The Question

I was asked today if this was the Cubs' year.

Hooboy.

This is always a difficult question for me to answer because my answer will usually involve much more detail and reasoning than the person who asked really cares to hear. Remember the scene in the movie, "Groundhog Day" where Bill Murray responds with a meteorological analysis when asked about the weather:

"We may catch a break and have that blizzard blow by us. All this moisture coming up out of the south... will probably push on east of us. At high altitudes it will crystallize and give us what we call snow. Probably will be some accumulation... but here in Punxsutawney our high will be about 30 today, teens tonight. Chance of precipitation about 20 percent today and tomorrow.... Did you want to talk about the weather or were you just making chitchat?"

That is me when asked about the Cubs. I do my best to temper any answer I give. I know the asker could care less about bullpen usage, defensive ratings, or Bill James' Win Share formulas. I also know that when they ask, they just want to hear: 1) Hell yeah it's going to be their year! or 2) Oh god no. They suck this year.

Done.

They don't care about Milton Bradley's injuries. They don't care that Derek Lee and Aramis Ramirez may be overrated as middle-of-the-order threats. They just wanted to convey to me that they know I am a Cub fan and are politely showing interest in something I care about.

But, I get spoiled by my discussions with my summer family who actually do like to discuss baseball down to the micro level and I will forget myself, causing my girlfriend to look for a rock to either hide under or throw at me.

Come up to Aisle 424 sometime and ask us who was most at fault for blowing Game 6 in 2003. But don't do it if you don't really want to hear the answer because you'll be there for the rest of the game and possibly dragged along to a Wrigleyville bar afterwards to continue the argument.

I need to remember that 99.999% of people I meet and talk with are not deranged season ticket holders when posed with The Question.

That in and of itself is hard enough, but now that I am on a quest to be more optimistic, it is even more difficult.

Those who know me know that my default position in life has been cynical pessimism. It was not born entirely out of being a Cub fan, but that sure didn't help dissuade me from seeing the glass as half empty.

I have been optimistic about the Cubs exactly twice in my life. Once in 1984 after attending The Sandberg Game (I'm sure I will post more about this day as we approach the 25th anniversary, which also happened to be my 12th birthday) that lasted until the 9th inning of Game 5 of the NLCS. It was during that inning that I realized no comeback would be forthcoming and I had trouble seeing the television through the tears. I also lost a five dollar bet made with a friend of mine who placed the bet after the Cubs were up 2-0 in the series. I have not bet on the Cubs since.

The second time was 2003. The Cubs were about to play game 5 of the NLCS against Josh Beckett, but even if they lost in Florida, they were coming home to start Mark Prior, and if necessary, Kerry Wood. I thought to myself: "By this time next week, I will be attending a World Series game being played in Wrigley Field." I remember exactly where I was when I thought it (the parking lot of Charcoal Delights as I walked back to my apartment across the street). I will remember until I die, like people who can tell you the exact moment they heard Kennedy was shot.

That optimism lasted only a few days. It disappeared right around the time Prior walked Castillo after the Bartman incident. That night, I did not cry, but I was shattered. I sat in my seat for about 40 minutes after the game and just stared at the field. Other members of my summer family were also coping in their own way, ranging from anger to depression to feigned optimism about Game 7. I am still prone to depression after discussing it (I'm fighting the blues as I write this).

The feelings associated with such close calls are debilitating, so I have done my best to guard myself from them as much as possible. I never thought they had a chance in 1989, 1998, or even the last two years. There were too many flaws to ignore, so I wouldn't allow myself to believe while others around me drank the Cubbie Kool-Aid.

This year, armed with a new sense of hope fostered by a Presidential election that I did not think was possible, coupled with a defiant anger towards all things curse related, I want to be positive. I want to feel confident enough to go and put down $50 on the Cubs to win the World Series. I want to tell anyone who asks me if the Cubs will win it this year, "You bet your sweet bippy they will."

But then I think about Carlos "Head Case" Marmol as closer, Milton "Human Volcano" Bradley as the dependable left-handed bat, and Derek Lee and the rest of the Double Play Gang and can't help but think its not enough. I feel the need to qualify my answer and I'm right back where I started with a glass that is half empty.

At least I know I have a problem. I understand that is the first step towards recovery.

Rod Got Zero Votes (only because its impossible to have less than that)

Anyone who has been paying even a little bit of attention to the Rod Blagojevich impeachment proceedings can not be surprised that Rod was removed from office today. The vote of 59-0 is what is truly shocking.

