Yesterday, there was news of Blake DeWitt to report. Today, there’s no such luck. However, Carrie Muskat did make a list of which number each player would be wearing this spring.
Pitchers
Lendy Castillo – #52
Paul Maholm – #28
Andy Sonnanstine – #21
Chris Volstad – #32
Casey Weathers - #56
Travis Wood – #30Catchers
Welington Castillo – #53
Steve Clevenger – #51
Jason Jaramillo – #38Infielders
Jeff Baker – #3
Adrian Cardenas – TBD
Junior Lake – #73
Anthony Rizzo – #44
Ian Stewart – #2
Josh Vitters – #61Outfielders
Tony Campana – #1
David DeJesus – #9
Dave Sappelt – #17
Matt Szczur – #72
Okay, you’re right. It’s not a list of every player, but new players or those with new numbers. It’s pretty exciting, no!?
![fiveonfive[1]](http://aeryssports.com/a-league-of-her-own/files/2011/03/fiveonfive1.jpg)
We need to do something about Szczur’s number. 72 on an outfielder is wrong…especially for a guy whom the Cubs have a lot of promise for.
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From all the news tidbits on that have been gathered over on MLBTR for Yoenis Cespedes, people are saying that he is hinting now that he wants to play for the Marlins and it is very possible that after his meetings today with Marlins officials, he will be given an offer by that team.
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/02/latest-on-yoenis-cespedes.html
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I thought he said outright that he wants to play in Miami?
i’m starting not to car. All of this is ridiculous for a 26-year old who has never played above AA.
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I’m on to hoping he signs somewhere else
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I don’t car either… whatever that means…
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I’m starting to not care either. I’m thinking the hype is beginning to supercede the reality.
Got a feeling the Cubs went thru the motions and will toss out a token offer to drive up his price in order to freeze out the Marlins from bidding on the Cuban the Cubs really want…. Soler.
Who fits in better with their plans and is said to have the same upside as Cespedes.
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I think most people are coming around to the idea that the Cubs want Soler as well.
I’ve heard little news from the Soler front over the last few weeks. I’m still not sure what his immigration status is as of right now.
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It’s all a chess game of outmaneuvering your opponent with a series of moves that ultimately gets you where you want to go in the end.
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ESPN ranked the players in the NL Central at each position…
Alfonso Soriano was ranked the worst left fielder of all six teams. That’s depressing.
http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/20589/nl-central-showdown-position-rankings
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Is it still depressing if it’s expected?
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When he makes $18 million for each of the next 3 seasons, it doesn’t matter if we expect it. It is still depressing.
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LOL–I think it’s funny.
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I’d think it was funny if it was for another team and he wasn’t making $37B or whatever for the next 23 years.
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I think it would be funny if someone other than the Cubs were paying him that outrageous money!
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Is there an echo in here?
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Yes…usually there is.
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I’m with ya. HYSTERICAL!But it give Slackerano a goal to shoot for.5th worst.
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It says a lot about how awful a job Hendry did.
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Even more telling is the fact that, with the exceptions of catcher and shortstop, the Cubs are flat out bad at just about every position. Even Garza is only ranked the 4th best #1 starter…and looking the 3 guys ahead of him, I can’t argue with that.
I do have a bit of a beef about their ranking of Marlon Byrd…he is not the 5th best center fielder in the division…by a long shot. The only starting center fielder on that list that is better than Byrd is McCutchen. So that’s a bit of a crock.
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4th best #1 starter has a nice ring to it… if you’re talking about all of MLB. 4th out of 6, not so much.
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And did you notice Wells is not in the rotation ?
but they may have ranked him 8th .
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lest we forget: after the Soriano signing the Cubs had 2 playoff teams, including the best Cubs team in decades (2008) and another one that was arguably better but missed the playoffs due to an epic string of injuries (2009). The Soriano contract was a bad contract but no one should have expected that Soriano’s legs would completely disappear so quickly. Not to mention that he was spending all that money under pressure from management, and supposedly wasn’t the one who signed off on the extra years for Soriano. /beats dead horse
My beef with Hendry was much more about the Cubs terrible drafting and player development during his regime and desire to field an entire team of 2b. At the MLB level, he did an okay job.
