Players in the organization are ranked according to steals per game times success rate. Everyone with six or more steals as of the close of business on June 25 is shown here. Lake may not have been 100% after a month on the DL with a back injury. This would account for his lower-than-usual success [...]
If you watched James Russell protect a Cub lead by throwing a scoreless seventh inning against the Reds on Saturday (4/21) during the recent homestand, you might remember a couple of highlights. One, Russell pitched out of a men-on-second-and-third, no-out jam that was not of his making. (Campana lost the leadoff fly ball in the [...]
Looking at his numbers–a .310 BA and a .422 OBP–you would say that Fukudome was doing his job as a leadoff hitter. Never an admirer, even I will admit to being impressed at Fukudome’s ability to (a) coax balls out of pitchers who are not missing the strike zone to anyone else, and (b) somehow [...]
Here are end-of-season numbers for Koyie Hill and Geovany Soto in terms of games won/lost and runs for/against. It’s still a smallish data sample, as evidenced by the closing of the gap, under “average runs against,” in just the last week or ten days of the season. See my previous post. Soto’s numbers are impacted [...]
One of my favorite all-time Cubs was a self-made hitter–not a natural hitter–who knew that working the count meant understanding two things: pitchers and umpires. Milton Bradley may understand a pitcher’s tendencies and tactics, but he doesn’t understand what a home-plate umpire’s job is. That, more than paranoia or a short fuse, is his problem. [...]
Many Cub fans saw the report recently that their team was 27th in organizational talent rankings according to Baseball America. Observant fans know, however, that there was a lot of healthy ferment last season in the Cubs’ lower minors, and that the high-A Daytona team, for example, won the Florida State League championship with outstanding [...]
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Posted 11 April 2009
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Tagged: alex maestri, blake parker, brandon guyer, brian schlitter, casey coleman, casey lambert, darwin barney, hung-wen chen, jake fox, james russell, jay jackson, jeff samardzija, jeremy papelbon, john gaub, josh lansford, kosuke fukudome, nate spears, sam fuld, tim wilken, tony thomas, tyler colvin, welington castillo
The problem with having Larry Rothschild as the pitching coach is that in moments of stress, Cub pitchers tend to become Michael Wuertz. At the age of 29, in his fifth season under Rothschild’s tutelage, the once-promising Wuertz has attained the status of triple-A reliever. Wuertz is the embodiment of his coach’s two-pronged philosophy: don’t [...]
The argument for voting Ron Santo into Cooperstown was never that the Hall should honor gold gloves. Rather, it was that a non-pitcher should be judged as a hitter, but particularly among his peers at the same defensive position. After all, you should be able to take a group from Cooperstown and form a baseball [...]
This was one of those games where the next day, you’re still trying to get your bearings. Piniella doesn’t especially believe in closers, or ninth-inning closers, at any rate. If the Cubs have the lead, Piniella starts trying to close the deal in the 7th. That’s why Marmol comes in when he does. Marmol pitched [...]