Dale Sveum decided to go with Ryan Dempster on opening day. There's little doubt that Matt Garza is the superior pitcher, but Dempster is still pretty good himself and it's not like Garza is awesome unless we look only at last season. Even if we do that, he only looks awesome when we look at his defense independent pitching stats. …
OV’s Projected Playing Time for the 2012 Cubs
On Saturday I published this year's playing time survey and more than 50 of you took the time to fill it out. Thanks for taking the time. I'm going to go ahead and publish the results here. I didn't make any adjustments to the batters because you guys pretty much nailed it as far as position and team totals go. …
Daily Facepalm 3.14.12
Practice Game recap Chris Volstad pitched three strong inninngs yesterday, extending his spring training scoreless streak to six innings. As with Samardzija and the other starter candidates, small sample size abounds, but I think he's got a good shot making the rotation. Tom Ricketts seemed to think so too during his brief time in the booth with Len and Mick. …
Daily Facepalm 3.9.12 – Volstad Good, Soriano Good, Marmol Bad
Rotation battle news Chris Volstad followed up Jeff Samardzija's strong outing with three solid innings of his own yesterday. Volstad struck out three, walked none, and allowed one hit. Spring training stats don't mean much (especially just three innings for each guy), but as far as we can tell things are very up in the air for the last two …
Daily Facepalm 2.22.12
We just have the point-after-try to kick, or something Several months ago, we were on the "five yard line" in the Theo compensation situation. Since then we've crossed the blue line, stepped into the paint, crossed the box, and veered right at the fireworks factory exit, and now it's finally been decided that Cubs prospect Chris Carpenter would be the …
My Top 2012 Cubs Prospects, Part 1
Following the Cubs minor leagues in 2012 is probably going to be more fun than following the big league team. Hopefully it will be more rewarding than what we're likely to see from the 2012 Cubs. Each year several sources release their top prospect lists. We talk a lot about them here and I thought I'd take a stab at …
Who do the Cubs trade for Theo Epstein?
The Cubs hired Theo Epstein 4 months ago and it was about that time that we were told the two sides were on the 5-yard line regarding compensation. I can only assume that Ken O'Keefe is running the offense. Every week we're told that Bud Selig will resolve the compensation issue soon. Each week goes by without a resolution. Recently …
Daily Facepalm: 2.10.12 – Uber-facepalm edition
Self-directed facepalm AC and berselius posted new Daily facepalm posts one minute apart from one another. So now they are merged. Those responsible have been sacked Mish Mash Let's face it, half the content on this blog is just stuff Mish posts, so today is a look back at Mish's contributions to the world of Obstructed View and beyond. If …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: 1st Basemen
Bryan LaHair turned 29 years old in November and he's set to take over 1st base for the Cubs in 2012. LaHair was drafted in the 39th round of the 2002 Draft. Until a few years ago teams could do what they called draft and follow which meant they could draft a player, not sign him, but they retained his …
DFP: Brett’s Number 5
Cinco City Brett Jackson is the number 5 OF prospect in all of baseball, according to MLB.com's rankings. MLB.com also ranked two guys in the Cubs system, newly acquired Anthony Rizzo and Dan Vogelbach, as the number 1 and number 10 1B prospects. In related news: MLB is ranking prospects. Of what value is this to anyone beyond good PR? …