SB Nation User Blog: Mordecai

Guzman to start Sunday, Z to throw side session

Mordecai — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 14:20:09 -0000

Now, the Chicago Cubs won't start Carlos Zambrano in their regular-season finale Sunday against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Instead, it will be Angel Guzman, a Sept. 1 call-up who has appeared in only five games -- all Cubs losses -- and has a 7.04 ERA in 7 2/3 innings.

Cubs manager Lou Piniella said Zambrano told team officials he'd rather throw a side session in the bullpen instead of working the first couple of innings Sunday. If Zambrano had started, he would have been pitching on three days' rest.

Piniella rested most of his starting lineup in Saturday's 7-3 victory, but said he would start his regulars Sunday against lefty CC Sabathia.

I think it would be hilarious if the Cubs beat the Brewers with Guzman pitching.

SI.com's Ballpark Rankings

Mordecai — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:00:38 -0000

Here is the complete list . The Cubs clock in at #15 . Others of note: Brewers at #2 , Pirates at #3 , Cardinals at #5, White Sox at #8, Reds at #13 and the Astros at #16. The Cubs highest ranking was for Neighborhood at #2. (San Diego came in 1st, WTF?) The Cubs lowest ranking was for Affordability at #27. I just thought I'd post this for the sake of discussion. Agree or disagree, please discuss in the comments.

MLB Power Rankings 4/29/08

Mordecai — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 23:40:52 -0000

Current MLB Power Rankings. As usual, included is the Cubs ranking and the writers' comments about the Cubs.

Foxsports.com: Cubs #6

The Cubs' depth keeps shining, whether it be in the bullpen or the field. Scary thought: Chicago is in first place without the services of Alfonso Soriano. Guess who's currently vying with the D-backs for the NL lead in runs scored? The Cubs. Inconsistency in the rotation is all that holds this team back from putting some distance on the Central.

CBS Sportsline.com: Cubs #3

Alfonso Soriano's return should bolster a team that sure did fine in his absence. The Cubs have gone 9-4 since he left a game with the calf issue. Few teams could lose their biggest offensive star and still reel off a stretch like that.

ESPN.com: Cubs #2

Geovany Soto leads all major league catchers in batting (.352), on-base percentage (.447) and slugging (.606).

SI.com: Cubs #3

If Young is miscast as a leadoff hitter in Arizona, what about Alfonso Soriano? Since he's been down with his hopping injury, the Cubs are 8-2, hitting .327 with a .415 OBP. Before then, with Soriano mostly at leadoff: 7-5, .249, .328. Look, I'm not saying that Reed Johnson or Mike Fontenot are better players than the free-swinging Soriano. I'm just saying they're a better choice to be leadoff men. That's all.

TSN.ca: Cubs #3

Alfonso Soriano's injury is significant enough but, with a .175 batting average, he's nearly 100 points lower than any other regular in the Cubs lineup.
Key Injuries: LF Alfonso Soriano (calf).

Baseballprospectus.com: Cubs #2

At 6.14 runs per game, the Cubs lead the majors in scoring, and they've got the league's highest slugging and on-base percentages to thank for it. Having the top OBP is very un-Cub-like; Wrigley's residents haven't led the league in the category since 1945, the last time they won a pennant. Seven regulars had OBPs above .380, topped by Kosuke Fukudome (.463), Geovany Soto (.437), Derrek Lee (.413). The latter is slugging .670 as well and is fifth in the league in VORP.

MLB Power Rankings

Mordecai — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 14:23:15 -0000

I thought I would try this. I'm compiling various MLB power rankings from the top sport sites and where the Cubs rank on them. Included is the Cubs ranking and the writers' comments about the Cubs. My biggest concern is that different sites publish them on different days of the week. If you guys have any suggestions please pass them along in the comments. And here we go:

Foxsports.com (Monday): Cubs #8

Great sign: Ted Lilly and Rich Hill showed flashes of putting it together this week. The Cubs are looking like a very complete team, which could mean another trip to the postseason. The stage is slowly being set for a major war with the Brewers all summer long. It should be a very interesting week, with dates against the Mets and Rockies providing a chance to make a statement.

CBS Sportsline.com (Tuesday): Cubs #3

We don't think their ceiling is this high, but only the D-Backs have fewer losses through three weeks of play. They have played just six of their first 19 on the road, though.

ESPN.com (Friday): Cubs #2

At least Ted Lilly made it through six innings in his latest start. Lilly, who won 15 games in '07, is 0-3 with a 9.16 ERA.

SI.com (Friday): Cubs #9

The dope on the hop is that it probably wasn't the hop at all. At least according to Alfonso Soriano, it wasn't. Soriano is on the disabled list with a strained calf. He pulled up lame after one of his quirky trademark hops he takes while fielding pop flies. "Look, I don?t know. That?s the way he feels comfortable catching the ball. I don?t know," manager Lou Piniella says. This is what passes for news in Chicago.

TSN.ca (Friday): Cubs #10

Reed Johnson apparently has a little something left in the tank, hitting .361 in his first 11 games with the Cubbies.
Key Injuries: LF Alfonso Soriano (calf).

Baseballprospectus.com (Friday): Cubs #7

A Hop, Skip, and Jump to the Sidelines: Alfonso Soriano's quirky style in the field draws attention as he strains a calf and heads to the DL. He's hitting a minuscule .175/.230/.298 thus far, but the Cubs are second in the league in scoring thanks in part to a torrid performance by Derrek Lee (.379/.432/.742), who's fifth in the majors in VORP.

If you guys have any other sites you recommend, please let me know.

