champaignchris

Wouldn't the Nats be looking for MLB players instead of prospects for Strausburg, considering they're fairly clearly going for it right now?

Kevin Brown was the weird one for me. He's Curt Schilling minus the bloody sock.

For what it's worth, Jose Canseco says that they've already voted a user in. I realize that Canseco is a publicity whore. But he's also one of the very few people who've consistently told the truth about steroids in baseball. No sports "journalist" has followed up on Canseco's claim, but a fairly brief review of the rosters Canseco played with and who on those teams has been voted into the Hall lends a lot of speculation towards Ricky Henderson.

Mike Ditka was ST coach for the Cowboys when the Bears hired him.

Real Cub fans already have PTSD. Stockholm Syndrome, too.

I love this kind of stuff. I'd love to see a similar article on the NBA. I want to say I've seen something similar before for the NBA, might even have been a Grantland/Simmons article. I might have to Google it. I know, for example, that you can trace the draft pick the Bulls used on Joakim Noah all the way back Kelvin Ransey, drafted in 1980 and immediately traded to Portland for Ronnie Lester and a 1981 1st round draft pick (the immortal, Al Wood).

I love this kind of stuff. I'd love to see a similar article on the NBA.

I was coming here to suggest a Watkins for Francisco Cervelli trade, when I noticed the Coghlan for Murphy trade idea in the first post and McCann mentioned later in the thread. Seems like a Yankees catcher for a Cubs back end of the roster/rotation guy (with whatever cash or low level prospects need to go whichever way to even things out) deal would fit for both teams.

Orioles declined Nick Markakis' option, making him a UFA. Seems like a Cubs-type of FA pick up.

Everybody thought that team was going to the Series. At the beginning of the season, the Tribune was running a daily countdown to 100 wins. 19-30 in 1-run games. Still won 89 games overall. Gene Wojciechowski's book, "Cubs Nation," gives a near day-by-day recounting of the insanity that was that year. By the end, it seemed like Dusty Baker had completely lost control of the team.

I think a big chunk of why there's no buzz about expansion despite the fact that the new divisional alignment practically screams for it is that there isn't a really obvious market that needs a team. It isn't like 20 years ago when Phoenix and Miami didn't have teams. Or like the NFL, now, with that gaping hole in the LA market. Nobody is begging to get in line to be the next Pittsburgh or Kansas City, which is exactly what a team in Portland or Charlotte would be. There are external reasons why it might not be the right time to put a team in Mexico City or Montreal yet. Although, I think both will happen in my lifetime. There are obvious political and legal reasons why an expansion team becoming the second or third team in an existing market probably won't happen. If something like that were to happen I'd be inclined to think it would be an existing franchise making a move without the league's approval a la the Raiders or Clippers. Again, I think a third NY and LA team will eventually happen. You already have 3 NY hockey teams and we came very close to having a third LA basketball team last year.

The greater New Orleans metro area, which includes Hammond, Metarie, Picayune, etc. has 1.4 million people in it. That's 42nd in the United States and roughly half the number of people in the Portland and Orlando areas.

