Rob G.'s Archives
Cubs to Non-Tender Two
According to Wittenmyer, the Cubs will non-tender 2 of their 5 arbitration eligible players.
Hoyer says Cubs expect to non-tender two arb guys by tonight's deadline with hope of retaining them. Stewart and ...
One-Year Wonders
The Cubs add to their stable of pitchers today, by signing RHP Scott Feldman to a one year deal for $6M, plus $1M in incentives according to various sources. Feldman seemed to be a popular target among Cubs armchair GM's this offseason for reasons unbenknownst to me, but TheJedi seemed to concur.
Cubs Make Roster Moves and a Trade
Today was the deadline to add players to the 40-man so they wouldn't be eligible to be selected in the Rule 5 draft. The winners were: RHP Trey McNutt, RHP Robert Whitenack, 3B Christian Villanueva and INF Logan Watkins. Nick Struck seems to be the only surprise name left off the 40-man additions...enjoy the Astros! To make room for the additions, Bryan LaHair was desginated for assignment and RHP Carlos Gutierrez was waived and assigned to Iowa after clearing waivers (I swear I don't even know who that is). LaHair is apparently going to sign to play in Japan.
The Cubs also traded RHP Jake Brigham (acquired in the trade for Geovany Soto) right back to the Texas Rangers for RHP Barret Loux and a player to be named later. Brigham allegedly has an elbow injury according to Bruce Miles, so that would explain why the Cubs are getting such high upside with Loux as it must be a reworking of the Soto deal (mighty nice of the Rangers). Loux was a former first round pick of the Diamondbacks (6th overall in 2010) out of Texas A&M. After agreeing on a $2M deal with the D'Backs, the club backed out citing an issue with his elbow and shoulder and the Rangers signed him for $312K later that year as a free agent. 2 years later, he put up a 14-1 mark in AA for the Rangers on a 3.47 ERA (7.1 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, 0.7 HR/9) and Texas League pitcher of the year honors.
Speed Round
Some quick takes on recent baseball news...
Half-Baked
The Cubs have signed RHP Scott Baker for $5.5M, plus $1.5M in incentives. He became a free agent after the Twins declined his $9.5M option for 2013.
Toldja!!! Marmol for Haren
UPDATE #2: Just kidding. November Fools!!! Anyway, Marmol apparently was asked to waive his no-trade clause, that leaked before the Cubs and Angels officially had a deal. Then allegedly the Cubs nixed the deal...some say it was over the medicals but who knows. At the end, Haren's option was bought out and he's a free agent now. Twitter Rumors 2, Cubs 0.
Cubs Hire New Minor League Pitching Coordinator
The Cubs hired Derek Johnson as their minor league pitching coordinator. Apparently this is a bit of a coup, but it might as well have been Bugs Bunny for all I know about amateur pitching coaches. But I'm supposed to pretend that I'm some sort of authority on these subjects, so here's what I uncovered on the man, the myth, the legend.
Cranking Up the Rumor Mill
First off, Darwin Barney is a "finalist" for a Gold Glove at second base...as if they dont' already know the winner. But they've decided to drum up interest by naming the top 3 or 4 at each position and then announcing the winner in a televised event on ESPN2 tomorrow. Holy overkill Batman!
Royals Continue to Confound
The Cubs were obviously going to non-tender Chris Volstad, so they wisely outrighted him to give them some 40-man flexibility. He still may have resigned with the team, but at a much lower price, but it's pretty clear the Cubs were rather bearish on Volstad after the disastrous 2012 season. The Royals, for whatever reason, decided to clog up their 40-man by picking Volstad off waivers. While it does give them first rights to negotiate with him until the non-tender deadline, I can't possibly imagine why the rush.
Cubs Continue Use of 40-Man Roster as Lotto Scratch-Off Ticket
Today the Cubs claimed former Twins first round pick (27th pick in 2008 draft) Carlos Gutierrez off waivers after he was outrighted.The 6-3" righty will be 26 next year and was in the midst of his third year at Triple A Rochester. Then his shoulder gave out, which led to arthriscopic surgery for a cleanup by Dr. Yocum in June. Claims are he will be ready for spring training and I'm sure our own Dr.
Cubs Fill Out Coaching Staff
The Cubs made it official and removed the interim tag from hitting coach James Rowson, who took over for one of the last remaining Hendry scapegoats, Rudy Jamarillo. A bit surprising to me that they didn't end up hiring Dave Magadan, the Red Sox hitting coach during some of the Theo years, but Magadan must have decided that watching Texas Rangers baseball over the Cubs was a more bearable proposition.
