Light at the end of the ridiculously low-ceilinged tunnel.

The Cubs have actually played pretty good baseball when sequencing is not considered. By wOBA differential, they’ve been a well above average team. Their record is almost entirely a reflection of the power of the timing of various events.

In our Win Probability section, we track a stat called “Clutch”, which basically looks at the wins a team has gained or lost due to the leverage of the game when their positive or negative ...

[A]s of May 16, Kevin Gregg has thrown ten innings without allowing an earned run. Over those 10 frames, he has faced 39 batters surrendering just five hits and four walks and striking out 12 batters. Because it’s just 10 innings, I’m probably making too big a deal out of his success, but remember this is the same pitcher that:

*Was released by the Dodgers during Spring Training. The Dodgers’ pen ranks 25th in the Majors in ERA.
*Registered a 4.62 ERA, 4.95 FIP, 4.83 xFIP over the last ...

Could always ask…Rich Nye the Quantum Chronophysics Guy.

Indeed, scanning the 2013 roster, only an optimist of Ernie Banksian dimensions would find four future Hall-of-Famers. I only count two position players who have even made the All-Star team as Cubs: Starlin Castro (2011, 2012), Alfonso Soriano (2007, 2008). Castro is still a work in progress and The Fonz can only hope for lasting recognition if his outfield hop turns into a Gangnam style YouTube sensation.

Getting more granular, ...

“Peachy keen, jellybean.”

The Cubs, from the moment they acquired first baseman Anthony Rizzo 16 months ago, viewed him as a significant part of their future.

Now, they can guarantee it long-term.

The Cubs have reached agreement with Rizzo on a seven-year, $41 million contract through 2019, according to major-league sources. The deal also includes two $14.5 million club options, sources said.

Thus, the total value over nine years could be $68 million; Rizzo would not receive a $2 million ...

Maureen Oleskiewicz, a 28-year-old middle school teacher, died on Sunday after choking on a hot dog at Wrigley Field, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Oleskiewicz and her brother, Martin Oleskiewicz, were eating before the game started when she fell to the floor choking. CPR was administered, but she died after undergoing cardiac arrest.

Maureen Oleskiewicz, a 28-year-old middle school teacher, died on Sunday after choking on a hot dog at Wrigley Field.

Before Oleskiewicz passed away, ...

For a second there, I thought he had his Wood’s confused and was going to call in Arthur Koehler.

Even Chicago Cubs pitcher Travis Wood was stunned when he heard what manager Dale Sveum said about him after Wood threw another gem in helping to beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-1, on Tuesday night.

“He’s the best starter in baseball pretty much,” Sveum said bluntly.

That might be overstating the case, but with a 2.33 ERA for the season and 6⅔ innings of one-run ball Tuesday, Sveum might not ...

Anyone who commits to the Cubs should be committed.

Stewart just finished a rehab assignment with the Iowa Cubs for a left quad injury that has plagued him since early in spring training. The maximum time a player can spend in the minors in that situation is 20 days, making last Friday his final day of rehabbing.

But because he was hitting .091 the Cubs decided to keep him there by officially sending him down after his rehab stint was complete. He didn’t need to clear waivers, so Stewart ...

My kind of stadium, Wrigley ain’t
My kind of freeloaders, too
Toothless ushers who smile at you

There is something ghastly about watching the St. Louis Cardinals play the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field akin to watching the prom queen dance with Quasimodo in a fetid alley.

Busch Stadium is a modern, clean facility with excellent views of the playing field, wide inner corridors, easy access to vendors, large restrooms, plentiful parking and compelling views of a vibrant downtown.

The Busch ...

Forget the 11-16 start. Hang in there, Theo! huh? oh…

COULD THE LAS VEGAS CUBS BECOME REALITY????

The owner of the Chicago Cubs threatened Wednesday to move the team out of Wrigley Field if his plans for a big, new video screen are blocked, saying he needs millions of dollars in ad revenue to help bankroll the renovation of the storied ballpark.

It was the first time during months of contentious negotiations over plans for a $500 million renovation of the 99-year-old stadium that Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts has threatened to move the team out of ...

Passive Soler, building design.

In the minor leagues, Class A Daytona manager Dave Keller benched phenom Jorge Soler for Sunday’s game after Soler twice failed to run hard Saturday.

“(Soler) sat (Sunday) because within the philosophy and the work ethic that we are trying to create in this organization—and that we are trying to get our players to understand – work ethic, energy, determination, playing hard and running hard is part of the whole program,” Daytona manager Dave Keller told ...

Madlock to Spurlock…Don’t Super Size Me!

Jumbotron? Just Say ‘No!’

The main problem is not the rooftop owners, or at least it shouldn’t be. It’s great to have fans watching games from the rooftops across the street—a historic practice to which the Cubs have never objected—but outrageous that rooftop owners veto improvements to Wrigley on the basis of projected “lost revenues.” These “revenues” must be understood for what they are: a theft of the Cubs’ product, to not one ...

Wave soldering combined with aqueous washing…can only mean victory!

Onetime boy-genius baseball executive Theo Epstein was brought here from the Red Sox to make the Cubs winners. So far Theo, which means ‘‘God’’ in Greek, has presided over Hades. The Cubs reek.

Fans have been instructed to wait. I’ve been waiting for 64
years. It gets old, you know. And then you die.

