Practice game wrapup The Cubs knocked the eminently hittable Bronson Arroyo around in the first inning, capped off by an approximately 900 ft Alfonso Soriano HR (HR distance estimated by the sound it made coming off the bat and Len's reaction). Paul Maholm performed about as expected in his Cubs debut, giving up a homer to Reds outfielder Todd Frazier …
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 …
Carroll’s Team Health Reports
For several years now Will Carroll has published Team Health Reports. He previously did so at Baseball Prospectus and now does so at SI. I've never been the biggest fan. It seems far too random. Let's take a look at this year's. 2B Darwin Barney Darwin Barney doesn't sound like a 2B, but he sure played like one last year. …
Daily Facepalm 2.29.12
Cubs go from maybe thinking about extending Garza to thinking about extending Garza. Or possibly cloning him. It's not clear. Hoyer (via Orange Guy): “We have a good relationship with Matt,” GM Jed Hoyer told Comcast SportsNet. “We need more Matt Garzas. We’ll sit down to talk to him about a deal. We’re hoping to get something worked out, but …
Daily Facepalm 2.20.2012 – They’re back.
Player Recently in the Best Shape of His Life: Carlos Marmol Carlos Marmol dropped 515 pounds in the offseason. He dropped 15 of his own pounds and he dropped the 500-lb gorilla in his pitching arsenal: his mystifying cutter – not mystifying the way his slider can be (Where did that thing go?), but mystifying like the remake of Footloose (. . . …
Pitch F/X Player Cards
Brooks Baseball, with help from The Hardball Times, has created pitch f/x player cards. If you play around with Matt Garza's card you'll see that in his career he's thrown 4-seam fastballs 41% of the time. He threw the same amount in 2011 (40%), but the big difference was in sinker frequency. It's 26% in his career, but only 15% …
Does Carlos Marmol have any trade value?
Since the Cubs are set to rebuild we may as well start taking a look at some of the players the Cubs might try to move in the next several weeks. Obviously Matt Garza has a lot of value. Sean Marshall was probably next on the list, but his value was limited. Off the top of my head I don’t …
Complete rebuild, Cubs re-sign Reed Johnson, trade Sean Marshall
The Cubs have re-signed Reed Johnson to a one-year contract. The contract is pending a physical. No word yet on the amount he was signed for, but I’m sure it’s under $2 million. As a back-up, Johnson had a fantastic season last year for the Cubs. He hit .309/.348/.467. His wOBA was .354 and he was worth 1.2 fWAR and …
Kerry Wood wants a raise, but is he deserving of one?
Jon Paul Morosi tweeted that Kerry Wood would like a raise. My first thought was this: why would the Cubs give him a raise if his only other option is to retire? Wood has said he’ll retire or play for the Cubs so I see no reason to offer more money than the $1.5 million he earned last year. My …
What the Cubs have to consider at the Winter Meetings
We haven’t talked a lot about what the Cubs need to do this offseason. When the season ended they were without a GM so it made no sense. After they hired Theo and he assembled his front office it was difficult to know which direction the Cubs may go. There have been indications they’re willing to trade anybody and everybody, …