Kane County Cubs Are A-Coming
The Twitterverse says the Cubs have finalized plans with Kane County to move their Class A player development contract a little closer to home. With guys like Almora, Vogelbach, Amaya, Candelario, Dunston Jr. and so on possibly playing there next season, there should be some good crowds. The dirty, rotten Cardinals have already taken up the void left by the Cubs in Peoria.
Disqus Upgrade for TCR
First off, I got a new MacBook Air this weekend. I'm hoping this helps with keeping the blog up-to-date better as my old laptop was on its last legs and seriously annoying me so much that I didn't even want to surf the net much.
As for the site, Disqus has been a bit of a disappointment. Not quite what I thought was advertised. While there are features I like, my biggest disappointments so far are:
- lack of new comment notifications when re-visiting site
- lack of real-time updating
- odd thread structure when putting in new comments
I think the "Latest Comments" sidebar helps with the lack of new comment notifications. I just go there and see what I missed, but it doesn't seem to update too quickly and I feel like I'm missing comments. Granted, things are slow right now and interest is at pathetically low levels this time of year, but when the news starts coming again in the offseason, I think it will get even more annoying.
So, I'm going to try upgrading to what they call Disqus 2012. We'll see if it's any better. This requires nothing on any of your parts, but by tomorrow morning, the comments will look a little different. We'll see how we like that after a few weeks. If I/we are still unhappy with the comments, I'll see about getting the native Drupal comment system working again.
Cubs 2013 Schedule Released
It's the most exciting thing to happen in Cubdom all month...the 2013 schedule release!!! They actually have the entire thing up at cubs.com already, but here are some of the highlights.
Baez Tops End of Season Prospect List
MILB.com gets the gold star for getting their homework done first and has put out a Top 20 Cubs prospect list based off the end of the 2012 season. It's actually a fairly in-depth look at the system so I encourage folks to check it out. But as for the names, check after the jump...
Recent comments
Childersb3 (view)
Yeah it is.....sorry......closers don't throw 89mph
It would be unique for sure.
But CP can't be HR susceptible
That's what Alzolay has right now and that's what Kyle has no matter the situation.
Childersb3 (view)
Supposedly Happ said on a radio show he's good to go
I hadn't read that anywhere from the usual accounts, so this could be off.
If true, Canario goes down.
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
Hmmm. Maybe my idea of transitioning Hendricks into a closer role isn’t so crazy.
Childersb3 (view)
Mervis and Wesneski getting promoted aaccording to Tommy Birch from Des Moines Register.
So Happ to the IL
Maybe Hendricks to IL ????
Mervis/Cooper are DH platoon
Wisdom, Canario, Tauchman share LF/RF
I wonder if Busch has ever played LF?
I don't believe he has
crunch (view)
“I respect his track record of what he’s accomplished,” Counsell said on Sunday morning. “And you go through these. He’s gone through -- maybe not this particular stretch -- but stretches where you’re not pitching the way you want to and struggling. And you figure it out.” -- Counsell on Hendricks
fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...
i respect his track record of no longer being in the rotation. in 2016 he threw 2 innings out of the pen, his only work out of the pen. the cubs won the world series that year. let's repeat that magic. the formula is obvious. stats don't lie. etc etc whatever...
small sample size and all, but how about this craziness...
"Entering Sunday, Hendricks had allowed an .843 OPS against hitters in their initial plate appearance, followed by a 1.056 OPS in a second meeting and a 2.449 OPS when seeing batters for a third time."
Finwe Noldaran (view)
Phil: Great to see what Rosario is doing!
Do you think having Rosario may have influenced/impacted the front office's decision on including Hope in the trade for Busch at all?
crunch (view)
it's so crazy we got a new "barnstorming" harlem globetrotters-type baseball product that was introduced less than 5 years ago and is wildly popular all over the nation.
a notion left long in the past, unearthed, polished for modern audiences and popular as ever.
Arizona Phil (view)
No question right now Alfonsin Rosario is one of the Cubs Top 20 prospects (probably Top 15). Rosario is to the Cubs what Zyhir Hope is to the Dodgers.
Arizona Phil (view)
The Savannah Bananas will be playing the Party Animals at Sloan Park in Mesa this coming Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. The games are sold out (15,000+ each night), and berm tickets are going for well over $100.
Arizona Phil (view)
RAISIN: In the game versus the A's at Fitch Park last Friday, Mule threw half FB and half SL (16/16), and one CH (which coincidentally was the only hard-hit ball off him -- a near HR line-drive double off the LF fence). FB was 91-94 and the SL (really more of a "slurve") was 80-82, and he got three swing & miss on each pitch (six swing & miss total out of his 20 strikes). So I think it is safe to say that right now, Mule is strictly a two-pitch pitcher (FB/SL),