Cubs | The Baseball Zealot

Scott Maine to the Cubs

Here’s the Baseball Cube report on Scott Maine who the Cubs just picked up in the Aaron Heilman trade.

6’4” Maine (no relation to John) had a 10.0 strikeout/9 IP ratio over his minor league career but control might be an issue (55 walks in 120+ innings). The good news is that he seems to have settled down in that area in 2009 allowing only 22 free passes in 62. Not great but ok.

Maine hasn’t started a game since his college days at Miami. Since then it’s been strictly been out of the pen for him. He’s had his share of experience with pitching with the game on the line with 13 career minor league saves.

That said, the scouting reports on him show his prospects as a probable middle reliever. Now that he’s with the Cubs, I don’t see that changing.

Reports also say that he may be up a soon as early next year.

Cubs’ Ted Lilly puts his vote in for Reed Johnson

Does Reed Johnson deserve another year shot with the Cubs?

Ted Lilly thinks so. And he’s not shy about it, either.

So after the Cubs’ 4-0 loss to Pittsburgh in the opener of a doubleheader, Lilly entered the postgame interview room wearing a T-shirt that read: "With Reed We Will Succeed."

"Hey, I believe it," Lilly said. "I definitely enjoy playing with the guy. Regardless of what happens with any of the players next year, our front office is going to do the best job they can.”

Word has it that Lilly, Johnson, Ryan Theriot, Ryan Dempster and the now traded Mark DeRosa are a pretty “tight” group and Lilly doesn’t want to see this group split up anymore than it is already.

True, Johnson had a down year this year but in 2008 it seemed every time I turned on the Cubs’ highlights, there was Reed Johnson either making a fantastic play in the field or getting a clutch hit.

That all said, I think it’s time to get Sam Fuld a chance. At 27, he’s not getting any younger. It’s time to get him some more playing time.

Cubs’ Harden taking off the rest of the season

Rich Harden and the Cubs have agreed that the right-hander will take the rest of the season off.

“He doesn’t want to pitch and we respect his wishes,” Piniella said. “I spoke with him briefly and he’s not going to pitch any more. He’s done a real nice job here and the staff has done a nice job of keeping him nice and healthy.”

In an email, my friend DonS explained his thoughts on the matter. He senses a little behind-the-scenes agreement between the two. Here’s his speculation:

The Cubs agreed to let Harden take the rest of the year off, in exchange for a promise. Under the secret agreement, Harden declares for free agency, the Cubs offer Harden arbitration and Harden turns it down, as promised.

That way, the Cubs get the draft choices that the present team gets when the free agent turns down arbitration and Harden gets the rest of the year off with pay and becomes a free agent.

Thoughts? Is DonS on track or just a conspiracy theorist?

Former Illini almost catches Derrek Lee’s homer

On Sunday night, the Chicago Cubs beat the Reds 5-2 thanks to some timely hitting by some part-timers, Koyie Hill.

But Derrek Lee had a solo shot, too. And for those Illini baseball fans who were paying attention, they might have noticed who attempted to catch the ball.

None other than former Illini thirdbaseman, Dominic Altobelli.

Alas, Lee’s homerun ball bounced off the wall out of Altobelli’s grasp and went back in to the outfield grass.

Here’s the video of Lee’s homer and Dom just missing the catch.

Nice try, Dom!

Altobelli just finished his first season with the Casper Ghosts, the A affiliate for the Colorado Rockies.

Bring in (Jake) Fox

With the Cubs LF Soriano out now, maybe it would be a good time to get Jake Fox some playing time. He’s quite capable of playing left field.

Circling the Bases thinks so and I agree. Unfortunately, so far the Cubs have not taken that strategy. He hasn’t started since Sept 3 the last time Soriano played a game.

Milton Bradley: getting bad vibes, great obp

Say what you want about Milton Bradley but it doesn’t look like he’s having a good time in right field. According to beat writer Carrie Muskat, Bradley’s enduring a fair amount of “hatred” during games courtesy of Cub fans.

Bradley doesn’t hold back:

"All I’m saying is I pray the game is nine innings, so I can go out there the least amount of time possible and go home."

Wow. Good natured ribbing or fan abuse? Or just a over-sensitive rightfielder?

Either way, maybe the fans are targeting the wrong guy. It’s easy to look at Bradley’s season batting average of .259 and think he’s not pulling his weight. But look at his stats in the last 20 days. In that period, he’s batting .306 with a nifty .411 OBP (and that’s not including tonight’s game when he hit a homerun).

Since he’s moved to the second spot, the Cubs have leveraged his on base potential the best that a team in their position can. MB has had two 4-hit games in that same period.

So Cub fans, go easy on the guy. Pick on the beer vendor.

