Chicago Cubs 2013 Ongoing Thread

[herky]

 

[HammerDown]

 

[BigDDude]

Something to make Cubs fans just a little happier today.

Carlos Marmol has been designated for assignment.

Marmol has been awful this season, making it easy to forget that not so long ago he was one of the most dominant relievers in baseball and his career ERA in 542 innings with the Cubs is 3.50. He’s posted a strikeout rate of at least 10.0 per nine innings every year since 2007, including 10.4 this season, but Marmol’s inability to consistently throw the ball over the plate made watching him agonizing all too often.
Among all active pitchers with at least 500 career innings Marmol has highest strikeout rate at 11.7 per nine innings, the highest walk rate at 6.1 per nine innings, and the lowest opponents’ batting average at .185. Unhittable when he threw strikes, unwatchable when he didn’t.
Marmol is owed about $5 million for the remainder of this season, so he’s likely to pass through waivers unclaimed and could remain with the Cubs in the minors if they don’t find a taker for him via trade. They’d obviously have to eat a bunch of that money, but Marmol is still only 30 years old and still incredibly tough to hit, so no doubt quite a few teams think “if we could just get him to throw strikes …” Chicago almost had Marmol traded to the Angels for Dan Haren this winter before Haren’s health issues nixed the deal and both pitchers have been a mess this season.

 

[herky]

 

[HammerDown]

 

[SirGladiator]

We're on quite the roll right now! We've swept the White Sox, we just destroyed the Angels last night, we're looking really good! We've got a lot of really valuable pieces to trade also, with Garza and Soriano's stock rising pretty dramatically lately, and of course any team in need of a closer would love to have Gregg. Gotta like the position we're in as the trade deadline closes in!

 

[BigDDude]

CHICAGO -- The Chicago Cubs, who waited decades to install lights at Wrigley Field and have waited more than a century to win a World Series, took a giant step toward ending the wait for something every other team in the majors already has: a JumboTron.

The city's landmarks commission, which must sign off on such plans because Wrigley is a city landmark, approved a plan Thursday to allow the team to build a first-ever electronic JumboTron and other sign above the ivy-covered outfield walls. It did so despite objections from the local alderman, who said the signs would harm the quality of life in the neighborhood, and rooftop owners, who complained the signs will cut into their views and devastate their businesses.



The full City Council still must give its approval. Traditionally in such zoning and development issues, the other aldermen vote the way the local alderman wants. But the tradition of doing what the mayor wants is even stronger, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel clearly wants this deal to go through.
In addition, the decision might have moved the Cubs and the city a step closer to a courtroom. The rooftop owners stopped short of threatening a lawsuit, as they have done in the past, but during the hearing they talked about the tens of millions of dollars they invested in their businesses after signing their own revenue-sharing deal with the Cubs.
"They call it a see-through sign," rooftop owner Mark Schlenker said of the planned sign in right field. "I call it bankruptcy."

For his part, Ald. Tom Tunney focused on what the JumboTron in left field would do to the neighborhood and asked the commission to imagine what a Jumbotron that is far bigger than the iconic scoreboard in center field would mean to residents right across the street.
The deal would allow the Cubs to erect a 5,700-square-foot JumboTron in left field of the 99-year-old ball park and a 650-square-foot sign in right field.
"The Cubs often point to large signs at Fenway and U.S. Cellular. Those signs back up to expressways, not people's homes," he said.
And he said the effects of the signs would be felt farther away.

"From blocks and blocks away, the light from the proposed ... JumboTron will flicker in living rooms and bedrooms throughout the ward," he said. He asked that the size of the JumboTron be reduced.
The signs have long been the most contentious piece of a $500 million renovation puzzle the Cubs have been trying to put together since the Ricketts family bought the team in 2009.
The Cubs have said that they need the advertising revenue the signs will generate to help fund the renovation project that the team is paying for without public money. Team Chairman Tom Ricketts even suggested in May that he would move the team out of the iconic ball park if he couldn't build the kind of signs the team wants.

Throughout the hearing, the talk was about what the Cubs mean to the city, the fans and residents of what is commonly known as Wrigleyville. Even the commissioners expressed concern that the Cubs were risking changing the ballpark so much that fans would turn away.
"You know you don't appreciate what you have until it's gone sometimes," Commissioner Mary Ann Smith said.
But Michael Lufrano, the Cubs' executive vice president for community affairs, said the team's owners have the biggest incentive of all to make sure fans continue to visit the park.
"We don't want to change it so people won't come," he said.
Emanuel said he is pleased that another step has been taken so that the Cubs can modernize Wrigley Field and the surrounding neighborhood has the investments it needs.
"We committed to a framework of an agreement, and today puts all parties one step closer to achieving the goals set forth in that framework," he said.

Thursday's hearing underlines the fact that Wrigley, famous for the storied billy goat curse and Babe Ruth's called home run shot, is unlike any stadium in the United States.
In fact all the emotion about Wrigley was on display during the hearing that lasted nearly six hours. Supporters of the new signs echoed what Cubs officials have said: That the advertising revenues generated by the signs will help the team win and keep them from abandoning Wrigley Field.
"If the Cubs moved out of the city, it will devastate Wrigleyville," said Cecil Bernard, a neighborhood resident.

