I tried something last year over at Aisle 424 that I called the Play of the Day that substituted a game recap. My reasoning was that everyone with a Cubs blog that wanted to be “taken seriously” did a game recap, and the last thing I want to do with the Cubs is take them seriously. So I highlighted a …
A Tale of Two Sluggers
It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.They were the suckiest of sluggers, they were the strongest of sluggers. They couldn’t hit, they couldn’t be retired. This is the tale of two sluggers who gave us two quarter seasons of two extremes . . . that apparently made no difference. Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Pena began …
Mid-Season Good and Bad: Position Players
Last year over at Aisle 424, I decided that grading players on a scale of objectivity was ultimately dumb and subjective. But since it’s like a blog law that you have to do something like that at the All-Star break, I developed my Yin and Yang system wherein I say one good thing and one bad thing about every player. …
D’oh! Cubs, D’oh!
The Cubs have had injury problems. This is not a secret. Tom Ricketts will tell anyone with a camera or a microphone about the injuries and how they ruined a perfectly good baseball team. But when you look at the injuries piled up together and and see how the Opening Day roster has been beaten within an inch of its …
Starlin Castro is an All-Star
Sean Marshall, Carlos Marmol, or maybe Aramis Ramirez might have been better picks but I’m happy with this selection. Good for the kid. The NL roster: StartersBrian McCannPrince FielderRickie WeeksJose ReyesPlacido PolancoRyan BraunLance BerkmanMatt Kemp PitchersJoel HanrahanRoy HalladayCliff LeeCole HamelsTim LincecumMatt CainBrian Wilson‘s BeardRyan VogelsongTyler ClippardJair JurrjensClayton KershawHeath BellJonny Venters Reserves Justin UptonChipper JonesStarlin CastroBrandon PhillipsJay BruceJoey VottoTroy TulowitzkiGaby SanchezHunter …
Is Mike Quade in over his head?
I’ve argued with Mercurial Outfielder on here that there’s no reason to think Mike Quade is in over his head. Hardball Talk now has an article up titled Cubs manager Mike Quade is in over his head. Here’s why. At least he sort of admitted after the Cubs’ latest loss Friday. “This one is on me,” Mike Quade said after …
The Obstructed View t-shirt winner is…
jherky. Suburban Kid looked to be the winner entering the bottom of the 13th, but thanks to Reed Johnson, Darwin Barney, an intentional walk to Starlin Castro and a 3-run home run by Geovany Soto, jherky wins. He, along with Megan, both predicted the Cubs would go 11-18 in the month of June. Megan predicted 95 runs scored and jherky …
There’s still nothing wrong with Ryan Dempster
On April 26th I wrote an article about why there was nothing wrong with Ryan Dempster despite his 7+ ERA. This was an article that I took a little heat for two days later after Dempster had the worst start of his career. Considering that I looked at the available information and compared it to league norms or his career …
Looking Back at the Matt Garza Trade
I was none too happy when the Cubs traded for Matt Garza in the offseason. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Garza. He was a good pitcher about equal to Dempster and Zambrano so that would obviously be good if you can add a starter like that to any rotation. However, I hated what the Cubs had to give up …
Some thoughts on the so-called team meetings
On Saturday Tim explained how silly the Cubs are, but I came to a much different conclusion than he did after reading the same thing. Let me start with just quoting some of the same things Tim did. General manager Jim Hendry and assistant GM Randy Bush will preside over the two days of meetings. Hendry’s objective will be to …