January 2010

The Hall of Fame made the right move, albeit the unpopular one, by announcing that Andre Dawson will be inducted as a Montreal Expo. Real Neal did the legwork for me using BP's WARP3 numbers:

Montreal: 43.7 Wins

Chicago: 18.1 Wins

Others: -2.2 Wins

Dawson may have been a more popular player in baseball thanks to his Cubs days, but he was clearly a better player as an Expo. Even if you divide his wins per season, it's 3.97 as an Expo and 3.01 as a Cub, so there's just no reasonable argument for Dawson as a Cub other than a popularity contest. Dawson did prefer the Cubs for what it's worth and says he may don a Cubs hat during his speech to acknowledge the Cubs fans.

UPDATE: Heyman tweets that it's for $3.3M with $2M in incentives based on games played.

Tim Brown of Yahoo breaks the story that the Cubs have signed outfielder Xavier Nady on a one year deal...dollar amount yet to be determined (likely in the 3-4.5M range according to Levine). Out of the names mentioned so far - Jermaine Dye, Rocco Baldelli, and Johnny Gomes, Nady was probably my preference on the assumption that he's recovered fully from his second Tommy John Surgery. According to Tim Brown, the physical is later this week but Nady's been throwing regularly and without problems. Before we get into the player, let's talk about the injury. Dr. Hecht in the comments dropped this note about having multiple TJ surgeries yesterday.

The basic operation takes a tendon graft from the forearm from a small tendon called the palmaris longus.

On a second surgery they have to take a graft from somewhere else. Other sites are available (the other arm or a tendon from the calf (plantaris) but that means he's gonna have two limbs involved to recovery. I'm not sure why his graft failed but it's pretty unusual for this to happen (expecially when it's not a pitcher). This would make me a bit leary too (Chad Fox alert!) but my guess is he'll be OK.

''5-Star Prospects''
1. Josh Vitters
2. Starlin Castro
   
   ''4-Star Prospects''
   
3. Hak-Ju Lee
4. Brett Jackson
   
   ''3-Star Prospects''
   
5. Andrew Cashner
6. Jay Jackson
7. Chris Carpenter
8. Chris Archer
9. Kyler Burke
10. Ryan Flaherty
11. John Gaub

Kevin Goldstein puts Chris Huseby, Logan Watkins, Dae-Eun Rhee and Darwin Barney as 12-15. You can see past lists at Wiklified.

The Fox TV News affiliate in Phoenix has the infamous "source close to" the Ricketts (an executive apparently) saying the Cubs are likely to stay in Mesa. Apparently Bud Selig has even put in a word to the Cubs that he'd like them to stay there and I'm sure that will carry some weight with the new owners who appear to be the kind that don't want to rock the MLB boat.

Good news for those of us who prefer Mesa and who have Arizona Phil writing at their Cubs blog. Thanks to navigator for the link tip.

Of course it doesn't mean the drama is over, as the Cubs said they would pick a site to exclusively negotiate with first.  So if this is true, Mesa and Arizona still need to come up with the funding for all the new facilities that were promised

UPDATED: Kaplan and Co. are chiming in as well saying a Monday vote by the Mesa city council to approve funding is the last hurdle.

UPDATE #2: Here's the plan unveiled by Mesa today.

• 15,000 seat stadium
• city would own stadium and training facilities
• Cubs agree to take over maintainence of facilities in exchange for advertising rights in stadium including naming rights of stadium
• overall cost is in the $84M range and should be approved by city council on Monday
• site yet to be determined
• The Mesa city manager warns that even if funding is approved, Cubs have yet to formally agree to anything.

The Cubs signed 5 of their 8 arbitration eligible players today.

Baker: $975,000, up from $415,000

Guzman: $825,000, up from $421,500

Gorzelanny: $800,00, up from, $433,000

Fontenot: $1 million, up from $430,000

Hill: $700,000, up from $475,000

That's $4.3M total for those 5, leaving Carlos Marmol, Ryan Theriot and Sean Marshall. The three will file their salary figures today and the Cubs will counter. Marmol made $575,000 last year, Theriot made $500,000 and Marshall made $450,000. Miles guesses Marmol will top $2M, Theriot will go over $1M and no guess on Marshall but I would guess right around $1M. Always a good time to remind everyone that Jim Hendry has never actually gone to an arbitration case ever with a Cubs player...the last Cub to make it that far was Mark Grace in 1993.

