Here's something you never thought you'd read...here or anywhere else:
The New York Yankees have a reason to consider signing Julio Zuleta.
Despite media reports to the contrary--mostly Web sites, apparently--the Cubs are categorically denying they've made a 3-year/$45 MM offer to Jason Schmidt.
If some rumor monger fashioned the story out of thin air, I say kudos to him. I like the specificity of the report, though personally, I would have gone with something like 3 years/$46MM: the unevenness of the amount split over three years makes it even more credible.
If the Cubs are lying, I'm not surprised.
One of these days, I'm going to mong some rumors myself. It's been an ambition of mine since shortly after I was introduced to the Interweb.
If you have any good ideas for rumors, let me know.
So the Cubs were shut out this off-season in their attempts to import an arm from across the Pacific.
Oh, well.
It probably just serves us right for the plague we set loose last year on the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.
It pleases me to know that even if Soriano can't handle left, center or right, and DeRosa turns out to simply be a rich man's Neifi Perez, and Ramirez really shows us the meaning of the word lazy, and Wood and Prior and Marshall and Marmol and Guzman all injure their obliques and their rotator cuffs and everything else there is to pull, tear or rupture, and Sweet Lou is pining for the good ol' days in Tampa by mid-June, and the Cubs lose 120 games, and things get so bad even Yosh Kowano is embarrassed to be associated with the organization, they still won't be the worst team in Chicago.
Over the weekend, Arizona and the Brewers consummated one of the least interesting 6-player trades in recent baseball history. The Diamondbacks sent Johnny Estrada, Claudio Vargas and Greg Aquino to Milwaukee for Doug Davis, Dana Eveland and David Krynzel.
Most noteworthy to me was Davis' departure from the NL Central. Though his career numbers against the Cubs are decent--6 wins, 5 losses, 3.58 ERA, 78 K's in 78 IP--I think of him as having been Cub-dominant, perhaps influenced by games like a 10-strikeout, 2-walk effort against Dusty's Boys late in 2005.
It seems to me that in the last few years, the Cubs have suffered against soft-tossing lefties like Davis, so on balance, I'm happy to see him headed west.
Last Friday, Houston closed a deal that will bring a true Cub nemesis, Carlos Lee, back to the division for six years, give or take. Lee's lifetime numbers against the Wrigleys are impressive bordering on terrifying:
Overall v. Cubs:
63 Games
78/245, .318 BA
19 HR
57 RBI
.379 OBP/.620 SLG/999 OPS
In Wrigley Field:
31 Games
41/123, .333 BA
12 HR
29 RBI
.387 OBP/.699 SLG/1086 OPS (!)
I believe that's what you kill a "Cub Killer."
The first time I ever heard that term, Jack Brickhouse was using it to describe Mike Jorgensen, a journeyman 1B/OF who played between 1968 and '85, mostly for the Mets and Expos.
Jorgensen's numbers vs. the Cubs:
173 Games
112/418, .268 BA
15 HR
65 RBI
.356 OBP/.447 SLG/803 OPS
Hardly Lee-like, but when you consider that Jorgensen's career line was .347/.373/720, not bad.
Still, with all due respect to Jack Brickhouse, I don't think those qualify as Cub-killing numbers.
Maybe just misdemeanor assault.
If you happened to be at the Walden's bookstore in the Indian River Mall in Vero Beach, Florida this weekend and thought you saw former Cub, Rick Monday, odds are pretty good you did.
Monday was signing copies of "Tales From The Dodger Dugout." According to the local paper, however, many of those interested in meeting Rick wanted to shake his hand and thank him personally for rescuing the American flag from those two dopes on the field at Dodger Stadium back in '76.
I considered dropping by Walden's to get an autograph (Rick Monday ranks #2 on my list of all-time favorite Cubs, trailing only Don Kessinger). Then I flashed forward to an uncomfortable encounter during which I would become all tongue-tied, struggle to ask some awkward question about what it was like to play with Jose Cardenal and Bill Bonham, and inadvertently frustrate all of the old VFW guys waiting in line to talk to Monday about saving the flag.
