The most exciting Cubs game since....?

Imtrejo — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 07:11:35 -0000

(Al, I hope I'm not stealing your thunder here.)

It was a great night of not so freezing cold baseball at Wrigley. It is my first game of the year, and another positive review for the new bleachers. The bleachers look great outside and inside. That's coming from an architect as well.
First of all Marshall looked OK, a little wild but effective. All in all a good outing for him.

The bullpen was solid, Wuertz did a good job finishing the fifth. Jerome Williams was shakey in his two innings of scoreless baseball, a few fortunate At'em balls.

The offense did it's job. Jacque Jones got his first hit and it was a big one, three run homer, he got another hit later. Barrett had his second big homerun in two games. Cedeno looks great at the plate, Murton and Aramis do not.

I moved seats this season from the section 438 to 434, what a difference that makes. The sight lines are much better. There seems to be a solid group of regulars in my section, a group of four of them must have drank 30 beers but never got out of hand. There was an altercation nearby, it had something to do with nacho cheese and somebody's face but was quickly taken care of.

Another odd thing I noticed was after the Barrett Grand Slam fans threw brooms onto the field. The thing was they left them out there for a full inning before anybody made an attempt to pick them up. An injury waiting to happen.

Next game Tuesday....

Our New Stolen Base Threat

Imtrejo — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 14:32:37 -0000

With our new center fielder being a base stealing threat, finished second in the NL last season with 57, I thought he may be able to challenge the long standing record of 67, by Frank Chance(a first baseman) in 1903. Although it may be a long shot at least it's a shot for a 103 year old record.
I did a little research on the Cubs woes in the stolen base department and was pleasantly suprised. I was expecting the worst and only got kinda bad, let me also say I do not believe SB's are any particular indication of a winning or losing team, as pointed out in the data I collected. 1998 and 2003 we are in the bottom third, 1989 in the middle, 1984 the top five. I just thought this may be interesting to research(instead of working).
The data only went back only to 1980(I do have a job, kinda)and up to 2004. The Cubs as a team ranked 18th with 2550. Now keep in mind that the Marlins, Rockies, Devil Rays, and Diamondbacks have only been around for ten years plus for some reason the Angles were split into the California and Anaheim Angels(adding the two would make the Cubs 19th) so we will dismiss them. Leaving the Cubs at 18th out of 25 teams. Compare that to:
HR-12th
RUNS-18TH
RBI-17TH
BB-21ST
If any conclusion can be made of this, I guess it would be that 12th in HR + 21st in BB + 18th in SB = 17th in Runs and 18th in RBI. So, being in a "hitters" ballpark the Cubs offense has finished 17th or 18th out of 25 in the past 25 years, the reason 21st in BB. Not a great analysis I know but interesting.
Anyway, the Cubs did have one sparkling year, 1985, in which they finished second in stolen bases with 182. They finished second to the Cardinals with 314. 314!! But alas, there was also 1999 when they finished last with 60.

My data below...

YEAR--SB--SB%--RANK---
1980 93 59 17
1981 72 64 16
1982 132 65 13
1983 84 68 21
1984 154 70 5
1985 182 79 2
1986 132 68 13
1987 109 69 22
1988 120 72 14
1989 136 70 11
1990 151 75 6
1991 123 66 12
1992 77 60 23
1993 100 70 18
1994 69 56 18
1995 105 73 14
1996 108 68 14
1997 115 66 15
1998 65 59 29
1999 60 57 30
2000 93 71 16
2001 67 65 21
2002 63 75 27
2003 73 70 21
2004 66 70 23

SB Nation User Blog: Imtrejo

The most exciting Cubs game since....?

Our New Stolen Base Threat