing a week or so ago, when everyone was wringing their hands about Rizzo's BA being so low. Hopefully he gets back on track.

Andre Dawson is disappoint at Cubs lack of spending

Dawson Tells Gordo that he never thought he'd see a "small market payroll" team taking the field at Wrigley. Gordo's been the one beating the drum about the Cubs finances lately, so it's no surprise that this came up in one of his articles. Brett has a nice synopsis/breakdown of what we know about the Cubs finances right now over at Bleacher Nation. We don't know the particulars of the deal, but the main thrust of complaint is that Zell/TribCo wanted the sale to be heavily debt-financed for tax purposes, and thus the Ricketts essentially borrowed a lot of money from themselves through The Ricketts Family Trust. Though following that logic, if the team pays off that Ricketts debt sooner rather than later it should actually cost the team *less* money in the long run due to lesser interest payments.

The post Obstructed View Daily Facepalm 4.28.13 – The Matt Garza Trade Revisited appeared first on Obstructed View.

Cubs lose

The Cubs dropped the first game of their series against the Braves. Scott Feldman gave up four runs in 4 2/3 innings, and is lucky he didn't give up more than that. He allowed 4 hits, walked four, hit a batter, had two wild pitches, and topped it off with a fielding error. Behind him, Alberto Gonzalez attemped to tag out a basestealer while standing ten feet in front of the bag, spoiling a perfect throw from Castillo. Come back soon, Darwin Barney.

Sveum on Feldman's outing:

He threw a lot of pitches that were uncompetitive pitches

On the plus side, the Cubs were hitting Mike Minor really hard in the early going but couldn't get the ball out of the park. Scott Hairston finally broke through with a homer to left in the fifth inning. Michael Bowden looked really sharp coming in for relief of Feldman. He threw two innings and change, struck out three, and didn't allow a baserunner. I didn't think he was very good last year, but his numbers are better than I remember, especially in the back half of the season. We shouldn't read much into any reliever's single season numbers due to small samples, but I'm willing to believe that he's better than I thought.

Rooftop owners: SUE ALL THE THINGS

The rooftop owners are pissed at being cut out of the negotiations, and are readying lawsuits against anyone involved since it sounds like some of the views will be partially obstucted by signage, video boards, whatever. We don't know the exact contrac language, but they might not have a leg to stand on anyway. This is third-hand reported, so grain of salt, but someone who is more familiar with the terms of the deal told The Score that the agreement says they can't obstruct the rooftops' views unless the city signs off on it. Even if they try to push a suit against the Cubs, I don't know if they can afford it. It's not like the rooftops are making money hand over fist these days, and one of them has already gone under. If the Cubs wanted to pick a legal fight with them, right now sure seems like a good time to do it.

Braves GM tells the Cubs to get off his lawn

Some of the pregame schedule stuff got messed up, and the Cubs relievers were getting some warm up tosses in the outfield while the Braves were taking BP. Wren had to go to Sveum to get them to move.

/coolstorybro

Theo thinks the NL will adopt the DH

Theo tells Bob Nightengale at USA Today that he thinks we'll see it in a few years, now that interleague games will be even more front and center. I love this news as I hate watching pitchers bat, and the excitement of a good hitting pitcher like Carlos Zambrano does not nearly outweigh all of the shitty automatic outs we see from just about everyone else. I would buy the "Strategy!" argument if managers weren't so conventional with how they handle it. 

Minor League Update

Here's the full update on how the minor league Cubs did yesterday. The short version: Javier Baez homered, Alberto Cabrera had a solid start, and Brett Jackson went 0-5 with 2 K's.

Congrats to Myles

He has a newborn daughter as of 3:40 this morning. Keep her away from Brent Lillibridge.

Comment of the Yesterday

From SVB, who was at the game with his 6-year old last night

Bits of “wisdom” and conversations with a 6 year old at a Cubs game in Atlanta.

