Number one on the trading block?

Cubs headlines these days area boring and depressing. So I’m skipping them. Instead, we’re having a community roundtable discussion. Kind of like the Algonquin Roundtable, but not as  . . .  intellectual. Or smart.

Twitter was all abuzz yesterday with a report from Bob Nightengale that Theo had made it known around baseball that Starlin Castro could be had for  a few “impact prospects.”  From another corner of the internet came this little gem: The Cubs will trade anyone but Jeff Samardzija.

Never thought I would hear those words.

So, I want to know what you think about each of the players below. Trade bait or not trade bait? And don’t give me that “every player has a price and if what’s offered exceeds the price, you trade” stuff. We all read Moneyball. I want to know if you, as GM of the Chicago Cubs, would actively shop the following players:

Starlin Castro

Darwin Barney

Jeff Samardzija

Carlos Marmol

Ryan Dempster

Matt Garza

» Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: Should he stay or should he go?”

Three days ago, we were fans of a team who had recently lost 12 consecutive games. Now, we’re fans of baseball’s greatest team, and its greatest slugger, Darwin Barney hit a walk-off home run yesterday. How’s that for some drama? Darwin, how did it feel, taking in that moment, seeing your home run land in the left field bleachers?

‘‘It was the first walk-off home run I’ve ever had at any level,’’ said Barney, who did it on a 1-2 breaking ball with two outs off Dale Thayer. ‘‘I didn’t see it go out. I was just running, running hard. It’s crazy.’’

He needs to take some drama lessons from the Fonz. The big comeback wouldn’t have been possible had Ryan Dempster not allowed the Padres 6 runs yesterday. What happened with Mr. Dempster?

“He didn’t have his split, he didn’t have his slider “ said manager Dale Sveum. “He was kind of out there without a lot of bullets, and he could not keep his fastball down when he threw that.”

I guess it’s a good thing the wind was blowing in yesterday. But how about the bullpen, eh? They pitched 4.2 innings of scoreless ball after Dempster left the game.

“We’ve been tremendous this whole homestand really,” Sveum said of his relievers. “I think we gave up one run maybe. Marmol did a nice job after walking a couple guys, came back threw strikes. Russell made a huge pitch again. I can’t say enough about Russell and what he’s done. It’s just been great.

“The bullpen has just been doing a great job.”

You saw that right. Despite walking two in the seventh inning, Carlos Marmol pitched a scoreless frame.

» Continue reading “Thursday Headlines: Cubs To Petition To Play Padres 162 Times”

Alfonso Soriano continued his hot streak yesterday with another home run (7 in 13 games). He also made a diving catch off those rickety knees and got a double play out of the deal. So, Alfonso, how does it feel to be hitting again?

“I’m feeling so good at home plate right now,” Soriano said. “I know I didn’t hit (a home run) in like six weeks but sometimes it’s so difficult to hit one. Now I feel so good and I’m happy to help the team to win.”

Dale Sveum, is your continued confidence in Soriano being validated?

“Hopefully when the season’s over that media guide doesn’t lie,” Sveum said. “When you get enough at-bats for these guys who have had a track record like Soriano you look up sometimes and they might be struggling for a month and you look at the end of the year and they have their 30 home runs and 90-100 RBIs. It’s the way these guys are.”

And back to the Fonz, what’s up with your improvement in left field this year?

“I was working hard in spring training with (outfield coach) Dave McKay and I’m working hard in the season too,” he said. “I try to get better every day and prove to myself that I can play very good defense. That’s all I do is to work hard every day to get better.”

It is nice to see him giving max effort, despite the fact that he limps like he’s had both knees replaced.

» Continue reading “Cubs Wednesday Headlines/Game Thread: Cubs Continue Rise To Top”

And so is the losing streak.

Honestly, I was to the point where I didn’t really mind the streak. The last thing we need this season is a bunch of yahoos (read: Tom and Todd Ricketts) getting the idea that this team could compete and trying to hold on to the likes of Matt Garza and Ryan Dempster at the trade deadline.

And frankly, after the (fake) twitter storm that suggested Anthony Rizzo was being called up Sunday night ended in disappointment, seeing how long the streak would go was really the only thing I had left to hold on to. That and the prospect of the #1 pick. Alas, the Cubs can’t even lose properly, which they proved by out-slugging the Padres yesterday.

Left fielder Alfonso Soriano hit a go-ahead two-run home run in the sixth inning as the Cubs put on their most impressive offensive performance of the season, snapping their 12-game losing streak in an 11-7 win over the Padres.

Cubs manager Dale Sveum admitted the victory wasn’t just one in a 162-game season.

“Let’s not kid yourself. You lose 12 in a row and you finally win … it’s a big relief for all them guys,” Sveum said. “It’s tough. It shows you sometimes how tough it is to win a Major League Baseball game. To lose 12 in a row — hopefully something like that gets everything going.”

Soriano finished with three hits and drove in three of the Cubs’ season-high 11 runs, while Bryan LaHair also had three hits in his first multihit game since May 14.

» Continue reading “Cubs Tuesday Headlines/Game Thread: Our Long National Nightmare Is Over”

The Cubs’ losing streak reached a dozen games yesterday. At this point, none of us go into games expecting a win, but with Matt Garza on the mound, you might have expected a game closer than 10-4.

Garza put bookends on a brutal road trip when he gave up six runs (five earned) on seven hits and a walk in five innings Sunday in a 10-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. That one unearned run is misleading since it was Garza’s own error in the first inning that put a runner on board beforePedro Alvarez crushed a three-run home run.