Miles also says the Cubs are interested in Jermaine Dye and Rocco Baldelli, but it all depends on the price.

Theriot asks for $3.4M(dear god, just cut him), Cubs counter with $2.6M. Marmol asked for $2.5M, Cubs put in $1.75M, Marshall asked for $1.175M, Cubs offered $800K.

- Geovany Soto says he's lost 40 pounds and looks the part from the shoulders up at least (video as well).

"It's weird, I feel like a 12-year-old," he said. "I have a lot of energy. I'm kind of wired all day. I've got a little one now, and it's helped me at home. I give mama some rest. I'm active the whole day. I used to be a little sluggish -- like 'I want to take a nap.' Now I feel great and I just want to put myself in the best position to help the club.

- More on the Cubs committment to getting in shape over the offseason including the Cubs hiring a personal chef and nutritionist for the team.

First a word from our sponsors and for you degenerate gamblers...

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Here's a good time to remind everyone of The Bear Truth, the Bears blog that I and a few readers contribute on an occasional basis. I do like the Colts this year to win it all, on the other hand, I got 3 of 4 games wrong in the first round so pay no attention to me.

Also if you need some time wasters, I've created two more quizzes on sporcle - Cubs Top Draft Picks and Cubs Playoff Opponents. At some point, I'll add all of these somewhere on the site.

Fangraphs has added the CHONE projections on their player pages along with the Bill James projections. The Hardball Times comes out with theirs in their pre-season annual and of course Baseball Prospectus and PECOTA should be out shortly. But I promised updates when I put up the Bill James projections, so here are the wOBA CHONE projections (league average is generally around the .330 mark, give or take a few points).

"Andre Dawson, the Hawk...no player in baseball history worked harder, suffered more or did it better than Andre Dawson. He's the best I've ever seen. The Hawk, I watched him win an MVP for a last place team in 1987. It was the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen in baseball. He did it the right way, the natural way and he did it in the field and on the bases and in every way. I hope he will stand up here one day."

                          --Ryne Sandberg, in his Hall of Fame Induction Speech

No matter what hat his hall of fame plaque has, Andre Dawson will represent the Cubs honorably into Baseball's Shrine. This is a man who overcame his own obstacles, or more specifically his own knees. We all know that Dawson came to the Cubs in 1987 to flee the hard artificial turf of Montreal Olympic Stadium which was playing havoc with his knees.

Dawson might have never made it to Chicago, where he said he rejuvenated his career, were it not for the encouragement of his wife, Vanessa. Dawson was in so much pain in his fourth big league season because of a “fractured knee” that he told her he didn’t know if he could play any longer. Pain medication was barely getting him through games.

“The third (Darvocet) took the pain away but it came back at night. That’s why I didn’t want to do it anymore,” Dawson said. “And she looked at me and said, `You know you’re hurting now, but just see what the problem is because a year, two years from now you are going to regret walking away.”’

The last 10 years of his career (including 6 with the Cubs) were based in home parks where right field had mother natures own soft grass turf. This prolonged his career well beyond what most of his early teammates could have projected.

In 1985, then-Expos teammate Tim Wallach said of Dawson's perpetual struggles with his knees, "It hurts me as much as it hurts him. Sometimes I wish I could give him my knees. He never moans. He never complains. He has no excuses. Everyone here respects him."

Most watched in awe at the agony he put up with but few knew why Dawson had to methodically prepare for games and baseball seasons. He made it onto the field for 2627 games over 21 seasons.

In quite a shocker, the only player elected to the Hall of Fame today was Andre Dawson with 77.9%. Bert Blyleven just missed at 74.2% as did Roberto Alomar at 73.7%. Other former Cubs were Lee Smith (47.3%), Fred McGriff(21.5%), Eric Karros (0.4%), Todd Zeile(0) and bench coach Alan Trammell (22.4%).