Think about any time you had a group of even ten of your good friends together and you were trying to decide something. Not anything serious, but just something like what movie to go and watch, or where you want to go and have a drink. How many times do you get a 10-0 vote? Probably not very many.

The state Senate is made up of people who can't agree on anything. They all have individual agendas and polling information pulling them in all different directions. Almost any decision that seems to be a slam-dunk, no-brainer to one person is invariably screwing someone else, so the representative of the screwed people votes against it - just so they can tell their constituents after losing 58-1, "Hey - I did what I could to stop them from screwing you."

That is how toxic Rod Blagojevich was. There was NOBODY who had anything to gain from dissenting even a little bit to Rod being removed kicking and screaming from the office of governor. I'm actually a little surprised he didn't go to his office and handcuff himself to the radiator, while humming "We Shall Overcome" to himself.

Nobody wanted to be the person who could ever be painted as being on Rod's side in this. If the Senators had their way, a yay vote wouldn't have been good enough. The tally would have been 59 "Abso-f---king-lutely Yays" to nothing if the Senate's rules of order would have allowed it as an option.

Hopefully the next step is jail, because he'll probably use all of his extra spare time to try and become Ronnie Woo's sidekick to rebuild his popularity amongst the people. I can hear Ronnie now: "Get away - Woo! Douchebag - Woo! I work alone - Woo!"

Garrett Olson, We Hardly Knew Ye

I never even saw what Garrett Olson looks like. Sure, I could have Googled him and found a picture of him. I still could, I suppose, but whats the point? He's a Mariner now.

The Cubs packaged newly-acquired Olson along with out-of-minor-league-options-but-probably-not-good-enough-to-stay-on-the-major-league-roster Ronny Cedeno to acquire booed-out-of-New-York-for-blowing-five-out-of-eight-saves-down-the-stretch-last-year Aaron Heilman.

Huh.

This seems to be Jim Hendry trying to get something of value for his AAAA players while he can. Essentially, he has traded Felix Pie, formerly the untouchable prize of the system, and Cedeno, formerly the shortstop of the future, for Heilman and a middling prospect from the Orioles.

So what does Heilman bring to the table? This link provides more than enough statistical information, but basically from 2004 to 2007 he had a 3.27 ERA and 1.13 WHIP. His K:BB Ratio was about 3:1. Pretty good numbers. So why is he on his second team of the off-season?

Because last year, he posted a 5.21 ERA and 1.59 WHIP. His K:BB Ratio fell to less than 2:1. Why the huge drop off? One theory is that Heilman may have been the most abused pitcher in baseball last year (and if not the most abused, then Carlos Marmol was #1 and Heilman #2), possibly accounting for his poor performance down the stretch. That raises two questions: 1) Has Heilman recovered from overuse and 2) Will Piniella continue to abuse both Marmol and Heilman in his bullpen?

Assuming Heilman is healthy and can rebound to anything close to his 2004-2007 numbers, he will compete for the fifth starting spot in the rotation. He also has more value because he could theoretically make the transition between starting and relieving easier than Sean Marshall can. Flexibility will be key on this pitching staff given Harden's fragility, Zambrano's questionable durabilty after putting so much mileage on his body over the last 6 years, and a potentially over-worked Marmol.

Also, even if the Cubs do manage to pry Jake Peavy away from the Padres, I'm not convinced he is healthy enough to make it through a full season. So Heilman, in a best case scenario, would probably function as the Terry Mulholland of this staff (though I doubt even Lou the Abuser would bring him out of the bullpen the day after he started as Riggleman did to Terry in 1998).

Of course, Heilman has stated he wants to start and may not be receptive to playing the swingman. But he also doesn't have great stats as a starter: 25 Starts, 5 Wins, 13 Losses, 5.93 ERA, 1.57 WHIP. So we may not want him starting.

After all of this, my reaction to the trade remains: huh.

Champion Rating: Carlos Zambrano

It turns out some radio guy in Indianapolis has already written the Cubs' 2009 season off. He analyzed the Cubs using the "Super Scout" method of determining whether a player is a "champion."

"...a new GM [for the Orioles] told all of the scouts that he wanted nothing but players who the scout could envision playing for a world championship team. If the scouts saw a good player, but thought the kid would never contribute to a champion, the Orioles would pass."

The conclusion of the blog was that the Cubs do not have enough "champions" and would therefore fold in the playoffs once again.

