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At least one unprecedented Cubs streak will end this year.
Chicago will likely finish this season second or third in the National League in strikeouts. That means that, barring an unforeseen rash of strikeouts by what will be predominantly inexperienced pitchers down the stretch, someone other than the North Siders will finish atop the NL strikeout team leaderboard for the first time since 2001.
That's eight consecutive seasons; no other team has recorded even seven straight years as the top strikeout pitching team in the league since the ridiculous 16 consecutive such seasons recorded by the Brooklyn and L.A. Dodgers from 1948-63. ...
A good Hall of Fame doesn't just collect the best of the best. That's why we all think Ron Santo belongs in the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Santo is not an elite player, not one of the true greats of the game's history, but he exemplifies, no embodies what baseball should be all about. He hustled; he had fun playing the game; he showed intensity, even fire. And he also did everything well on both sides of the ball.
In light of the notion that any given entity's Hall of Fame should contain those people who embodied its essence ...
The Cubs have a dilemma.
As the offseason approaches, General Manager Jim Hendry faces a number of difficult decisions about the future of his team. The 2009 team has a number of weaknesses, and the ability to throw money at the problem, even if he indeed has that ability, will not count for much.
Some of the additions he will need to make to make the Cubs competitive in 2010 will be by subtraction.
Among these, the most intriguing, and perhaps most important, is the question of how Hendry will address the Cubs' logjam of corner outfielders, and the subpar outfield defense that ...
In the middle of the season, I put together my grades for the Chicago Cubs roster, manager, and general manager.
At that point in the year, Milton Bradley hadn't done anything, Aramis Ramirez was hurt and Derrek Lee was warming up. The pitching staff was rotating injures.
At that point, the Cubs still stood a chance of seeing post season baseball.
Now we're in the middle of September. Bradley woke up, Ramirez got healthy, and the team fell apart at the seams. Now, October is reserved for Blackhawks hockey and Bears football on Chicago's North Side.
Granted, we've still got three weeks of baseball, ...
The Cubs can be described in one word this season: Awful. That doesn't even do it justice.
I have been a Cubs fan for all my life and I think this is the most talent I've seen on a team in a long time. Can they produce? You tell me.
Jim Hendry needs to follow the ideas of the Florida Marlins after they won their World Series in 2003. He needs to do a fire sale. They need to rebuild, not just this team, the entire franchise from the ground up.
Start at the basics. Get rid of all your big salary players. ...
With 24 games left in the season, the Chicago Cubs are 11.5 games back in the NL Central Division and eight games back in the Wild Card race. While the Cubs aren’t mathematically eliminated from postseason contention, they might as well start looking ahead to 2010.
At this point, the age old question arises: Do the Cubs continue to try and put out their best roster in an effort to win as many games as possible? Or do they focus on getting younger players in the game in an audition for next year while resting veterans who are less than 100 ...
I have called you all here today to lay to rest the latest installment of the lovable losers of Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs.
It was a year where almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the Cubbies. Every move management made in the offseason fell flat on its face. The 2009 Cubs had a few things go right, but it was mostly a year of unmet expectations and underachievement.
The ghosts of Kerry Wood and Mark DeRosa haunted Waveland Ave. It took the Cubs three-quarters of the season to figure out that Kevin Gregg wasn't going to replace Wood. When Mark DeRosa returned to Wrigley as a ...
This continues the series of hypothetical trades involving players with high salaries that would be consummated during the offseason. To view more of these trades, click here and here.Hypothetically speaking, let's say that the Chicago Cubs have determined that they need to trade the disappointing Kosuke Fukudome in order to acquire a legit center fielder. One of the Cubs' biggest weaknesses this season was that they had no center fielder.
Milton Bradley, Alfonso Soriano, and Fukudome could not get the job done. It's obvious that this needs to change in 2010. For hypothetical purposes, let's assume that Fukudome is willing to ...
Filed: September 9th, 2009
Source: Cubbie Nation
I consider the Pittsburgh Pirates a balm. A cure-all, really. Whatever is wrong with your team, sprinkle in a series with the Pirates, and apply liberally.
Need a little offense? Try that pitching staff, with their 4.63 ERA, good for 14th in the NL.
Want to give your bullpen a rest? Your starters are practically sure to go long against an offense ranked 13th.
Hoping for a few lucky breaks to go your way? Hey man, with the worst fielding percentage in the league, you will get good bounces against that team.
As it turns out, the Cubs needed ...
Chicago Cubs shortstop Ryan Theriot stole his 17th base of the season Wednesday, during Chicago's 8-5 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates in Pittsburgh. The theft was also the 80th of Theriot's career, in this his third full year of Major League ball.
Theriot has attained a firm standing as the number one fan favorite over the past three years, if only by default: each of the other logical candidates has fought injuries and inconsistency. Theriot's intensity, hustle, and exciting style have endeared him to a fan base that prides itself on its personal ties to Cubs players, even if everything from the ticket ...
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