Player Recently in the Best Shape of His Life: Carlos Marmol
Carlos Marmol dropped 515 pounds in the offseason. He dropped 15 of his own pounds and he dropped the 500-lb gorilla in his pitching arsenal: his mystifying cutter – not mystifying the way his slider can be (Where did that thing go?), but mystifying like the remake of Footloose (. . . Why?). Dale Sveum and pitching coach Chris Bosio claim to have already worked with him on ways to keep his pitching motion (and hopefully his attempts to frequent the strike zone) under control, and he alluded to the possibility that the cutter could be gone for good. Just the Superfriends being the Superfriends.
Cubs Photo I Recently Enjoyed
Wells and Beef Castle beg for your captions.
Scott Strazzante, Chicago Tribune / February 19, 2012
Hope Tweets Eternal
Calling it; The #Cubs are going to win 100 games this season.
— Allie (@AllieJ48) February 19, 2012
I was told this would never happen again!
The Cubs are introducing dynamic ticket pricing for bleacher tickets this season, which means someone who paid close to $100 for a premier ticket could be sitting right next to someone who paid only $10. This has to hurt bleacher elitists who have been enjoying the country club that is premium bench seating without invasion from the groundlings. Oh, but it should help the Cubs make as much money as possible. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about the merits of a business making money.
CPR Tutorial I Recently Enjoyed
You know what would be awesome?
If the Cubs were sneaky good this year. Like in 2001…
One of the Cubs who got away
One bright spot for Texas: Fr. RHP Ricky Jacquez (5 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 4 K) delivered strong relief.
Too much time, I have it on my hands.
bubblesdachimp wrote:
That’d sure be swell.
@ Suburban kid:
(dying laughing)
I did not authorize you to use my photo, SK.
The Chicago Business website seems to be down at the moment, so I couldn’t read the story, but I seem to remember the Cubs announcing dynamic pricing and mentioning specifically that prices would never go below what the Season Ticket holders paid. They might as well have dubbed it the Alvin Principle.
@ GBTS:
I think that would start to hurt after like the third day
South Carolina Gamecocks=====> Swept VMI this weekend
@ bubblesdachimp:
They weren’t sneaky good. They were Sosa good. His rWAR was 9.2 higher than the next highest batter on the team. I’m not joking. He was 7.9 rWAR better than Lieber, 8 better than Wood and 9.4 better than Farnsworth (the 3 best pitchers on that team). They were a mediocre team with one ridiculously awesome season mixed in. This is a bad team and they don’t have anyone that could even be half as good as Sosa was in 2001.
Sosa: 11.4 rWAR
Gutierrez, Mueller, White, Stairs, Tucker, McGriff: 11 rWAR
Pitchers: 12.8 rWAR
I have fond memories of 2001 for a few reasons. First, they got off to a good start, which is rare for the Cubs. They were 21-12 and in 1st place. Then they pulled a Cubs and lost 8 in a row. Immediately following that they won 12 in a row. Best stretch of baseball I’ve ever seen the Cubs play. They came so close to winning the 13th on a Sosa flyout to deep RF. Sammy Sosa was so good you could almost combine the rest of the team and they weren’t as good (not really, but you know what I mean). Sosa had 160 RBI. Gutierrez was 2nd with 66. He had 94 fewer. Stairs had 61. Those were the only 2 players within 105 RBI of the team leader. Insane. The Cubs bullpen was fun to watch. They had an outstanding year. I remember an announcer talking about that bullpen and basically saying that teams don’t mind a reliever who can throw in the high 90s. They’re usually not around for more than an inning so it doesn’t bother them. They hated facing the Cubs bullpen because they had pitcher after pitcher who was going to come in and throw in the upper 90s.
2001 was the Sammy Sosa show. He took a mediocre team and made them contend. Along the way they provided plenty of memories for me.
@ Suburban kid:
You forgot “How Mish Sees It”
The tweet that Adam included makes me laugh.
@ Suburban kid:
You accidentally included one of your masturbation pictures.
@ mb21:
2001 Cubs were such a weird team. Remember when I want to say Lieber and Wood pitched back to back 1 hitters. I swear Liebers game lasted only 1:35 or something.
I also have fond patriotic memories of when Sosa hit the home run after 9/11 and ran around the bases with that flag. Bubbles cried.
Was that the bullpen with Flash?
