Garza has a rough outing While the Cubs starters have been impressive in their short outings for far this spring, Matt Garza ran into trouble in the second and had to be pulled after walking in a run or two. He's mostly just working on his fastball and changeup, and batters were sitting on it. He told Muskat: I’ve been …
Daily Facepalm 3.9.12 – Volstad Good, Soriano Good, Marmol Bad
Rotation battle news Chris Volstad followed up Jeff Samardzija's strong outing with three solid innings of his own yesterday. Volstad struck out three, walked none, and allowed one hit. Spring training stats don't mean much (especially just three innings for each guy), but as far as we can tell things are very up in the air for the last two …
Daily Facepalm 3.8.2012 – ST Cubs Not Entirely Depressing
Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win! The Cubs brought their spring training record up to the .500 level with a win against the vaunted Kansas City Royals. Shut up, someone could vaunt about them. But yesterday the main vauntworthy performance came from Jeff Samardzija, who faced just nine batters in three shutout innings in his effort to join the best …
What’s all this Jeff Samardzija starting crap?
I paid so little attention to Cubs baseball after the first few weeks that it's hard for me to believe that Jeff Samardzija threw 88 innings a year ago. I did know that however many innings he threw that they weren't the typically bad Jeff Samardzija innings. I also knew he got lucky. I probably paid no attention to Samardzija's …
Daily Facepalm 2.22.12
We just have the point-after-try to kick, or something Several months ago, we were on the "five yard line" in the Theo compensation situation. Since then we've crossed the blue line, stepped into the paint, crossed the box, and veered right at the fireworks factory exit, and now it's finally been decided that Cubs prospect Chris Carpenter would be the …
Trusting Theo
The Cubs new President of Baseball Ops was one of the best GMs in the game. Their new GM was one of the best assistants in the game prior to becoming the GM of the Padres. He rebuild the Padres farm system in two years. The Cubs new player development director is also one of the better ones around. I …
Taking a closer look at the Cubs supersized rotation
The Cubs currently have 6 starting pitchers on the roster*. Those 6 include Matt Garza, Ryan Dempster, Paul Maholm, Travis Wood, Chris Volstad and Randy Wells. Jeff Samardzija is also going to be stretched out in spring training, but may return to the bullpen when the season begins. The Cubs also have Andy Sonnanstine and Casey Coleman. If Trey McNutt …
“You better know who your ninth starter’s going to be”
I’ve been a bit confused by one of Theo’s comments since taking over as President of Baseball Operations. “We need starting pitching. You can’t take your chances very seriously as a club if you go in to the season without, not just five guys you can point to, but six, seven and eight guys. You better know who your ninth …
Kerry Wood wants a raise, but is he deserving of one?
Jon Paul Morosi tweeted that Kerry Wood would like a raise. My first thought was this: why would the Cubs give him a raise if his only other option is to retire? Wood has said he’ll retire or play for the Cubs so I see no reason to offer more money than the $1.5 million he earned last year. My …