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 …
Bruce Levine’s 5 most likely to be traded, yo
Happy Breaking Bad Day … bitch! After xoomwaffle posted this link to Levine’s article earlier today I started writing something and then lost interest about a half sentence in. That’s been happening a lot lately. I started writing something yesterday and lost interest about 3 paragraphs in. A few days ago I began writing something where I was comparing Starlin …
Mid-Season Good and Bad: Position Players
Last year over at Aisle 424, I decided that grading players on a scale of objectivity was ultimately dumb and subjective. But since it’s like a blog law that you have to do something like that at the All-Star break, I developed my Yin and Yang system wherein I say one good thing and one bad thing about every player. …
Some thoughts on the so-called team meetings
On Saturday Tim explained how silly the Cubs are, but I came to a much different conclusion than he did after reading the same thing. Let me start with just quoting some of the same things Tim did. General manager Jim Hendry and assistant GM Randy Bush will preside over the two days of meetings. Hendry’s objective will be to …
Aramis Ramirez is Due
With the news that Darwin Barney is now headed to the DL, I thought it would be “fun” to see if the Cubs could field an entire squad of players who have been on the DL this season. SS Darwin Barney 2B Jeff Baker C Geovany Soto 1B Alfonso Soriano LF Marlon Byrd RF Reed Johnson CF Brett Jackson SP …
Cubs swept by Astros, things about to get much worse
The Cubs just completed a 9-game home stand against the Mets, Pirates and Astros. The Cubs entered the home stand 5 games below .500 and it was concluding the easiest part of their schedule. The Cubs needed to make up ground during this home stand because even if they play well after, it’s unlikely they can improve their record all …
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 …
Which types of players have been injured? (UPDATED)
Fellow Cubs blogger Doc Blume opined in the comments to today’s article at LOHO that part of the Cubs injury issues stem from the roster being filled with players with questionable medical histories, as the Cubs had no money to spend on better players. The lack of payroll room the past few offseasons pushed the Cubs towards signing/acquiring marginal, injury …
The emptiest batting averages
Colin Wyers looks at batting average and BP’s True Average to find the players with the emptiest batting averages. Starlin Castro and Darwin Barney at the top 2 and former Cubs Ryan Theriot and Aaron Miles are next. Jeff Baker is 7th and Marlon Byrd is 10th. As Colin notes, you can be a good hitter and still make the …