Monday, December 30, 2013

The Favorite Player Hunt Continues

Why couldn't Alex Meyer be a Cub?  Meyer is a former bonus baby with the Nationals, who is now a member of the Twins farm system.  He was a highly ranked prospect entering 2013 and he threw up some pretty solid numbers during the last campaign. 

Bonus! During the off season he works as a substitute teacher... and he enjoys it! Alex Meyer is someone I, a high school teacher, can relate to.  As I said earlier, "Why couldn't Alex Meyer be a Cub?"

I've been hunting for a new "favorite" player since Kerry Wood retired on May 18th, 2012.  Before Kerry Wood I was a Ryne Sandberg man, and after he hung 'em up for good at the end of the '97 season it didn't take long for "Kid K" to bust on to the scene and steal my heart.

I've had trouble to latching on to any one since Wood retired, and I've never gone this long of an extended period of time with being able to answer, "Who's your favorite current baseball player?"

Granted, I love me some Cubs prospects, namely Dan Vogelmonster and ROCK SHOULDERS, but they are a couple of years away from the Show, and there are no guarantees that they'll even receive a cup of coffee.

There are only a few criteria that a player must meet to be my favorite player.
The qualifications are pretty straight forward:
1. They must be a Chicago Cub
2. The player must have staying power...  not necessarily an All-Star caliber player, but someone that provides value to the team
3. Must be a "good" guy...  Milton Bradley and Carlos Zambrano need not apply.

Anthony Rizzo is the closest guy on the Cubs current roster that meets the above criteria.  Anthony is a good ball player, and I believe he's only going to get better, but I'm just not an Anthony Rizzo guy.

Since Theo and Jed took over the baseball operations on the Northside the roster spots have been like a rotating door.  It hasn't been easy to root for this team, let alone find a favorite player amongst them.

Perhaps the 2014 edition of the Cubs will give me something to cheer about and I'll find a new favorite player as well!

3 comments:

  1. Castro. I'm still hooked on that guy... i think he's going to have a great year now that Sveum is gone...

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  2. I've been having the same problem, and all of the roster shuffling makes it hard. A struggling Starlin Castro pushed me towards Rizzo last season. Castro's got all of talent in the world, but I wonder if he can ever get his head on straight to put it all together. I guess we're just going to have to wait for the next wave of players. Baez, Soler, Bryant and Almora look promising. I'm looking forward to seeing more of Junior Lake next year.

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