@ mb21:
That was no accident. Sorry, Aisley.
@ Suburban kid:
(dying laughing)
(dying laughing)
(dying laughing)
@ bubblesdachimp:
Yeah, Flash had a good year that season, but we expected that. He did miss some time. The impressive part of the bullpen was the very strong year from Van Poppell. Wood and Lieber did pitch back to back 1 hitters that year.
@ Aisle424:
I updated the link in the article. They changed the link name, which was awesome. Here’s the new one:
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20120218/ISSUE01/302189972/moneyball
@ AndCounting:
You’ve been around lately. That was more accurate a few weeks ago. (dying laughing)
@ Suburban kid:
It’s pretty right on. A few weeks ago it would have been a single-pixel screenshot.
@ mb21:
I just looked at the stats for this season. Good gawd that team liked to strike people out with their bullpen
@ bubblesdachimp:
I think that was the first year the Cubs led the league in strikeouts and then they did for many years in a row.
@ GBTS:
(dying laughing)
mb21 wrote:
@ AndCounting:
So do ticket prices go up and down depend on the game & conditions or just up?
@ WaLi:
The article implies that they can go either way, but that could be the author’s mistake. Well, actually the implications are in the photos more than anything. One of the photo captions says that dynamic pricing would lead to lower prices for less popular games, but that could be an error.
mb21 wrote:
MB, you’re forgetting the -6.2 sWAR, caused by playing Salsa music in the clubhouse. Why do you think the rest of the team was so bad?
@ GBTS:
Mish would be talking about Batman.
EDIT: (dying laughing), somehow I mistook batman for Vader. Well played.
mb21 wrote:
We all know how much SK loves Disney.
@ Berselius:
Mish is Batman.
AndCounting wrote:
Well, it could. I could also find a million dollars in my desk.
@ Berselius:
I’m an equal opportunity loser. Batman, Star Wars…six of one, half dozen of another. (dying laughing)
If i recall correctly from their initial release of dynamic ticket pricing, the Cubs won’t ever lower prices below the initial pricing structure. So say you buy a ticket on the day tickets are released, you are guaranteed to have bought that ticket at the lowest price possible (when buying directly from the Cubs). I could be wrong, but I’m fairly certain that this is the case.
@ GBTS:
(dying laughing) this post is going to be negative faget pointed into oblivion.
@ Berselius:
I already checked.
@ Kevin:
That could be the intention, but what happens if tickets aren’t selling? They’ll have to lower the price.
mb21 wrote:
Exactly. Any ticket left unsold for so much as a dollar is a dollar that’s not going to the Cubs.
@ mb21:
This is correct i think they won the K crown for like 10 straight years
mb21 wrote:
Thanks. I hope you didn’t see my Carl Crawford scrapbook while you were rooting around in there.
Mish wrote:
False. There are only three Star Wars movies.
mb21 wrote:
That would insult their best customers, MB.
Berselius wrote:
But at least they’re keeping their best customers happy. You know, the ones who sneak in their own sandwiches instead of buying concessions.
@ Aisle424:
I still don’t understand that whole thing with Al and $10 bleacher tickets. If I’m the Cubs I’m charging a higher price for those who feel they have to get tickets. They’re going to pay almost anything so I’m definitely charging them more. It’s like when a new video game system comes out. You can buy it then and pay more or wait awhile. I think the PS3 was $299 when it came out. I bought it a couple years later for $199. To my knowledge those who went out and bought one immediately haven’t been complaining that the price was lowered. If I owned the Cubs, the highest priced tickets would be the day they go on sale. I might even consider selling seats to some games for $1000. I can lower the price a few days later and those people who can’t afford $1000 are going to buy it then.
@ mb21:
It’s also completely hypocritical for a STH to ever complain about ticket prices being lowered when right now they’re selling them on StubHub at a markup. They all know that some of their tickets are worth more than what they’re paying and some are worth less. This is not a difficult concept to understand.
Blake Dewitt=======. NRI keeps his 1.2$
Blake DeWitt ——> Cubs camp
mb21 wrote:
The thing I remember most from that season was the sign I made and brought to a Lieber game that said “I’m a beLieber!” and people booed me.
This new draft shit really makes me mad
I just e-mailed a couple folks I know at the Cubs for clarification on the dynamic pricing.
