No game to talk about yesterday, so this will be a quick little hit on how the top FA of 2014 have performed so far. 1. Robinson Cano – .326/.396/.370 (109 wRC+) Cano hasn’t exactly done the heavy lifting for the Mariners, but Smoak, Zunino, and Ackley have been more than sufficient so far. 2. Jacoby Ellsbury – .362/.423/.447 (152 …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (3-6) at St. Louis Cardinals (5-4)
Hey, at least the Cubs aren’t in last place in the division (sort of)! Cincy also has a 3-6 record but has a slightly worse run differential. St. Louis is coming off a series win against those Reds, and get to feast on this Cubs team next. Given Matt Adams‘s emergence last season, Allen Craig has moved back to …
Series Preview: Philadelphia Phillies (1-2) at Chicago Cubs (1-2)
Cubs HOF Ryne Sandberg returns to Wrigley for the Cubs home opener. The Phillies opened the season with a 14-10 win against the Rangers in which included a Jimmy Rollins grand slam and Cliff Lee picking up a win for giving up eight runs in five innings. Team Overviews These are 2013 numbers, NL rank is in parens Cubs wRC+: …
Journeymen of Tomorrow: 4/1/14
Did the Cubs Win? (image c/o bleacher nation) Chicago Cubes 0 @ Pittsburgh Pirates 1 One Sentence Synopsis: Cubes gonna Cube, Bonifacio going to TOOTBLAN, and Cubs go 0 for 11 with RISP. Three Up 1. Jeff Samardzija was very good, going 7 scoreless frames. He walked 2 and allowed 5 hits, but only fanned 3. He was bailed out by …
Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (0-0) at Pittsburgh Pirates (0-0)
Baseball season we are in you! The Cubs open up against last year's surprise (ish) team, the Pittsburgh Pirates. They finished at 94-68 last year, beat the Reds in the inagural NL wild card game, and took the eventual champions to the full five games in the NLDS. They had no answer for Adam Wainwright and the Cardinals fireballing bullpen, but in …
Cubs opening day roster finalized
Alberto Cabrera DFA, Brian Schlitter takes final spot With the bullpen sorted out (for now), the Cubs opening day roster looks like: C Welington Castillo C John Baker 1B Anthony Rizzo 2B/SS Darwin Barney SS Starlin Castro 3B Mike Olt 2B/3B Luis Valbuena 2B/SS/3B/CF Emilio Bonifacio OF Ryan Kalish OF Ryan Sweeney OF Junior Lake RF Nate Schierholtz RF Justin …
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 …
2014 Cubs: PECOTA Hitters
It's projection season and though I've not covered them in as much detail as I have in the past, I still enjoy it. We took a look at the Cubs PECOTA pitcher projections last week and they were unimpressive. Particularly unimpressive for Jeff Samardzija, but I don't buy it. Instead of adding commentary at the end, I'll do it before I …
2014 Cubs: PECOTA Pitchers
Baseball Prospectus has come out with their annual PECOTA projections and today we'll take a look at the Cubs pitchers. For what it's worth, the depth chart over there has them projected for 5th in the NL Central with 71 wins. Only one team is projected to be worse in the National League (69 wins): the Miami Marlins. I'm fairly …
Are the Cubs 29th of 30?
The topic du jour in the Cubs Blogosphere is the Passan "hit" piece on the Cubs. To whit: Brett's take: Let’s be clear on some things: no one could, or should, argue that it isn’t deeply disappointing that the Cubs are where they are right now, in terms of big league competitiveness. We’re five years removed from the last relevant …