We went to the beach instead.
Connie Johnson was a 6-foot-4-inch righthander who broke in as a 30-year-old with the White Sox in 1953. Three years later, the Sox included him in a six-player swap with Baltimore, where Johnson ended his career in 1958.
Johnson's best season was 1957, when he led the Orioles in wins (14), innings pitched (242) and ERA (3.20). The most noteworthy game of his career occurred a year earlier, on June 21, 1956, when Johnson teamed with reliever George Zuverink to throw a one-hitter against Connie's erstwhile team, the White Sox. The Sox, however, got a one-hitter of their own from Jack Harshman and won the game, 1-0. Johnson took the loss.
Johnson ended his career with 40 wins, 39 defeats, 716 innings pitched, and a 3.44 lifetime ERA.
If Mark Prior never appears in another Major League game, the pitcher whose final career numbers will most closely match Prior's, according to Bill James' Player Similarity Score formula, is Connie Johnson.
Johnson was not a terrible pitcher by any definition of the term, but if he represents the tick mark on the measuring stick of Mark Prior's career, it would be a case of failed promise, to say the least.
On Thursday, the Tribune's Fred Mitchell reported that Cubs trainer, Mark O'Neal has been assigned the job of staying in regular, almost daily, contact with Prior this off-season, "monitoring (his) health, conditioning and well being" in the run-up to spring training.
Godspeed, Mark O'Neal.
Of all the people who've so far expressed an interest in buying the Cubs from Tribco, Jerry Colangelo is the most attractive. He has Chicago roots, a long and distinguished history as a sportsman including a World Series championship, and to the extent that one can judge such things from phone-in interviews with ass clowns like Boers and Bernstein, he seems like an all-around good guy.
Then there's the bit about him nearly driving the D-Backs to complete financial ruin.
It raises the following question which I'd like to discuss in an open forum when the readers of this blog gather with yours truly at the 1st Annual "A Hundred Next Years" Convention later this winter at the Rosemont Convention Center but which I'll raise briefly right now:
Would you, as a Cubs fan, be satisfied with winning a World Series if it meant the team would be truly execrable (think of reliving 1994 over and over again, Groundhog Day-style) for a long, long time afterward?
The easy answer is, "Of course!" Then I think back to 1986 and '87 and '88 and how painfully frustrating it was to see the Bears fall flat on their faces so soon after winning the Super Bowl, and the easy answer doesn't seem so easy.
Just something I plan on thinking about while I draft my letter to Mark Cuban, asking him to get his investors group in order.
Trade Michael Barrett.
It's not that I don't like seeing Barrett in the Cub lineup or that I've forgotten what it was like to see a Scott Servais or a Rick Wilkins behind the plate every day. It's just that, coming off a career year (885 OPS) and about to head into his final season before free agency, Barrett will never have more trade value than he does right now.
My thought is that perhaps Barrett, packaged with Jacque Jones and some of our young pitchers not named Rich Hill, could fetch a decent return on the trade market. A quality outfielder, maybe, and/or a bit of that veteran pitching we still need so desperately.
This would mean that Henry (Hank) Blanco (White), ace backup, would become Henry (Hank) Blanco (White), starter by default. Blanco's defensive strength and defensive superiority to Barrett are well established. The offensive fall-off would be significant, though I'm not sure it's a fall-off the Cubs couldn't live with, especially if Soriano provides the boost we're all expecting.
Reader Phil alerted this page to buzz-killing comments made by Keith Law at espn.com regarding the Soriano signing. As I am too cheap to be an ESPN Insider myself, my knowledge of the column is limited to what Reader Phil reported, plus what I could pull up myself in the free preview:
So, let me get this straight: The team that finished last in the National League in OBP in 2006 (and, not coincidentally, second-to-last in runs scored) with a
.319 team mark just signed a left fielder with a .320 career OBP and a .337 OBP in 2006 (both figures exclude intentional walks) to replace a guy with a .365 OBP in 2006. And they're paying $17 million per year for the privilege -- until the new player turns 38. I'm sure this will work out swimmingly.