After the Cubs convention, Jon Greenberg wrote this:
So there is either a change in policy, with regards to the dynamic pricing, or one of these stories is misleading, if not completely wrong.
I also once made and brought a sign to a Cubs-Expos game in Montreal that said “HalleALOUja!” which people also booed.
@ WenningtonsGorillaCock:
Are you the Fukudometer guy too?
Suburban kid wrote:
No. A friend of mine once brought a “J.T.Snow-O-Meter” sign to a Giants game when Snow was batting something like .087 and the security guards threw him out of the game.
@ Aisle424:
Honestly, I’m not even sure why this was published now. The only reason I put it in the facepalm was to replace the “Cubs are getting 6-to-1 odds to win the World Series” story that popped up on ESPN last night, but I couldn’t find any screenshots or corroboration so I dropped it. Then Crain’s tweeted this story so I went with it instead. Waste of space, really, as it’s just sort of restating old shit. That’s our job, dammit.
@ bubblesdachimp:
Is this a delayed reaction?
Brett passed along some info re: the Cubs’ spending limit during the first 10 draft rounds:
http://www.bleachernation.com/2012/02/20/the-chicago-cubs-will-have-about-7-9-million-to-spend-at-the-top-of-the-2012-draft/
@ mb21:
No just reading our fucking draft cap it makes bubbles really mad. Nothing like hiring guys who know how to exploit the system only to find out that Jerry Reinsdorf is a piece of shit
bubblesdachimp wrote:
To be fair, just about everyone already knew Jerry Reinsdorf was a piece of shit.
@ Rice Cube:
How do the Cards have so much money to spend, if they’re picking so late in the first round?
@ bubblesdachimp:
They’ll just have to exploit something else.
@ Berselius:
Not sure…Brett’s article suggests that the draft allotment is because of extra draft picks in the first 10 rounds. I think the Angels did have to cough up two picks for signing Pujols as well, but that doesn’t really account for all the difference. Who else did the Cards lose that would have brought back extra picks?
@ Berselius:
Yea for sure. I really think if he wasnt a dickbag, and Jordan didnt have a severe gambling problem we could have swept the 90′s… I feel cheated
Rice Cube wrote:
This is true. I really like Mcleod. I feel like he is key
@ Rice Cube:
Good point, I forgot about the Pujols compensation.
(dying laughing), apparently neither Cuey nor Riggins knew that Marmol was throwing a cutter last year.
@ Berselius:
May have been difficult to pick up since it was a cutter that didn’t cut…
Is it all possible he wasnt throwing one? And that was just the Fastball he was throwing?
@ Rice Cube:
(dying laughing)
(dying laughing)
Marmol had 3 pitches last year
Fastball out of the zone
Slider out of the zone
Flat slider in zone
So glad no Cuey… He was soooooo bad…
I’m so glad I know what Kevin looks like. Sucks that I can only picture mb as a dirty stuffed animal floating in a pool.
@ jtsunami:
What does WenningtonsGorillaCock look like to you?
bubblesdachimp wrote:
I don’t think the reason you hired these guys is because of the draft. They have a good record, but that can be explained in two words. Draft picks. He’s given himself more chances. For example, since 2003 the Cubs have had 10 1st round picks and they selected 42 guys in rounds 1 through 5. Theo’s Red Sox have selected 23 1st round picks and 63 guys in the first 5 rounds. The Sox have had more than double the number of 1st round picks the Cubs have had. As a result they’ve spent considerably more than the Cubs have over that time frame. The Sox have selected nearly 1.5 players more per year in the 1st round.
That’s the difference and that’s why the Cubs farm system will improve through the draft, though not as easily as was done in Boston. The Cubs re-signed their own players while the Red Sox let them walk. There are fewer chances to add draft picks now, but the Cubs will do just that. They’re not going to excel in the draft because they have far superior people running the draft. They’ll excel because they’ll find ways to have more picks than other teams. How they do that is going to be difficult since they don’t already have the talent the Red Sox had when Theo took over. He could let their free agents walk because they had a ton of talent. If Theo is around past 5 years I expect we’ll start to see them with more draft picks than other teams, but it probably won’t be for awhile. What player eligible for free agency within a couple years would the Cubs offer arbitration to? Garza. What about Marmol? Certainly not right now. Probably not then. Soto? Probably not. Dempster? No. Byrd or DeJesus? No.
