Cubs Den has a post up drawing attention to a Baseball America article on changes in the Cubs’ organizational philosophy related to developing pitching talent. The BA piece focuses on new pitching coordinator Derek Johnson, formerly the pitching coach at Vanderbilt, which famously produced David Price, Mike Minor, Sonny Gray, and many others on his watch. Johnson is of the …
Season in review: Ian Stewart
During the Winter Meetings the Cubs traded Tyler Colvin and DJ LeMahieu to the Rockies for Ian Stewart and Casey Weathers. Stewart would replace the departed Aramis Ramirez at 3rd base and would instantly be an upgrade defensively. That much we were sure of. Whether or not he would hit the ball much was something we'd learn throughout the season. …
Revisiting the Cubs offseason transactions
Since the Cubs changed management this past offseason I thought it might be fun to look back at the transactions and see how they've turned out so far. Keep in mind these are a final analysis. There's still much time left for some of these deals to look different than they currently do. I considered breaking this into parts, but …
Minor League Update: 4-8-12
Iowa Cubs Brett Jackson had another multi-hit game as he went 2-4 and he also walked again. He's walked in 3 consecutive games, which he'll do frequently. Through his first 3 games he's an impressive 5-11 with a double, triple, and has 3 walks. He's also driven in 3 and scored 3. Jackson will strikeout a lot and he's done …
Corpas gone, Wood to 40-man, Josh Vitters
I had forgotten that the Cubs still needed to open a spot on the 40-man roster before they could add Kerry Wood. They did that yesterday when they released Manny Corpas. Corpas was signed in late December and it wasn’t even clear at the time if he was added to the 40-man. A little over a month later he’s gone. …
Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer have been busy
The Cubs were having a rather quiet offseason until December 23rd when they traded Sean Marshall. In a span of one month they’ve traded Marshall, DJ LeMahieu, Tyler Colvin, Carlos Zambrano, Andrew Cashner and Kyung-Min Ha. All of them except Ha were on the team’s 40-man roster. A new front office trading current players is nothing new. On July 5, …