The irony of this is that Law's column ranking the 2007 free agent class--with the name, "Alfonso Soriano" right there at the top--was at least partly responsible for my delirious enthusiasm right after I heard the news Sunday afternoon.
Law's reasoning seems pretty solid--at least the reasoning contained in the one paragraph I was able to read for free. But that doesn't matter.
For comments judged to be injurious to the post-Soriano-signing bliss of the vast majority of Cubs fans worldwide, I am officially naming Keith Law the first-ever Enemy of the Blog.
I plan on adding an official Enemy of the Blog list to the page shortly. Perhaps I'll wait until after I've identified a few more enemies.
In the meantime, I'm sure Keith Law will be thinking about keeping his opinions, however well-reasoned they might be, to himself.
What a stunning development.
Three words. Six syllables. Fifteen leters.
Cubs. Sign. Soriano.
Not the Angels. Not the Phillies. Not the Astros. Not the Dodgers.
The Cubs.
What a thrill to see our team sign the guy who was without question at the head of his free agent class.
Why, it's positively Yankee-like!
The length and amount of the contract are breathtaking, but so long as they don't compromise Hendry's ability to help the pitching staff, I couldn't care less right now how much of a payroll pickle the Cubs are in come 2014.
Funny thing--when I saw the headline on the Trib Web site Sunday afternoon, I felt the same giddy rush as when the Bears staged that improbable comeback against Arizona a few weeks ago. It was that sense that our team had surged from behind to win at the wire.
The truth is, my notion that the Cubs were "trailing" in the Soriano Derby came from my having read too many blogs and too many Web sites trafficking in too much unsupported speculation. If enough people repeat the same mantra--"Arte Moreno will pay any amount of money to get Soriano in an Angels uniform," or "The Phillies have the inside track," etc., etc.--it takes on a weight that causes it to seem damn near the truth.
Only a handful of people ever knew what was really going on in the chase for Soriano. Now everybody knows.
Where will he play? Lou Piniella, calling in Sunday afternoon to WGN Radio, said he would play one of the corners, yet multiple Chicago tv stations reported well into the night that Soriano was headed for centerfield. It would seem that Lou needs to check with Comcast Sportsnet before he shoots off his mouth.
On a final, negative note--remember, this is not the "Joys of Optimism" blog--I can't help but wonder what is behind the spending spree. Could it be that Tribune Company is determined to win, or at least reach, the World Series this coming season so they can sell the Cubs at the end of the year for $700 or $800 million and let the new owners deal with the long-term fallout of these massive expenditures? Do we care?
I'm going to forget that I even asked the question--at least until Jason Schmidt and maybe a few others (J.D. Drew???) are safely wrapped up in Cubbie blue.
Sounds like Neal Cotts may, in fact, get at least a look as a starter.
In the Trib today, Dave Van Dyck reports that Cotts is "excited about the opportunity" to vie for a starting job with the Cubs. Naturally, the transition from the bullpen would require the proverbial "stretching out" of his arm, a mystical process that, these days, seems to find its way into every discussion about relievers becoming starters.
It's a wonder those old-timers, so ignorant of the physiological phenomena that now roll off the tongues of even casual fans, ever made it through a summer in one piece.
Van Dyck also notes that Cotts, a starter throughout his minor league career, didn't last long in that role once the White Sox brought him to the big leagues. In his first five starts in 2003, he was 1-2 with a 9.19 ERA.
Of course, those credentials should ensure he'll find a home in the Cubs rotation.
When I read that the Cubs had traded for Neal Cotts, I wondered whether it was their intention to turn him back into a starting pitcher.
Now I'm thinking that perhaps they're just hoping to stockpile lefthanded relievers--you know, kind of the way they did with second basemen last season.
And we all know how well that worked out.