If I Was Their GM

spMETSKK33 Although I am a diehard White Sox fan and have loved them for over forty years, I couldn’t help thinking about how a couple of trades might really help the Chicago Cubs. Kevin Gregg has been a disaster as the team’s closer, with Carlos Marmol not doing much better. Perhaps Angel Guzman should be given a shot, but what this team really needs is a proven closer. Enter Billy Wagner, the going nowhere fast, New York Mets just brought Billy the Kid off the disabled list, and he looked like he’s still got it. Only thing is, the Mets signed KRod as their closer in the offseason, and are paying Wags bigtime closer money, even though he’s not closing. It might be a gamble, trading away a good young arm, but I would trade Angel Guzman for Billy Wagner. Next I’d be knocking on the Cleveland Indians door looking for a proven lefty relief specialist. Sure Sean Marshall has looked okay in that role from time to time this season, and Rafael Perez has been lousy all year. But I’d trade Marshall to the Tribe in exchange for Perez & his lefthanded nasty stuff. Wondering what you Cub fans think of my proposed deals, if you agree, contact Jim Hendry. I can’t believe I’m actually trying to help the Cubs. Sheesh, what’s next, a snake & a mongoose sitting down to tea?

Cubs show reason not to give up

The Cubs managed to avoid a sweep and more embarrassment as Rich Harden pitched a gem of a game against the Padres. Harden only allowed a hit in seven frames.

The best part of it is that Cubs came through with some offense too. Milton Bradley and Aramis Ramirez both banged out homers for the good guys.

Bradley, though he gets a lot of flack, has improved over the season. His second half number are looking a whole lot better. Since the All-Star break, he’s hitting .301 and perhaps more importantly, his OBP is .431.

Wednesday’s win is just one game, yes, but I think if it was a loss, we’d be seeing a whole lot more about the Cubs in today’s sport columns. And it wouldn’t be a fun read.

That’s not to say there hasn’t been calls already by the sports media for this season’s demise for the Cubs . Some of it probably fueled by GM Jim Hendry’s statement to the press that sounded almost apologetic:

”If things don’t go well, certainly it’s my responsibility. ‘That being said, we’ve got a real good team. We just haven’t played up to our capabilities. It’s kind of a mystery to all of us. We’ve got a lot of guys that have hit their whole lives who haven’t hit. We’ve done a very, very poor job all year of hitting with men on base. So it’s frustrating.

Before Cub fans start pushing the panic button, they should consider this:

The Cubs have a winning record in the second half of 2009 UNLIKE the first half.
It was not two weeks ago that the Cubs finished their best run of the season when they went 14-6.
The Cubs remaining schedule is full of teams they can beat up on. Washington, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St Louis (yeah, I said it, St Louis)

Right now though, the Cubs need to focus on the here and now. And the here and now is the Los Angeles Dodgers. Tom Gorzelanny will be facing Jeff Weaver tonight.

Interesting pre-game stat: Aaron Miles is 6 for 15 lifetime against Weaver.

Go Cubs!

Fuld is a numbers guy

Interesting piece on ESPN Chicago about Cubs OF Sam Fuld. Not only is he a decent outfielder but he is a stathead too.

"He was only 5 or 6 and he was already computing batting averages and ERAs," (father) Ken said. "He’d sit in the bathtub, and I’d say ‘If a guy goes 17-for-37, what’s his batting average?’ What struck me is that he’d perform these operations in very creative ways — not just that he got the right answer, but his methodology, adding in a factor and then dividing by 10, etc. I’d watch him and say ‘wow,’ just like I said ‘wow’ when he used to hit."

The love for stats apparently continued as he grew up. Fuld, an economics major at Stanford, even interned at Stats Inc.

Late-game shenanigans ruin Lilly’s return

I guess I’m glad I didn’t stay up for the entirety of last night’s Cubs-Padres pitching duel. That would have made for an angry bedtime.

Ted Lilly came through for a classic of a “first-game-back” performance that’s for sure. After a month on the shelf, he almost pitched TOO well. It crossed my mind that I’m sure they would want to be careful with him on his first day back on the job. As much as a traditionalist that I am, it would have been easier to pull Lilly had he given up a run. The Cubs didn’t have that problem though, taking Lilly out after 70 pitches and six innings.

They were pretty decent six innings at that. Lilly was helped by good defense most notably two 4-6-3 DPs. He spread out 4 hits and allowed no runs.

Lillly’s return would have been a great feel good story had it not been for the nasty combination of San Diego RF Kyle Blanks and Cubs “closer” Kevin Gregg. Blanks’ walk-off homer won it for the Padres and now has the Cubs wondering about the state of their bullpen. In the space of 2/3 of an inning, Gregg gave up all 4 runs to the Pads.

And with that inning, Gregg has most likely lost his job as the Cubs’ closer.

However, it would be easy and tempting to place all blame at the door of Kevin Gregg for last night’s loss. But let’s face it. We can’t expect Ted Lilly (let alone the bullpen) to pitch a shutout. While the Cubs were winning 1-0 going into bottom of eighth, a little offense isn’t a lot to ask.

As we saw with the series with the Phillies, it’s a question of timing.

With the Cubs’ bullpen in dire straits, Bleed Cubbie Blue wonders if we should sign John Smoltz who was DFAed by the Red Sox. Yes? No? I’m willing to try anything at this point.