Jeff’s expression completely mirrors my feelings on a Jeff Keppinger signing.
Tired of the Cubs not making a big splash in free agent signings? Sick of hearing the names of no-name prospects bandied about (well, I mean, they HAVE names, we just aren’t familiar with them)? Ready for the Cubs to go out and make something happen?
How does the idea of Jeff Keppinger at 3rd base grab you?
Seriously–that is the rumor I woke up to this morning. And promptly got into a twitter argument with one of my co-workers over. This wound up being one of those arguments where I vehemently argued that I DID NOT WANT JEFF KEPPINGER AT ANY COST, and started pulling stats and split stats and looking for analysis on the EVIL, SOUL-SUCKING JEFF KEPPINGER, WHO MUST BE KEPT FROM THE HOME TEAM CLUBHOUSE AT WRIGLEY FIELD AT ALL COSTS.
And then, like, 45 minutes into the conversation, I realized that I kind of don’t care if the Cubs sign Jeff Keppinger. I mean, he’s not exactly Mike Schmidt, but he’s not Ian Stewart, either. And ever since Stewart proved to be a whiny cry baby on Twitter, I’m kind of over him. So bring on Keppinger. Bring on Dallas. This is Mike and Papa Bear Halas. Or something.
As I’m sure you heard, Manager Dale Sveum continued to initiate all his Brewers bros into the Cubs frat house:
The Chicago Cubs are adding former Milwaukee Brewers slugger Rob Deer as a staff assistant, to work alongside hitting coach James Rowson.
Deer will serve in the same capacity as Mike Borzello and Franklin Font, helping prepare players for games but not being in uniform with manager Dale Sveum, Rowson and five other coaches during games.
Deer’s hiring hasn’t been announced by the Cubs but was confirmed by a team spokesman Monday.
At least they have the decency not to trot him out there during games. At this point, I’ve pretty much concluded that 98% of hitting coaches are completely worthless. If I ever hear one of them say anything other than “His timing is off,” I’ll consider revising that assessment. More importantly, what would a Cubs frat be called? Kappa Upsilon Beta? Lambda Omicron Sigma? Discuss.
Finally, and apropos of nothing, if you haven’t read this hilarious take-down of Liz & Dick, you are are really, really missing out.
Julie, I talked with my friend in Florida over the weekend & they are still hearing that the Cubs & Marlins have been chatting about Stanton. He said what they have heard is a possible package of players is being worked on. I still can’t find anything online, do you think it might happen or wishful thinking?
It ain’t happening. You can talk about rumors all you want, but this would be quite counter to what the Cubs have been trying to do over the last 13 months.
If the Cubs trade for an established player, they would either be purging some higher paid veterans (Soriano or DeJesus) or would only be willing to give up one to two prospects…and the player in return would need to be a pitcher.
Nothing as far as Stanton would make sense for the Cubs right now. He’s not a pitcher. He would require a substantial haul of prospects. The Marlins aren’t willing to take on payroll, so trading veterans like DeJesus or Soriano is out.
I just don’t see anything here but a baseless rumor.
The only scenario I see as viable is if the Cubs have decided that Josh Vitters and Brett Jackson and possibly even Trey McNutt are all broken beyond repair due to their corruption in the old Cubs farm system so they have decided to move on, and they convince the Marlins that these players still have a lot of value. I don’t see the Marlins buying that, though.
Honestly…I don’t see Jeff Keppinger being a significant improvement at 3B over some of the other clowns the Cubs currently have in their system.
Sounds like the Cubs are attempting to sign former Ranger, Scott Feldman.
I think he had a really good season like 3 or 4 years ago.
It’s official.
One year deal.
$ not known yet.
$6 million plus $1 million in incentives.
almost any deal that include the phrase “1 year deal” I’m ok with
What if the Cubs signed me to a 1 year deal?
Eh, why not. Post game interviews would be entertaining
The child actor?