I find it interesting that despite the fact that the recent realignment which awkwardly put an odd number of teams in each league practically cries out for expansion, there's been no buzz about possible expansion at all. Baseball expansion interests me. It's different from other sports. More simple, less nuanced. More than the other major sports, baseball relies heavily on local attendance and local television/radio contracts. That means more than any other sport, teams gravitate towards the areas where there are more butts to put in seats and eyeballs to put on tv screens. There isn't an MLB team in Green Bay, New Orleans, or Oklahoma City, and there won't be any time soon. It's not about getting 65,000 people there 8 weekends a year; it's about having 20,000 people there 81 times a year, often in the middle of the week. So, the cities in North America with the most butts and eyeballs: 1. Mexico City: By some counts, the largest city in the world. Yes, there's a lot of poor people. There are also a whole Hell of a lot of rich people. La Ciudad is too big, with too much money for it to not eventually have an MLB franchise. It's just a question of when Mexico can have its political and economic houses in order well enough for Baseball to make the move. Don't know if it will be in 10 years or 50, but it will eventually happen. 2. Montreal: Easily the largest US or Canadian city without a team. Like Mexico City, it's just too big not to eventually have a team. In this case, the politics and the economics aren't the impediment. It's a fanbase that feels it got hosed by the MLB, and the MLB thinking that the problem with the Expos was the French-talking hockey fans instead of the relentlessly incompetent ownership. Personally, I think a solid ownership group with a good stadium plan will make this happen. 3. Charlotte, Portland, Vancouver, Orlando, San Antonio and Sacramento: With likelihood in roughly that order. All roughly the same sized metro areas. At least one, if not both of the next expansion franchises will be in these cities. Charlotte and Portland have the edge because they're farthest from an exiting franchise. While these are all safe bets, I'm not sure why you'd volunteer to be the next Cincinnati or Pittsburgh. It's hard enough to be an expansion franchise without being an expansion franchise in the smallest market in the league. 4. San Juan, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic: The largest Caribbean cities in the most stable countries of the Caribbean. In terms of size, these metro areas are actually larger than the previous group. They just have a bit less money. San Juan, due to its being integrated into the U.S. economy, would be the favorite. You can add Havana, Cuba to this list if the political climate between the US and Cuba ever thaws. 5. Smaller U.S. city: Las Vegas, Indianapolis, Nashville, etc. Starting to get into the area of fewer than 2 million people in a metro area. Can you actually run a baseball team when you require on average, every man, woman and child in the area to each attend a game to make a profit? Kansas City, with a good team, is struggling to get 2 million in attendance this year. Can you imagine the problems a team in a metro area half that size (Buffalo or Salt Lake City, for example) would have in getting attendance? 6. A third NYC or LA team. A second Philly or Boston team. At some point it makes more sense to put a third team in a metro area of 18 million or a second team in a metro area of 6 million than to try to get a first team in a smaller metro area. Obviously, the existing teams will have a problem with that - see the ugliness going down between the Orioles and Nationals as an example.

Don't forget that .369 SLG! Revere is arguably having the worst .300 BA season in baseball history with a .700 OPS to go with his .314 BA. He was even worse last year with a .305 average and a .691 OPS, but didn't have enough PAs to qualify. I was curious to see what the smallest all-time differential between BA and OPS for a .300 hitter was, but couldn't find it. There were a number of articles (like the one I linked above) that looked at wOBP, OPS+, or WS.

I think Bryant would be right and Soler left, with the way things stand now. I think the only reason Soler is in right now, is because Coghlin is so hilariously bad at defense and left field is the safest place to put him.

Especially Rizzo.

Put him in the Hall of Fame!!!

Cubs play the Yankees next year? Alex Rodriguez.

Not remotely irrational I'd go so far as to say probable.

With a 5.88 ERA and a 4.26 FIP (3.86 career), you have to wonder if Masterson is turning himself into a Chris Bosio Reclamation Discount Special. ...and am I the only one irrationally enraged by the Cardinals' winning record with a negative run differential? This totally means they're going to win the World Series, right? ...and Jerome Williams? THE Jerome Williams? It's amazing to remember how young he was when he was with the Cubs. He had a relatively decent year on an awful team after picking him up while jettisoning LaTroy Hawkins. Then... dude just dropped off the map. Pitched 46 MLB innings over the next 5 years. And then all of a sudden, he's back in the Bigs and pitching as a replacement level guy. I don't know what happened, if he got hurt or just was lost in the shuffle or whatever. But I really want it to be some sort of Moe Berg-esque spy drama. Like maybe he had to go undercover to bust a drug cartel or something.

We had a John Baker thread not too long ago that turned into a discussion on the single worst year by a Cubs position player. Somehow pitchers were spared. In the spirit of that thread... Edwin Jackson's -1.9 pitching WAR (assuming he doesn't pitch again for the Cubs this year) would be the worst single season WAR by a Cubs pitcher since... Kyle Farnsworth's -2.5 WAR performance in 2002. Kyle had a 7.33 ERA in 46.2 innings. His FIP was "only" 5.10, though.

Hey, we're only 10.5 out of the wild card. That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!!! Let's do this!

Based entirely on brief skimmings of third hand scouting reports, I have a feeling this guy will be more Kosuke Fukudome than Yasiel Puig.

Edwin Jackson had the reputation of being a bit of an enigma before ever coming to the Cubs. The FIP-ERA discrepancy is weird. No one else on the Cubs has had that to that extent since Bosio's been there. Maybe Jackson isn't pitching to his defense? Wood could just come down to luck. His difference in FIP between this year and last (3.89 to 4.21, with a career FIP of 4.12) isn't that extreme. Is there any reason to think he can't revert to a low-4s ERA next year? If he can do that and pitch 180-ish innings, he's a perfectly decent 4th starter type pitcher, only 27 with a couple more years of team control.

Sorta. But another nice start.