Rob G.'s Archives
Opening Day 2011 - Pirates @ Cubs
It's Christmas time for baseball fans and Santa's delivered the lowly Pirates to the Cubs. Of course, the Cubs went 5-10 against one of the worse teams I've ever seen play baseball last year, so the Cubs have that going for them. Don't forget to join the fun during our in-game chat. Folks come and go throughout the game so if you hang around for awhile, someone is usually sure to pop in.
LF Tabata | RF *Fukudome |
2B #Walker | SS Castro |
CF McCutchen | CF Byrd |
1B *Overbay | 3B Ramirez |
3B *Alvarez | 1B *Pena |
C #Doumit | C Soto |
RF *G. Jones | LF Soriano |
SS Cedeno | 2B Barney |
P Correia | P Dempster |
Undoubtedly Correia is going to throw a shutout today, but generally you have to laugh at a team employing a guy for Opening Day with a career 4.57 ERA and a 4.91 ERA over the last three years, the last two being in Petco Park.
My division predictions after the jump...
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In Which We Get to Mock My Fantasy Draft
It's a 14-team league this year, 25 roster spots, start the standard 8 positions(LF, CF, RF specific) and a utility spot and 9 pitchers (4 SP, 3 RP, 2 P). It's a points-based system, with the only real difference from a roto league being that SB's aren't that big of a component. Essentially if you're high on the OPS or wOBA scale, you're a good offensive player or VORP for a pitcher with closers and relievers really helping your points per innings (1500 IP limit). You must keep 6 keepers on your roster and they are assigned a draft round depending on their performance from last year.
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Cubs Relieve Locker Room Crowd with 18 Cuts
The Cubs dropped their spring training roster down to 40 today by optioning and assigning 18 players to the minors.
To the list...
RHP: Robert Coello, Thomas Diamond, Alberto Cabrera, Rafael Dolis, Kyle Smit, Chris Carpenter, Trey McNutt, Jay Jackson
LHP: Scott Rice
C: Steve Clevenger, Chris Robinson
INF: Bryan LaHair, Marquez Smith, Josh Vitters
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The Tao of Q-Ball
You've probably read or heard about yesterday's dugout fracas between Carlos Slim and Aramis Ramirez after the first inning. The Cubs continued their defensive indifference that has plagued their early Cactus League games with 3 errors in the first inning - 5 total on the game (Yahtzee!) - and that led to a 6-run first inning. You try not to infer too much meaning in spring training results, but despite what Carlos said at the Cubs Convention about not having to compete for a spot in the rotation, the reality is that it's between him, Randy Wells and Andrew Cashner for two of the spots. And while his hefty contract may earn him the benefit of the doubt over Wells or Cashner, both of whom still have minor league options, you hope he will have to demonstrate some modicum of success in March. Thus he was somewhat justified in his anger if he felt his teammates let him down in the first. But like his namesake has hopefully learned by now, you can't act on it in the dugout in front of witnesses.
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Cubs Prospect List-mania 2011
For the fifth year running I go through the various prospect lists. I'm trying to stick the more established ones and there are even more lists available at Wiklifield. Of course, many of them were made before the Matt Garza trade. Click on the image for the link to the original article.
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Cubs Spring Training Notes
- Quade has named his Opening Day starter and it won't be Zambrano's 7th straight start which would have tied Ferguson Jenkins for the Cubs record. Instead it will be Ryan Dempster, followed by Z and then Matt Garza. Z will get the road opener start against the Brewers. Presumambly the last two spots are still open with Randy Wells and Carlos Silva likely occupying them with James Russell and Andrew Cashner on the outside looking in.
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Pujols and the Cubs
Too Soon?
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Brett Jackson Makes A List and Other Cubs Minutiae
The rush of major league prospect rankings are about to make their way out and MLB/MILB.com and Jonathon Mayo is the first out of the gate. OF Brett Jackson is the only Cub and is listed as the #46 best prospect in all of baseball. Just traded Cub, Chris Archer, finished one spot below Jackson at #47.
Thoughts on Cubs Offseason Moves
Some my own, some inspired by others...something to distract from the Jay Cutler bashing.
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Prospecting: Jackson and Vitters Make Some Lists
Jonathan Mayo, MLB.com's minor league guy is running a list of top 10 prospects for each position in the minors leading up to his top 50 minor league prospects that will air on Tuesday on the MLB network. It appears he's gone through everything but the pitchers so far and two Cubs can be found - Brett Jackson and Josh Vitters.
Cubs Jump On Bears Bandwagon, Sign Another Wide Receiver
According to an NFL draft analyst Tony Paulino and confirmed by Jim Callis of Baseball America, the Cubs have signed Matt Szczur. The deal is reportedly for $1.5M (triple their original offer) and he will not participate in the NFL draft of course.
As long as a 40-man roster spot and a no-trade clause don't come with it, sounds like a wise deal.
Sloth Traded To Nats for 3 Baby Ruth Candy Bars
The Cubs traded Tom Gorzelanny to the Nationals yesterday for 3 minor leaguers. This will make the road to the rotation a little easier for Carlos Silva. Phew.
2010 Catcher Rankings by WAR
We've had a bit of a discussion lately about back-up catchers with the trading away of Robinson Chirinos, the signing of Max Ramirez and the head-scratching re-upping of Koyie Hill via the arbitraton process. Reader WISCGRAD put together a spreadsheet of catchers by Baseball Reference's WAR values which does include a defensive component.
