The Cubs Can't Hit. Ever.

I haven't had much to say about the Cubs lately, but if you haven't read this over at ACB, you should do that right now. Unless your happiness is inextricably linked to the Cubs' offensive production. If that's the case, don't read it. Erase the link and block the website. You may never smile again.

Cubs Season Tickets Are for Chumps

All things considered, I'd rather be staring at my TV.

Don't get me wrong (or do, it's up to you), I love Wrigley Field. But I can't go there 82 times a year (83 or 84 if you count the playoffs). I love the Cubs, but I don't really want to watch more than 5-10 games in person during any given season. I just have no incentive for ever investing in any season ticket plan. There have been some great posts lately over at Tales from Aisle 424 and ACB on the bigger picture of ticket sales, but I wanted to look at the issue of ticket sales from an individual perspective. From my view, season tickets are for chumps.

I want to rule out one segment of season-ticket holders from the chump equation: those enterprising individuals or . . . enterprises who, in periods of high demand, exploit other chumps on the secondary ticket market either for profit or to subsidize or completely pay for their own Cubs game attendance. When the Cubs are winning and people are willing to pay double or triple face value through online purchasing platforms happily and conveniently facilitated by the Cubs organization, owning season tickets is as much a business as it is a leisurely experience. Come playoff time, I imagine the potential for profit is absolutely outstanding.

But the people who actually go to the majority of Cubs' home games are suckers. It's just not worth the expense, and I don't understand why people are willing to spend so much money and time to watch the Cubs, even if they're good.

Cubs Online Starter Kit

I got nothing much to say today except that I'm ready for a new series uninterrupted by scheduled days off, but there are plenty of people with lots of worthwhile things to read, so I thought at the outset of the season I'd point you to some of my favorite places to go online for Cubs-related material.

A League of Her Own (LOHO) Julie and the Gang make this a great place to go for laughs, biting commentary (and I mean there's both scathing criticism and insight into the biting community), and intriguing/intelligent/slightly insane discussion, especially during live game threads. It's a lot of fun.

Another Cubs Blog (ACB) This place is intellectual, but definitely not high brow. Their current slogan, "A thoughtless and vile corner of Cubdom," is only half true. The discussion isn't for everybody, but the content is actually more profound than profane. The series previews and game recaps are must reads, and this post from today's lineup is evidence of the wealth of insight into the Cub farm system you'll find over there. If you're open to actually learning about your team instead of just airing ill-informed opinions, ACB is a welcome place.

Cubscast I've made it no secret that this is my favorite Cubs podcast. Lou and Sheps have a handle on the right mix of information, humor, even-keel perspective, and emotional attachment. They take the team seriously, but not too much so. It's also an extremely well produced program, definitely worth a listen if you haven't yet. Nice posts on their blog, too, and great discussion in the message boards.

Tales from Aisle 424 Tim McGinnis is hilarious. He has an excellent mix of good Cubs information, merciless rebukes of imbecilic beat-reporter pseudojournalism, and everyman rants (if every man were, in fact, really, really funny). Seriously, it's very entertaining. Well, I'm being serious, the blog isn't always. But sometimes. That's not really the point. I digress . . .

There are many more good Cubs blogs around this guy's Intertestines. If you want to know, I mean really know, what a pitcher in or around the Cubs' system can do, Harry Pavlidis will fill you in on Cubs f/x. Matt Hardee has started up a pretty cool blog with his view from the Wrigley Rooftops. And all the blogs I link to in the sidebar are fine, upstanding citizens of blogsville. I need to update the list with more, I think, but this is the best way I know how to tell you where to start.

Oh, and go Cubs.

Cubs and I Are Wishing on a Starlin

Starlin Castro has soared through the minor league ranks; is he ready to stretch his wings at the major league level? Photo by Amandy Rykoff (who has an amazing collection on flickr that I recommend you devote an hour or two to perusing)

I trust you've heard, read, talked, or written about 19-year-old Starlin Castro's arrival at Spring Training and his potential for being a legitimate force at shortstop in the not-so-distant future. How distant (and how legitimate) is still pretty fuzzy. Lou thinks he looks a little Renteria-ish and could even fill in right away for an injured Ryan Theriot if the need presented itself.

But I'm sure you haven't forgotten how the previous installments of this film series turned out. Corey Patterson. Felix Pie. The Hills both Rich and Bobby. We know the gap between highly touted prospect and holy-crap-is-this-guy-for-real All-Star vote getter is a deep and treacherous canyon through which the river of our disappointment flows freely. So how do we know what to expect? I ask because I don't like getting burned by failed expectations any more than you do. So should I risk the excitement or just dismiss this kid until he proves me wrong?

But the truth is, we don't know. We can listen to the scouting reports, but you can usually find a scout who will support whichever conclusion you're predisposed to believe. You can look to the minor league stats, which Bill James says are just as trustworthy as major league stats for their predictive powers. There's an interesting discussion in the comments at this Castro post at ACB about Castro's stats, what they tell us, how different experts interpret them, and what we should believe. (Indulge your curiosity and read through the comments, because there's great food for thought there.)

If you lack faith in the prophetic powers of stats, you can always just watch Castro play this spring and judge for yourself. I know I can't wait. But I do want to call your attention to just one thing: the kid is 19. Nineteen year olds are, as a group, not entirely dependable. They're just unpredictable creatures, those teenagers. As baseball players, the rate of development is pretty drastic. As people . . . same thing.

