Jon Lester Paying $150+ million for a pitcher with 1600 career innings isn’t the safest of investments, but it sure is nice that the Cubs finally signed someone. After years of missing out on seemingly all of their big-name targets, I can’t have been the only person that was worried that the team simply didn’t have the TV revenue necessary to hang …
The Extra 2%, 18.3° N Edition
Yoan Moncada has been cleared for free agency, just as soon as he gets unblocked by the U.S. Treasury Department. The Cubs had a strong presence at a workout in Guatemala on Wednesday. Since he is subject to international spending bonus pools, however, the Cubs will only have the chance to sign him if they can convince him to wait until next July. …
OV Team Auction Results
Last spring, Myles had the idea that instead of just compiling our dumb predictions about the upcoming season, we should do something a bit more interesting. The idea was for each of the OV authors to pick a group of teams and track those teams throughout the season to see whose group did the best. Originally, we were going to …
Hire Joe Maddon?
Joe Maddon exercised his option to leave the Tampa Bay Rays today and is now a free agent manager looking for his next job. Almost immediately after the news came out, multiple reports from guys like Buster Olney, Ken Rosenthal and others linked the Cubs to being interested in Maddon. Cubs Twitter, as it does, went apeshit. But Cubs Twitter …
Jose M. Fernandez Cuban Stats
Multiple reports indicate Cuban second baseman Jose Fernandez has left the island and will seek to play in MLB. For those of you Google-stymied by his also-Cuban namesake, his full name is Jose Miguel Fernandez Diaz. I have Fernandez’s birthday as April 27, 1988, meaning that 2015 will be his age-27 season. He has played played for Matanzas in Serie …
Plus/Minus and Baez’s strikeout problem
You all remember Phil Rogers and his beautiful plus/minus system he developed? Well, it’s time to to put it to use. The other day I was reading the news and I read that the US had announced a successful airstrike against IS in which 15 militants, 4 tanks and 4 civilians were killed. That sounds like disastrous results to me, …
How Far Have the Cubs Come?
It has been almost three years, nearly three hundred losses, and three drafts since the Cubs hired Theo Epstein to save the Cubs from their sins and rescue them from eternal damnation in their permanent subterranean dwelling in the Central Division’s fiery core. And if you think that metaphor is overblown and ridiculous, it was meant to match the expectations …
With Baez Coming Up, Shit is Getting Real, Yo
Sometime in the nearish future (by Cubs drought standards), if the Cubs manage to win a World Series we may look back at today as the day the franchise began turning around at the major league level. This is not to say that Javier Baez will singularly lift the Cubs franchise on his back Sammy Sosa-style and carry them to …
Cubs Acquire Victor Caratini
I can’t remember a trade deadline as eventful as the one that just past. Good luck to all the analysts trying to process (with the exception of Phillies watchers). Ruben Amaro, pit crew chief. “One more lap, boys. One more!” pic.twitter.com/yMZq7RiUgn — Chris Sprow (@SprowESPN) July 31, 2014 The Cubs only made one move today, acquiring Victor Caratini and …
A Few Good Tweets on Brady Aiken
“I think you’re better off calling Jeff (Luhnow),” Jim Crane tells the Chronicle when asked about Aiken. “You’re ahead of the curve on me.” — Jose de Jesus Ortiz (@OrtizKicks) July 18, 2014 First time No. 1 pick hasnt signed since 1983 (Angels- Tim Belcher). Only other time was 1971 (White Sox- Danny Goodwin) — Clint Longenecker (@Clint_BA) July …