The Cubs and Aramis Ramirez have a mutal option for 2011 at $16 million, but it’s unlikely he exercises that option. Ramirez is looking for more than a one-year deal and as the best free agent 3rd baseman he’ll easily get a multi-year deal on the free agent market. It’s hard to say whether or not the Cubs will offer …
The hunt for a new GM
Shortly after Jim Hendry was fired I wrote about why every big name GM, current or not, is a candidate for the Cubs job. If they are, so is everybody else. The reason I wrote that is that the GM who wins a World Series with the Cubs is going to be the most popular GM in history. He can …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (64-82) at Cincinnati Reds (71-75)
The Cubs played the Reds just last week, and five of the six starters from that series are pitching this series. I’m just going to make a few minor tweaks to the last preview (laughing). Team overview As always, these are team stats with NL ranks in parentheses. Reds Cubs wOBA .322 (4th) .315 (8th) UBR 14.2 (1st) -11.4 (16th) …
2011 Minor League Wrap Up, Part 2
I figured now was a good time to post something about the Cubs top prospects since it’s past the midway point in the full minor league seasons. The short-season teams just got under way. I’m using Sickel’s top 20. I’m breaking this into three parts. I’ll cover 11-20 here and then 1-10 while the final part will focus on players …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (62-81) at New York Mets (70-73)
Have the Cubs even played the Mets this year? I can’t remember (laughing). Apparently the Cubs took two out three from them behind strong performances from Demp and Z. Team Overview Cubs Mets wOBA .315 (8th) .322 (5th) UBR -11.4 (16th) 1.0 (8th) UZR -9.1 (10th) -44.5 (16th) SP FIP 4.23 (12th) 4.12 (10th) RP FIP 3.87 (9th) 3.91 (12th) …
Cubs Help George Lucas Continue to Ruin Star Wars
When I saw Star Wars when it first came out in 1977, I thought it was the best thing than man would ever do. As I grew up and saw the next two movies in the trilogy, it only solidified my belief that George Lucas was a frickin’ genius. If only he had known when to just quit at the …
WAR And Salsa
A lot of discussion started yesterday about WAR thanks a very thoughtful article on It’s About The Money, Stupid. Discussion followed in two article on The Book Blog (here and here) and then on Replacement Level Baseball Blog. I’ve mostly been ignoring the defense part of WAR for some time now. Ever since Colin Wyers showed how useless those metrics …
2011 Minor League Wrap Up, Part 1
Now that the minor league regular season is over it seems a good time to take yet another look at the Cubs top prospects. Over the next week I’ll do just that and this time I will publish a new survey and actually post the results. I promise. First, let’s look at how the teams performed and how one non-top …
Can't think of a stupid title yet so this is obviously not finished
A lot of negative attention has been given to Tom Ricketts re-signing Oneri Fleita for 4 years. A lot more negative attention will be given when Ricketts re-signs Tim Wilken. My first thought when I heard about the signing was that it was odd. Immediatley after that I realized we’re talking about an inconsequential amount of money so firing them, …