Bobby Valentine doesn’t think much of the Cubs, particularly Starlin Castro. He must have just watched bull Durham or something. Bobby would definitely support the Cubs’ strict “no dinners” policy, so I fully expect to see him named to be the next manager as long as the Cubs include an expense acount for his disguises. Meanwhile, the Cubs are going …
Aramis Ramirez caused the US debt downgrade (also, mini Cubs-Braves preview)
Cubs Legend Todd Hollandsworth shot his mouth off on the radio today (recap at HBT). Then you bring into question effort and that’s one thing in the game of baseball that really is inexcusable. One hundred percent effort all the time, there’s really no reason for you not to have 100 percent effort. He’s got impressionable kids around him right …
Series Preview: Washington Nationals (55-59) at The Untouchables (49-66)
Now that the winning streak is over, time to get started on a new losing streak. Not only did the Cubs gain no meaningful ground on the Brewers, who were also playing quite well in that stretch, but the Cubs are still 6 games back of the Pirates despite their losing ten games in a row. This should be familiar …
Starlin Castro Year 1 and Year 2
All numbers updated through games ending on August 6th. Starlin Castro has nearly had as many plate appearances this season as he did last so it seems a good time to compare the two seasons. In 2010 Castro made his big league debut in early May and went on to hit .300/.347/.408. His wOBA was .325 and his wRC+ was …
The Cubs and their trade deadline decisions
Last week we had a heated debate and/or argument on here about the decisions the Cubs made about not trading certain players. I wanted to write something about this immediately, but wanted to collect my thoughts and not let emotion guide me. I also wanted to make sure I hadn’t just planted my feet and was arguing something just to …
2012 NL Central Champion Cubs, part 3
Wreckard took a look at how the 2007 Cubs improved compared to the 2006 team and what kind of improvements this current team would need to make for next year. In the first part of this series. we took a look at payroll and named several players the Cubs should keep if they plan to contend next season. The second part …
2012 NL Central Champion Cubs, part 2
In part 1 we found that there were currently 13 players on the Cubs roster that the Cubs want to keep assuming they try to contend next year, which they will. We left off talking briefly about Aramis Ramirez and the club option the Cubs hold for $16 million (or a $2 million buyout). Using Ramirez’s .354 rest of season …
2012 NL Central Champion Cubs, part 1
As much as I’ve written about the need to rebuild, it’s not going ot happen. The Cubs have some decent players on their roster and some you’d really like to get rid of. Since they’re planning on contending, we have to first figure out which of the current players on the roster are worth keeping around. To do that, we …
Mid-Season Good and Bad: Position Players
Last year over at Aisle 424, I decided that grading players on a scale of objectivity was ultimately dumb and subjective. But since it’s like a blog law that you have to do something like that at the All-Star break, I developed my Yin and Yang system wherein I say one good thing and one bad thing about every player. …
Some thoughts on the so-called team meetings
On Saturday Tim explained how silly the Cubs are, but I came to a much different conclusion than he did after reading the same thing. Let me start with just quoting some of the same things Tim did. General manager Jim Hendry and assistant GM Randy Bush will preside over the two days of meetings. Hendry’s objective will be to …