The excitement of a new baseball season is upon us, with pitchers and catchers reporting to spring training yesterday. But before we lookat the promise of a new season, we must discuss two corresponding roster moves made by the Cubs. Scott Hairston’s contract was finally announced, and that meant that one person had to be booted from the 40-man roster. While most people around Chicago assumed that Tony Campana would be getting the boot, there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth when everyone’s favorite spunky little outfielder was designated for assignment.
“It was a difficult call,” team president Theo Epstein said. “We hope we can still keep him in the organization. That would be the best outcome, if there was some way for that to happen. Obviously, he’s one of the best baserunners in the league and could be a weapon for a contending team in a certain role.”
As Doc pointed out in the comments of yesterday’s thread, most teams right now probably have a full 40-man roster. This means most teams would have to DFA someone else to claim Campana, so odds are that he’ll end up at Iowa. So if you enjoy a guy that is super fun to watch the 30 percent of the time he gets on base, you may be able to see him in Des Moines this summer.
One player in the organization who has Cubs fans giddy is Javier Baez. And when he was given an invitation to major league camp this spring, irrational hope arose that he might be closer to the big show than we previously thought. Theo wants us to know that he isn’t closer than we thought.
“When a young guy’s name pops up as being invited to big league camp, often times people think it means he’s close to the big leagues,” Theo Epstein said Sunday. “In this case, Javy’s not. He’s got significant development still ahead of him. We’re really impressed by everything he’s done but he has a lot of work to do, he knows that. … He finished the year in high-A ball and that’s about where he’s going to start.”
Will he be getting time at positions other than shortstop?
“He’s a shortstop and he’s going to play shortstop,” Dale Sveum said. “If he happens to get in a game at third or second base, it’ll be because of flat numbers. It’s not that we need to take a look at him anywhere else — that’ll be a development question down the road.”
Watch out, Darwin Barney!
But even with the likes of Baez starting at Daytona this year, maybe he and someone like Jorge Soler will quickly rise through the ranks, and we’ll see them in 2014?
“We don’t have any young guys that we look at that have a really good shot to bust through and make the team,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll see them during the year.”
At one point in their news conference Sunday, Epstein added more to the prospect notion, unprompted by any question.
“We prefer guys to spend about a full year at the Triple-A level before they come up here,” he said.
I think that means 2015. Of course, prospects are prospects, and we may never see any of them. Have a great Monday!
“He could be a weapon for a contending team in a certain role.”
High praise there, Theo.
Given the wrath the Tony Campana contingent unleashed on us yesterday, I can’t wait to see what the Darwin Barney fan club has to say about this.
I sure hope that fan club isn’t very big.
That little snob.
Darwin will be with us for a long time.
Learn to love him. He is cocky. That is arrogant with the ability to back it up.
I see Castro moving to third or getting off-loaded via trade when the whiz kid comes up..
I’m not so sure about his long term prospects. In the end, I see Barney as a utility infielder on a good team. Maybe he’s a starter on a bad team (which is what he is right now), but he’s going to have so show some serious improvement at the plate this year for me to think that he’ll be more than a backup/utility guy when this team becomes competitive again.
This is a great and probably little-known story. I know I’d never heard of Edith Houghton before.
http://yhoo.it/YkcMFF
Me either, and I didn’t know there was a women’s pro league before the AAGBL. Good stuff.
So while my household watched the Grammy’s, I put in earphones and listened to the podcast. Nice job on it.
Anyone notice the change in Julie’s voice when she goes from just talking baseball to all legal lawyer. Woahhhhhh
Really? It changes? How?
You go from real laid back to all stern and talk faster. It was during the rooftop discussion when you started talking about the rooftop owners rights. I was like uh oh here comes the lawyer.
That’s also the point when she put on her witch’s hat and started flying around on a broom.
Haaa. I love it.
Hey, thanks. Spring Training for us, too.
Some people are afraid of clowns, I have figured out I’m afraid of photos of Tim Lincecum. I mean the site of the mf’er really disturbs me. Now that he cut his hair he disturbs me even more. Like seriously he makes my skin crawl and I don’t know why.