On Wednesday, Jim Hendry continued to painstakingly reassemble last year's Dream Team, signing Henry (Hank) Blanco (White) to a 2-year deal.
Last season, Blanco reached career highs in RBI (37), batting average (.266) and slugging percentage (.419). He also remained a defensive force behind the plate, throwing out 15 of 39 would-be base-stealers, giving him a career mark of 41.4%, second best among all active Major League catchers behind I-Rod (44.3%).
After Derrek Lee went down for the season, Blanco even played six errorless games at first base, which can only help his Hall of Fame candidacy, sometime around 2015.
Texas Rangers tv guy and former Cubs announcer, Josh Lewin, called into Mike Murphy’s WSCR show Wednesday to answer questions about Mark DeRosa.
According to Lewin, DeRosa is a get-the-uniform-dirty kind of player, was a “real contributor to the community” in Dallas, is that rare Ivy Leaguer who “won’t drop big words or go all big league on you” (I think that means he’s not condescending to the press), and is not at all the player who was non-tendered by the Braves just a couple seasons ago.
Lewin says DeRosa has so altered his approach to hitting that in many ways, he is now a virtual carbon copy of his close friend, Rangers star, Michael Young, down to their ceremonial, pre-swing toe tap.
That being the case, I’d like to return DeRosa and his 735 lifetime OPS and take Young and his 2005 AL batting title. If the two are as well matched as Lewin suggests (“They’re even both 6-foot-1, 185-pound white guys!”), it might well be August before anyone notices the switch, and by then, the Cubs could already have the NL Central race well in hand.
"Most seasons, DeRosa can be a serviceable utility infielder, but, as a regular, he's stretched...He opened the 2004 season as the Braves' starting third baseman, but a .233/.276/.317 line as a regular prompted the Braves to move Chipper Jones and his prop-comic glovework back to the hot corner. DeRosa's torn ACL should be fully healed by spring training, but it's too soon to know whether it's cost him any mobility. If he's no longer able to perform spot duty in the middle infield, then he no longer has any business being on a major league team."
–Baseball Prospectus 2005
–Baseball Prospectus 2006"The Braves non-tendered DeRosa after he blew out his knee in late 2004, but a quick recovery got him a minor league contract from the Rangers. A career utility infielder, he eventually wound up in right field as a desperate alternative to Richard Hidalgo. He hit well while playing there, and Showalter mistakenly stuck with him far too long. After a respectable year, he's earned himself at least another few years of employment, playing on Sundays or as an injury sub."
On Tuesday, Jim Hendry was once again spending money like a man on a mission.
In this case, the mission seemed to be overpaying for Mark DeRosa.
Sunday afternoon, I watched my son playing tag football in the neighbors’ yard. One team had an extra player, an advantage they leveraged by having the bonus guy randomly jump into the action, generally in the middle of a play without warning to the other side. This seemed to work for everybody. Somehow the rules were understood by one and all, the kids were happy and the game went on.
Which brings me to the Daisuke Matsuzaka posting process. I’ve now read enough explanations of the process to believe I actually understand it, and my conclusion is that it makes absolutely no sense and that’s fine with everyone involved.
In case you’ve missed it, the Red Sox’ are apparently going to win negotiating rights later today at the cost of more than three times what it took for the Mariners to purchase those same rights to Ichiro. The Red Sox will then have 30 days in which to strike a deal with Matsuzaka and his agent, Satan.
If they don’t reach an agreement, Matsuzaka will return to the Seibu Lions, his Japanese League team, for the coming season. And that will be that.
This story at mlb.com suggests the Red Sox' interest in the Japanese ace is sincere and that they’re not merely trying to keep him out of pinstripes. I guess we’ll find out.
Either way, the fact that such a gambit is even possible is ridiculous. Is there a reason—make that a good reason—why the negotiating rights couldn’t revert to the team making the second highest bid if the Red Sox don’t sign Matsuzaka?
Maybe you know. Someone among the hundreds of thousands of readers of this Web site must have a thought. Just pass it along.
