With Jeff Samardzija's "transformation" I thought it would be fun to find other Cubs player who have transformed this spring. Joe Mather: With a .412/.455/.745 batting line through today, he's established himself as a completely different ballplayer. We know this because he's had 55 plate appearances and that's absolutely enough to know whether or not a transformation has taken place. …
Wells and Wood optioned to minors, Clevenger over Castillo
I'd much rather have seen Randy Wells in the Chicago Cubs rotation, but rather than bullpenning him the Cubs have at least done the only other smart thing possible by optioning him to the minors. Good call on that even if it's the result of other poor decisions. I've been saying for awhile that Steve Clevenger is the better catcher …
Did the Cubs really add that much depth?
Over on Cubs Den (a really good blog), John talks about how the Cubs have quietly built depth to give them trade flexibility. I want to look at his bullets one by one because I just don't agree with the conclusion that John is reaching. John is attributing this depth to Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer too, which is another …
Daily Facepalm 3.26.12
Anything interesting happen over the weekend? Eh. Dempster was knocked around in a minor league game yesterday, but who knows if he was working on something. I missed yesterday's game, but apparently Joe Mather had a Johnsonian/Fuldian incredible catch in CF. Is there a Cubs game today? It's going on right now, apparently. The Cubs are playing the Padres. Len …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs – Randy Wells
Somehow Jeff Samardzija has more upside than Randy Wells, despite the fact that Wells posted back to back 3 WAR seasons in 2009-2010 before last year's injury rattled season. Wells hit the DL the same day as Andrew Cashner last April, and when he came back in June he clearly wasn't the same pitcher. The Cubs had great need of …
Cherry Picking
In the final 14 appearances one season, he threw 74 innings, allowed only 50 hits and posted a sparkling ERA under 2. After the season fans were excited about what this pitcher could do the following year. Ignored in those 74 innings was 1) he walked a lot of guys, 2) was considerably lucky in that his BABIP and HR/FB …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Chris Volstad
It looks like Chris Volstad has the last rotation spot locked up. If you looked up "serviceable" in a dictionary there would probably be a picture of Volstad next to it. He's been in the bigs for most of four seasons, and made 87 starts in his last three years with the Marlins. Perhaps one of the reasons that Thoyer …
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 3.19.12 – Weekend of Samardzija
Playing Time Projections Please take a few moments to fill out the 2012 Cubs playing time projections. It's as simple as possible. Weekend practice game roundup Geovany Soto homered, doubled, and walked in Saturday's game, so it looks like he's feeling better from his groin injury. Steve Clevenger, Adrian Cardenas, and Joe Mather also homered this weekend. Tony Campana broke …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Jeff Samardzija
Since Jeff Samardzija is now a "near-lock" to make the rotation, per Dale Sveum. Let's take a look at his projections for 2012. Just about everyone projected him as a reliever, though a few of them had him making 1-3 starts. It's enough that I'm not going to worry about trying to split all of those numbers out. Here's his …