It was a day of mixed emotions for those of us in the “that Cub has great pecs” club. Mark DeRosa was signed by the Washington Nationals (we didn’t really want him back, but we did want those pecs back), but Reed Johnson re-signed with the Cubs.
“I think I’m at home here with the Cubs,” Johnson said Wednesday. “I talked to (manager) Dale Sveum for an hour. This is a very smart guy, who I think we’ll all enjoy playing for. He’s a baseball guy. He understands the little things, as far as winning on a daily basis.
“I’m just happy coming back to a great organization and a great city, where I’ve grown to be comfortable.”
Johnson hit .309 in 111 games in 2011. He credited hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo with his resurgence at the plate.
We’d grow to be more comfortable if you took your shirt off more.
If anyone’s been dying to hear a rumor about a once-great lefty pitching prospect talking to the Cubs, have I got news for you!
#Cubs have talked to both Maholm and Francis about filling a spot at back end of the rotation.
That’s Jerry Crasnick talking about THE Jeff Francis, who once was a good MLB pitcher. Get your hopes up now!
>>”He understands the little things, as far as winning on a daily basis.”
Score more runs than the other team.
I was going to highlight that part, too. What a goofy thing to say.
Winning on a daily basis isn’t a little thing. It’s the point of playing the game.
Great minds… blah blah blah
The Cardinals do the “little things”. That’s part of why they win with a bunch of guys named Skip Shumacher, one or two hitters and some serious starting pitching. That’s also why our friend Theriot sat on the bench for so long down there. He was one of those guys that do not understand what it takes to WIN. The Cubs seem to be in the process of weeding out the guys that don’t do those “Little” things.
And they cheat.
Haha!
I’m not going to get into it with you over how ridiculous this “little things” rant is. This isn’t what I was talking about. The way Reed worded his sentence made it seem like he was saying he and Svuem think winning every day is a little thing.
That’s Reedz taking a direct shot at Mike Quade, who is going to go down as one of the dumbest managers in Cubs’ history. And that’s saying something.
I still can’t believe Hendry chose Quade over Ryno.
You can’t believe Hendry chose Quade over Ryno? Really?
We’ve been spending the last 6 months griping about how dumb Jim Hendry was and you can’t believe he picked one of the dumbest managers in Cubs history?
I can believe it.
I want more trades.
I’m heading down to the Loop today. Between the train and Christkindlmarket, you guys should probably start getting my bail money ready.
WHY are going down there 2 days before Christmas, exactly??
Because that is what you DO in Chicago. You go down there, walk around Christkindlmarket, ooh and ah over things that come from Germany (but are really made in China), look at the windows at Fields, eat lunch at the Walnut Room, and then you brave the throngs on the train back home.
DUH.
Mmmm ‘k. No bail money from me then.
I’m not bailing you out of jail again.
Come on.
It’s tough love. I can’t keep bailing you out every time you get pissed off at the world.
Take pepper spray! Oops! That only works in Walmarts in CA…..
I wish I lived close enough to Chicago to get pissed off downtown and get thrown in jail.
This story makes me think about the time flyball and I ran into REEDZ and DeRosa taking BP under the bleachers. In tight, sweaty t-shirts.
And we enjoyed that.
And then you woke up.
Nope-and it was on LOHO Day, no less.
They were using the batting cages under the bleachers.
Flyball–help me out here.
*gasp* “Mr. Johnson, Mr. DeRosa!! Why are you taking your pants off???”
Bwow-ba-duh-dunnnn, bwow-ba-duh-dunnnn chuka-chuka-chuka, bwow…
And then she woke up.
You need some wah-wah pedal in there too…
That’s the “bwow”, geez can’t you read “porn soundtrack??”
I was thinking the “bwow”was more horns…sorry.
Horns??? What kind of fancy high-brow porn are you used to??
The kind on free cable, and what used to be on “NIght Flight”.(they called those “experimental films”…
In KY, we use a little “Brown chicken, brown cow.” Please no backwoods, redneck, KY jokes. Eventhough it would be well deserved.
I don’t even want to know what you mean by “use.”
The state designation is KY- what do you think?
DAAMMN!!! Use-to put into action
its true
and everyone wants batting cages by the clubhouse, whats good about that
Oh! Were they alone down there?
Looks like wee need some buckets of cold water around here….
on a daily basis.
GD, in case you’re lurking the mobile site doesn’t seem to be kicking in like it should be…
I noticed that a few weeks ago.
I just didn’t bother to tell anyone.
Thanks for nothing.
Do you want to hire me as a beta tester?
If it pays well enough you can quit that job you hate!
It’s not the job…it’s the career.
oh, yeah, i disabled it because it was causing a mountain of errors in the log. going back to the drawing board on that one.
