Anthony Rizzo is the Rookie of the Month and Other Bullets

If Ryan Dempster had been dealt to the Dodgers, as he’d hoped, we might have seen him in his debut in this weekend’s series. As it was, he wound up with the Rangers, debuted last night, and got slapped around by the Angels.

  • Anthony Rizzo is the NL’s Rookie of the Month for July, after hitting .330/.375/.567 in the month. Here’s an aside for discussion: if you thought Rizzo had too many at bats last year with the Padres to be considered a “rookie” this year, you were off by about three. In other words, Rizzo just barely qualifies for the competition … does he have a shot? There was a time when Bryce Harper seemed a mortal lock, but his production has fallen off a bit. If Rizzo keeps destroying the ball for two more months, might he have a real shot?
  • Rizzo is on pace, by the way, to finish the year with about 24 homers, 60 RBI, 12 2B, and a .316/.360/.556 line. I doubt he’ll actually reach those numbers, but that’s the basic pace at this point.
  • Another “of July” for the Cubs? Darwin Barney is the best defender of the month, according to ESPN’s fancy calculations. My eyes tell me he’s ridiculously good, but it seems he’s even better than that – he was the single best defender in all of baseball (at any position) in July.
  • Paul Sullivan looks at what we learned about the Cubs from the trade deadline. Mostly, we learned that the chances the Cubs “go for it” in 2013 are slim to none.
  • The Cubs’ Facebook page was hacked yesterday, sending out a profane message about Bill Murray. F*** Bill Murray was the specific message. Creativity at work there.
  • The MLBullets at BCB look at Cliff Lee being waived, and what a relative non-story it is.
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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