McDonald hurt, fifth starter competition winding down James Mcdonald threw two pitches in his start yesterday, the second one to the backstop before being pulled from the game. The Cubs are calling it shoulder soreness, which is not great news for McDonald as he only pitched in six games last year because of shoulder problems. It looks like Chris Rusin …
WGN Narrows List of Candidates To Annoy Fans During Cubs Broadcasts
Last night, Robert Feder reported that WGN has a short list of candidates to replace Keith Moreland alongside Pat Hughes in the Cubs radio booth. While the search remains open, sources said, WGN officials compiled a list of their top potential candidates Monday, including eight former Cubs — Rick Sutcliffe, Kerry Wood, Todd Hollandsworth, Mark DeRosa, Ryan Theriot, Eric Karros, …
15 Years Ago Today
Arguably the greatest pitching performance ever.
All Time BA Top 100 lists
If you've got some time to kill, this is a fun trip down memory lane. Fun fact: the Cubs only had one player in the top 100 in 1993 and 1994….and it was the legendary Brooks Kieschnick. Lots of bare years after that too, when Kerry Wood was the only real prospect in the system. Also, Brian Dopirak was once …
Tommy John Surgery, The Hardball Times Annual and Scott Baker
I got the Kindle version of The Hardball Times annual for my birthday and the first thing I wanted to read was the article about Tommy John surgery. It looked at whether pitchers get back to the level they were at pre-surgery and when that is. They also looked at what the shelf life is for a pitcher who had …
Walking someone when it doesn't matter (as much)
For each pitcher from 1993-2011 with at least 5,000 Batters Faced, I've added up the average growth in run expectancy per NIBB. The average increase in RE for an NIBB over that period was .323 runs, which jives with Tango's findings here. There were 175 pitchers in the sample, with a standard deviation of .013. The pitcher who gave up …
Brenly Nearing Broadcasting Free Agency; Kerry Wood Coincidentally Available
Bruce Levine writes today that Bob Brenly's contract with WGN TV is up after this season and hypothesizes that he would be quite popular if he reaches the free agent market in the offseason. One viable options for Brenly could be a spot calling Arizona Diamondbacks games. Brenly, a fan favorite who managed the Diamondbacks to a 2001 World Series …
Revisiting the Cubs offseason transactions
Since the Cubs changed management this past offseason I thought it might be fun to look back at the transactions and see how they've turned out so far. Keep in mind these are a final analysis. There's still much time left for some of these deals to look different than they currently do. I considered breaking this into parts, but …
Matt Garza leaves game with forearm injury
Matt Garza left tonight's game after 3 innings with a forearm injury. It's probably not serious, but here are some other players who have had not so serious forearm injuries: Kerry Wood, Randy Wells and Angel Guzman. more into to come