6: Is this guy any good? (Particularly about A. Gonzalez and Sappelt)
Me (gently): Well, no. Not really. But anyone can have a good night.

6: Are the Cubs gonna win? (First inning)
Probably not, but even a bad team wins 50 games a year or so. Tonight could be one.

Braves with 2 on. Tomahawk chant in full swing.
6: We don’t do this, do we Daddy?
Me: No (You are a such a smart little girl. Your insight makes me so proud!)
6: Why? Because we are Cubs fans?
Me: Yes, and we respect people.
6: Are they making fun of us because we live in Puerto Rico?
Me: No, but they might as well be. They are making fun of native Americans, like the people that the Crazy Horse Monument celebrates.
6: Why do they do it?
Me: (I don’t really have a good answer for that.) Most people are doing it just because everyone else is and they don’t think about how mean it is.

After the Cubs third out in the 9th.
6: Holding back a few little tears
Me: Don’t cry honey, they lose all the time. You’ll dehydrate yourself.

Is there a Cubs game today?

Carlos Villanueva faces Julio Teheran at 6:05 PM CT. The game is on WGN.

The post Daily Facepalm 4.6.13 appeared first on Obstructed View.

Minor League In

Cubs signed Donnie Murphy to a minor-league deal. He's a better option than Edwin Maysonet or Alberto Gonzalez in my opinion. Hopefully he never sniffs our major league roster, but if Barney is out for an extended period, you could do worse than Murphy (of course, you could do better). 

Minor League Out

Cubs lost Robert Whitenack on waivers to the Cleveland Indians. Maybe the Cubs will trade Hector Rondon back for him! Whitenack is the latest reminder that recovery from TJS is just not 100%. He was hurtling up prospect lists until the surgery a few years back, and just never came back with the velocity he had when he left. Hopefully he can figure it out in Akron. 

How Many Plate Appearances Have the Cubs Had With Men in Scoring Position?

14.

How Many of Those Plate Appearances Resulted in a Hit?

0.

Small Sample Size Stat of the Day

The Cubs, as a team, have an OPS of .410. However, the Miami Marlins have an OPS of, incredibly, .338.

Cubs Game Today?

The post Daily Facepalm: 4/4/13 appeared first on Obstructed View.

MLBTR must be reading our comment section

They posted a "Where are they now" of everyone involved in the Matt Garza trade with Tampa. I forgot that the Cubs threw in Chirinos and Guyer, unfortunately for them they've both been plagued by injuries since moving to the Rays. 

This Jorge Soler guy could be pretty good

JD Sussman at Fangraphs wrote a glowing evaluation of Soler, and pointed out that he seems to be coming on strong after being out of the game for so long. Still, you'd think it would take less than a year to figure out how to hit a breaking ball when you're playing baseball almost every day. 

Let's not get ahead of ourselves with Brett Jackson's new swing

Keith Law saw BJax the other day ($) and said that his swing is different, but it might not necessarily be better. The bat speed and his batting eye and the rest are still there, but it's not likely change his contact issues.

Castro out until the weekend, at least

Meh. I don't get too worked up about position players in spring training, aside from an odd mechanics change (Jackson) or a position battle (Stewart). Spring Training is all about getting the pitchers up to speed. And bunting. We can't forget bunting.

Speaking of bunting

The following have advanced in the bunt tournament

• Blake Parker
• Michael Brenly
• Edwin Maysonet
• Logan Watkins
• The video guy

Of those remaining in the bunt tournament, only Edwin Jackson and maybe Watkins are the only guys who a) will/could be on the team and b) it is reasonable that they might bunt in a game situation. Strength coach Tim Buss is still in the tournament. I'm rooting for a final between the trainer and the video guy (laughing)

Prospects in spring training

Javier Baez hit a home run in Sunday's game, while Jorge Soler struck out in his only PA. Dan Vogelbach worked a full count before striking out with the bases loaded in his first PA, but managed to draw a 4-0 walk in the ninth inning. Sveum was very impressed with his approach. So far Brett Jackson has 3 BB and 3 K in 16 PAs. 

