Hot Dog Lunch

This one is stolen from my Facebook update, but I’m having a couple Nathan’s hot dogs for lunch.  Imagine that, a Chicago guy turning his back on the Vienna beefs for a Nathan’s product.  Well, it’s happening today, friends.  How soon until baseball season?

Early Cubs Prediction?

Okay, I’ll give it a shot.  I got ‘em finishing 80-82 .493 in 2011.  And that’s probably being optimistic.

Could they do better?  Well, yeah.  If Carlos Zambrano keeps his head screwed on straight and finally puts together the career year we’ve all been waiting for, things could be different.  Garza is a nice pick-up, but we’ll need a few years to see if the price was too high.  And Carlos Marmol, with his wiffle ball slider, is a major plus out of the pen. 

Could they be worse than anticipated?  Of course.  Does an aging Aramis Ramirez stumble early and often again?  Will Kerry Wood throw strikes in the set-up role?  And the big question: Will new acquisition Carlos Pena flourish, or continue his downward slide of the last four seasons.

Pena is going to be 33 years old this year.  His batting average dropped to .196 last season, after reaching .282 just four years ago.  His on-base pct. has slid each of the last four years as well, going .411, .377, .356, .325.

New acquisitions not named Milton Bradley tend to get a bump in production after moving to Wrigley.  Think Andre Dawson and Derrick Lee.  Heck, think about Dave Kingman, back in 1979.  Maybe Pena will catch the magic, maybe not.  The guy does have power.

But if I’m a betting man, I don’t like Pena’s chances.  Perhaps he’ll make me eat my words.

Sim City Baseball

In this week’s Outsider Baseball Bulletin, I’m conducting a cool little experiment to see what baseball might have looked like, if segregation had been in force in the 1970s.  I’m definetly not in favor of segregation, but I believe a properly conducted sim could help untangle the mystery of how good teams such as the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Homestead Grays and Kansas City Monarchs may have been.  Go to the web site and subscribe today, or drop me a line at outsiderbb (@) gmail.com to get a snail mail order form or list of back issues.

SABR to Arizona, personal appeal for cash

SABR recently announced that it is going to move it’s corporate headquarters from Cleveland, Ohio, (where it has been stationed since 1831) to the warmer climes of Phoenix, Arizona.  They claim the move has something to do with the growth of the organization.

Following their lead, I’m going to move my baseball headquarters to Honolulu, Hawaii.  I am now accepting donations which will eventually make this move possible.