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I Guess the Cubs Really Want Garza
UPDATE #2: Make it Archer, Guyer, Lee, Chirinos, Sam Fuld for Garza, Fernando Perez and and a minor league pitcher. Nothing is official yet according to Morosi.
UPDATE: Levine says it's Archer, Guyer, Lee, Chirinos, Sam Fuld for Garza, and a minor league outfielder and pitcher. I can't really evaluate the trade till we know the names the Cubs are getting.
Bruce Miles is reporting that the Cubs will send Chris Archer, Brandon Guyer, Hak-Ju Lee and Robinson Chirinos for Matt Garza, with possible other pieces still being involved. I realize as a fan of the Cubs I'm probably a little bias towards their own prospects, but that sounds like as good or better package than what the Royals just got for Zack Greinke.
Now I realize Greinke costs more than Garza at the moment, but in terms of talents, it's not even close. I suppose there's the worries over Greinke's social anxiety issues and whether he would approve a trade to the Cubs, but he seemed to just be interested in trying to win.
On the other hand, they're just prospects and only Archer and maybe Lee have much of a chance of being better than league average players. Folks and myself have freaked out before on trade packages including prospects to eventually discover those prospects end doing nothing. But man, it's quite the stomach punch if they do end up being good.
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Baseball America's Top 10 Cubs Prospects for 2011
BA put out it's top 10 Cubs' prospects today. I usually put together the compilation of all the major lists, but don't quite have the time today. I'll try put together something later this week. To the rankings...
Recent comments
Childersb3 (view)
Things I've been wrong about:
-Tauchman is fine as a 4th OF. I knew that. I just want a better LH DH option and he was really the DH for us until Seiya got hurt. I'm glad Mervis is getting a chance at it. Caissie is coming for that job for sure. But Tauchman continues to be highly useful as a 4th OF with Seiya being hurt
-I wanted Yency to go to get guys at Iowa a chance. Guys like Palencia and Sanders or RileyT. Maybe even Hodge! But Yency has been better the last two plus weeks. He did hit 96 the other day. He was 93 in Texas to open the season.
-Leiter has his split working enough. It just needs to stay there
-I was surprised Jed picked Wisdom over Cooper. I wonder if this happens if Seiya wasn't hurt. Wisdom has more power. Cooper is the better hitter. Jed picked Wisdom and Wisdom had an option left as well.
-Palencia just doesn't miss enough bats. Similar to ManRod, just two yrs younger. ManRod is killing AAA for TB right now!
Things I got right so far:
-Hendricks. Sorry Kyle. You got paid though!
Jed, you missed there.
-Smyly. If Jed could've traded him before or during ST, then he should have and saved some cash.
-Mastro. Not a LH DH. Pinch runner. Defensive utility. Maybe he's better than Madrigal but didn't get a legit chance to prove it.
-Luke Little is good. He's had one bad outing. That's it. Needs to get better entering with guys on base. But he needs to stay in MLB.
-Oh yeah....Morel is doing fine at 3B! He'll get better as well!!
crunch (view)
bellinger "right rib contusion"
Childersb3 (view)
South Bend just lost the lead in the bottom of the 9th on the weirdest scenario, ever.
It's absolutely pouring rain....men on 1st and 2nd, 1out....JPatterson asks for a new ball, but no time out was called....he throws the old ball toward the dugout (not sure if it rolled out of play).....the ump declares the runners get two bases each so one run scores. Then a single up the middle ties the game.
The rain was coming down in buckets at this point.
Just weird
crunch (view)
...and bellinger is gone in the 7th because of that 2nd blown chance and the wall he bounced off of...
hopefully his rib cage/shoulder feels better tomorrow, we just got happ back.
Childersb3 (view)
Phil,
Any thoughts on Y. Rojas' stuff and Y. Melendez's game (I believe I've asked about him before, sorry)?
crunch (view)
wow, things are moving fast. hopefully it continues.
crunch (view)
morel with 4 clean plays in 4 innings...showed off his 100000000mph arm a couple times.
cody bellinger not having a good 4th, though...5 run leads are handy when your CF is making your pitcher have a 5-out inning. 2nd blown chance was ruled a hit even though it went in/out of his glove...1st was lost in the lights, also ruled a hit.
crunch (view)
welcome back happ! double off the wall 1st PA back.
crunch (view)
oh yeah, totally, i was just chiming about why i fan like i fan.
i would like nothing more than hendricks to keep on hendricks'ing. guys with his stuff can throw for a long, long time as long as it works.
he velocity is actually up a minor amount this year. it's really "damn" when a guy like him not only has gas in the tank, but it's looking like it was years ago. he added a curve a few years ago and it helped a little bit, but he's throwing it less and less while the fb/change combo are less effective.
Alexander Dimm (view)
CRUNCH—There is no one person in this community I’m talking about. My remarks were not directed at you or anyone, but at a tone I’ve noticed lately.
You have a great, dry sense of humor and there is thought behind your comments. You and I don’t always agree but I always understand your position.
Lastly, and I’ll be quiet, I agree with you on Hendricks. We can dislike the recent performance but still love the guy. Lots of questions about his future.