Since there is still some dead time (defined as: time when baseball is not being played), I thought I would look at the key players on the Cubs and give them my own Champion Rating and see where we stand.

It will not be scientific by any stretch of the imagination, but it will try to encompass both the players' past statistical performance, former playoff experience, and the ever-popular "intangibles." General Managers and coaches love "intangibles" with players. There is something to a player's mental makeup and approach being key in baseball, but always be wary when the first thing said about a new acquisition is that they like his intangibles. That is usually code for: He is not very good, but he hustles.

I'll still make other posts not relating to the Championship Rating, but let's be honest, until the sale of the Cubs is final or they actually start playing again, there isn't a heck of a lot relating to the Cubs to discuss.

WARNING: Until now, I have purposefully tried to stay away from raw statistics as much as possible, because most people's eyes tend to glaze over when faced with a mountain of numbers. However, in this case, it seems impossible to analyze without career data, so I apologize in advance.

Carlos Zambrano

We start right off with a fairly difficult call. Clearly, Zambrano has been huge for the Cubs as they have finally managed to develop a starter from their own farm system who does not have repeated arm injuries. Carlos has been a horse for the Cubs, pitching 200+ innings for five straight years, ending last year when he pitched "only" 188 innings.

The question of whether he has been an ace-level starter is harder to determine. From 2003 to 2006, Zambrano averaged almost 15 wins with a 3.13 ERA. However, in 2007 and 2008, he still managed to average 16 wins, but his ERA shot up to 3.93. Conversely, he averaged 192 strikeouts per year from '03 to '06, but only 153.5 in the last two years.

Could it be that all of the innings are having a negative impact on his performance? Possibly, but there is another coincidence in those years. From 2003 to 2006, Zambrano's salary averaged $2.7 million. In 2007, his salary jumped to $12.4 million, and then again to $16 million in 2008.

So are we looking at a guy who may have been gutting out a sore arm from about 1,200 innings of work, or a guy who has become a bit complacent after hitting his big payday? This is where the intangibles come in.

Zambrano is a competitor, sometimes to his own detriment. He gets inside his own head and loses focus, starts to scream into his glove, throws coolers around and breaks bats over his knee. But he has actually calmed down a bit in the last couple of years under Piniella (after his fight with Michael Barrett in the dugout, of course).

Zambrano was the victim of the Keystone Cops routine performed by the Cubs infield during Game 2 of last year's NLDS. By my count, he had already recorded five would-be outs in the 2nd inning before the floodgates opened and the runs started scoring. Before that, he had blown away the Dodgers in the first inning, including a strikeout of Manny Ramirez where Manny looked overmatched (which doesn't happen often).

Unfortunately, the rest of Zambrano's playoff performances aren't exactly stellar. Overall he is 0-2 with a 4.34 ERA. These are not numbers that demand the ball in a Game 1 situation, and hence why Piniella most likely gave the nod last year to Ryan Dempster, who had frankly outperformed Zambrano all year long, but especially so at the end where Zambrano had one phenomenal game (the no-hitter) sandwiched amongst some god-awful outings.

However, on the plus side, his playoff strikeout-to-walk ratio was almost 3.5 to 1 while his career regular season K:BB ratio is less than 2 to 1. Of course, sample size of playoffs games is too small to compare directly to career statistics, so that could mean nothing, or it could mean that Carlos gets a little bit more adrenalin flowing in the post-season and starts to miss a few more bats.

I also gave Zambrano credit for not imploding after the 2nd Inning From Hell. He went on and gave up only 2 more runs in the game (one of which was allowed by Neal Cotts but charged to Zambrano). That said a lot to me about Zambrano's will and desire to win, which make him someone I can envision on a championship team.

I give Zambrano the benefit of the doubt that desire or effort were not the problems last year. He does have problems staying focused, and his performance in the clutch is not MVP-worthy so I'll give him a Champion Rating of 7 out of 10.

Next up: Ryan Dempster

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Normally in the middle of January, we're all just counting the days until pitchers and catchers report to training camp. But the pending sale of the Cubs has the fans, talk radio, columnists, and bloggers in a frenzy.

The consensus opinion seems to be that anyone would be better than the Tribune Company. George Castle, author of numerous Cub-related books, makes a good point that the Cubs haven't been owned by a true fan of the team since William Wrigley Jr. died in 1932.

The Sun-Times reveals that Tom Ricketts was a first-hand witness to the pain and suffering of the 1984 team that blew the two games to nothing lead to Steve Garvey and the Padres in the NLCS.