"The Cubs: 99 Years of Misery" on ESPN.com

Mordecai — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 19:38:37 -0000

Since I didn't see it posted elsellwhere, I thought I would post it here:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=cubs/0919&sportCat=mlb

It breaks down every year from 1909 to 2007 in little capsule form. It's not too bad and it does a good job of giving Cubs history for those who don't know much about it.

Tailgating at Spring Training

Mordecai — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:52:57 -0000

I'm going to be in Arizona March 13-16th and will be seeing two games at Hohokam and one at Tucson Electric Park. I want to tailgate before the games and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions. I looked around the internet and really didn't find much. Even the BCB guide didn't have any tailgate info in it (BTW Al, the comments for that are closed.) It looks like tailgating is allowed at Hohokam two hours before the game, but no alcohol is allowed. If anybody can give me any hints and ideas, it would be a great help to me and the BCB community at large.

Could C.C. Sabathia be available?

Mordecai — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 18:35:55 -0000

Since I think we're all sick to death of talking about Brian Roberts, let's talk about somebody new. He is going to be a free agent after the year and according to his website, contract talks with the Indians has stalled. I heard that his contract demands are along the lines of 5 years/ $19 million per year. Do you want Sabathia and what would you be willing to give up to get him?

Monday is Harry Caray Day on Comcast SportsNet

Mordecai — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 15:32:12 -0000

To commemorate Harry 10 years after his passing.

From Robert Feder's article today:

Starting at 11 a.m. with the 2007 documentary "Hello Again, Everybody: The Harry Caray Story," the daylong tribute will include rebroadcasts of three classic Cubs games and other highlights of his career. At 7 p.m., an all-new special, "Holy Cow: Remembering Harry," will premiere.

Now let's hear ya: a One, a Two, a Three...

Happy Birthday Bleed Cubbie Blue!!

Mordecai — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:18:14 -0000

Happy Birthday to Bleed Cubbie Blue, Al and all its great readers and commentators.

I know I'm one day late, but I was busy yesterday. Anyway, here is BCB's first post ever:

http://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/story/2005/2/8/213130/7602

One of the first topics Al discussed was a trade for Roberto Novoa, a move that did very little to help the club.

So once again, Happy 3rd Birthday Bleed Cubbie Blue, keep up the good work Al and here's to many, many more good years.

P.S. - For SBN 2.0, a way to view archieves by date would be great, it took me 10 minutes to find that post.

TV and Radio Rights: What are They Worth?

Mordecai — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:57:56 -0000

I was thinking about what happens when the Cubs finally get sold and are no longer under the Tribune corporate umbrella. We could see something that we've never seen before: a bidding war for the television and radio rights for Cubs games.

Doing a little research, I found this article from Baseball Prospectus. Granted, it is from 2001, but we can get some useful information. The Cubs placed 8th on that list with a total of $23,559,000. The teams that placed ahead of them were the Yankees, Mets, Mariners, Red Sox, White Sox, Dodgers and Rangers. What is interesting to me is that White Sox made $7 million more than the Cubs. When you factor in that Cubs have both higher television and radio ratings than the White Sox (excluding 2005 and 2006), this doesn't add up. This tells me what we've all known for years: the Cubs were not given full value for their broadcast rights.

When the contracts run out for television and radio in the next few years (when I don't know excatly), there could be stations other than just WGN that would want those rights. On the radio side, WGN-720 would want to keep those rights as the Cubs have been a ratings hit for them for decades. Another interested station could be ESPN-1000 who lost the White Sox to The Score-670 in 2006. There would some minor conflicts since they also have Bulls basketball, but their schedules only overlap a couple of months during the year and a sister station could air one game if there is a conflict. Another possibility could be the Cubs setting up their own radio network. The Cardinals did this in 2006 when they sold their radio rights to KTRS for 50% ownership in the radio station. The upside is that they get to keep nearly all of their advertising money for themselves. The downside is that you're not going to get a 50,000 watt station and decreased wattage means lower coverage. If this happened, you could see more affilates where WGN can be heard now, but a smaller radio station couldn't. These areas would probably in Illinois outside of the Chicagoland area.

Now onto the television rights. Assuming that the Cubs' 25% ownership of Comcast SportsNet gets sold to the new owners of the team, we could see two things happen. The first more likely scenario would be the status quo and we see roughly the same amount of games on over the air (OTA) tv and cable. The rights of the OTA games would then go up for bidding just like the radio rights. I think there would be three interested stations: WGN, WCIU and WPWR. WGN would be obviously interested because WGN and the Cubs have been virtually synonymous for decades. A wrinkle in this relationship could be that MLB wants to stop WGN from showing Cubs and White Sox games because they want people to subscribe to their Extra Innings package. WCIU would be an interesting choice since they already air about 8 games a year anyway and they really don't have any programming that would cause conflicts. However, I don't know if they have the financial resources to pay the high rights fees for Cubs games. WPWR is also interesting because they are owned by FOX, they might have the financial resources for the rights. After the end of the UPN, WPWR is now affilated with MyNetworkTV. Since MyNetworkTV is mostly junk, WPWR would have no problems bringing in the extra ratings the Cubs would bring in over their current lineup. The second more unlikey scenario is that the Cubs go all cable and show their games exclusively on Comcast SportsNet. This is unlikely because Comcast SportsNet already airs a lot of other programming including Sox games and we could see games on Comcast SportsNet++. Also they would have to split their profits with the Sox, Bulls and Blackhawks.

The one hope I have with the sale of the Cubs is that they finally get full market value for their broadcasting rights. And with this extra revenue, make the team better and win the World Series.