Yu Darvish could be posted by his Japanese team this winter makng him available to all 30 MLB clubs. He turned 25 years old on August 16th so 2012 would be his age 25 season. That’s one year younger than Daisuke Matsuzaka who Darvish will often be compared to in the coming months. It’s an unfair comparison. While Matsuzaka was …
2012 NL Central Champion Cubs, part 4
Our current 2012 roster has a payroll of roughly $100 million and this year’s payroll was $135 million. Our team is roughly a 73 win team so we need to add a lot of wins with $35-40 million. We have a couple holes so let’s start there and look at the available free agents. Actually, let’s start with either Albert …
2012 NL Central Champion Cubs, part 3
Wreckard took a look at how the 2007 Cubs improved compared to the 2006 team and what kind of improvements this current team would need to make for next year. In the first part of this series. we took a look at payroll and named several players the Cubs should keep if they plan to contend next season. The second part …
2012 NL Central Champion Cubs, part 2
In part 1 we found that there were currently 13 players on the Cubs roster that the Cubs want to keep assuming they try to contend next year, which they will. We left off talking briefly about Aramis Ramirez and the club option the Cubs hold for $16 million (or a $2 million buyout). Using Ramirez’s .354 rest of season …
2012 NL Central Champion Cubs, part 1
As much as I’ve written about the need to rebuild, it’s not going ot happen. The Cubs have some decent players on their roster and some you’d really like to get rid of. Since they’re planning on contending, we have to first figure out which of the current players on the roster are worth keeping around. To do that, we …
What the Cubs may soon look like
The Cubs are 8.5 games out of first place and it’s just the first of June. Their pythagorean record is even worse than their actual 23-30 record. Pythag has them at 22-31. The only team with a worse Pythag than the Cubs is the Houston Astros at 22-33. Minnesota is worse in the AL at 17-36, but no other team …
It’s never too early to look ahead to next year
A few years ago I wouldn’t have considered writing something about looking ahead. The Cubs had the pieces in place to contend for as long as they were willing to supplement the roster when it was needed. Following the 2009 season the Cubs refused to do that and what they basically agreed to do at that time was a much …