I’m thrilled that Aramis Ramirez will be back, for a long time. Assuming that he and Derrek Lee are healthy and focused, the Cubs are assured of having 25% of a dangerous lineup, each and every day.
Naturally, there were alternatives to sinking $73 million on one player, but none of them, even the creative options, seemed nearly as attractive. What’s more, the Cubs would hardly have been in a strong trading position, with all of Major League Baseball aware that they had a big, yawning hole at third base.
As for the suggestions that Ramirez failed to “step up” last year when Lee broke his wrist, that strikes me as another case of people feeling the need to ascribe failure on the field to some deep-seated character flaw. (In this case, I guess it would be inability to handle pressure. Or, to put it more bluntly, gutlessness. Cowardice. How would you put it, Mike North?)
Ramirez has also been accused of not running hard to first base when he hits a ground ball or grandstanding at home plate when he thinks he’s clubbed the ball out of the park and then, having to settle for a long single.
There’s seems to be some truth to the not-hustling-on-ground-balls accusation, though Ramirez apparently played much of last season with a pulled groin and/or its after-effects. (Sunday afternoon on WGN Radio, David Kaplan reported that, according to Ramirez's people, A-Ram was instructed by Dusty Baker last season NOT to over exert on any ground ball that looked like a sure out.)
As for the grandstanding, Ramirez is, in fact, often guilty of it. That simply gives him something in common with many other players on all other Major League teams, not to mention a good percentage of those in the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Soccer and the Professional Bowlers Association.
Here’s the thing:
Ramirez is an okay fielder and an outstanding hitter. We’re lucky to get him back at a significant discount over his likely, open market price. And the signals that his re-signing sends to the rest of the free agent class—Wrigley Field is a wonderful place to play and at least one current Cub is excited about the prospect of playing for Lou Piniella—can’t do anything but help the cause.
...we have this.
So Gary Sheffield won't be a Cub after all.
From the day his name and the Cubs were first linked in trade rumors, I've wondered whether it would be smart to bring a proverbial clubhouse cancer to Chicago, especially given the young talent the Cubs would no doubt have had to give up to the Yanks. Well, Dave Dombrowski beat Jim Hendry to the punch and the debate can end.
I think I'm happy about that. But I'm not sure.
It sounds like the Tigers gave up some pretty sweet prospects. And Sheffield is 37 years old, coming off injuries, required a contract extension in the bargain and, by all appearances, is still a jerk.
On the other hand, it bothers me to think that the reason Sheffield isn't going to be on the North Side next year might be that: 1.) Hendry just never got around to seriously pursuing a trade with New York, or 2.) The Cubs minor league system is now so devoid of first-class prospects that Hendry simply had nothing that Brian Cashman wanted.
Maybe when we sign Soriano, Zito, Schmidt and Matsuzaka, missing out on Sheffield won't seem like a big deal at all.
When I heard about the Wade Miller signing, I figured that someone, somewhere was bound to drop the phrase, “back of the rotation pitcher." Paul Sullivan didn’t disappoint.
This sounds like a reasonable gamble to me given the cost of the contract, but I certainly hope Miller is the worst pitcher the Cubs sign this off-season and not the best.
The other addition of interest in the last couple days was new hitting coach, Gerald Perry, who spent last season on Ken Macha’s staff in Oakland.
Perry, of course, is replacing Gene Clines, who specialized in teaching Cub batters how to swing at unhittable pitches and strike out with men on base, contributions which I’m thinking the team could do without.
My recollection of Perry as a player was that he was an unexceptional journeyman who couldn't hit well enough to be a standout first baseman, but could hit well enough to play in the Major Leagues for a long time. Turns out my recollection was pretty accurate.
It got me to thinking, what if anything about Gerald Perry's record as a hitter would lead anyone to believe he would make a good hitting coach, and how does his playing resumé stack up to the those of other National League hitting coaches?
