With Jeff Samardzija's "transformation" I thought it would be fun to find other Cubs player who have transformed this spring. Joe Mather: With a .412/.455/.745 batting line through today, he's established himself as a completely different ballplayer. We know this because he's had 55 plate appearances and that's absolutely enough to know whether or not a transformation has taken place. …
Wells and Wood optioned to minors, Clevenger over Castillo
I'd much rather have seen Randy Wells in the Chicago Cubs rotation, but rather than bullpenning him the Cubs have at least done the only other smart thing possible by optioning him to the minors. Good call on that even if it's the result of other poor decisions. I've been saying for awhile that Steve Clevenger is the better catcher …
Did the Cubs really add that much depth?
Over on Cubs Den (a really good blog), John talks about how the Cubs have quietly built depth to give them trade flexibility. I want to look at his bullets one by one because I just don't agree with the conclusion that John is reaching. John is attributing this depth to Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer too, which is another …
Worst Moves of the Epstein Era
Since opening day is here (well, not here, but somewhere), it seems like an appropriate time to catalog the numerous failures of the Cubs under The Epstein Regime. Sure, no actual games have been played, but it’s never too early to make like mb and don your three wolves tee and start excoriating optimistic chumps. After all, future blogging historians …
This is a year
A year ago today we joined together to start Obstructed View. We could write about our individual thoughts over the last year, but a blog is a community. We've published over 730 articles and there have been more than 85,000 comments left on them. Your participation makes this much more enjoyable for us. So thanks and we hope you keep …
Daily Facepalm 3.27.12
Practice Game Recap Paul Maholm had a good outing, striking out six over five innings and allowing no runs. Carlos Marmol also pitched a scoreless inning in his first outing since having an MRI on his neck for a hand problem. Castro drew his first walk of the spring. Is there a Cubs game today? The Cubs travel to the …
Burning Lesson
h/t Rice Cube
Why Won’t ESPN Leave Steve Bartman Alone?
It's March Madness and everyone is doing brackets. Lots of people are taking part in an office or family pool, and are all pissed off about the state of their actual NCAA brackets. Others are using this time to create their own versions of a tournament. The Cubs did their bunting tournament, Sarah Spain over at espnW put together a …
Daily Facepalm 3.26.12
Anything interesting happen over the weekend? Eh. Dempster was knocked around in a minor league game yesterday, but who knows if he was working on something. I missed yesterday's game, but apparently Joe Mather had a Johnsonian/Fuldian incredible catch in CF. Is there a Cubs game today? It's going on right now, apparently. The Cubs are playing the Padres. Len …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Backups
We've already published the projections for some of the backups along the way. Jeff Baker's was posted with the infield backups and the two possible back-up catchers were published in another article. Without commentary, the others are below. Projection Name PA H HR BB SO avg obp slg wOBA Guru Blake DeWitt 351 82 5 26 55 .256 .313 .376 …