Cubs Chronicle responds to a article from Rick Morissey about the Cubs not pushing hard enough for Beltran. While Cubs Chronicle says he is glad the Cubs did not go as far as the Mets, the whole point Morissey tries to make is that the Cubs were delusional into thinking a top flight free agent would actually want to come to Chicago.
It seems to me that Morrissey didn’t have one point, but at least a couple: First, that the Cubs should have fought for Beltran like the Mets fought for him. It was this point that I discussed (and disagreed with) in my post.
Second, that the Cubs expect free agents to come to them, rather than the Cubs having to work to get them to want to come to Chicago’s north side.
Morrissey then fuses the two points into this: the Cubs didn’t fight for Beltran because they were arrogant and foolish enough to think he’d just come to them.
I didn’t address the second point or the fusion of the two points because they didn’t interest me. They read like column filler. Like a local columnist making a negative and provocative point for the sake of being negative and provocative, because he wants people to talk about what he says (which in turn helps him keep his job).
ChicagoSports.com—the web site of the Chicago Tribune sports section—now has what it is calling a blog. It’s called “What’s Goin’ On.” But is it really a blog if it doesn’t link to other blogs and doesn’t even have permanent links to the posts?
Scott Lange at Northside Lounge has part 1 of the Cubs Blog Army prediction contest posted. No winner yet, as the MVP has yet to be announced, but Scott notes the closest and furthest preseason guess on each question. I fear that I faired poorly in the competition. My name shows up just once in Scott’s list: I was furthest away on “How many games will LaTroy Hawkins save?” I guessed 3. Hawkins saved 25.
I think the most interesting result is that of question 14—"How many plate appearances will Moises Alou have?” Alou had 675 plate appearances this year. The closest guess to that question was 576, by Bill Kelly of Rooftop Report. In other words, out of all the Cubs bloggers who participated in the contest, not one was within 99 plate appearances, with everyone assuming Alou would be at least somewhat fragile this past year. I’d say it was reasonable for us to assume so. Alou’s 675 total this year was only the second time in his career he had amassed that many plate appearances, the other time being 1998, when he had 679 with the Astros.
Congratulations to both Derek Smart and reader Tom K, who, like me, just became proud fathers of baby girls! I’m having grand fun with this dad thing.
As you might have guessed (especially those of you with young children), the C&A Chron. isn’t going to be updated nearly as often as it has been over the past year. If you want to know when I have made the occasional post, be sure to either sign up for the notification email list on the left or watch for me (as well as much of the Cubs Blog Army) at the recent Cubs blog entries page at Baseball Blogs.
I have greatly enjoyed writing this blog, and the fact that you read it and post insightful comments has made it even more enjoyable. Given that I have now entered fatherhood, this blog will never be what it once was (except, perhaps, in about 40 years when I retire, not that it was much to begin with). But I will keep posting now and then. And I will of course keep cheering on the Cubs as I always have, and will enjoy teaching my daughter (and all my future children, should God bless me with them) the virtues of being a Cubs fan. Go Cubs.
The Cub Reporter compiled a Cubs roundtable discussion amongst the Cubs Blog Army. He’s got Part 1 of 4 up today. Be sure to check it, as well as the next three parts the rest of this week.
I’ve added a few new links to the left: GoCubs.org, which I previously noted was offering Cubs fans free e-mail, now has a blog (the free e-mail remains); and Cubs Kingdom, a Cubs message board; and Eamus Catuli, another new member of the Cubs Blog Army.
In Cubs news, in an article mostly about Mark Prior’s achilles heel problem (which he’s apparently had since September; my wife is a physical therapist, and she informs me that with proper care and rest this should have been fixed by now), the Chicago Tribune’s Paul Sullivan reports: “General manager Jim Hendry said reliever Mike Remlinger, rehabbing slowly from off-season shoulder surgery, is 50-50 to start the season with the team.” Kent Mercker appears confident that he’ll be ready to go after having some back problems, but if Remlinger can’t break with the team, there’s a second spot open in the bullpen. The Cubs will likely want a lefty, and “Baker mentioned lefties Carlos Vasquez, Renyel Pinto, Felix Sanchez and Jimmy Anderson as possible candidates.” Please, no Jimmy Anderson. And given Remlinger’s significant reverse-split, there would be no harm in going with a righty like Francis Beltran.
If you want to read baseball blogs without browsing each individual blog, check out Baseball Blogs, which I’ve used regularly since discovering it some time ago. Baseball Blogs aggregates blogs using RSS, giving you the headline, a short blurb, and a link to the full post if you’re interested. You can even read blog posts by team. Here’s the Cubs. Unfortunately, just six members of the Cubs Blogger Army are RSS-enabled. MovableType, which I use to run this blog, automatically creates an RSS feed. If you use Blogger, Baseball Blogs has an RSS generator. It’ll both increase your traffic and make it easier for us blog readers to read your blogs.
Brian Carstens is retiring while he’s still on top of his game. We here at The Clark & Addison Chronicle ("we” meaning me and Ernie the hamster) are sorry to see him go, but are glad he wrote as much about the Cubs as he did this past season. Thanks, Brian! You were always a joy to read.
View From the Bleachers is running a poll asking what your favorite Cubs blog is, excluding The Cub Reporter, which would get too many votes. Given my sporadic posting over the past few months, I’m not sure I deserve any votes, but I appreciate those who have voted for me, giving The Clark & Addison Chronicle a slight early lead. I myself voted for Northside Lounge, but there are lots of good Cubs blogs out there right now.