I’ll be honest there is very few players that the Cubs could sign this season that would make be sit up and take notice.
I’m ok with that though, which might be the larger point.
“Cubs Frat HOuse,”- I’m gettign a mental picture of Dale greetign Rob Deer, handing him a robe, and directing him to sit in a hunting lodge kind of place. And as for the name of a Cubs frat, maybe “Rama Lama Dig Dang”?
Marvin Miller died.
Thank you Marvin for creating rich arrogant asshat player attitudes and $250 seat prices.
You really helped the game….NOT.
There is so much wrong with this statement I don’t even know where to start.
I’m starting to think dabirdguy is actually Jeffrey Loria.
Oh…and the billionaire owners really should be making more money than they currently are….poor guys. Baseball would be much better if the owners were more profitable.
Marvin is the one that got binding arbitration pushed thru.
The salaries can only go up because of this.
The owners are making money, yes, but the price of seats is prohibitive now because of the arbitration process.
Are any one of you willing to tell me you REALLY believe a baseball player should earn 50-1000 TIMES the average salary here in the US per year???????
If the owners are willing to pay it, that’s fine.
Marvin created a fair and competitive system…about as american as you can get.
Look…if baseball franchises were going bankrupt and attendance was plummeting, you’d have an argument. But they are not and baseball is raking in the cash and people are going to games and watching games on TV. If you don’t like it, then stop watching. It’s the fans’ fault that these players are getting paid so much.
I’m not sure it’s anyone’s ‘fault’.
Owners had such a lock on players’ careers for decades and this was really the only outcome.
Excessive outcome? Of course. It’s kind of a metaphysical result to Newton’s 3rd Law of physics: Every action has an….etc. And the bylaws written in were put there for protection.
And if the pie gets bigger, well, the players have come to far to let greedy owners try to trim their size of the slice.
The players are at least still held answerable to the ‘errors’ of their ways through being released, paycheck raises or cutbacks based on performance, etc.
Unfortunately the owners are answerable to no one.They can hold communities hostage. Bankrupt their own franchises and still walk out free and rich(McCourt). And really have no standard of trurh to which they must adhere.
Apparently Keppinger fell down the stairs in his house, and broke half the bones in his body or something. So the Cubs are backing off.
I would have thought he would be more attractive to the cubs in that condition.
As a “fixer upper”?
OT and don’t know if this has been mentioned on here yet, but did you all know that the Kane Country Cougars are now affiliated with the Cubs??!! Just starting this season, they’re Cubs A-ball.
Always thought it was odd that they were with the A’s, the Royals, etc instead of the Cubs.
This was announced back in September. They ditched the Peoria Chiefs (who are now affiliated with the Cardinals) in favor of Kane County. I think it was a really good move by the Cubs to do this.
Couple years ago I saw A-Ram and Reeedz play rehab games with the Chiefs in Kane County, that was kinda fun. It’ll be neat to see some guys play in such an intimate setting, not that I wish any player ill…
Anyone want to play in a 20-team, 3-keeper Yahoo fantasy league? Lemmeno . . .
Not me. It’s takes too much time for me to be in one league as it is.
The Feldman pickup is actually a good move. The Rangers have a serious lineup of starting pitching and Feldman wasn’t pitching every 5 days and that throws a man’s game off. I like this move and I am starting to appreciate the rotation that we have now. I might be nuts but I think we might have a very slight chance of actually competing in 2013.
Um…
what are you smoking?
must be some ‘Good Shit’.
but I like the thinking.
It’s the ‘Cub Way’.
His meds kicked in this afternoon…:)
While I sit here in Amsterdam you guy’s can keep up on the latest and greatest. No meds here but I was once roofied. Shark, Garza, Wood, Adams, Feldman and Vizcaino sounds alot better then what we had last year. Pffffffft
THE HOOSIERS ARE ROCKIN’ AND ROLLING, BABY!!