The post Daily Facepalm – 3.5.13 appeared first on Obstructed View.

Matt Garza shut down, likely to miss first month of the season

Per Carrie Muskat, Garza experienced more pain related to his strained lat muscle during a throwing session today. He's been shut down a week by the trainers, and it's "likely" that he'll miss the first month of the season. Carlos Villanueva is probably the happiest guy in the clubhouse right now. His four innings with one run yesterday certainly helps too.

Re: Garza's trade prospects

Jeff Samardzija named opening day starter

My one-year-ago self is still shaking his head.

At least Scott Baker is doing okay

(Knocks on all available wooden surfaces). He's on track to come back in mid-April.

Other injury news

Castro's hamstring is inflamed, but he still feels okay enough to hit in the batting cages this weekend. Ian Stewart doesn't sound much closer to coming back from his injury. It sucks for Stewart, this is exactly the worst time of the year for a player in his situation to get injured.

What the hell does Logan Watkins eat, anyway?

Just read this bizarre article. Who the fuck has never eaten oatmeal, or an orange?

Steve Clevenger to get some time in at 1b, 2b, 3b in the spring

He's filling in for Rizzo during the WBC, but what has he done for the Cubs to really want his bat in the lineup? I'll take this as a slight on Brent Lillibridge. I don't really get the point of Clevenger backing up Rizzo, since they're both left handed. The same goes with Valbuena at 3b. I look forward to the epic string of profanities from AndCounting if Clevenger makes the team.

Bunt tournament update

Per muskat:

David DeJesus vs. Starlin Castro
Anthony Rizzo vs. Logan Watkins
Brent Lillibridge vs Michael Brenly
Edwin Maysonet vs Andy Lane (bullpen catcher)

Edwin Jackson vs. Casey Coleman
Hisanori Takahashi vs. Tim Buss (strength coach)
Jeff Samardzija vs Blake Parker
Travis Wood vs Nate Halm (video guy)

It's hard not to root for the video guy (dying laughing)

CrawfordWatch

Carl Crawford was shut down with nerve irritation in his surgically repaired left elbow. I would say that the Red Sox are really regretting this Soriano-like deal, but they're not even paying him anymore. 

The post Daily Facepalm 3.3.13 – Shark named opening day starter, Garza probably to miss a month appeared first on Obstructed View.

Good News!

Bleacher Nation's creator and all-around Good Dude Brett welcomes Clark Taylor into the world. I think I speak for all of us when I say congratulations, and also have him start throwing lefty because we definitely need some pitching prospects. Brett was nothing but kind to me when I reached out to him for advice starting Windy City Sports Wonk, which ultimately led me over here, so I'm thankful for that. Plus, my own first kid is due in 6 weeks, so it's neat to think that maybe one of our kids will see a World Series championship. I'm not holding my breath.

Bad News!

Starlin Castro has suffered a hamstring injury. It doesn't appear to be serious, but since he's a Cub, it will ultimately ruin his career, probably. He joins Ian Stewart and Matt Garza in the "injured in Spring Training of all places" group, and is ultimately day-to-day.

Regular News!

There are 30 contests left for the MLB Fan Cave, and one of them is a Cubs fan. Based on the quality of her movie, I really, really hope that she loses. I was hoping for a little more production value, honestly.

7th Inning Stretch

Apparently, this isn't what the Cubs to have happen. As much as you might want "peanut butter and crack," the Cubs are going to try to just have former Cubs and "Chicago celebrities" sing the 7th inning stretch from now on. It has been ridiculous how stupid and banal the stretch has been the last few years, so I welcome the change. If you want to keep the tradition, I don't see why you can't just have a recording of Haray Caray do it on the days you don't have awesome guests, so we don't have to listen to the cast of Jersey Shore or whatever. If it has to be former Cubs, I vote for Leo Gomez and Glenallen Hill.

