Hire Jim Essian

It's hard to imagine that Neifi Neftali Perez was a bigger liability to the Cubs when off their roster than when on it. When last we left Neifi over four years ago, he was being honored as the second-worst Cub of my time. Now here we sit, eagerly awaiting his official retirement from baseball so that his Hall of Fame eligibility clock can begin its insistent ticking. Surely, a man with a career .297 OBP will not get a call from the Hall of Fame. He would, however, if the BBWAA considered only Neifi's statistics against the Cubs. His career pursuit of those numbers caused Neifi to scrap his way all the way up to #18 of the Top 79 Cub Killers of My Time.

I offer you this submission. Never has there been a more hate-worthy Cub shortstop than Ryan Theriot. Not Jeff Blauser. Not Neifi Perez. Not Alex Gonzalez. Not Ronny Cedeno. All of those guys were terrible, but they either had some redeeming moments (Gonzalez), were hated solely because of misuse (Perez), were harmless simpletons (Cedeno), ... Read More

Our latest installment of the Muskbox commits a fallacy of the undistributed middle, frets over the career of Micah Hoffpauir, and throws a wild kegger in Vinton, Iowa! Join me, won't you, on our weekly excursion into the minds of the mentally-impaired? Why don't the Cubs just go ahead and let Castro open the season at shortstop and move Ryan ... Read More

Okay, it's reality-check time. Even if the Cardinals go one game under .500 for the rest of the way, they'll finish 88-74. For the Cubs to reach 88 wins, they'll have to go 28-17, a .622 winning percentage. Unlikely, since they're playing .513 baseball this year and are in danger of getting swept by a terrible 51-70 ... Read More

Ryan Theriot has a reputation for being a clever, "plays-the-game-the-right-way" kind of guy. I know he's hitting, like, .700 right now, but the more I see this guy play, the more I think he and Ronny Cedeno rode the same bus to school. The case for Theriot being smart is that he is the starting shortstop for the ... Read More

How long has the Muskbag been back in Muskbox form? A couple of months? Why is this still at the top of every single one? The mailbag is back, but it's now the Inbox... Are there people out there so hopelessly confused that they can't find this column? Some Dipshit's Thoughts: I think I'll head to my favorite site, Cubs.com, to see ... Read More

Did people seriously miss the Muskbag so much that it's back? And did they really think they'd fool us by changing the name from "Mailbag" to "Inbox"? All it takes is a simple name change, Carrie. Your old Muskbag is now the Muskbox. And that is worse. So, here we go. I'm curious why the Cubs ... Read More

The Cubs have apparently shipped Ronny Cedeno and Garrett Olson to the Seattle Mariners for former Mets reliever/swing man Aaron Heilman. I'm going to shamelessly name-drop here. I was Heilman's R.A. when he was down at Notre Dame, and he's one of the nicest, most level-headed people I've ever SMOKED in darts. I'm glad, for his sake, ... Read More

And to all a new Muskbag. It's tough coming up with content during the offseason, particularly when the only thing to talk about in regards to the Hot Stove is whether it would be cheaper to sign Mark Teixeira or build your own Mark Teixeira cyborg. If you try, make sure you don't monkey around by programming a ... Read More

Hello, everyone. This is guest blogger Aldolf, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of one of the most critically-acclaimed Cubs blogs on the internet. If you're wondering why I'm doing the Roundup this week, click here. It's Friday once again, my flock. And you know what that means? It means I'm going to spend the night unhappy and ... Read More