Chris Yarbrough of the Yarbage Cub Review has sent around an email questionnaire to the Cubs Blogger Army seekings responses for a story he is doing for class. Here were my responses to him:
1.) I would like a little background about why you became a Cubs Fan (growing up in Chicago or family etc etc….)?
Grandpa and WGN (i.e., the Cubs were always on).
2.) How much time during the season would you say that you spend on your site? Second part, how much time reading the other Cub blog sites?
This has changed since I exited law school and became a practicing attorney. I now have a lot less time during the day to read blogs.
3.) With the numerous Cub Blog sites, what do you think makes one site better the other?
To slightly change your question, here’s what I think makes a good blog: 1) regularly updated; 2) insightful commentary that I can’t get elsewhere; and 3) civil commentary. For that reason, I tend not to read blogs that just repeat the news (unless it’s news that isn’t receiving national coverage or coverage in the Chicago papers) or just post game recaps, because I can get those things elsewhere. It also helps that a blogger is occassionally funny. I also don’t read blogs with lots of swearing and/or have poor grammar. (I also think it’s important to keep in my mind that blogs are very individual. Different people like to write different things and different people like to read different things. So my list of what makes a good blog is merely what I like to read.)
4.) Why did you start publishing and writing your own site?
I like the Cubs and I like to write. Blogging satisfied both of those. Additionally, I like to talk to others about the Cubs. Whether through the comments on my site or through others’ blogs, I’ve been able to have a lot of good conversations with other Cubs fans.
5.) In regards to the major coverage (Trib and the Sun-Times), do you think the quality of writing is better on-line? What advantages do the Blog writers have that newspaper reporters do not?
6.) Over the past months I have seen that many more Cub Blogs have popped up(which could be a cause of the playoff run), but overall do you see a bigger trend this kind of coverage is more preferable than regular coverage? Do you think at some point a newspaper will have to make changes to keep the readers refreshed?
Generally, newspapers and blogs serve different purposes. Newspapers report news. Bloggers comment on that news, and on other things they observe (though we are starting to see some elements of traditional reporting within the larger blogger community). I personally would have a lot less to write about were it not for the newspapers. Other Cubs bloggers, though, rely less on newspapers than I do.
7.) What are some goals for your site?
I really don’t have any goals for the site. Given the time flexibility I had this past spring and summer, I don’t think I’ll ever be as prolific as I was then, which means my readership won’t ever be as high as it was then. I guess my only goal for The Clark & Addison Chronicle is to occasionally write something that some people consider worth reading.
The Cub Reporter has lost his home to the southern California fires. Say a prayer for him, and everyone else who has suffered some loss from the fires.
Speaking of Mr. Pie, his team is still going. Eric S provided a playoff update in the comments section of the previous post. And the Lugnuts won Game 2 of the best-of-five Midwest League Series last night. They’re now 6-0 in the playoffs. Felix Pie has been hitting lights out. Anyone around Beloit, Wisconsin might want to check out Game 3 tonight.
What the Cubs Blogger Army has been writing about the past few days while I was away:
The Cubs traded for Tony Womack from Colorado in exchange for Double-A pitcher Enmanuel Ramirez. As The Cub Reporter notes, Ramirez was putting up good numbers in relief, but he’s 23 and not considered a top prospect, which means the Cubs didn’t give up much. But did they even have to give up as much as Ramirez? Let’s Play Two links to this Rob Neyer column wondering what the Cubs are doing here (and what they’re doing with the rest of the acquisitions they’ve made). And here’s Lee Sinins in one of his ATM reports today on Womack:
After -23 RCAA/.652 OPS and -23 RCAA/.678 OPS seasons with the Diamondbacks, Womack is every pitchers’ dream, “hitting” .304 SLG, .251 OBA, .555 OPS, -32 RCAA in 83 games (61 with the Diamondbacks, 21 for the Rockies and 1 for the Cubs). He has a .675 career OPS, compared to his league average of .777, and -126 RCAA in 1002 games. Womack’s .158 offensive winning percentage is not only as offensive as they come, but he’d have to go on a big hot streak just to raise himself up to being as bad as an average Tiger. If you took a whole team of Womacks, they’d be an impressive 11 games behind the Tigers–and that’s assuming that they are given an average pitching staff. If they gave up runs at an equivalent rate below the league average as to how many they’d score, their 9-115 record would put them 22 games behind the Tigers.
Womack has the 4th worst OPS vs. the league average, among active players with 1000+ games . . . .
With Womack, Doug Glanville, and Randall Simon all on the same team, the Cubs’ out-making potential is off the charts.
On Saturday, I discussed some comments made by Jim Hendry regarding Mark Grudzielanek that seemed to me that the Cubs would try to upgrade second base next season. Brian Carstens goes a step further and states that he thinks (he’s 80% sure) that Grudzielanek won’t be back. The reason? The effect of arbitration. Read his post for his explanation.
Cubs Pundit looks back at some comments made by Jim Hendry and Dusty Baker before the seaon and compares those to how things have actually turned out. Pretty interesting.
On a final note, here’s Phil Rogers writing in Thursday’s Tribune: “The Astros could be without ace Roy Oswalt for the rest of the season. [ed.: good news for the Cubs] . . . Oswalt won 19 games in 2002, taking a 33-12 career record into the season. But so far he is 6-5 with a 7.62 ERA in 17 starts.” How does one get a 7.62 ERA out of a 3.23 ERA (Oswalt’s actual ERA)? I thought at first Rogers somehow multiplied 3.23 by 2, but nope, that’s not it.
