At the passing of Saturday's deadline for teams to tender contracts to arbitration-eligible players, 25 teams chose, instead, to release one or more players. In total, 39 new names landed in the free agent pool.
Except in the cases of really miserable teams like Kansas City, Oakland, and Washington, these players will not be central pieces of any contender.
There are a handful of guys, however, who stand a chance to be solid contributors in part-time roles with good teams.
Among these, two make very good sense for the Chicago Cubs, who can use the pool of non-tendered talent to beef up their currently ...
On Monday morning, the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals stood roughly shoulder-to-shoulder at the front of the pack of teams vying for position in the 2010 National League Central division. The Milwaukee Brewers and Houston Astros lagged badly behind, and if you had asked most fans then who the favorite would be when next spring training rolled around, the vote would likely have gone narrowly to the Cubs over St. Louis, with little consideration for also-rans Milwaukee and Houston.
Now, on Wednesday night, the smart choice is probably Milwaukee. St. Louis and Houston are also in the conversation. ...
All men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights. Specifically, as Thomas Jefferson said, these rights are three: to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness.
Baseball fans, however, have a fourth right, which no front office or ownership group may ever deny without consequence: the pursuit of a championship. Just as our forefathers once threw off the bonds of tyranny, so should we abolish forthwith any management group that fails to make forward progress in this, the fourth respect.
That is the cause that draws my fingers to the keys today, O brave Cubs fans. This is ...
As December dawns, Major League Baseball holds its collective breath. Next week at the Winter Meetings, rumors will fly, and both players and money will change hands. Trades will come to completion, and free-agent negotiations will advance rapidly.
For now, however, the frontier is quiet, and so baseball fans everywhere are left to the pleasant reflection that so enriches the experience of this game during its off-season. With just one month left in this, the most momentous (not to say tumultuous) decade in Chicago Cubs history, I chose to focus my remembrance upon the good times. Specifically, I have selected the ...
Success follows John McDonough wherever he goes.
McDonough, the current president of the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks, previously spent a quarter of a century as a rising executive with the Cubs. During that space of time, McDonough's revolutionary ideas changed the entire face of the Cubs' franchise.
From 1983 to 2007, the North Siders had nine winning seasons, as many as they had previously compiled since 1940. They attained the post-season five times, as many as they had made since 1919.
More importantly (for the purposes of this discussion), the Cubs' public image and financial well-being saw tremendous improvement under McDonough, who worked on ...
Over the past 10 days or so, rumors have encircled the Detroit Tigers and the Chicago Cubs, centered around the potential trade of current Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson to the Cubs. Chicago has made it a priority to find a center fielder with an above-average bat this winter, and with a career line of .272/.344/.484, Granderson certainly fits that bill.
However, some have peremptorily impugned the trade on two grounds: first, that Granderson would command too high a price in trade to Detroit; and second, that Granderson (like current Cubs outfielder and fellow left-handed hitter Kosuke Fukudome) cannot hit left-handed ...
When it comes down to numbers, right-handed pitchers have an easier go of it in Major League Baseball.
Only about one-quarter of all batters in the league hit left-handed, meaning right-handed pitchers can expect to have the platoon advantage over 75 percent of the hitters they face (removing the admittedly estimable impact of tactical maneuvering).
Lefties, however, always seem to garner the most attention when it comes time to construct or evaluate a team's pitching staff.
Theory says (and the logic is sound) that having at least two or three southpaw pitchers on the Major League roster allows a manager to carefully maximize ...
When it comes down to numbers, right-handed pitchers have an easier go of it in Major League Baseball.
Only about one-quarter of all batters in the league hit left-handed, meaning right-handed pitchers can expect to have the platoon advantage over 75 percent of the hitters they face (removing the admittedly estimable impact of tactical maneuvering).
Lefties, however, always seem to garner the most attention when it comes time to construct or evaluate a team's pitching staff.
Theory says (and the logic is sound) that having at least two or three southpaw pitchers on the Major League roster allows a manager to carefully maximize ...
For Cubs fans, the Verducci effect is an old and familiar foe, even if they have never heard of it. First set forth by Sports Illustrated baseball guru Tom Verducci , the theory concerns escalating innings totals for young pitchers.
If, before a player's age 26 season, his team sends him out for 30 or more professional innings (Majors and Minors combined) in excess of his previous career high, they have violated the Verducci rule (an implicit corollary), and can expect declining performance and heightened risk of injury in the following season.
Both Mark Prior and Kerry Wood were overused, by ...
When a team identifies a weakness in their lineup, whether offensive or defensive, there are three avenues through which the club can attempt to augment their efficiency at that position.
First and most common, the club can look to the free-agent and trade markets to find a suitable upgrade.
Second, they can replace from within, by promoting a highly-touted prospect.
Third, they can platoon two players to fill the gap, or slide a player from one defensive position to another, thereby improving their expected output simply by optimizing the usage of their current roster.
In the case of the 2010 Cubs, the most glaring ...
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