Brooks Baseball, with help from The Hardball Times, has created pitch f/x player cards. If you play around with Matt Garza's card you'll see that in his career he's thrown 4-seam fastballs 41% of the time. He threw the same amount in 2011 (40%), but the big difference was in sinker frequency. It's 26% in his career, but only 15% …
So Josh Hamilton Relapsed
In case you pay no attention to anything related to baseball you knew that Josh Hamilton is an alcoholic and a drug addict. To let you know how far I've come, let me tell you where I've been. Not that long ago, there were nights I went to sleep in strange places praying I wouldn't wake up. After another night …
Cubs reach deal with Matt Garza
The Cubs have signed their final arbitration eligible player on the day he was set to go in front of the arbitrator. Matt Garza will earn $9.5 million next season, which was the midway point between what the two sides had offered. The deal also includes performance bonuses, which seems kind of odd for me for arbitration eligible players. It's …
Cubs sign Gerardo Concepcion
The Cubs signed 18 year old Cuban defector Gerardo Concepcion today. It's reportedly a multi-million dollar deal. More information to come. UPDATE: Who is Gerardo Concepcion (Yankee Analysts, h/t to DJ) UPDATE 2: I was going to write more about this, but after looking at the stats that were found in the link on Yankee Analysts, I have no interest …
Evaluating the Cubs likely lineup
It's hard to believe that February is here, which means pitchers and catchers will be reporting to Mesa in a couple weeks. The position players won't be far behind. It's particularly hard to believe because the Cubs didn't have an active offseason. Not once have I actually looked forward to watching Cubs baseball. I have looked forward to watching baseball, …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Catchers
The past few years I've done posts for each player, but this year I'm going to do it by position. It's a little more than 9 weeks until the season starts so about one of these per week will get it done by the time the season starts. The starting catcher will be Geovany Soto and one of Welington Castillo …
More on Theo Epstein compensation
Nick Cafardo hears from one AL executive that the compensation for Theo Epstein will likely be significant. 10. The Cubs and Red Sox will soon meet with a representative of the Commissioner’s Office or the commissioner himself to discuss the Epstein compensation issue. The best school of thought on this comes from an AL GM who is not associated with …
30 years ago yesterday the Cubs acquired Ryne Sandberg
Chris Jaffe over at The Hardball Times posted an article yesterday on the 30th anniversary of the Ryne Sandberg trade. And one more thing: DeJesus was several years younger than Bowa. To be precise, he was seven years and one month younger. Thus even though Bowa had the reputation and the name value and the Gold Gloves, in order to …
Obstructed View on WordPress Wish List
I know several people have already mentioned things they’d like added to the site. We’ll try to add some of those features. Some of them we may not be able to add. Some of them we may not like and not want to implement. Others may be too resource intensive. We’d like to know what you would like added. It …
Selig to rule on Theo Epstein compensation soon
The compensation the Cubs will send to the Red Sox for Theo Epstein has been going on for seemingly ever. It’s now in Bud Selig’s hands and he’ll soon rule on what the Cubs have to give the Red Sox. Apparently the Sox still want something significant, but as has been said time and again, there’s no precedent for a …