But others scoffed at the notion the signs would help turn the Cubs into winners, noting similar talk surfaced before the Cubs erected lights at Wrigley in 1988. They also told the commissioners the changes threatened a singular live sports experience shared by generations of fans.
If the City Council approves the signs, the beginning of the major renovation project could begin as early as later this year. And if the signs do go up, everyone will be watching what they do to the views from the rooftops, where owner charge people to watch the games from bleachers built atop the buildings. The team is in the middle of a 20-year revenue-sharing agreement that calls for the rooftop owners to hand over to the Cubs 17 percent of their gross annual revenue.
Cutting into their views, say the owners, amounts to a violation of their contracts with the team.
The Cubs have said the signs would have a minimal impact on the rooftops and that the views would be "largely preserved." They have pointed out that the massive left-field JumboTron is in front of one of the few buildings that does not have rooftop bleachers.
At the same time, they've made it clear that minimal impact does not mean no impact, and if what they do to improve their business hurts the businesses that peek over their walls, so be it.

 

[BigDDude]

It was on this date in baseball history in 1910 that the legendary verse detailing the Cubs' double play combination of Tinker to Evers to Chance, entitled That Double Play Again, is published for the first time. When the 'New York Evening Mail' republishes the same poem six days later it will use the title by which it is best known today, Baseball's Sad Lexicon.

 

[anotheridiot]

So tired of the neighborhood and alderman already. Take the scoreboard to Rosemont, Addison, Arlington Heights, anywhere. Move out and watch these peeping tom millionaires property value drop like the rest of us in Chicago.

Honestly, I still wonder how some of these buildings got permits to put some 2-300 seats on their roofs which would somehow have to have had their buildings zone changed to run that type of business. The people I know that live in Wrigleyville hate the team. Wrigleyville, what are you gonna call yourselves if they move? Rickety ricketts needs to get serious in the threats to move. The right field sign was supposed to be 1000 square feet, they dropped that to 65%.

Personally, I would rather see a second deck erected around the entire field, put the tv screen on the scoreboard or behind the upper deck bleachers and let the peeping toms pay to see the games like they should...

 

[HammerDown]

 

[SirGladiator]

I don't think that guy will turn out to be all that good, he's more an emergency stop-gap measure because our outfielders keep getting hurt, and we need 'somebody' to send out there . Maybe we'll get one or two more outfielders once the trades start really rolling.

 

[anotheridiot]

whats the point, we have Junior lake in the minors hitting over .300, its time to let him up here. Let the rebuilding keep tearing down floors and putting up new ones, but eventually the rebuild means get the kids from the minors on the field so we can get excited, not constantly claiming guys off waivers or given their outright release.

 

[SirGladiator]

That's a good idea, I'd like to see that guy, I hear really good things. No sense in going and getting some crappy guy who's never going to amount to anything when we've got a guy who could be legit just waiting to go! Let's bring up Lake and see if he can lead us to the playoffs! Or at least to .500 .

 

[anotheridiot]

That's a good idea, I'd like to see that guy, I hear really good things. No sense in going and getting some crappy guy who's never going to amount to anything when we've got a guy who could be legit just waiting to go! Let's bring up Lake and see if he can lead us to the playoffs! Or at least to .500 .

I am not counting on playoffs, I am just saying I would be excited and start watching if we could see what the kids are doing, not waiting for these vets to be dealt at the deadline and more waiver claims playing in the outfield. They are thinking Almora and Soler in 2015, that gives one year to bjax and lake before we never see them again.

 

[HammerDown]

 

[SirGladiator]

They did what we asked! They brought him up, and he went 3-4! Now if he can just keep that up, he can stick on the roster, and we can make the playoffs!

 

[SirGladiator]

Lake 4-5 tonight with a homer and 3 RBIs, another incredible performance! This guy seems to have a mighty bright future ahead of him, if only he hadn't let that ball drop between him and Castro we might've had a Shutout tonight. Once his defense improves this guy could be the next Mike Trout!

 

[anotheridiot]

Each time I see the kids at bat he gets a hit, I miss it he makes an out. I will try to do better.

Yankees seem to be close on giving up one mid level prospect for the cubs to pay the bulk of Sorianos contract. I dont mind the move, just think he is worth paying less of the salary if we just get back a mid level guy. At least say he is an 8 million a year player and just pay 11 of next years salary.

I just hope that moves Lake to left and rehabbing BJax can get here to play center this year when DeJesus, Shierholtz and Bogi or sweeney get moved. Otherwise, why pay the yankees to take soriano if you are just gonna leave stiffs out there who will not be part of this future.

 

[SirGladiator]

I agree with that, but I'm afraid that Theo and company have been trying to trade Soriano for so long, that they're going to be happy if they can find a way to do it, almost regardless of who they get back for him. I agree we need some quality coming back, the Yankees are desperate and we can afford to eat salary if it gets us a major prospect. If we can't get a quality prospect, we definitely shouldn't eat too much salary, because the guy still has a lot of value, and he will be even more valuable next year, in the final year of his contract when there isn't nearly as much left to pay him. So I'd say either they give us a real quality prospect or we just hold onto him until next year's trade deadline (or maybe we could move him in the off-season, who knows) . I sure wouldn't be giving him away 'and' eating his salary, he's too good for that.

 

[BigDDude]

Talk about an interesting set of circumstances...........


It was on this date back in 2001 that Home plate umpire Angel Hernandez ejects Steve 'Mongo' McMichael from Wrigley Field as the former Chicago Bear football player is about to sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch. McMichael, presently a pro wrestler, tells the crowd over the P.A. system "he'll have a talk with the ump" concerning a close call made by Hernandez earlier in the game and then boos and blows a kiss toward the ump.