One particular passage in the Sun-Times piece struck home with me:

"Thomas Ricketts, 43, declined to be interviewed, preferring not to court media attention until his bid is accepted. Tribune could still drop him, or Major League Baseball, which has the final say, could refuse his family's bid."

This is a man who doesn't just say he is a Cub fan. This is a guy that has been burned by the Cubs before and doesn't want to say much before the deal is done. He is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

He knows the deal is not done. He knows that being five outs away from the World Series does not make actually going to the World Series a sure thing.

There are still all sorts of things that could end up making this deal go the other way. The other bidders could restructure their deals to include more money up front (which is ultimately what the Tribune and the bankruptcy lawyers are looking for). The other MLB owners could decide they don't want to let Ricketts into their little fraternity. There may be judges involved because of the bankruptcy.

The odds of something going wrong for Ricketts now are pretty long, but he knows that when you have a three run lead, five outs to go, and your ace on the mound, you don't stand up and yell to your beer-vendor buddy, "Hey Steve! I'll see you at the World Series!" (A member of my summer family actually did this and I swear to God, the next pitch was hit down into the left field bullpen seats to the poor bastard with the Walkman.)

He knows how it feels and soon he could very possibly be in the position to do something about it first hand, and he is not going to do anything to jinx it.

Well, in my continuing spirit of spitting in the face of the curse: Hey Tom! We'll see you at the World Series!

How Much For Those Cubbies in the Window?

The Tribune Company has finally named a preferred bidder to purchase the Cubs. The Ricketts family of TD Ameritrade fame is putting up $900 million to purchase a team that had a selling price of $21 million in 1981 when the Tribune bought them from the Wrigleys.

Thats a pretty good return on investment. I'm taking MBA classes so I should know. Over those 28 years, they earned almost 15% per year in value. Not too shabby.

I don't know much about the Ricketts, but I'm sure we will learn more in good time, and the opinions of wanna-be managers and owners will fly across the internet. I'm more concerned about the proposed purchase price.

For one, it drives home the fact that I will never own the Chicago Cubs.

I came to grips with the fact that I would never play for the Cubs a few years back. Its a sad day when you realize you will never be able to hit a curveball well enough to get a scout to notice you without hitting him with your car, but I got over it. Sort of.

But I always dreamt about hitting the Mega Millions jackpot and using the hundreds of millions to purchase the Cubs. Then I could remake the farm system, stop signing injured players, and keep the Cubs at Wrigley Field for as long as I live.

But the record Mega Millions jackpot is $390 million. Even if the goverment let me keep every nickel of that money, I would not have enough to outbid the Ricketts.

They are digging $450 million out of their own pockets and then borrowing $450 million more to complete the sale. The numbers are staggering.

Supposedly, the other offers were for more than $900 million, but those proposals involved more debt and less cash up front. Given that the Tribune has filed for bankruptcy, they are interested in getting as much cash up front as they possibly can, so the Ricketts take home the prize if they get approved by MLB and the owners.

I can never compete with that. If someone lended me $2,000 right now and I invested it so that I had 100% return each year (about the same likelihood as me learning to hit a curveball 400 feet), it would take me 20 years to raise the money to put down a similiar down payment as the Ricketts. The problem, however, is that by then, the Cubs will be worth over $13 billion.

So its not going to happen. I'd like to try though. Anyone have a couple thousand dollars laying around that they could lend me?

Inblogguration Address

My fellow Cub fans:

I sit here before you on a couch in cyberspace, grateful for your stumbling upon this site while looking for nude photos of Jessica Alba.

Innumerable fans have taken the task of blogging about the Cubs before me. The words have been written during rising tides of prosperity and really crappy years that involve Doug Dascenzo coming in to pitch because the Cubs are losing by fifteen. At these moments, the Cubs have carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in the general manager's office, but because we the fans have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our dementia.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Cub fans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our team is at war, against a far-reaching network of hateful baseball gods. Our lineup is badly weakened, a consequence of a bad leadoff hitter and no dependable left-handed power. Playoff games have been lost; phenoms traded; Dodger drain pipes shattered. Our tickets are too costly; the concession stand lines are too slow; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use Alfonso Soriano strengthen our adversaries and threaten our team.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics found by nerds on the internet. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our stadium — a nagging fear that the Cubs' decline is inevitable, and that the next generation of fans must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many.