But now Ricketts has declared that Epstein will have everything he needs to win it all. This is more than a boast, ...

Then Sveum said, ‘Let us make the Cubs in my image, in my likeness’

But if you combined all the Cubs’ offensive stats from two weeks into the season to form a single player? Well, we’ve got almost enough stats to Frankenstein together our own utility player, even if all he is really good for is moaning “Fire bad!” and occasionally pinch hitting for Brent Lillibridge.

So far this season, the Cubs have amassed about 400 plate appearances, 11 homers, 35 runs, a 23.9% strikeout rate and a 5.5% ...

Cubs president Theo Epstein is expected to address the media sometime this afternoon about the situation Wednesday night involving Cubs prospect Jorge Soler at Class A Daytona. We’ll pick things up here from our blog of this morning and add some reaction, which we’ll flesh out more in depth for the paper tomorrow and online later today. The Cubs and Giants are working out on the outfield grass as a cold rain continues to fall at Wrigley Field before the scheduled 1:20 p.m. game.

...Soler, ...

Not even from a 100 years ago…

A goat’s head was delivered to Wrigley Field this afternoon, addressed to Cubs owner Tom Ricketts, and police are investigating the dropoff of the “intimidating package,” officials said.

A package with a goat’s head was dropped off at Wrigley, 1060 W. Addison St., addressed to Ricketts, Cubs team spokesman Julian Green said.

The package was dropped off at Gate K at the field, Green said. The delivery was reported to police, he said.

Police were called to ...

Y’all gonna make me lose my mind.

B.J. Upton led off the ninth inning with a homer and his brother Justin followed one out later with another long ball that helped the Atlanta Braves rally past embattled Chicago Cubs closer Carlos Marmol for a 6-5 victory Saturday night.

Marmol had been through a tough week. He was pulled from a save situation after facing four batters and not recording an out in Chicago’s win at Pittsburgh on opening day, but he earned a save on Thursday against the Pirates ...

The agreement is expected to include $300 million in renovations at Wrigley, more night games, a parking lot and a $200 million hotel nearby, the people said. They said the team would pick up the entire tab to renovate Wrigley

The plan calls for a video scoreboard inside the park in left field and another sign in right field, said one person close to the negotiations. The size of the video scoreboard was among the details still being worked out. Some owners of the famed rooftops across the ...

The Cubs organization dropped $13.9 million on the campaign; that’s roughly $4 million more than the other all of the donations made by the other 29 teams combined.

The vast majority of the Cubs’ spending came from owner Joe Ricketts, who dumped $12 million of his own money on Ending Spending, a super PAC that ran ads dedicated to, well, ending spending. (Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, gave $1.1 million to Ending Spending as well.)

Most of the rest of the Ricketts family also gave ...

Oh, he’s just like any team president, only more so.

The second-year Cubs president entertained reporters for about 10 minutes before his team beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 3-1.

“Good, excited,” Epstein said of his feelings. “I think we made a lot of progress last year. Now, it’s time to go out and compete and see if we can get off to a good start and see if we can find ourselves right in the middle of this thing, as we want to be.”

Talking outside the Cubs clubhouse to avoid a morning ...

IT’S A…

!!!

Which is why it makes no sense for the Cubs to leave Wrigleyville for suburban Rosemont or anywhere else.

“Their greatest asset is their fans, but Wrigley is as great an asset as the team itself, and that’s because of the value placed on it by the fans,” said Jim Grinstead, publisher of Revenues from Sports Ventures, a well-regarded newsletter on the economics of sports teams. “Cubs fans have put up with a lot of losing for a lot of years. They’re loyal to their team, and that ...

A young Lebanese immigrant awaiting sentencing for placing a backpack he thought held a bomb near Chicago’s Wrigley Field wrote a letter to the judge saying he drank “all day, every day” for months before the would-be attack.

In a seven-page letter to U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, Sami Samir Hassoun apologizes and insists he has worked hard at becoming a better person, including by taking yoga instruction in jail.

The letter was included in a defense filing this week. Hassoun, in ...

As the Chicago Cubs’ quest for a fair stadium refinancing deal continues to drag on with the Wrigleyville community throwing up roadblocks to slow down the settlement process, a new and potentially viable option to Wrigley Field has emerged.

Rosemont mayor Brad Stephens told me this morning in a CSNChicago exclusive that he is willing to give the Cubs and the Ricketts family a 25-acre parcel of land in the village that is a prime piece of real estate large enough to accommodate a new ballpark ...

She lived for a dream that wouldn’t die. Ruth Ann Steinhagen, dies at 83.

The Chicago woman whose near-fatal 1949 shooting of former Cubs first baseman Eddie Waitkus inspired the book and movie “The Natural” died with the same anonymity with which she lived for more than half a century.

The 19-year-old’s crime, which put a spotlight on stalking crimes, nearly killed Waitkus, 29, and temporarily sidetracked his career. The incident also helped to draw attention to “baseball Annies” — young, ...

Dutch courage is Grace under pressure.

“In this world of blame game, it’s like Democrats and Republicans blame each other, countries blame each other … (but) I did this,” Grace said Monday after throwing batting practice to Diamondback minor leaguers. “The Diamondbacks didn’t do anything wrong. The cop didn’t screw me. The judge didn’t screw me. The prosecutor didn’t screw me. It’s a lesson learned, and especially out here. These laws out here, they don’t mess around. I knew that.

“You can ...