That’s the part of the draft rules that suck. The Cubs simply don’t have the options of increasing their early round picks like they would have had before. Considering that, I suspect that’s why they’re interested in those two Cubans.
jtsunami wrote:
You’re looking at my good side. My other side is eye-less. (dying laughing)
@ Berselius:
I didn’t know he was throwing one either, but it’s not my job to know that shit.
http://badspringtrainingtwitpics.tumblr.com/
(dying laughing)
mb21 wrote:
This should have been a new post.
@ mb21:
Yea but even the compensation system got fucked up
Manny Ramirez —> Oakland
RC —-> confused
It’s a minor league deal and worth only about $500K if he makes the team (probably prorated due to impending PED suspension) but still a bit puzzling. Not quite as puzzling as having Chone Figgins lead off in place of Ichiro, though.
Rice Cube wrote:
Hooray! That bumps my list of active players older than me to 16!
@ Aisle424:
Well that sucks (dying laughing)
I’m still in like the 5% percentile.
Per HBT, Carl Crawford wasn’t happy to learn that the Red Sox owner didn’t want to sign him.
His proper response should have been to appreciate John Henry’s brutal honesty?
@ jtsunami:
Yeah, getting old blows. Last year there were 20. 5 have officially retired and I got Jamie Moyer back this year. There are still 4 guys who don’t have actual teams yet, so they could be forced into retirement. Plus the guys that have teams could get cut. I expect I’ll be down to about 10 active players when teams break camp.
So I was met with snark when I posed the question over the weekend so I’ll ask again: are we expecting to see Strasburg on opening day? He’s got to pitch game one or two, I would imagine.
@ bubblesdachimp:
Yeah, that’s what I was pointing out. Without signing some decent free agents in the very near future the Cubs are going to be unable to build their farm system through the draft. They can’t build it through international free agents either.
Occupy @ jtsunami
@ Aisle424:
I don’t think there are any Cubs older than me. Never thought about that before.
@ GBTS:
I expect we’ll see him. I don’t know if he’ll be pitching, but I’d be surprised if we don’t see him. I also expect to see him before that.
@ mb21:
I guess that depends on whether you or Alfonso Soriano falsified the age on your documents…
@ GBTS:
Really, this is unnecessary. Don’t you have your own blog to meet with snark?
The Capri-Sun straw things in the Photo of the Day had me in tears.
Mystery Team –> Sawx?
Would wonder if teams really think Jorge Soler can be starting for them on opening day?
Kobe —> Bitch; Lakers —> Lottery
Now THAT’S a weiner dog.
Fuck, how do we post pictures again?
A game I recently enjoyed:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CIN/CIN201005070.shtml
Starlin Castro Debut: 1 HR, 1 Triple, 1 R, 6 RBI
@ Pezcore:
I thought Sawx = Red Sox.
Can’t even blame injuries that much for Cub suckage last year:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/2011-disable-list-spreadsheet-and-team-information/
I suppose we should take into account that two of the rotation guys dropped off the map for quite a chunk of that DL time though.
@ Suburban kid:
It can be used interchangeably. I guess I should give the South Siders a new name. How about ‘Only Relevant In Relation To Ozzie Guillen’ or ORTOG for short. That sums them up well.
Now that Reddick is gone, Boston could use another outfielder. I think It’ll be hillariously if some team starts Soler on Opening Day.
FIXED FOR ACCURACY
@ Pezcore:
Oh. I thought it was a play on Boston accents.
@ Pezcore:
So… we’re calling the Cubs “Sawx” now?
I’m directional-ly challenged
Boston Red Sox —> “Sawx”
Chicago Cubs –> Cubbies
Chicago White Sox –> “The White Trash”
There, fixed.
Example: “The White Trash” are only interesting when Ozzie Guillen is involved, and they will go down in history as ‘The Team That Signed Adam Dunn”.
@ WaLi:
Why not link to actual video instead of the boxscore? http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=7892433&c_id=mlb
@ ACT:
Because I suck.
@ mb21:
I hate all of you.
jtsunami wrote:
I can’t ever remember either, but I think you have to type “image source”, except cut out all the vowels, unless the vowel is i, in which case keep it. Then you type an equal sign, but don’t add an extra space! Then you have to put your link in quotes. You also have to eat 2 carrots. One before you start typing and one after. The computer doesn’t know if you really ate the carrots, so you have to tell it by posing 2 pictures of carrots. Which is hard, since you can’t post a picture of the carrots unless you’ve already eaten other carrots.
