Over at The Cub Contrarian, Kyle used an estimated WAR for players to get a team win total. I thought I'd do the same thing, but I'm going to do it two ways: projections and my wild ass guesses. Wild Ass Guess Catchers: Welington Castillo (1.0), Dioner Navarro (negative infinity) I could easily see Castillo being a 2 WAR player, …
Tommy John Surgery, The Hardball Times Annual and Scott Baker
I got the Kindle version of The Hardball Times annual for my birthday and the first thing I wanted to read was the article about Tommy John surgery. It looked at whether pitchers get back to the level they were at pre-surgery and when that is. They also looked at what the shelf life is for a pitcher who had …
An updated look at the 2013 rotation
The Cubs finalized contracts with Edwin Jackson and Carlos Villanueva today, which gives the Cubs something like 18 starters. I lost count. The good news is that Edwin Jackson is actually good unlike the other 22 starters they signed this offseason. Jackson has been underrated for some time and that's in part to how miserably he performed when he reached …
Dave Cameron on the Edwin Jackson signing
Dave Cameron wrote a bit about the Cubs signing of Edwin Jackson. Here's part of it. But we should note that Edwin Jackson makes them better, and this price for Edwin Jackson is still completely reasonable based on his established performance level. That the Cubs aren’t yet obvious contenders shouldn’t cause us to tell them to stop trying to improve. …
Edwin Jackson Signs
Patrick Mooney was first with the news, and the usual suspects seem to be in agreement, though we at Obstructed View reserve the right to retract any and all free agent signing stories up until opening day. The deal is 4 years, $52 million and does not include a no-trade clause, per Heyman. Brief thoughts on the deal, in the …
Carlos Villanueva's contract and Edwin Jackson
The Cubs signed Carlos Villanueva to a contract last night. We didn't know the terms of the contract and I felt about the contract similarly to Myles. If I were a betting man, I'd say this is a one year deal for around $4.5 million, with an option year at $6 or so. That seems reasonable to me for a …
Carlos Villanueva, Scott Baker and Scott Feldman combine to make one slightly below average starting pitcher
The Cubs have gone a little nutty in signing as many back-end of the rotation starters as they can find. They grabbed Scott Feldman who would be the worst starter in many rotations and the Cubs rotation is no different. They did sign Scott Baker though he's coming back from injury so we have temper expectations. Then they signed Carlos …
How much ass could this Cubs team suck if this Cubs team could suck ass?
Short answer: probably not much more ass than they sucked last year. After all, the Cubs have lost 101 or more games only 2 other times in franchise history. It's not easy being as bad as the 2012 Cubs were. Long answer? The 2012 Cubs joined the 1962 and 1966 teams as the only ones in franchise history to lose …
An early look at the 2013 rotation
Assuming health, the Cubs rotation appears to be set with Matt Garza, Jeff Samardzija, Travis Wood, Scott Baker and Scott Feldman. I was curious what we could reasonably expect from this group next year and decided to use the CAIRO projections to calculate percentile forecasts. Before that, there's been some recent talk about how this rotation is better than last …
Venezuelan league team was worse with Josh Vitters so they released him
Josh Vitters had a decent season in AAA and then was ridiculously bad at the MLB level. He was playing the Venezuelan Winter League until yesterday when Leones del Caracas released him. Vitters will almost certainly go back to AAA Iowa next year and may at some point get a chance to show he can at least play well enough …