Bleacher Bums Forum

No one knows better than Stewart how much his wrist bothered him the last two years, and no one knows better than Stewart how he feels at this point.

It may be that he is convinced that he will be good enough that he won't be cut.

Actually here is why Stewart's contract is non-guaranteed.

Because Stewart has less than six years of service time, the standard big-league contract is non-guaranteed, like other one-year deals for that service level. Once he makes the team in spring training, the full salary is guaranteed.

Wittenmeyer says we're viewing Stewart as our starting 3B, and we're looking for a RH infield backup.

It's actually a pretty interesting article about how we wound up going back to Stewart when we saw how inflated the 3B market had become.  When we nontendered Stewart, we didn't think at the time $2.3 million was good value for him, but when the 3B market started getting ridiculous, we decided that $2M was actually a good value play for Stewart after all.  The Cubs apparently made plays for Keppinger and Chavez before falling back to Stewart. 

http://blogs.suntimes.com/cubs/2012/12/cubs_reunite_with_stewart_wait.html

And Jeff Baker's still out there too.  Guess we could always bring him back.

I think it's doubtful that they'll lose 100 games again.  It is really hard to lose 100 games.  The only way they did it last year was by using only two major league starting pitchers in August, only one (back end) major league starting pitcher in September, and an awful bullpen that they're working to fix with Fujikawa and maybe Grilli.

On paper, this is probably a ~70 win team, just like the team they started last season with.  Maybe they'll do the same dumping of starting pitching in 2013...but at the very least, they should let Samardzija take his last 4-5 starts.  And just improving the bullpen to the point where they're 25th best (instead of dead last by a wide margin) will keep them from losing 100.

Also, we still have over 2 months until pitchers and catchers report.  I'm not completely giving up hope that they'll add a hitter and a longer term starting pitcher (someone like Edwin Jackson) before the season starts.

The RHH backup to Ian Stewart is Josh Vitters.

Let him play.

It's not like it's really gonna matter anyway.

While it clearly would not matter to the 2013 season, it might well matter to Vitters and to what (if anything) the Cubs might ever get for Vitters from other teams, or get out of Vitters as a player.

Vitters was utterly clueless with the major league team last year, and quite clearly needs to go back to Iowa to continue his development.  He may never make it, but if he starts 2013 in Chicago and plays the who season there, it further reduces the chance he ever will .

Decisions in 2013 still need to be made based on long term needs and what is best to develop prospects for their maximum long term value.

More support for my interpretation of Hoyer's comment about getting a "good number" of arms for the bullpen did indeed mean a "good number" of arms and not a number of good arms....

Is there ANY reason to look at Carpenter as anything other than a body filling a uniform?

An interesting exercise: 2012 ranking of Cubs' position players by OPS in the National League:

C - 15th
1B - 6th
2B - 13th
3B - 16th
SS - 4th
RF - 7th
CF- 14th
RF - 15th

Five out of eight in the bottom quartile is, say we say, not good.

Good to have another Japanese player.  When Fukudome was here, Cub apparel in Japan sold like hot cakes.  Money, money, money.