Using my new tablet on the train. This thing is pretty sweet.
First the droid, then the tablet-what next? Holograms?
I can’t wait for the season for 1 big reason.When we start with this project-years-in-the-making team,the comments coming out of this website is going to be the stuff of a comedy series.One of you should seriously think of writing a pilot.These next 2-3 years are going to test the heart and soul of many,many of us.But LOHO will be the saving grace for us Cub fans.We will laugh at whatever pain and adversity the baseball gods rain down on us.And it will RAIN.I just wonder if the fans will have the patience for the time this rebuilding is going to take. This isn’t the Red Sox that Theo is taking the reins of.There was a good nucleus there when he started.Many a coach and writer has brought this up. And although I am high on anticipation to see the job I hope Theo will accomplish. I also wonder if he has bitten off more than can be chewed and digested.SLAY the GOAT,THEO.
This post would sound awesome if read in a Winston Churchill/FDR voice…
Or Patrick Stewart.
James Earl Jones…
Sean Connery
Gilbert Gottfried
Fran Dresher
these are the things that make this such a great site.
Jackie Mason.
that was a mistake.
who bailed you out?
She’s still locked up at County. They give you one blog post.
I bailed myself out. Tons of people wandering around aimlessly in the rain = no fun for Julie. Plus, I’m freezing.
Where did you get the money for that? Held up another liquor store, eh?
Completely unbaseball; Today is a wonderful day! Dallas is the least favorite team in America.This calls for an early beer. Where are my Cowboy buddies? Gotta find em.
Any word on the kiddies we’re getting from cincinnati??
I’m not even sure if the trade is official yet. It was a deal in principle last time I heard.
Supposedly, Marshall didn’t get his physical until 3pm today. Expect the deal to be announced tomorrow.
I just noticed that Boof Bonser was a free agent…..
Great baseball name!!!!
Slapshot is on tonight!
Manny Corpas is a Cub.
Yep.
It’s on his Wikipedia page already. Internet win.
Beat me to it.
Where did that signing come from??
A dartboard.
who?
A relief pitcher that had a good season 5 years ago and has sucked since.
Yep.
should fit right in
I don’t know about the rest of you folks, but I’m starting to not like Epstein as nearly as much as I used to.
DeJesus – Meh!
Stewart – Yuk!
Woods – Ewww!
Corpuscle – Huh?
I’m kinda trying to look at this like the Cubs are this big ugly rock and Epstein is this reknowned sculptor hired to make something lasting and beautiful out of it.
We all see him chipping away at the rock and at this point we’re all looking puzzled at what he’s done so far, scratching our heads thinking “This guy is a famous sculptor?”
Genius at work?
We’ll see.
Well, using your analogy then, you’re really jumping the gun on your disappointment with what Theo’s done so far.
He’s faced with a 2-ton block of granite and all he’s done to this point is choose his sculpting tools and flecked off about 12 ounces of stone. Give it a chance.
Personally, if I don’t see where he’s going with the team by *next* January, I’ll start to wonder.
I’m not surprised by the strategy he’s taking as I’ve felt that the existing roster’s been stale for the past couple of years and a complete rebuild was the best option.
But, it just seems to me that he’s being very “Hendryesque” by plugging in warm bodies where holes exist without acquiring anyone (prospect or otherwise) who can be considered a core component of a rebuild process.
Unless at least one of the prospects received in return for Marshall is rated as primo, my feeling will be that he should’ve been able to get more for one of the few trading chips of value he had available.
Other than that the plan appears to be to tear it all apart (which is good) and we’ll worry about the replacements later (which is wreckless).
It just seems to me that the Cubs (currently) are no more than an expansion franchise without the advantage of being allowed a player draft from other teams’s rosters.
the one thing that has been keeping me optimistic is that all of these contracts have been short term, the team needs to start somewhere with rebuilding, and if it means filling in roster gaps with (relatively) inexpensive short term halp while the long term problems are dealt with in a methodical and concerted fashion I’m going to give the new brain trust a year or two to figure it out
We all knew the team wasn’t going to suddenly have a huge turn around, but so far I’m not hearing anything that makes me worry about the long term viability of the club
His numbers are returning to those of his good season. Wip declining, K/9ip back to 6.8 before the tommy john surgury. If he gains the 2-3 mph most tommy john guys get he’ll be decent.
MLB trade rumors says the cubs are gonna blow up the roster before spring training.
Whatever. That comes from that stupid Kaplan article that basically summarized everything on twitter the last two weeks. I don’t think this is a surprise to anyone.
Yeah gravedigger, I’m equally dismissive of your heartfelt and sincere contribution to this site as the crabby and downtown-crowd-and-shitty-weather-addled Julie.
Why don’t you just fix the mobile site, huh??