J'Marcus Webb arrested

Well, I guess there's another thing that J'Marcus Webb can't stop. Webb isn't terrible in run protection (12th in runs through him last year), but is awful in pass protection (after all, he's a member of the Bears OLine). It remains to be seen whether or not anything comes of this. 

Minutiae

Angel Pagan had more triples last year (15) than the New York Yankees did (13). (Castro led the Cubs, with 12, second most in the majors).

Tony Campana led the league in SB by a player without a 3B last year.

A drawing of the Cubs' new ST digs is pretty dreamy.

The post “Daily” Facepalm 2/28/13 appeared first on Obstructed View.

Good teammate

To the surprise of no rational Cubs fan here or elsewhere, Alfonso Soriano is a good teammate.

During his time in Chicago, Theo Epstein has come to realize what a tremendous teammate Soriano is and how willing he is to help younger players. Epstein considers Soriano an excellent clubhouse presence, and after a 32-homer, 108-RBI season, the Cubs president contends that he will need a player of note in return if he is to trade Soriano and assume a majority of the $36 million left on his contract. Soriano will only accept a deal to an East Coast team, so the Phillies, Rays, Orioles, Yankees, and Marlins are teams that could benefit by him.

I don’t believe the national media has taken a shit on Soriano like the Chicago media has in recent years, but it’s been remarkable and enjoyable to finally see Soriano treated like the player he was always known to be. Prior to joining the Cubs, Soriano was known as one of the friendliest players in the game, one of the better teammates, someone who smiled all the time and just loved to play baseball. Upon arriving in Chicago and not winning the MVP, Cy Young and Manager of the Year Award, the Chicago media decided to flip that story around and pretend otherwise.

The fans bought in. Soriano was booed relentlessly. He was called names that I can only imagine were racist. He was called lazy, a piece of shit and so on and so forth. It was disgusting and embarrassing to be a Cubs fan while it happened.

Then last year, Soriano rebounded, had a pretty good season and all of a sudden he’s a team leader, a positive clubhouse presence and someone who goes out there every day and does his job with a smile on his face. In other words, it only took the Chicago media 6 years to learn what every other person in the media already knew.

Them Chicago sportswriters are a bright bunch of people.

NFL Hall of Fame

The football Hall of Fame released the candidates for 2013. Here are all the articles that talked about steroids or performance enhancing drugs in the NFL:

It’s almost like they don’t care about steroids in the NFL. It’s also like they don’t treat the Hall of Fame like a shrine. Like in baseball. The shrine that has a bunch of piece of shit human beings already in it. What can we learn here? That the football writers are significantly smarter than about 65% of the BBWAA. And most baseball fans.

Michael Bourn market shrinks

Also in that article by Nick Cafardo was this bit about Michael Bourn:

Nobody really knows what happened to the Bourn market. He’s a top defender and a good leadoff man.

I have a pretty good idea what happened to the market. GMs have realized that signing guys who rely heavily on speed to large contracts are not such good ideas. Although the Soriano contract has actually turned out OK (in that it’s not as bad as it might have been), the Carl Crawford contract looks to be so bad at this point that it’s going to hurt the market for speed players for awhile. A leg injury and their outlook changes entirely.

Dontrelle Willis

Saw this title on Cubs.com: Inbox: Could Willis crack Cubs’ roster? A lot of shit would have to go wrong for that to happen. So let’s just hope an already bad team doesn’t have a bunch of players go down to injury making them even worse.

Nate Silver

Nate has a fantastic article about the crowded waiting room at the Hall of Fame. It’s a must read for all fans. It’s not something football fans or their sportswriters need to read, but those who root or write about baseball, yes, they need to read it.

The post Daily Facepalm – 1.13.12 appeared first on Obstructed View.

Obviously, we know what happened next (or at least have a pretty good idea). Sanchez’ agent took the deal back to the Tigers and played the Cubs up against them. The Tigers bit and gave Sanchez the extra year he’d been wanting and an extra 5 million, too.

