This is amazing.
Cubs owner Tom Ricketts is playing the usual MLB ownership card of moving the team if roadblocks to renovating Wrigley Field are not eliminated. Hopefully–and I say this as both a Chicago taxpayer and a baseball fan sick of seeing billionaires fleece taxpayers for stadium money–Ricketts will pony up all the money required for renovation, with no tax breaks from our bankrupt, poorly-run city.
In steps Andy Viano, the president and general manager of the Schaumburg Boomers, an independent league team in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, with an offer to warmly welcome the Cubs as tenants in their 7,365-capacity ballpark. “We will propose a fair and honest rent, no question about that, but we have one tenant that’s committed to winning a championship in 2013 so the Boomers would get first priority on dates.”
In summary….
Carlos Martinez, in stuff, was about the same last night against Northwest Arkansas as he was when I saw him two years ago in low-A. His four-seam fastball showed plus velocity, sitting 93-95 and touching a bit higher when he reached back for it. Martinez can spin a curveball. Two of his four strikeouts came on whiffs with his curve, including a very impressive at-bat to close out the second inning in which he got strike two swinging with the curve, had the batter looking for the fastball with two strikes, and fooled him with another curve.
Some players you just know. Strasburg. Harper. Trout. Verlander. Felix. Kershaw. As prospects, they were gilded, and their pro careers have validated the hype that surrounded them as minor leaguers. Top prospects pan out more than the lower-tier players. The difference between the #2-ranked prospect in baseball and the #12 prospect is far greater than the difference between someone’s list ranking two players #51 and #63.
On October 7, 2012 in Game 1 of the NLDS, Adam Wainwright walked Kurt Suzuki. It was the last batter Wainwright faced that night, and now, 9 1/3 more 2012 postseason innings plus 29 2013 regular season innings later, it remains the last batter Wainwright walked.
The Rays are off to an abysmal start, having scored less than 3 runs per game in their first 12 outings of 2013. They were just swept by the Red Sox in a four-game series that was shortened by weather to three, losing 2-1, 5-0, and 3-2.
Per 
Loshe got 3 years and $33 million total.
I started a series counting down prospects back in the fall. I wrote a list in late July, started writing the posts at the same time starting from the bottom up, doing one post every few days, then holding on to publish them all in a row. Halfway through the writing, I disliked it, and had already started posting them. Almost two months after making the list my opinions were changing. For a MLB player with a 15-year career, two months is not much time. For a prospect who might spend 15-18 months tops in full-season minor league ball, 2 months is a big chunk of their publicly-displayed minor league development.
Major League Baseball has 
According to 