He cut his hair?
Yeah some sorta wierd troll doll/Harry Potter look.
Wow…
He looks like the love child of Rachael Maddow and that one kid from Third Rock from the Sun.
Is it like wierd that…that he disturbs me? I mean I get the feeling if I look at the photo wrong his magical powers might reach the photo and do something harmful to me.
Yes…it’s weird. He’s always struck me as a pretty harmless stoner. Now with that haircut, he strikes me pretty much the same way, just a bit nerdier.
Maybe he’s auditioning to join fun.?
He just looks like he smells to me.
I have one word for him: extensions….
No. No! I knew he looked like someone else, but I couldn’t put my finger on it…now I got it…
Cameron Frye (with glasses).
yesssssssss
Cam!!!
This reminds me that last night I was dreaming about Richard III, but Richard III was Tim Lincecum. Make of that what you will.
You dream about Tim Lincecum.
I’m convinced that’s exactly what a young Richard of York looked like. With the hair, of course.
God, I wish I could photoshop . . .
You really worry me sometimes.
Me too….she publicly admitted to smelling Tony Campana after the 1st pitch. Most fearless blog leader ask questions about baseball or something. What’s our fearless blog leader do….she gives the man a sniff test after the 1st pitch.
I didn’t SMELL him. He hugged me and I couldn’t avoid smelling him.
Someone during the Giants-Dodgers series made the same reference…
Theo Epstein:“We hope we can still keep him in the organization.”
Translation:”Meet your new Chicago Cubs Mascot!!”
I’d love to see him standing on top of the visitors’ dugout, taunting the opposing players…and if they get mad and want to beat him up, Campana can just run away and no one can catch him.
I too fully support the movement to bring back little people as team mascots. Perhaps mutton chops and ironic mustaches could be required for the middle relievers. I’d suggest it of the starters, but after seeing the growth on Garza’s chin…. Pretty sure whatever it was I was thinking goes without saying.
Oh, and if we can trade for a third baseman durring Spring Training, the team’s douche quotient will be down by at least 50% without a Campana or Stewart on the 40 man roster. That’s got to count for at least 2-3 WAdbR. I can deal with kids that are douches, but grown men in their mid to upper 20s pulling 6 figures plus have no excuse for being Peter Pan douchefaucets (again, looking at you Ian Stewart and Ian Stewart.)
Ian Stewart= Peter Pan Douschefaucet……….hahahahahahaha
T-shirts need to be printed with that…
So I guess Marlins single game tickets went on sale last week…..4 people total showed up. Sad Sad Sad
Wow. That is sad. I can’t believe that a whole 4 people actually care enough about that team to buy tickets.
I’ve just realized that we are going to have to deal with idiot Cardinals fans for the next couple months thinking that they are way more important than anyone else due to the fact that they think their team will be electing the next Pope.
You’re on today…
I’m guessing they’ll probably tend toward electing an Italian pope after the last two were non-Italians…so I’m guessing Tony LaRussa.
I’ve been away for a week…I’ve got some catching up to do.
How did you like CA?
We had a wonderful time. Lots of hiking, sightseeing and wine drinking.
I do need to make a mention about the truly sad state of the California state parks. It really seems like the budget problems took their toll on them.
Most of the parks people with any years on them were encouraged to retire, or quit and go work for the federal service. Those behind are part-timers, and some tea party/GOP types want all the parks run by unpaid volunteers. A few years ago, there were paid passes that helped defray costs, but some hikers sued and won;nevermind that a lot of the $$ was used to pick up the trash,diapers,and junk these hikers left behind. A lot of CA residents want the best parks,beaches, etc. and do not want to do/pay anything to help keep these places nice…..
Budget problems? Look again at the issue. Our former Director of the State Parks had been ferreting away cash for years. There were funds flush with cash for running the parks. They just cried poor when it came time to slow the cash flow.
Mismanagement killed the CA State Park system. Worst part was that there was never a need to close down or let maint. work slip in the parks. You never see the regional park districts in the Bay Area crying poor, and their parks are really well cared for.
