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As baseball’s trade deadline (which isn’t a strict deadline, but it does encourage some teams to make trades) approaches, the Chicago Cubs reportedly would consider trading pitcher Jeff Samardzija. So said Ken Rosenthal during the course of Satursday’s Fox telecast of the St. Louis Cardinals-Atlanta Braves game. Of course, a trade for the right-hander would have to overwhelm the Cubs. He could fetch a few reasonably decent prospects. So if the Cubs do deal him, they should be contending any season now for a title — even if it might be Class AA or AAA.
Perhaps this photo of Ramona Valerie Alb in a Sox cap will help distraught fans.
* Speaking of all these Cubs prospects, while they are improving to be ready for the big leagues, are other teams’ prospects merely sitting idly by or merely not as good? And will other teams’ big-league talent not improve? Or diminish more than the Cubs’ diminishing talent? Yeah, I guess I do not underestand the grand plan that says the Cubs will get better and no other team (possibly with even better prospects) will. Unless injuries play a role (with the Cubs having none) or the Cubs trade for top-tier talent, it’s difficult to see how the Cubs will be better than St. Louis, Cincinnati and — gasp! — Pittsburgh any time soon. The Cubs’ front office is selling optimism, which many fans buy ever so eagerly. The shelf life of optimism, however, is only as great as the talent and the player development the team has. And that talent and player development has to be better than the competition to produce a winner. Then again, the Cubs have lowered the bar so low that avoiding 100 losses in a season is considered improvement.
* Speaking of losses, White Sox left-hander Chris Sale suffered another one Saturday (July 27). That’ll teach him to allow one run in nine innings. If it’s any consolation (and the guess here is that it is not), his numbers really are impressing stats geeks.
* Speaking of 1-0 outcomes, the Cubs enhoyed one at San Francisco. Former Giant Nate Schierholtz showed he left his bat in San Francisco with a ninth-inning home run accounting for the game’s sole score.
* Speaking of left-handed hitters in the Cubs lineup, first baseman Anthony Rizzo has been impressive — in the field. At the plate, not so great. With three strikeouts in an 0-for-4 game, he is hitting .234. He does have 14 home runs. Which means with Alfonso Soriano traded, he is the leaders in homers among the remaining Cubs. Actually, co-leader with Schierholtz. Rizzo has his home runs in 384 at-bats to Schierholtz’s 278. So naturally there is talk of Schierholtz being a prime candidate to be traded.
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