Whether it's Steve Trachsel, Corey Patterson, Felix Pie or Rich Hill, the Cubs and Orioles seem to really enjoy talking trades with each other. It makes a bit of sense, considering Jim Hendry and Andy MacPhail worked together as members of the Cubs front office for several years, because they probably feel very comfortable with each other and like many of the same players. The most recent rumor is utility player Ryan Freel.
According to Ken Rosenthal, the Cubs are interested in the services of Freel, who was acquired in the offseason by the Orioles. Freel is a bit frustrated with sitting on the bench for the O's, and he's still owed over $3 million this season.
Sunday night, Milton Bradley pulled up lame on his way to third base after a Ryan Theriot base knock. He clutched his groin and the Cubs immediately removed him from the game -- said to be a precautionary measure. In the short term, the tweaked groin ended up being a blessing in disguise for the Cubs. Reed Johnson was inserted into Bradley's spot, and he made an unbelievable grand-slam-saving catch just a few minutes later.
Moving forward, though, Bradley's injury during the first week of the season is sure to draw the ire of the Cubbie-hating public and many Cubs fans alike. We know about his injury history, after all, and the Chicago media had a feeding frenzy on Jim Hendry when he granted Bradley with a three-year, $30 million contract this past offseason.
FanHouse continues its 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Chicago Cubs.
A magical regular season that yielded the most victories for the Cubs franchise since 1935 sent them to the postseason for the fourth time in a 11-season span. Unfortunately, 2008 ended the same way 1998, 2003 and 2007 did -- in disappointment. The Cubs head into 2009 hoping to wipe the slate clean and get over any fake curses they are allegedly saddled with.
FanHouse continues its 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Kansas City Royals.
The 2008 season was a lot like every other season for the Kansas City Royals lately, with one major exception. They didn't finish in last place of the AL Central. No, that honor went to the Detroit Tigers instead. Still, while fourth place isn't really anything to get excited about in any baseball city other than Pittsburgh, in Kansas City it has bred hope for better things in 2009.
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Most people will tend to agree with the following statement: Today's players are bigger and stronger than their counterparts from 15 years ago. However, if you look at stolen base statistics from 1993 you'll find that 45 players swiped 20 or more bases that year. Six players even stole more than 50 bags. In 2008, only 37 players notched 20 or more stolen bases, with only three swiping 50 or more.
Cubs manager Lou Piniella has made no secret of the fact he would like another left-handed bat to put in the middle of his lineup next season, and that is no doubt the reason that the Cubs are currently pursuing Milton Bradley pretty heavily. Still, Bradley has a few teams who are interested in signing him so it's no guarantee that the Cubs will be that team. So maybe that's why they went ahead and signed former Tampa Bay Ray -- under Lou Piniella -- and Kansas City Royal Joey Gathright to a one-year deal on Tuesday.
"We're thrilled to have him," Jim Hendry said. "We've been really looking for a guy like this for quite some time. He's arguably one of the fastest guys in the game, if not the fastest. Our people think he can be even better in the National League because of double-switches and the other roles.''
Gathright is incredibly fast, but if the Cubs are planning on using him as anything other than a defensive replacement in the outfield, pinch-runner, or car-hurdler, they're going to be sorry. Even though Gathright is one of the fastest guys in baseball, and has stolen 78 bases in his career, he's still been thrown out 27 times. Someone with his speed should have a much higher success rate than 74 percent.
He's also a career .263 hitter with an OBP of .328, so he can't be considered a replacement for Alfonso Soriano at the top of the order either. Still, Gathright's skills probably are better suited for the National League rather than the American League, where he spent his entire career, and considering he'll only cost the Cubs $800,000 for a year it's a low risk/high reward type of signing.
Jorge Posada has played parts of 13 seasons, including the last decade as the Yankees' full-time catcher. Amazingly, despite playing the most dangerous position on the field (in the non-pitcher category, at least), he's never had to go on the disabled list. Sadly, that streak may soon come to an end to a weak shoulder. From MLB.com (via WasWatching):
Asked how the shoulder feels, Posada said: "Dead. It's like I've got no strength."
The Royals ran wildly on Posada, stealing four bases -- three by speedster Joey Gathright -- and Yankees manager Joe Girardi acknowledged that keeping Posada behind the plate would now be a weakness.
"It's not sore," Girardi said. "The ball is just not coming out of his hand the way you want it to. His footwork is fine and everything. We'll have to sit down and talk about that tonight and evaluate what we're going to do."
I'm not sure if the fact that the joint isn't even sore is good news or bad -- if he had a noticeable injury, at least the team could point to a specific timetable for him to be back to normal. But he's feeling no pain and Girardi says his mechanics are good which means this is pretty much a mystery. He was scheduled for an MRI today, but if I had to guess I'd say that he's headed to the DL no matter what the results say -- the last thing the Yanks want is for this to linger deep into the season.
If it seems like some time since Bobby Jenks has had the opportunity to hold the all-time record for batters retired in a row all by his lonesome, (if you remember, he recently tied the record with his 41st putout in a row) well you'd be right. The White Sox lost six in a row since Jenks' last appearance, so it wasn't always opportune for the club to bring in their closer.
Well, with the White Sox holding a 4-3 lead heading into the ninth this evening, Jenks was summoned from the bullpen to face red hot Joey Gathright. After hitting a ball inches foul down the left field line, Gathright fouled off a few pitches, almost got hit by a Jenks fast ball and then on a 1-2 count punched one between short and third. So Jenks will settle for a tie of the all-time record.
"I messed up on that one," Jenks said of the 1-2 pitch that Gathright hit for a single to end a streak that started July 17 and relegated Jenks to sharing a major-league record that San Francisco's Jim Barr set in 1972. "I shook off a slider to go to the curveball and I should have known that I couldn't get the first two [curves] down. It's my fault, but he's hot and I tip my hat."
This is a rather tremendous feat, especially considering Jenks did it all from a relief role. It's a little less sweet because he has to share the record instead of holding it all on his own, but congrats are in order nonetheless. Oh and guess what? The White Sox actually won the game! At this point, that's probably a more notable feat.
That's Joey Gathright, occasional big-league center fielder. He's currently playing with the Royals (of Triple-A Omaha, that is), though the video was taken in 2002, back when he was still a legitimate prospect for the Devil Rays. What went wrong?
Well, he can't hit worth a lick, and he jumped over one more car in this video than he's hit home runs over three seasons. I kind of hope he makes the big show and gets traded to the Phillies, though, if for no other reason than to see him try jumping over Jon Lieber's truck.
UPDATE: The Cubs ended up trading Gathright for Freel straight up, after our original post, which appears below.
Sunday night, 
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Cubs manager 
If it seems like some time since 