Matt, anything to say?

“The last couple have been frustrating but you have to keep going and keep grinding,” Garza told reporters in Pittsburgh, including an ESPN 1000 correspondent. “I’m going to keep going at it. There is nothing else I can do. Just keep going every day going hard and grinding it out. It’s going to turn. It’s gotta turn.”

Mr. Sveum, any thoughts?

“He was getting beat by pitches he shouldn’t be throwing people, really,” manager Dale Sveum said, “He was getting beat by is fourth best pitch and he had a great fastball today. I don’t know why he wanted to use those pitches but it came back to haunt him, that’s for sure.”

It was offspeed stuff that did in Garza at Houston as well.

“I’ll have to talk to him again,” Sveum said. “He got into a situation against a couple of guys where velocity gets them. He decided to throw changeups. It’s not exactly protocol or what the game plan was. It’s unfortunate. They hit them out of the ballpark. A lot of times they will roll over on them too but that’s the way things are going.”

» Continue reading “Cubs Memorial Day Headlines/Game Thread: On to 13″

If you didn’t catch last night’s game, Cubs pitchers walked eight batters and hit two more. One of the HBP happened to be in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, leading to the 11th straight loss. Poor Dale Sveum has to keep coming up with ways to describe why the team lost.

“You’re not going to come out on top when you walk that many guys,” manager Dale Sveum said. “You can’t throw strikes to finish a game off. So, we’re having trouble with Dolis right now, throwing back-to-back strikes.”

Oh, and there were two runners thrown out at the plate. Despite all the horrible baseball around him, Ryan Dempster isn’t dying to be traded.

‘‘I love being here, man,’’ said Dempster, who has the sixth-best ERA (2.14) in the majors. ‘‘I love being a part of this organization.’’

(snip)

‘‘I want to be here and be part of what’s going to be a bright future,’’ he said. ‘‘Sometimes you have to endure some of the tough times in the present to get to that. We’ll just see how it goes.’’

Ryan, you’ll probably be 50 by the time the bright future gets here.

» Continue reading “Cubs Sunday Headlines/Game Thread: The Quest For 12″

See that water falling around Paul Maholm? That's Pirate Fans' tears.

Let’s just hit the highlights here:

• The Cubs are back at PNC Park tonight at 6:15 pm on FOX
• The Cubs are playing the lowly Pirates, who are AHEAD of us in the standings
• The Cubs are trying to avoid losing 11 games in a row

That pretty much sums it up. I’m torn about whether I want to see this team break the losing streak, or keep going and see how many games they can actually lose. Is that wrong? Eh–it’s not like it matters, anyway.

Paul Maholm (4-3, 4.73) is back in his old stomping grounds tonight to take on Kevin Correia (1-5, 4.50). If you believe Len, the fact that Paul Maholm is back in town is responsible for the Pirates drawing 25,000 fans in this series. I, for one, call shenanigans on that theory. Pirates fans are notoriously horrible–I doubt they even know Maholm plays for another team yet.

» Continue reading “Cubs Live Game Thread: Here We Go Again”

I’ll post as soon as I have something to say that doesn’t involve so many expletives.

While we are in dead last place with the worst record in baseball, our boys are back at it again tonight in Pittsburgh. The upside is that the Pirates (20-24) are last in the majors with 126 runs scored, and their team .217 average ranks last in the NL. The Pirates have been held to one run or less 14 times.

Yes. It’s bad:

The Cubs (15-29) have the worst record in the NL after falling 5-1 to Houston on Wednesday, marking their ninth consecutive defeat.

Chicago, which hired Epstein from Boston in the offseason to run its front office and revamped much of the roster, hasn’t lost 10 straight since dropping its first 14 games of the 1997 season.

“It’s getting very tough,” said bench coach Jamie Quirk, who filled in Wednesday for manager Dale Sveum as he attended his son’s high school graduation. “This game is so mental because day in and day out, it keeps coming at you. Obviously, you wipe it away and show up the next day wanting to win, but losing is never fun.”

Dempster (0-2, 2.28 ERA) expressed a similar feeling after allowing four runs in six innings of a 7-4 loss to the Chicago White Sox on Saturday — his second straight game giving up four runs after allowing two or fewer in each of his first five outings.

The Cubs are 1-6 in his starts, with Dempster making some dubious history along the way. No pitcher has had a better ERA through his first seven starts without a victory since the New York Yankees’ Whitey Ford started 0-3 with a 2.03 ERA in 1966.

» Continue reading “Cubs Live Game Thread: Hold Your Breath”

If you weren’t up early listening to 670 The Score this morning, you missed some great Cubs radio. First, Peter Gammons was on talking Chicago baseball and making some interesting comments about the Cubs. Then Tom Ricketts was on, answering questions about Papa Joegate and the renovation of Wrigley. Both were well worth this listen.

Let’s start with Gammons. I only caught the tail end of this interview, but Peter made the point that, with the extra wild card teams being added, more teams are going to be in “all in” mode at the trade deadline. For that reason, he thinks the Cubs can get 50-75% more value in return for players like Garza and Dempster, who he almost certainly expects will be traded. This is good news for Cubs fans long-term, though probably not in the next two years. Gammons did say, however, that Jed managed to turn San Diego around in only two years. I’m hoping he was talking about the farm system/prospect list, because, last time I checked, the Pads were in the basement.

You can listen to the entire interview here in Hour 2 of Mully & Hanley’s Show.

» Continue reading “Cubs Friday Headlines: Wrigley Deal Is On Track”