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 …
Jeff Samardzija and James Russell
Non-closers don’t have a whole lot of value and that will remain true for both Jeff Samardzija and James Russell, but both of them have quietly put together strong seasons in relief for the Cubs. Russell was a starter early in the season and was banged up before moving back to the pen. Since then, he’s thrown 41 innings through …
Reflections on the Samardzija Trade
Last night, the Cubs traded Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel for Addison Russell, Billy McKinney, Dan Straily and a PTBNL. In following reactions around the Cub twitter-sphere, I was pretty surprised at how split the reactions were: fans who have bought in to what Thoyer is doing think this is on par with the Wedding at Cana, those who haven’t …
Cubs Trade Samardzija, Hammel to the A’s
Well, that escalated quickly. The Cubs have traded Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel to the Athletics for Addison Russell, Billy McKinney, Dan Straily and a player to be named later. Ken Rosenthal was the first to report discussions about an hour ago, and was the first to call it done. Tom Loxas has been all over these discussions, as well, …
Let’s trade Samardzija to a bunch of teams
It’s apparent that the Cubs are trading Shark, and probably relatively soon. It definitely won’t be before July 2 (when IFA slots are available to be traded and the hot stove finally warms up), but it could be any time after that. I thought it’d be neat to look at the prospects that the Cubs can hopefully get from the …
Samardzija signs a $55m extension? UPDATE: Nope.
All the baseball writers were apparently scooped by the ESPN coverage of today's Indiana-ND game. Had 2 rewind DVR 2 make sure heard it right, but ESPN's Indiana-ND hoops broadcast said Jeff Samardzija has resigned w/ #Cubs for $55 mil. — Dan Hayes (@DanHayesCSN) December 14, 2013 No word on years, but $55 was around the number that we were …
“Daily” Facepalm – Samardzija Rumors A’Plenty
Diamondbacks interested in Samardzija Buster Olney got the Samardzija trade train rolling with a tweet last week saying that the Cubs and D-Backs would keep talking about a Jeff Samardzija deal. There were vague rumors around the trade deadline that the D-Backs were interested in Shark, but the Superfriends were (rightly) asking for a king's ransom in return, so things …
Fangraphs on Samardzija’s splitter this year
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/how-good-is-jeff-samardzijas-splitter/ He has battled struggles with tiredness at times, which is understandable given the increased workload, but if he is able to sustain a mid-90′s fastball as a starter over the next few seasons and utilize his splitter with this type of consistency, he could elevate himself to become a top tier starter….With what is likely the top split-fingered fastball …
One foot on the Samardzija bandwagon
Jeff Samardzija transformed. We heard about it all spring. We were to believe the transformation began in the second half of last season in which he threw about 40 or so innings. We had to put all our faith in those numbers that were as a reliever and a scout or two, which was a little silly to me as …
Daily Facepalm 3.19.12 – Weekend of Samardzija
Playing Time Projections Please take a few moments to fill out the 2012 Cubs playing time projections. It's as simple as possible. Weekend practice game roundup Geovany Soto homered, doubled, and walked in Saturday's game, so it looks like he's feeling better from his groin injury. Steve Clevenger, Adrian Cardenas, and Joe Mather also homered this weekend. Tony Campana broke …