Chicago Cubs Pitcher Adam Warren has a very interesting backstory. He was traded from the New York Yankees to the Cubs as part of the Starlin Castro deal. When he was made aware of the life altering development, he was actually in St. Lucia on vacation with his wife and inaccessible.
You can read about the whole situation and hear him recall at it in detail at this link.
Adam Warren is 13-15 with a 3.39 ERA over the course of his Major League career. You can check out his statistical splits as both a starter and as a reliever here at this Baseball Reference link.
Today is “pitchers and catchers report to spring training” day for the Cubs. The phrase is quite over-rated and over-blown. The media makes way too much of out of it, and often preludes it with “there’s no better words in the English language than….” or “Are there any sweeter words in the English language than……”
Where exactly can you go with hype like that? How can anything come close to being as interesting and as exciting as hyperbolic prose on that plain? We love hearing “pitchers and catchers report to spring training” because it reminds us that
1.) hey, baseball’s getting close
2.) yo man, this ling brutal winter is almost over.
In reality, “pitchers and catchers reporting” is just B Roll of guys playing long toss and working out.
Now that Adam Warren has reported along with all the other pitchers, here’s what he had to say about where me might fit in on the Cubs pitching staff.
“Obviously I want to start, but I’ve pitched successfully out of the bullpen as well. It’s a win now mentality with this team, in talks they said ‘we got you to be starter, whether or not it’s this year, we’ll see,’ but yeah I think they’re giving me the opportunity to prove myself in spring training as a starter and we’ll see what happens.”
“Again I’m not unhappy being out of the bullpen, but I’d rather start. I’ve been in the bullpen in New York two full years and loved it.”
“So I won’t be unhappy.”
Warren on what life was like a Yankee:
“You go into a season in New York, and it was basically world series or die; and again every team goes in with that mentality, but in New York, they’re expecting to win so much that sometimes you get booed out there, whether you’re doing good or bad. I think that pushes you to succeed, you don’t want to be booed by your home crowd, it’s one of the worst feelings but again that’s what you do to be great.”
Adam Warren on what we learned from being a Yankee and what he can carry over:
“I think it was a good experience for me because I learned the expectation of winning, knowing the expectation of winning and how to handle that, hopefully we can bring those expectations over here to carry-on and kind of be like the Yankees and start building those championships up.”
“It‘s an exciting time to be a Cub and you can always just picture yourself winning that elusive championship for the Cubs and hoisting that trophy.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram