The Cubs promoted 20-year old Javier Baez to AA Tennessee this past weekend after a scorching half-season or so in Daytona. Baez's power output in the Florida State League was pretty incredible, as he hit 17 homers in a very pitcher-friendly league despite his young age. Last season, he hit 16 homers in 80 games spread between Peoria (in the …
Other transformed Cubs
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. …
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 …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs – Randy Wells
Somehow Jeff Samardzija has more upside than Randy Wells, despite the fact that Wells posted back to back 3 WAR seasons in 2009-2010 before last year's injury rattled season. Wells hit the DL the same day as Andrew Cashner last April, and when he came back in June he clearly wasn't the same pitcher. The Cubs had great need of …
Daily Facepalm 3.21.12
Practice Game(s) Recap Dempster went six innings against the Rangers, allowing 2 runs on four hits and 2 walks and striking out three. Marmol had a scoreless 2/3 of the inning before leaving the game with some sort of hand injury. It was chalked up to cramps but he's getting an MRI anyway. The Cubs scored two runs on either …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Paul Maholm
Next we move to the newest Cubs starter, Paul Maholm. Maholm stat-gathered 13.9 fWAR (11.1 rWAR) in his seven seasons with the Pirates, but it seems like he's been around a lot longer. Some years he was the defacto ace of the staff, and during his tenure he was certainly the most consistent member of their rotations that featured the …
Daily Facepalm 3.5.12 – Random state laws edition
This week in state laws Lots of discussion in the comments this morning about state liquor and marriage laws yesterday. Apparently WaLi tried to get drunk and marry his cousin yesterday, and needed to make sure what states he was allowed to do that in. Is there a Cubs game today? The Cubs play an A's split squad today at …
Spring Training Game 1: A’s @ Cubs
Rodrigo Lopez gets the first Cactus League start today at 2:05 pm. Starters generally pitch a couple innings their first start and then build up after that. You can click here to get Gameday. I wish I could write something about how important it is to get off to a good start, but I can't. Not only is it mostly …
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 …
Another shitty Cubs season in review: Casey Coleman, Ramon Ortiz, Doug Davis, Rodrigo Lopez, James Russell
When Wells and Cashner hit the DL on the same day in late April, the Cubs slim chances at grabbing a playoff spot disappeared. What we did not expect was the massive pile of fail that came in its wake…which doesn't even take into account the fact that Randy Wells probably came back too soon from his injury because the …