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If memory serves…the first two years Soriano was in Chicago, he well exceeded what most people would have expected from him from his contract. I think we got an overall negative impression from the get-go when he got off to that slow start in April of 2007 and we never forgave him for that.
Unfortunately after 2008, the wheels fell off which made every justify their dislike for him. And with his struggles, the teams success disappeared.
I said it in 2009 and 2010, unless Soriano played up to the level he did in 2007, the Cubs would not be able to succeed.
Like berselius said, Hendry didn’t intend to give those extra couple years to Soriano. If 2012 was Soriano’s last year, the contract wouldn’t have looked nearly this bad. We’ll never know for sure, but if they Cubs had offered 6 years at $100 million, Soriano might have come very close at making that contract worth the cost. (I’m sure the OV guys would have better insight on that.)
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I don’t remember the number that mb21 and I settled on but that sounds about right. The important thing to remember is to evaluate the deal at the time it was signed, not to look at the performance afterwords.
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Thanks…that’s a very good point. 6 years and $100 million, at the time, would have appeared to have been a fair deal regardless of Soriano’s expected degradation. While he did decline faster than expected, I think he exceeded his expected output the first two years of that deal. Looking at the money as a whole and not the fact that the contract was so back-weighted, 6 years seems like the right amount. But statistically, we all should have expected that, at the very least, Soriano would have still been at least a minor threat to steal bases up until this point.
Soriano fell off a cliff in 2009 and regardless of who signed him, no one would have expected that.
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The biggest area where his speed affects things isn’t baserunning so much as defense. He had crappy instincts when the Cubs signed him but his speed made up for it. When you watch him run now it’s clear his legs are all messed up.
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This was all arbitrary, one guy’s opinion.
Granted, it all kinda is. But I don’t get depressed over one guy’s opinion.
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Yes, but look at that list and tell me he’s not right.
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I love when the beat writers gt as bored as us
tomorrows topic “what did the Cubs players have for breakfast this morning?” the only question is which player will comment on being excited for the season and the clubhouse chef since they “don’t really cook at home, usually its just some cereal or something, I can’t even make coffee haha”
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Have we ever gotten confirmation from anyone outside of that guy from ESPN Deportes that Concepcion was actually signed to a major league contract? He isn’t officially listed on the 40 man roster yet and no move has been made to fit him on. (Someone will need to be booted off.)
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>> (Someone will need to be booted off.)<<
Like that'll be hard to do!
I read that they're waiting to give Concepcion a physical before it's official.
Maybe the guy's afraid of doctors and has an aversion to physicals.
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I still think it is ridiculous if it is true that he got a big league contract…but with that said, I wonder who will be moved. I would assume it will be a pitcher…most of the position players would seem to be locks right now.
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My guess would be Casey Coleman
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I was going to guess Scott Maine…but Coleman is possible too…I don’t see any pitcher on the roster clearing wavers, so whoever it is, they won’t be a cub much longer.
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They keep talking about Maine as one of their middle relievers but no mentions at all about the infamous Casey Coleman.
If I were him I’d be packing lightly going to AZ.
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Where is that Casey Coleman fan at so he can yell at you because no one ever give Coleman the benefit of a doubt?
That guy was hilarious.
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That fan is probably sitting in a corner somewhere sobbing that the world does not recognise the greatness that is Casey Coleman..
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when I read (even if it’s only partial)the roster list all I could think was that it was a veritable list of ‘Who’s Who???’.But I wish them all the best.GO CUBS!!
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The way the roster looks to me, the Cubs would save some serious bus money by just buying their own bus to shuttle players between Chicago and Iowa.
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I flash to the beginning of Major Leagues where the various fans are going “Who are these guys?”
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