I looked at the career numbers for all of the guys listed on mlb.com as National League hitting coaches as of Wednesday night. (Some of these guys won’t be around next year—I think Terry Pendleton was a candidate for the Washington managers job and I’m assuming Merv Rettenmund will be replaced by new Padres manager Bud Black—and not all of these coaches were even in position last season, e.g., Brook Jacoby in Cincy, but you get the idea.)
Here’s what I found:
Eddie Murray, LA
3,026 games; 504 HR, 129 OPS+
Hal McRae, STL
2,084 games, 191 HR, 122 OPS+
Terry Pendleton, ATL
1,893 games, 140 HR, 91 OPS+
Kevin Seitzer, ARIZ
1,439 games, 74 HR, 110 OPS+
Milt Thompson, PHI
1,359 games, 47 HR, 94 OPS+
Brook Jacoby, CIN
1,311 games, 120 HR, 103 OPS+
Gerald Perry, CUBS
1,193 games, 59 HR, 95 OPS+
Merv Rettenmund, SD
1,023 games, 66 HR, 123 OPS+
Jim Presley, FLA
959 games, 135 HR, 90 OPS+
Sean Berry, HOU
860 games, 81 HR, 105 OPS+
Joe Lefebvre, SF
447 games, 31 HR, 114 OPS+
Jeff Manto, PIT
289 games, 31 HR, 93 OPS+
Alan Cockrell, COL
9 games, 0 HR, 39 OPS+
Rick Downs, NY & Jim Skaalen, MILW
Never played in Majors
So what does all this mean? Virtually nothing. As Eric Chavez put it when asked about Perry during the A’s spring training last season,
"I don't really think it's that important. I guess it might help put a stamp on things, like, 'He knows what he's talking about because he's been there,' but if you get along with someone, it doesn't matter."
Considering, also, that two of the game’s most renowned coaches, Baltimore pitching coach, Leo Mazzone, and Texas hitting coach, Rudy Jaramillo, never played even one game in the majors, it’s easy to believe Chavez is right and Perry's less than stellar numbers won't mean anything to anyone he's supposed to be instructing.
Still, something tells me that when it's time for the annual National League Hitting Coaches Picnic, I know which guys are going to be sent out to get the beer.
The headline on this story was enough to make me throw up this morning. My first thought was that, along with the reelection of Rod Blagojevich, it confirmed that morons now constitute a plurality of the local population.
Upon further reading, however, the story simply says that 57% of those surveyed watched, listened to or attended a White Sox game last year. Fair enough.
Truth be told, I was on the edge of my seat for many, many Sox games last summer.
I just couldn't imagine having them fail like that and not enjoying it for myself.
I spoke to a Japanese business client of mine Tuesday afternoon. Knowing he was a big baseball fan, I asked what he knew of Daisuke Matsuzaka and his response was enthusiastic, to say the least.
"He is twice the pitcher of Nomo," my client said. "And he throws this pitch, the gyroball, that is unbelievable." His description of the pitch was consistent with what I had heard elsewhere: part screwball, part curveball, lots of velocity. "If he throws it 95," my client explained, "the batter feels like it is coming 105."
My client and I then discussed the peculiarities of the posting process and the fact that the Cubs--or anybody else--would probably wind up spending $100 million or so by the time they could get Matsuzaka under contract.
It seems like a lot of money, though if the guy is twice the pitcher of Nomo, who, himself, was probably five times the pitcher of many of the stiffs the Cubs sent to the mound last summer, that would make Matsuzaka ten times better than what we were subjected to in '06.
That's good enough for me. I hereby authorize Hendry and Captain Beanie Baby to spend the cash.
Yesterday the Cubs hired Ivan DeJesus as a “special assistant” to Lou Piniella, a vaguely defined position that makes it hard to ascertain whether he was the best man for the job. Or whether the job even needed to be filled in the first place.
All I know is, I'm thrilled to see the Cubs getting back in touch with their late ‘70s selves, because now I can wear my Mike Vail jersey proudly, for all the world to see.
