The Cubs are 8.5 games out of first place and it’s just the first of June. Their pythagorean record is even worse than their actual 23-30 record. Pythag has them at 22-31. The only team with a worse Pythag than the Cubs is the Houston Astros at 22-33. Minnesota is worse in the AL at 17-36, but no other team …
Trade Value: Carlos Pena
The first of June is tomorrow and while no significant trades are likely to be made in the first few weeks of June, the Cubs do find themselves to be far from contenders at this point. The Cubs will likely trade a few players near the deadline for prospects so it seems a good time to start talking about the …
Soriano to miss some time and more weather blaming
No word on the MRI for Soriano, but he’s going to miss at least a few days. Blake DeWitt will start in LF in his absence and Paul Sullivan mentions Tyler Colvin and Brett Jackson as potential replacements if he’s out for awhile. You know how the Cubs have blamed the cold weather all season long? Yeah, now it’s the …
The emptiest batting averages
Colin Wyers looks at batting average and BP’s True Average to find the players with the emptiest batting averages. Starlin Castro and Darwin Barney at the top 2 and former Cubs Ryan Theriot and Aaron Miles are next. Jeff Baker is 7th and Marlon Byrd is 10th. As Colin notes, you can be a good hitter and still make the …
Series Preview: Pittsburgh Pirates (22-26) @ Chicago Cubs (22-26)
The Cubs have gotten off to a good start on this 9-game home stand. They need to get as close to .500 as they can during this stretch because June is a very tough month for the Cubs. The Cubs have the right teams coming to town in the Pirates and Astros, but the Cubs have also had their troubles …
The All Average wOBA hitters
I was looking on Fangraphs at Starlin Castro‘s stats this morning and couldn’t help but notice that his .357 wOBA was almost entirely batting average (.330). It doesn’t really matter how you accomplish it, but I started to wonder about the difference in wOBA and AVG. I was specifically interested in batters who had hit .300, which is what we …
Cashner to the bullpen when he returns
No decision has been made on what type of a role he will have long term with us. I will leave all of that up to Dr. Gryzlo and Dr. Yocum who are treating him for his shoulder injury. I will tell you that I think that if he is out for a while it is probably unrealistic to think …
Series Preview: New York Mets (22-24) @ Chicago Cubs (20-25)
Berselius refused to show up for work so that left the rest of us scrambling around to find a replacement. We couldn't find any qualified applicants though we thank you for your interest, so I'm going to go ahead and do his job for him. He has been punished and will not be having dinner anytime soon.
Catcher Interference Skill
Mike Fast looks at the catcher inference leaders (batters, catchers, and even pitchers) since 2007 (subscription required). Carl Crawford, who reached base last night via catcher interference on Welington Castillo, leads the way. The top 15 batters in catcher interference have accounted for 60% of all interference calls (including playoffs and spring training) since 2007. Crawford has 14 and the …
The Cubs just aren’t very good
About a quarter of the 2011 season is in the books and the Cubs have performed about as we expected overall. The pitching, particularly the rotation, has been worse than we thought. Part of that can be explained by the injury to Randy Wells who is an above average starting pitcher. The pitchers they’ve used to fill in for Wells, …