I love Derrick Rose.
@ GBTS:
If I were to make a guess, I’m assuming that the Nats have Strasburg as their #1 starter and he’ll start on Opening Day against the Cubs unless he blows out his shoulder or elbow again due to invertedWitis.
edit: http://washington.nationals.mlb.com/team/depth_chart/index.jsp?c_id=was
Strasburg tops the rotation in this depth chart.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/college-baseball-opening-weekend-notes-pitchers/:
Does anybody here know how to watch college baseball on a computer? I would ask if you need special press access or anything, but I kinda doubt Cistulli has any of that. (dying laughing)
@ Pezcore:
(dying laughing)
@ fang2415:
A few college baseball games are streamable off ESPN3.com but I think ESPN3 has a non-US blackout policy. You’re welcome to try it though as I am often wrong about these things.
fang2415 wrote:
He’s watching the game using some obscure program, you’ve never heard of it.
@ GBTS:
You should try for an alley-oop with him. I hear that’ll get you humped in the locker room.
@ Berselius:
RealAudio?
Re: Strasburg…
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/02/nationals-zimmerman-rendon-strasburg-harper.html
Looks like he’ll start the season and pitch until he hits 160 IP or so.
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@ Berselius:
(dying laughing)
(dying laughing)
I almost posted this with the question, but I figured I should wait in case somebody actually took it seriously first and answered it. So now that it’s too late for that:
Download | Convert YouTube to MP3
He has risen #1 MVP
WenningtonsGorillaCock wrote:
(dying laughing)
If only it were that easy…
Took me awhile to get the carrot/caret reference.
@ bubblesdachimp:
Have you heard the Good News?
jtsunami wrote:
.
@ jtsunami:
BTW, I have no idea what anybody on this blog is talking about, today even more than usual.
You guys know how to post a video to Facebook?
@ Rice Cube:
(dying laughing), I only just noticed that someone did post a real answer. Thanks, I’ll check it out.
Blackouts can be so dumb. They should decouple IP addresses from geography completely so that people can’t get away with that shit.
@ fang2415:
@ Aisle424:
Seriously, it’s like Jorge Luis Borges took over the website today
fang2415 wrote:
I had to look him up on Wikipedia to get that.
@ Aisle424:
I read some of his stuff in AP Spanish, but it wasn’t until later that I realized that it’s just as much of a headfuck in English (dying laughing)
jtsunami wrote:
img src=”http://somesite.com/image.jpg”
surround that with carrots
@ GBTS:
You should know to be more precise around here.
@ Aisle424:
Got it. Glad to see that OV is only as surreal as American culture in general then.
@ mb21:
img src=”http://somesite.com/image.jpg” 
Like this?
regarding images, here’s all you need to remember:
img src=”"
It’s 9 characters. If you can remember you social security number you can remember this.
BTW, it’s still taking me to a new error page and clearing my comment when I enter the wrong captcha. But I assume you guys figured that out and moved on to not giving a shit about it a long time ago. (dying laughing)
@ jtsunami:
(dying laughing)
@ fang2415:
I had forgotten about that. Thanks.
@ mb21:
http://www.mediacollege.com/internet/html/image-tag.html
That page also features some nice shots of SK and his wife.
This thread = Sokal Affair
SK, congrats on the new job:
@ fang2415:
Get better at entering Captchas, I suppose.
@ mb21:
I know. I was trying to snark and put pictures of carrots around the code. I gave up.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/
@ GBTS:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/lazarus-form-recovery/
@ Rice Cube:
http://www.fangraphs.com/not/index.php/review-watching-college-baseball-on-ulive/
@ Aisle424:
http://www.obstructedview.net/chicago-cubs/daily-facepalm-2-20-2012-theyre-back.html#comment-79378
/logical conclusion’d
@ fang2415:
Outstanding.
new shit: http://www.obstructedview.net/projections/projecting-the-2012-cubs-3rd-basemen.html
“@TheCCO: (@CarrieMuskat) McNutt knows he’ll pitch this yr,but not sure if he’ll have a “C” for #Cubs or”B” for Boston on his cap http://t.co/lbkmQhtH”
This article makes it seem like Epstein thinks he is gone. That would suck if they poached our #1 pitching prospect