They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, Cub fans— they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and bitching about Fukudome.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the poor fundamentals and false promises of "five-tool players" in our farm system, the injuries and worn out towel-drills, that for far too long have strangled our team.

We remain a young fan base, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things like the "We Got Wood" and "Horry Cow" t-shirts. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that no matter the score, some random minor celebrity will lead us in song during the 7th inning stretch.

In reaffirming the greatness of our team in the regular season, we understand that greatness is never a given in the playoffs. It must be earned. It is not a path for the faint-hearted — for those who prefer drinking beer in the bleachers, or seek only the pleasures of drunk co-eds in ripped pink Cub t-shirts.

Rather, it has been the season-ticket holders, the Die-Hards, the people who time and again pay four times face value on StubHub — some celebrated, like Vince Vaughn or Ronnie Woo, but more often men and women obscure in their fandom, who have picked up the tab for the numerous losing teams that have come before.

For the Cubs, they fought their way to their seats through crowds busy reading the ornamental bricks or having their pictures taken by the Harry statue. For the Cubs, they endured raised ticket price after raised ticket price with the same results every year. For the Cubs, they stood in long lines in freezing cold weather to buy what remaining single-game tickets they could get their hands on.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that they might get a seat without a big post in front of them, or closer to the beer vendors. They saw the Cubs as bigger than the sum of the individual mediocre players.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful team on the North Side of Chicago.

Everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the bullpen calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act — not only to create new nicknames for Kevin Gregg, but to argue constantly whether he should close or set up Marmol. We will build support back for Fukudome as a starting centerfielder. We will restore our faith in Aramis Ramirez to hit in the clutch. We will harness the power of the W flag to further fuel future victories. And we will transform our beliefs that Milton Bradley will be hurt before the All-Star break. All this we can do. All this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions — who suggest that the weight of the curse may be too powerful to overcome. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this team has already done back in the late 1800s and early 1900s; what the Cubs can achieve when there are only about four other teams and no such thing as free agency.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale curses about goats that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our players' salaries are too big or too small, but whether the team works — whether they can score a runner from third with less than two out, or have the relievers strand inherited runners while protecting a lead. Where the answer is yes, we intend to cheer wildly. Where the answer is no, blind support will end. Those who manage to boot routine ground balls or repeatedly get picked off second base will be held to account — to run the bases wisely, reform bad habits, and hit the ball to the right side — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a team and its fans.

Nor is the question before us whether Lou Piniella is a force for good or ill. His power to generate wins and playoff appearances for the Cubs is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, his strategies can spin out of control — and that a team cannot prosper long when it pulls an ace during the 6th inning of a tied playoff game, or gives a Game 1 start to a #3 pitcher.

Recall that earlier fans faced down White Sox and Cardinal fans not just with thrown beer and hot dogs, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our chanting of "right field sucks" alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to run on the field to attack coaches, umpires, or players. Instead, they knew that our power grows through the prudent use of mocking opposing outfielders; from the justness of throwing back opposing homerun balls, and never ever, under any circumstances, starting "The Wave."

We are the keepers of this legacy. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and for those who seek to advance their aims by showing up in our ballpark in opposing teams' uniforms and yelling "You suck," at the tops of their lungs, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you by pelting you with peanuts, and telling you that you are the ones who suck.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a fan base of men and women, retirees and children — and tourists. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of WGN's broadcast range.

To the White Sox, we seek a new way forward, based on you not winning the World Series again before the Cubs do. To those managers on the South Side who seek to sow conflict, or blame their team's ills on the media bias — know that your fans will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

For as much as the players can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the Cub fans upon which this team relies.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of 1983, in the coldest of Aprils, a bad team was 5-14. Strategies were abandoned. The losses were mounting. The scorecards were littered with errors and strikeouts. At a moment when the success of the team was most in doubt, the manager uttered these words to the people:
"F--- those f---in' fans who come out here and say they're Cub fans that are supposed to be behind you rippin' every f---in' thing you do. I'll tell you one f---in' thing, I hope we get f---in' hotter than sh--, just to stuff it up them 3,000 f---in' people that show up every f---in' day, because if they're the real Chicago f---in' fans, they can kiss my f---in' a-- right downtown and PRINT IT."

Cubs fans, in the face of back-to-back failed playoff performances and 100 years of futility, in this April 1983 of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us f---in' stuff it up the f---in' gods' a--es, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not become White Sox fans nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and Harry's grace upon us, we carried forth and finally celebrated a World Series title.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the Chicago Cubs.