Iowa Anthony Rizzo just keeps mashing as he hit his 12th HR of the year. When he gets here and LaHair moves to LF it might be an interesting offense to watch. Brett Jackson got on base once and made the most of it by stealing 2 bases. Jay Jackson has been moved to the bullpen and has done well …
What's wrong with Carlos Marmol?
Between 2007 and 2011, Carlos Marmol threw 382.1 innings and allowed a ridiculously low 218 hits. He allowed only 21 home runs and struckout 540 batters. That's the good Marmol. During those same years Marmol threw 23 wild pitches, hit 39 batters and walked 241 of them. Despite a high walk rate, he still managed to have a higher than …
Soriano, his Bat, and Momentum
Hitting a baseball is all about momentum. Momentum is a vector describing a "quantity of motion" or in mathematical terms p (momentum) = mass * velocity. In a closed system, momentum is conserved. Conservation of momentum means that the harder you throw the ball, the harder the ball will bounce back. Think in the case of throwing a ball against …
Short Series Preview for a Short Series:
The Cardinals are good. The Cubs are not. Here's a look at the matchups for this quick series in St. Louis Monday: Ryan Dempster, RHP (1.02, 2.16, 2.80, 3.83) vs Jake Westbrook, RHP (1.76, 2.79, 3.20, 4.00), 6:05 PM CT This is a matchup of pitchers who have gotten off to fantastic starts to the year. You have to give …
We Are Shocked…SHOCKED!… To Learn Tom Tunney is in the Rooftop Owners' Pockets
In today's edition of Obviously Obvious Item of the Day, the Sun-Times has come right out and quantified what everybody familiar with the Cubs' relationship with Chicago's 44th Ward has known all along: Alderman Tom Tunney gets a tremendous amount of financial backing from the good people who own the rooftops across from Wrigley. It is also no secret that …
Matt Garza and Cubs extension talks going well
Ken Rosenthal has said that the Cubs and Matt Garza are discussing an extension and the talks are going very well. It's been awhile since we've taken a look at what kind of contract Garza may be looking at so we'll try to do that today. The league ERA is right at 4 over the last 2+ seasons so I'll …
The Children Are The Future-Cubs Minor League Happenings Sponsored by Select A Seat
Iowa Brett Jackson had a few days off and returned to strike out 3 times in 4 AB's. He is really scuffling right now. Rizzo on the other hand went 3-4 and has done about all you can do in AAA. Chris Rusin continued his strong season striking out 7 batters in 8 scoreless innings. Having a sub 3 ERA …
Even bad teams get hot
A few days ago some were feeling a little optimistic about this team. They'd just taken a couple series against two of the best teams in the league to this point. The games were at Wrigley so winning 4 of 6 is much less impressive than it sounds. The Cubs probably had 50% odds of winning each game. Had they …
Dempster trade to Boston makes sense to Heyman
Jon Heyman is providing some suggestions about how the Red Sox can be fixed. One of them is acquiring a starting pitcher and he names Ryan Dempster. One obvious suggestion could be Ryan Dempster of the Cubs. He has an 0.95 ERA, the lowest ever for a pitcher who has yet to win a game through five starts. He is …
Should managers be allowed to use the sacrifice bunt?
Before you read any further, please take the poll below. I'm curious what the responses are on this site. Tangotiger set up a poll yesterday asking whether people would rather live with the status quo of the sac bunt or do away with it all together. I was quite surprised to see that 65% had voted zero tolerance (stop it …