At first blush, 16 AAV seems like a huge gamble on a player who has had significant injury concerns for a good amount of his career. On the other hand, there is an ever-dwindling market of pitchers that can play at the middle/front of a rotation, and Sanchez has certainly been that guy for the past 3 years.

Kind of sad, but this will give the Cubs at least payroll flexibility. Question is, what’s left that they can use that payroll ON?

The post Cubs Swing And Miss on Sanchez appeared first on Obstructed View.

The Cubs may or may not be discussing Justin Upton with the Dbacks.

It could go either way. Basically all there is to this report is Rosenthal saying that the Dbacks are having "active discussions" about Upton. One of his sources said that there's an 80% chance that he gets traded this offseason, though obviously the FO is denying this. What ties the Cubs into it is that they were on Upton's four team no-trade list last season. Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that Rosenthal said that the list has changed this year, though the new four-team set it unknown. I can't really see any reason why Upton would want to come to the Cubs though, and it's not like there's a lot of urgency from his perspective to get a big extension from anyone. If we start seeing more Cubs-Upton rumors I'd be more inclined to think that Arizona is using them to drive up his price with other teams.

The DBacks are also looking to unload top pitching prospect Trevor Bauer, because he's fallen out of favor with the organization for some reason. That has to be a huge red flag for any team that wants to acquire him. Bauer was the organization's top prospect going into last year, and ranked as the 9th best prospect overall. 

Looks like the Haren deal was nixed due to Haren's health

According to Orange Guy, the deal fell through due to the Cubs concerns over Haren's back and a separate hip issue which was likely the cause of his drop in velocity. The Cubs don't seem super interested in signing him on the free agent market either. 

Hoyer said the org deserved some of the blame for the leak, namely, they should have told Marmol that it wasn't done deal sealed yet when they asked him to waive the NTC. Personally, I don't think it would have made a ton of a difference. Going from "I have been traded to the Angels" to "The team asked me of I would be cool with being traded to the Angels" isn't that different news-wise in the rumor-hungry offseason. But I wouldn't be surprised if the org quietly put the word out to players to keep their mouths shut. 

Long term deal with Samardzija?

Gordo speculates that the Cubs might lock up Samardzija this offseason, but to me Hoyer's GM-speak sounds like they're not planning on it. This is probably just a case of Thoyer saying nothing and each side just wishcasting what they want. Here's the quotes:

I'm not going to comment on it, but he's had a great year and certainly he's a guy we hope is in a Cubs' uniform for a long time…He's a great competitor, and I think he's the kind of guy that teammates really look up to,'' Hoyer said. “And I think he has the potential down the road to be a really good leader. …

“It's hard to be a leader when you're also trying to establish your career. But now that he's had a really great season, I think he can probably be that guy. There's nothing but positive things to say about the year he had, and getting to know him, he's really impressive.''

Cubs downplaying trade opportunities at GM Meetings

The Chicago Tribune reports…wait. I have to pay money in order to read a Paul Sullivan article? Excuse me while I die laughing.

Various prospect lists released

Baseball Prospectus ($) and Fangraphs have released their top ten and top fifteen prospects in the Cubs system, respectively. Perhaps the most surprising ranking is Dan Vogelbach, who was ranked fifth in each list. Not surprisingly, Javier Baez and Albert Almora headed each list. Brett Jackson's star has fallen far under the weight of approximately 674 strikeouts in 2012.

BPro has a good discussion by their minor league evaluators about the ranking process (free), which is worth a read.

Wrigley renovation shakedown update

Now that the city is no longer focused on the election, we can get back to our regularly-scheduled business of putting taxpayer money in politicians' and Tom Ricketts's pockets. It sounds like there's no way they're going to get anything from the bankrupt state government, and Ricketts "would prefer to work out a deal that does not require legislative approval", which was what was going to happen anyway. 

Nate Silver on the Daily Show last night

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