I live in Southern CA, and the parks fall under the pension plan I work for. Most of the people with 15-20 years of experience, who are the most needed especially in protecting the parks from fire, were “encouraged” to retire, and/or quit and seek employment under the U.S. Dept of Agriculture…
The worst part about hoarding the money, was that a lot of people raised money doing fund-raisers to save their local park;they will never again believe anything is in danger after they found out about the secret funds…
Carlos Marmol has been pretty chatty with reporters about his “assault”.
I thought lawyers frowned upon their clients chatting about cases like that, regardless of whether or not the client actually did it.
Oh, I’m sure his legal team did coach him on the chatting. This is Marmol we’re talking about here. He’s pretty much a lost cause without old Rosetta Stone Rothschild beating the message into The Lone Carlos’ gourd.
He’s just talking in generalities. He’s not giving his side of the story, he’s just saying it never happened. I’d be okay with him saying that.
I am anxiously waiting for the cupcake truck to make it’s way to the Tower today. It’s been that kind of a day.
We get cupcakes tomorrow…one of the tech writers is bringing in the treats to mark a milestone on our project.
These are gourmet cupcakes that drive around in a van. They are my favorite thing ever.
Um, we have food trucks in my little rural community 90 minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge. Pretty sure you don’t need to explain the concept of food trucks in 2013, unless this is some sort of new Chicago thing that the rest of the world is patiently waiting for you guys to perfect.
I need to explain them to Doc. He’s from Wisconsin.
We have cheese trucks.
Oh, and gun trucks.
See?
I don’t particularly like cheese…
And going down to the gun truck probably isn’t a smart thing with my temper.
I’m from Iowa. What’s a food truck
Oooops, I forgot, we do have a food truck that comes to our office complex once a week. The company spells “bistro” as “beastro”, so I avoid it on general principal.
They must be really good cupcakes if they can drive a van.
Ken Rosenthol is still saying the Cubs are potential suitors for Michael Bourn.
http://www.albtraderumors.com/2013/02/michael-bourn-rumors-monday.html
oy
To say the least . . .
There’s like 1 person I’d drop off the 40 man roster at this point (Bowden). If it was $25mil/2 with the second being a mutual option structured with $12 mil in Year 1, $13 mil in Year 2/$5 mil buyout on 2nd year if Cubs decline the option, I might consider it.
Then again, if you make this deal, you start looking for a new home for DeJesus (two AA pitchers in return.) DeJesus is one of those borderline cases in the campaign for a douche free Cubs- he totally looks the part of the douchebag, but he can keep his mouth shut which makes me think he might not be douche-positive. Puzzling.
If the Cubs were somehow go insane and sign Bourn, Sappelt will be gone.
DeJesus probably isn’t tradeable for any even halfway decent prospects until July.
“Indians To Sign Michael Bourn”
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2013/02/indians-to-sign-michael-bourn.html
Whew, dodged THAT bullet . . .
Not so sure…
The Indians got him for only 4 years and $48 million. They got a great deal. Great deal.
Carrie Muskat shot down any rumors of potential interest that the Cubs supposedly had.
I’m amazed that someone on Twitter just sent me a very long apology when I got on him about 10 months ago about the fact that Tony Campana really isn’t very good.
He apogized, gave and actually said that I was right.
This doesn’t happen very often…a) I’m right and b) someone apologizes to be for thinking I was wrong.
That explains the pig that just flew by my window . . . .
Waiting for the same from all the people who yelled at me about Campana yesterday. . . .
I stayed off Twitter yesterday (as I was still recovering from vacation)…I’m glad I didn’t get involved.
I need a vacation.
My son appears to be potty training himself…
He stripped off all his clothes in the living room, along with his diaper. My wife goes over to help him put on a new diaper and he starts throwing a temper tantrum. Finally my wife lets him get up, he runs to the bathroom and sits on the toilet.
Obviously my parents, who watched the kids for us while my wife and I were away, are behind this.
Since we have no headline yet…I give you this:
Hunter Pence and Tim Lincecum doing impressions of each other:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BVFoCutAEQk