20 days until Spring Training

It is the best and worst time of the year. In Ottawa it is freezing cold and baseball season seems miles away. However, the Cubs have yet to start their annual, mind-numbing exercise in futility. This year the signing of a certain reliever is a definite Ohman of the times changing, but then again I try not to count my Soriano's or staring pitchers before they hatch.

With the silly season nearing its end. I thought I would see what the wonderful baseball sim Baseball Mogul thought of the Cubs offseason moves. This includes everything up to yesterday's signing of Cliff Floyd (sigh that is another blog altogether). I simmed through 2006 and made the same moves as Pac-Man Jim Hendry. I set up the sim and I let it run through. Here are the findings on a month by month basis. I did no tweaking. I simply monitored the results and completed the sim only once. Good luck Mr. Will Ohman, good luck.

April 2007

Cubs Record: 12-11

Games out of NL Central: 4 (St. Louis)

Games out of Wildcard: 3 (San Diego)

Games of Note:

April 5, 2007 – Cubs lose on Opening Day 1-0 to the Reds as Zambrano tosses seven innings with one run on seven hits. Will Ohman goes two innings striking out one and allowing no runs.

April 8^th 2007 – Cubs lose 5-2 to the Cardinals, but manage to take two out of three from the Red Birds. Ohman allows one run in the sixth. A solo shot from Y. Molina.

April 24^th 2007 – Ohman strikes out a batter in the seventh and eighth as the Cubs drop a 5-4 game to the D-Backs.

Ohman’s stats through April:

ERA 2.76

IP 16

K 15

BB 9

W-L-S 0-0-0