This is just a bizarre column. Ricketts’ hiring of Epstein directly affects three other franchises, and that doesn’t count the White Sox or anyone else who lost Gonzalez to the Red Sox in the trade last December. What the hell? Should we include all the teams that bid on Carl Crawford last year, but didn’t sign him? If we’re thorough …
Cubs Fans: Here's Your New ID
”We’re going to hire people we trust, give them the opportunity to succeed, and hold them accountable.” That’s what Tom Ricketts said at his opening press conference in 2009. We all remember it. Slightly less than all of us believed it at the time. Perhaps we should have put two and two together. The Cubs didn’t have any positions open …
Hoyer and McLeod to Cubs officially official?
Jed Hoyer is expected to be named the new GM of the Cubs sometime next week. Jason McLeod will presumably become the Assistant GM. I won’t tell you about the post I had ready to publish before the Theo news broke this evening other than I didn’t really believe the Hoyer to Cubs speculation. The twitters even say that the …
Theo to Cubs officially official
Here’s the press release from cubs.com (press conference will be on Tuesday)
Not Everyone is Happy About Theo Coming to the Cubs
I am used to seeing some pretty awful stuff written in the Sun-Times. After years of employing Jay Marriotti, you pretty much just expected ooze to seep from the newspaper, but you get used to the usual players. Telander lives off his reputation and phones in the occasional column consisting of one word paragraphs, shallow analysis and stale jokes. Ginnetti …
Offseason Roundtable, Part 2: The One Where We Discuss Soriano and Other Free Agent Senior Citizens
As we get closer to the dawning of the Theo Era, we should probably finish off our roundtable discussion before it all becomes irrelevant. berselius : Percentage chance Soriano is in a Cubs uniform on April 1 AndCounting : 98% Aisle 424 : 50% mb21 : 7.87% berselius : 3.7% berselius : why so high, Adam? AndCounting : I …
Rangers @ Cardinals, Game 1 Open Thread
Berselius has fallen short of his duties around Obstructed View and failed to provide our wonderful readers with a World Series Preview. Because of his laziness, we are giving away extremely cheap subscriptions to Obstructed View. Just send $1 to the OV Offices nearest you. CJ Wilson vs Chris Carpenter tonight
World Series Preview: Texas Rangers (96-66) vs St. Louis Cardinals (90-72)
Before we get started, let’s just get this out of the way GUYS, did you know that the World Series isn’t really all that worldy? A bunch of literal people on the Internet are ON IT. (@bkabak) Just another one of those annoying things that pops up at the same point every year, just like the handwringing of national writers …
Another shitty Cubs season in review: Marlon Byrd
In 2010 Marlon Byrd had more plate appearances (630) than any other year in his career. He rewarded the Cubs with a .343 wOBA (107 wRC+), nearly 10 runs worth of UZR and was slightly better than average on the bases. His first season with the Cubs was a very good one. He was worth 4.4 fWAR, which was 1.2 …
Talks at a stalemate, Theo as President only?
Not that we didn’t already know this considering how long the two sides have been at it, but Gordon Edes says the two sides are stalemated though some progress has been made. There appears to be resolution on at least one issue, according to a baseball source who has spoken with Red Sox officials. As things stand now, Epstein will …