By Marty Gangler

Isn’t this fun?
I think as a fan I could get used to this whole “winning” thing.
And even the guys that I kind of don’t care too much for have been playing great. I mean, sure, Dexter Fowler is still batting .257 for the season, but his OBP in August is .427. He’s turned his season around since the All-Star break.
And I still don’t like Chris Coghlan so much, but there is a big difference having a questionable guy playing second base opposed to left field. Second base is where questionable guys belong.

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Posted on August 24, 2015

By Marty Gangler

What is there to say? The Cubs went 5-1 for the week and only lost to Chris Sale. Who was as Chris Sale-y as it gets in that one loss.
The biggest question mark of the week was who would start in the wild card playoff game, Arrieta or Lester. Because you know, the Cubs are already there.

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Posted on August 17, 2015

By Marty Gangler

What a freaking week.
The Cubs haven’t been this hot since sweet Lou was in charge.
But there is something that still just doesn’t sit right with me.

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Posted on August 10, 2015

By Steve Rhodes

Thank God for Russ in Los Angeles!
Russ wrote to the Tribune’s Mark Gonzales for his mailbag feature and asked:
I watched the All-Star lineup introductions, and who is the National League starting second baseman but DJ LeMahieu. I looked up who the Cubs got when he was traded in 2011: Casey Weathers and Ian Stewart. What a horrible trade – who is responsible for that?
Maybe because Russ is in Los Angeles, he doesn’t know you aren’t allowed to question Theo Epstein. Every word he utters is the gospel – the Theospel. And he’s infallible!

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Posted on August 3, 2015

By Marty Gangler

Today’s Cub Factor is all about loss. And not just losing on the field, because the Cubs sure did a lot of in the last week. It’s about the biggest loss on the roster in some time. Yes friends, I’m talking about the loss of Edwin Jackson.
The Cubs parted ways with E-Jax since our last installment of the Cub Factor and boy, was he missed. He could have easily got to pitch in at least three games in the last week in his “eat innings in mop-up duty in games they have little chance of winning” role.
Just so weird that the Cubs had so few of these games they had little chance of winning up until the point when they DFA’d E-Jax; then they got three in a week.
And what is the whole “DFA” thing about? Technically it means “designated for assignment,” but I always thought that was odd. Like you are assigning them a project or homework or something. So, with this in mind we here at the Cub Factor have decided to create a list of assignments that should be given to our newest ex-cub, Edwin Jackson.

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Posted on July 27, 2015

By Marty Gangler

If you have kids in this day and age, you know the power of the DVR, on demand, and Netflix. Parents can play tantrum-saving cartoons at any second of the day.
I have boys seven and almost four, and we’ve found a good overlap with a show called Teen Titans. It’s a cartoon that has superheroes at its core, but it’s more about the day-to-day interaction of the teenish superheroes than actually stopping crime. And it’s silly and clever enough to not be horrendous to watch as a middle-aged man.
Okay, I’m getting to the Cubs tie-in. One of the characters is called Cyborg and he is, um, a cyborg – part machine and part man/boy or whatever. And Cyborg was feeling bad about not having a pet, so he befriended a machine that was once an enemy called Pain Bot. And as much as he tried to reform Pain Bot, it just didn’t work; the only thing Pain Bot knows how to say is, “All I know is pain.” And that’s what it felt like to be a Cub Fan this week. All we know is pain. How about that ninth-inning loss to the Cardinals when they were down to their last strike? All I know is pain. Or how about losing that game to the White Sox despite drawing seven walks by not scoring a single run to lose 1-0? All I know is pain. And while we are at it, how about all those years you’ve been alive as a Cub fan? All I know is pain.

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Posted on July 13, 2015

By Marty Gangler

Remember when the Cubs had all these great young position players who were really good? And these kids were leading the team to a great bounce-back season after a handful of years of losing on purpose? Well, you shouldn’t believe what you kind of think. Because the Cubs are having a solid year and it has close to nothing to do with these great young position players.
The Cubs are 12th (out of 15) in the NL in runs scored, yet have the fifth-best record in the league. It’s all been the pitching, which is fourth in the league (still 15 teams) in ERA. And there are a ton of other fancy stats to tell you in every conceivable way that the Cubs have pitched their way out of the mess they were in a few years ago.

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Posted on July 6, 2015

By Marty Gangler

Okay, that wasn’t much of a week. And you could be one of those fans who is all mad about the lack of offense, the continued Starlin Castro issues, or a bunch of other stuff – but forget all of that. There something that Cub fans haven’t had to worry about in a long while, the All-Star game. And sure, it’d be nice, I guess, to get a few Cubbies in there, but forget that too. As stupid as it sounds, Cub fans have to actually care who wins that game for the first time since, well, since whenever Bud Selig got mad about that one tie and made the game count for home field advantage in the World Series.

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Posted on June 29, 2015

By Steve Rhodes

Starlin Castro is one of the most aggravating players in recent Cub history.
Consider this exchange I had with Cub Factor impresario Marty Gangler over the weekend:
Steve: (After Castro’s walkoff single) Castro still has to go.
Marty: He’s fearless in bigger situations at the plate it seems. And I don’t know if it’s bad to have a guy in the lineup that can get hits on horrible pitches. If he’s your 7th batter maybe he’s fine. Idk. His d is just below average too. If you have Schwarber and the left field masher to be named later in the lineup maybe you count on nothing from Castro and you are ok. He’s 25 and already has 916 hits. Bryant is 23 and has 62 hits.

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Posted on June 22, 2015

By Marty Gangler

I have to admit it’s tough to come up with much about the Cubs right now with the Blackhawks on the verge of winning their third Stanley Cup since I’ve been alive.
And really, is it worth even mentioning the Cups they won way back when there were only six teams? C’mon. That barely counts. Six teams?! This championship run is the only one that has mattered in franchise history. And all you old-timers, don’t break your hip trying to argue. I mean geez, they didn’t even have curved sticks in 1961.
But it would sure be nice to think that the Cubs are putting together a “Hawks-like” movement by bringing in young high draft picks and then surrounding them with skilled veteran talent. And you know, maybe that is happening, but the Cubs haven’t won squat yet, so no, it’s not happening. Because lots of teams stink for a while, get good draft picks and then continue to stink – just pick your sport. But some teams, actually very few teams, stink for a long time while getting high draft picks and then win three championships in a short period of time.

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Posted on June 15, 2015