How many games will the 2013 Cubs win?

In Commentary And Analysis by dmick8931 Comments

Over at The Cub Contrarian, Kyle used an estimated WAR for players to get a team win total. I thought I'd do the same thing, but I'm going to do it two ways: projections and my wild ass guesses. Wild Ass Guess Catchers: Welington Castillo (1.0), Dioner Navarro (negative infinity) I could easily see Castillo being a 2 WAR player, …

Cubs Come Away From Uneventful Winter Meetings with Ian Stewart and Nate Schierholtz

In Commentary And Analysis, Transactions by berselius47 Comments

The Cubs big moves during the winter meetings were to sign two players that were non-tendered by their teams a week ago. This is a year! The Cubs signed former Giants OF Nate Schierholtz to a one year, $2.25m deal plus incentives. He's an above-average defender, but has posted a .270/.319/.409 line over the past six seasons. Granted, a lot …

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Venezuelan league team was worse with Josh Vitters so they released him

In Commentary And Analysis, News And Rumors, Transactions by dmick8951 Comments

Josh Vitters had a decent season in AAA and then was ridiculously bad at the MLB level. He was playing the Venezuelan Winter League until yesterday when Leones del Caracas released him. Vitters will almost certainly go back to AAA Iowa next year and may at some point get a chance to show he can at least play well enough …

Roster Reshuffling update

In Commentary And Analysis by berselius111 Comments

The Cubs have transacted half a zillion minor moves in the last week. We'll take a page from Phil Rogers and use the +/- system, because it actually means something in this context (i.e., how many roster spots are open). Outrighted to Iowa (i.e., off the 40-man) RP Blake Parker SP Justin Germano OF Joe Mather RP Marcos Mateo SP Jason …

Arbitration salary projections for the Cubs

In aside by dmick89Leave a Comment

MLBTR has posted their salary projections for the Cubs arbittation eligible players. The projections are done by Matt Swartz who did a bunch of math and came up with a system to estimate the value that each arbitration eligible player would receieve. First time: Luis Valbuena ($900K), Jeff Samardzija ($2.9MM), James Russell ($900K) Second time: Chris Volstad ($3MM)      Third time: …

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Season in review: Ian Stewart

In Commentary And Analysis by dmick89109 Comments

During the Winter Meetings the Cubs traded Tyler Colvin and DJ LeMahieu to the Rockies for Ian Stewart and Casey Weathers. Stewart would replace the departed Aramis Ramirez at 3rd base and would instantly be an upgrade defensively. That much we were sure of. Whether or not he would hit the ball much was something we'd learn throughout the season. …