Ryan Dempster entered the 2012 season in the final year of his contract. He was coming off season in which his ERA had ballooned to 4.80, but his FIP and xFIP were in line with what he'd done as a starter since 2008. His FIP was 3.91 and he had an xFIP of 3.70. The projections had him at a …
The Children Are The Future-Cubs Minor League Update Sponsored by Paul Blart: Mall Cop Extended Directors Cut DVD
Iowa Rizzo left the game with a knee contusion as is listed as day to day. Soto went 1-4 with a 2B in his first game back and Brett Jackson struck out 3 more times. Smokies No Game Daytona Nelson Perez was 3-4 with a HR and The Greg of Rohan went 2-5. Alcantara continues to impress with his bat …
Series Preview: Detroit Tigers (28-32) at Chicago Cubs (20-40)
The Tigers were the easy favorite to dominate the mediocre AL Central. They added Prince Fielder to a team that won the division by fifteen games in 2011, forming a core of starts that also includes Miguel Cabrera, Victor Martinez, and Justin Verlander. Fielder has mashed since coming to the team, but not surprisingly the overall lineup has regressed (most …
The Children Are The Future- Cubs Minor League Update Sponsored by Kodak
Iowa What more can be said about Rizzo? Another night another pair of HR's and a ringing ground rule double. The future looks bright at 1B. Josh Vitters was 2-4 with a BB as well. Also, can somebody tell me why Jay Jackson still has a job? Smokies Trey McNutt's ERA finally caught up with his secondary #'s as he …
An analysis of the Jorge Soler deal: I guess it's worth it after all
Despite all of my grumbling about the rumored pricetag for Jorge Soler, I was ecstatic when the initial reports today said that the Cubs had signed him to a 9/30 contract. Then we discovered that whenever he has enough service time to be elgible for arbitration, he can opt out of the deal and go through the usual arbitration process …
Cubs sign Jorge Soler to 9-year deal for $30 million (UPDATED!)
The Cubs apparently signed Jorge Soler today. I hear the #Cubs won out for Jorge Soler. #Yankees tried, but didn't get him. — Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) June 11, 2012 Bed Badler of Baseball America wrote about Soler a few days ago here. He talks about the way in which he was declared a free agent. Jim Callis wrote more about …
No Love For Jeff Samardzija
I was checking out the stats for most of the Cubs players today (and some other players too). When I was looking at what Jeff Samardzija had done so far this year it wasn't how well he's pitched (at least by FIP standards anyway) that stood out to me, but how no rest of season projection expected a damn thing …
Does Alfonso Soriano have any trade value?
The simple answer to this question is that he does not have any trade value, but simple isn't good enough. That's especially true when you're talking about a player who is still owed $43.5 million through the end of 2014. The Cubs tried hard this offseason to find some team interested in taking him and didn't have much luck. We …
The Children Are The Future- Cubs Minor League Update Sponsored by Cadillac
Iowa– Anthony. Rizzo. I can't remember the last time the Cubs had a prospect just destroy a level the way Rizzo is doing. Last night he hit two more HR's to raise his OPS to 1.163. If you take his AB's from last year in AAA and combine them with this year you have about a full season's worth and …
Updated End of Season Projections
Using Baseball Prospectus rest of season PECOTA projections I figured it might be fun to see just how many games the Cubs are expected to lose at this point. Since this is OV and we're Cubs fans we do things in reverse order. We're more focused on the 2013 draft order and which slot the Cubs may be picking from. …