By Marty Gangler

Finally, a good week. Was it any coincidence that as soon as the Cubs announced The Riz was coming to town their season turned upward? I think not.
It was a sigh of relief for this team to finally get their guy here and slotted into the 3-hole. The rest of the lineup could breathe a little bit easier with the lineup-for-the-future suddenly taking shape.
And with Travis Wood recovering from an awful spring training to become a rotation mainstay just as Ryan Dempster and maybe Matt Garza are about to depart, well, it’s been a good week for Theo too. This thing just might work, except for one inescapable fact:

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Posted on July 2, 2012

By Marty Gangler

Oh people, he’s coming. The next guy to take away all the pain. He’s so close we can taste his musk. And he’s bringing with him a huge bag of hope. Anthony Rizzo, come on down! You are the next contestant on Make The Cubs Right!
But hope and a big bat aren’t enough to do the job alone. We here at The Cub Factor request The Riz bring a long a few other items if he wants to turn this team into a winner.
* A diagram of the strike zone to hand out to his new teammates, along with a baseball dictionary definition of the word “walk.”
* An answer key to all the stats Dale Sveum seems to look at but doesn’t seem to really understand.
* Some pills for Matt Garza to “take the edge off.”

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Posted on June 25, 2012

By Steve Rhodes

Apparently Dale Sveum didn’t get the memo.
This was supposed to be a new Cubs era.
One typified by the oft-repeated mantra of “Playing the game right.”
One that stressed fundamentals.
And accountability.
Starting with the little things.
Like hustling out of the box on a batted ball.
Instead, we’re back to how great of a teammate Alfonso Soriano is. What, he brings candy to the clubhouse every day?

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Posted on June 18, 2012

By Marty Gangler

Um, what? After enduring yet another horrible week of Cubs baseball I am left with a question. What is this? Sure, the answer is “a rebuilding year.” But there is so little to build with here. It’s like trying to build a skyscraper with some pipe cleaners and Elmer’s glue.
That’s just not going to hold up. Yes my friends, this is rock bottom. Whodathunkit?
Well, everyone kinda thunk it this year I guess, but now that we are here, it’s friggin tough to deal with. Which makes me think of the alternative.

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Posted on June 11, 2012

By Marty Gangler

Okay. So, if you are reading this right now, you probably read last week in The Second Basemen Report that I said that Darwin Barney “should never be starting on a major league roster.”
So, first, what I said kinda makes no sense because he should never be starting, or never be on a major league roster – it should be one or the other, right? But my point pretty much was, he shouldn’t be a consistent starter.
But then we have to go out to San Francisco and see that Ryan Theriot is the starter at second for the Giants. And on top of that, Barney went out and had a really solid week at the plate – even more solid when you think about how bad the Cubs are at hitting.
Which made me think: I might be wrong.

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Posted on June 4, 2012

By Marty Gangler

As this season progresses, Cub fans just have no choice but to look at the future. I mean, you could watch this team now and hope they turn it around. But you’d be kind of insane to do so. Nope. As it’s been written and talked about all year, the 2012 season is all about the 2014-and-beyond season. Read that again, this is just weird.
With this being the given, what is there left to say about the worst team in baseball in 2012? Why, it’s what we’ll get out of being so horrendous! It’ll be the number one pick in the 2013 draft. The baseball draft. We’re not even talking about the NFL draft. We’re talking about the baseball draft. It’s like talking about practice. It’s the draft. In baseball. The baseball draft.

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Posted on May 28, 2012

By Marty Gangler

The biggest news last week wasn’t just that Kerry Wood finally hung them up it was the way he did it. Since when do players announce their retirement and then go out there one more time? Were the Cubs then obligated to put him in a game regardless of situation? Like, no matter what? Kerry Wood may have been Tom Ricketts’ fantasy pick, but the games are still real! And not all present a chance for, say, an intentional walk.
True, he got a strikeout when called upon. But what if he got shelled?
Putting Wood on this season’s roster probably cost the Cubs five games. Hopefully Ricketts will stay out of Theo and Jed’s way from now on.

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Posted on May 21, 2012

By Marty Gangler

Every Monday (or close to) we here at The Cub Factor try to figure out what we learned from the previous week. A lot of times we learn nothing; we can even forget things on occasion. But this week I want to discuss something that made me more confused than anything. I’d like to discuss rooftops.
I was fortunate enough to get on a rooftop for the Cubs-Dodgers game on Saturday night. And even though I’ve been on a rooftop in the past – one other time – some new questions arose this time.

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Posted on May 7, 2012

By Marty Gangler

Phew. That was a close one. I thought these guys were going to be like really really bad. It’s looking like they are only going to be bad, not intergalactically bad. And really, it’s kind of okay. Why is being bad okay? Well, it’s because they are just bad, not stupid. And being bad and stupid is the worst.
Just look at last year. I’ve been a Cub fan my whole life and I hated that bad stupid team. These guys I actually like. I can root for a Joe Mather. I can pull for a Bryan LaHair. I can scream “Go!” every time Tony Campana gets on base. I like this team! And that is saying something.

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Posted on April 30, 2012

By Marty Gangler

I think we’ve learned a few things this week. First, when the Cubs score at least eight runs, they have a very good chance to win. Second, Marlon Byrd might be completely done. And third, Bruce Springsteen is coming to play at Wrigley Field this season.
With these three learned facts in mind, we here at The Cub Factor pondered just what the set list will be when Bruce and the E-Streeters come to town – and how he might tweak it to give his Wrigley show a 2012 Cubs slant:

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Posted on April 16, 2012