At the Obstructed View headquarters last night in Damascus (office space is pretty cheap right now), GW, Myles, Berselius, Aisle424 and myself got together to take part in an auction. The auction was Myles's and GW's idea so we have to them thank for it. We each had $126 and went through all 30 teams in auction format. We had …
Get. Excited.
This is it, ladies and gentlemen. The first spring training game of the season. As an appetizer, please watch this video (h/t Bleacher Nation). Get lost in Kris Bryant's eyes. Wonder aloud why all Mike Olt cares about is being healthy. Wince at Albert Almora mentioning a groin injury. Contemplate whether or not Javier Baez is comfortable in front of …
Cubs Free Agent Contest Update
The World Series ended and so did time to enter the OV Cubs free agent contest. Since I can no longer do math in spreadsheets, I handed the job off to GW who was politely agreed I'm useless. He did the work and here is who we bet our points on, in order. Player Totals Masahiro Tanaka 102 Jacoby Ellsbury …
Crowdsourcing free agent contracts
Fangraphs spent several days asking their readers what they thought the better free agents would end up signing for. They released the results and there are a couple things that may surprise some people. I was going to include only the top 10, but since the 11th player on the list is someone who was recently attached to the Cubs, …
Yahoo Sports: MLB reaches deal to allow players to participate in winter leagues
Starting this year, Double-A starting pitchers – those on the 40-man roster with a majority of their time spent at Double-A – cannot participate in winter ball if they threw 140 or more innings. The previous threshold was 155. Similarly, Double-A relievers cannot have appeared in more than 45 games, while in years past it was 55. Pitchers also are …
Want or Don’t Want: Jacoby Ellsbury
Jacoby Ellsbury's season isn't finished yet as the Red Sox continue on in the ALCS. He's probably not begun to think a whole lot about his upcoming free agency, but it will be the talk of the offseason. The centerfielder turned 30 on September 11th and will be entering his age 30 season at the tail-end of his prime. I …
Cubs free agent contest
I'll just say right now that there is nothing to win, but bragging rights. So if you're someone wanting to win something, well, we can give you a Kyuji Fujikawa bobblehead and that's it. Seriously, if you really want the bobblehead, we'll send it along. So if that's incentive, great. Otherwise, there is none. It's a free agent contest, but …
Race to the Top (of the 2014 Draft)
Welcome back to the 3rd installment of OV's annual Race to the Top series! This has become an extremely fun tradition where we flip the stadings upside down, reverse wins and losses and track the Cubs "progress" towards achieving the top draft pick in the next draft! We sure do know how to have fun around here! In previous years, …
The American League All-Star Merit Team
The ASB is here, and as we know, This Time It Really Matters (No, Really, Please Watch This Game). I'd like to take to remake each team and not abide by the silly rule of having a player from each team. Today, I'll look at the AL. Catcher Joe Mauer wins here, pretty easily. He sports a wOBA of .380 and an OBP …
Talking Cubs/Mets on the Met Musings Podcast
I had an opportunity to join Gary McDonald on his Mets Musings podcast earlier today to talk a bit about the Cubs as we get ready to see Matt Harvey and the Mets this weekend at Wrigley Field. My part starts at about the 20 minute mark, but before that Gary talks about Ike Davis' struggles and some of the other …