The reliability of the scouting reports is at the mercy of Castro's youth. They can be impressed by a kid's "makeup," but they can't know if he can handle the challenge of major league baseball in Chicago or anywhere else. And while I do agree that minor league stats can tell us a lot, I think they're really shaky when it comes to teenagers. Let me give you a non-saber stat line for a 19-year-old shortstop who played a full season at the A level:

Player X: 128 Games, 71 RBI, 5 HR, .295 BA, .376 OBP, .394 SLG, 56 Errors

The hitting looks decent, the error total is atrocious, and the overall product doesn't exactly scream future MVP. Keep in mind, these are single-A numbers we're talking about. Here's Castro's line from A+ Daytona and AA Tennessee:

Castro: 127 Games, 49 RBI, 3 HR, .299 BA, .342 OBP, .392 SLG, 39 Errors

I'd call those numbers comparable, no? Neither guy jumps out at you, and the defense suggests both players are actually Jake Fox. But Player X is actually a 19-year-old Derek Jeter.

Now, I know that these stats aren't the best predictors of future performance, but if you're familiar with the ones that are, you have already looked at Castro's. I'm not saying we should expect or even hope Castro will look like the guy who wears the #2 on his Yankee jersey. I can't even guarantee he'll be good enough to replace the guy who wears the #2 on his Cub jersey. 

But I will say that Starlin Castro is only going to get better. Stupid as I'm inclined to be, I'm expecting good things from the kid if he can impress Sweet Lou and ascend through the minors so quickly. I'll be watching with great interest when he plays semi-real games this spring, and something tells me I'll be easily impressed.

Consider my hopes officially raised.

Wherefore art thou, Geo?

Big, gigantic, tremendous thanks to Tim Sheridan over at Boys of Spring for posting pictures from the Cubs' preliminary workouts in Mesa on Wednesday. (You may have heard Tim's work as the Cubs' spring training PA announcer or when he's been interviewed on Cubscast.) Again, huge thanks for the great photos, including this one.

But what in the name of Keira Knightley happened to Geo?

I'm glad he lost some weight, but did an alien jump out of his abdomen? Were his munchies really that bad? He looks bulimic. He looks like he's doing a killer Tyler Colvin impression. He looks like Chandler in season 3.

I guess this is good news. Unless Geo decides to hit his weight again this season.

h/t to ACB

A Few Small Repairs

I've made a couple changes to the site. Not wholesale changes or even dramatic ones, just a few minor adjustments. And that's not because the site doesn't need work, it's just . . . well, what am I gonna do? I'm not exactly chiseling rough edges off the Michelangelo. Oh, and I'm not raising payroll, either. But you know, I think these relatively small additions to life at And Counting might just help out.

The situation here isn't all that different from where the Cubs are right now. Look, last offseason Jim Hendry made some moves that didn't work out. You could call them great moves that went bad, or foolish risks that were doomed from the start. Actually, it's really easy now to say that they were all ridiculously misinformed—but so is this blog, so who am I to judge?

This offseason, Hendry has subtracted just about all of last offseason's moves (the Mark DeRosa toothpaste can't be squeezed back into the tube). Bradley's gone. Gregg is gone. The Aarons both Heilman and Miles. We bid farewell to Rich Harden and Jake Fox, and we'll miss a little bit of Ted Lilly at the outset of the season. But when you look at the 2009 contributions of the dearly departed Cubs, is the absence of any of that really going to sting?

So I look at the additions, the small changes, the slightly altered logos and DISQUS comments of this 2010 Chicago Cubs team. Marlon Byrd. Xavier Nady. Clubhouse gallbladder infection, Carlos Silva. And let's not forget new guy, other new guy, and the dude we got for Jake Fox. None of these guys are going to reconfigure the Cubbie universe. They won't win Nobel Prizes. But the the Cubs don't need wholesale changes. They just need to tread water.

If you want to see the statistical projections, you can check them out at ACB. The Cubs aren't bad. They're not as good as the Cardinals (who suck, by the way). They're not as good on paper as last year's paper team. They might not even be as good on paper as last year's team was on the field.

But I like this team. I expect Soto to have better luck (let's hope his eyebrows weren't the source of his power). I expect Soriano to be healthier and better. I expect Zambrano to be worse and luckier. Marlon Byrd will be good. Someone I've never heard of will be good. The pitching staff will be the least of the Cubs' problems. I expect the sportswriters to fade into the dingy background of the press box. I expect to be wrong about oh so much. But in the end, or at least on the way to the end, I expect to enjoy the 2010 season.

Jon Heyman thinks the Cubs struck out. I think the Cubs took two steps forward and one and a half steps back. If they can just stay afloat until June, Jim Hendry might make a real move, and this team just might kick a little ass.

Remembering Sosa When It Meant Nothing (ACB)

I had the privilege of posting over at Another Cubs Blog last night, adding to a series they had done last summer in honor (yes, honor) of Sammy Sosa. One of these days I'll get the hang of this blogging on multiple sites, but my rampant disorganization and random motivation have ganged up on me lately—so I'm just now getting around to linking to that post. Here it is, in all its slow-developing glory.

I'm working on a few other posts, so those should be coming up in the next few minutes hours eons days, so stay tuned.