Results tagged ‘ Jim Hendry ’
After looking unbeatable, the Cubs slide back into their old ways
This is probably the hardest thing that I have had to write so far this season, but the time has come to do so. While I am a very optimistic fan of the Chicago Cubs, and always believe that they still have a shot, I am having a harder time believing that with every game that passes. The expectations all throughout Spring Training said, that this was the team to beat in the National League. However, as more and more games pass, those expectations are looking to be well over what the team really and truly is turning out to be. Time to start facing what could very well be fact, the Cubs just are not that good.
You can point to any number of reasons why the ball club has failed miserably up to this point, but none of them are all too realistic. I know people are going to point fingers at Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry who traded a good club house guys in Mark DeRosa and non-tendered long time Cub, and another good clubhouse guy Kerry Wood. But come on, DeRosa being in the lineup would not help Alfonso Soriano who is hitting in the low .200s, or Kosuke Fukudome who is continuing his annual slide into baseball obscurity. DeRosa being on the team would not be the difference maker in Geovany Soto who, while he is starting to hit again, has seemingly forgotten what he did to make him the rookie of the year last season. While DeRosa as a good club house guy, he would not be the difference maker that everyone thinks he is. Sure, he would have been nice playing third base with Aramis Ramirez out of action (and I will get to this in a bit), but he would not make that big of a difference.
As far as Wood goes, if he was in the bullpen for the Cubs this year, his presence would not be a magical solution to Carlos Marmol who cant seem to find the plate anymore on a consistent game to game basis. He would not have helped out Neal Cotts when he was here, nor would he have a positive effect on Aaron Heilman or David Patton. His presence on the ball club wouldn’t keep Rich Harden healthy, or Carlos Zambrano sane. Whether he was in the bull pen or not, would not be the difference in this team having a good bullpen, or a bad bullpen. He is only one man, and can not change how good others are.
Another mistake Hendry made, was not having a legitimate backup for Ramirez, who has now missed close to two months. I wont lie, I was worried about him not signing someone that could play third base. Ramirez has missed time every year, so having a backup should have been a priority for the club, yet nothing as done to protect the ball club for just this instance. But at the same time, you can not point to his absence as being the sole reason the club is dying a slow death. As good of a hitter Ramirez is (and he is the Cubs best hitter), one player should not make this much of a difference. Look at what is going on with the Los Angeles Dodgers, they lost Manny Ramirez for 50 games, and they have not skipped a beat. He is their best hitter, yet they are still going strong and are looking like the best team in all of baseball. The Cubs losing Ramirez was a big blow, don’t get me wrong, but the Cubs have players who are too good to allow this team to look so bad.
Speaking of Ramirez, I don’t think that he should be brought back this season. Not with the way the team is playing now. I think this way for a few reasons, and here they are, all lined up for you. No one knows what condition he will be in when he returns. No one knows how close he will be to full power, and if he will be able to give us anything close to what he normally could. If the Cubs are playing this poorly when he gets back, even if he is at full strength, he may not give the Cubs enough of a boost to make any noise in the second half. Finally, he is likely going to need shoulder surgery in the off season to help correct the damage which has been done to his shoulder. I say, sit him out and allow him to get that surgery now. Give him as much healing time as possible so he can return next year as close to 100% as he can get. This year is just about a lost cause anyway, start looking forward to the 2010 season.
I don’t want to hear that the Cubs are only 3.5 games out of first, they are nothing more then a .500 ball club. I know that in 2006 the St. Louis Cardinals were a .500 team and that they went on to win the World Series. But they are the exception, not the rule. This team does not look like they have anything going for them right now. They win four straight games, then they go out and lose four straight by doing the same exact thing they have done all season; fail to hit with runners in scoring position. The Cubs lead the league in runners stranded in scoring position, and that’s not a stat you want to brag about.
The time has come to say goodbye to this season, time to play Steve Goodman’s classic song “A Dying Cub fan’s last request”. Who knows, maybe the Cubs sweep the Chicago White Sox this weekend, and go on a lengthy winning streak. However, with the way this team has inconsistently played, I don’t see anything in the cards that tells me they will.
I wont go anywhere, I will still follow the Cubs and root them on. I will still post my thoughts on a regular basis, and I would love to be proven wrong in the end.
A Few Cub’s Tidbits, Some Complaints and Grievances
Last night, the Cubs lost to the Braves in a makeup game from an earlier rainout. This is the kind of baseball that we have seen from the team for most of the season, at least before the recent four game winning streak occurred. The Cubs were able to collect 10 hits in the ballgame, and yet they failed to score a single run. They simply just could not advance the runners the entire game. Yeah, you could say that the main cause for that was because we were facing a pretty good pitcher, but that’s the problem. Good pitching tends to shut down this lineup, and if we do earn a playoff slot, we will see nothing but good pitching.
However, I cant sit here and just blame a lack of hitting, even though that was a main cause of the loss. There is more to blame then just the silent bats, Cubs Manager Lou Piniella’s decisions were also a key factor in the loss. One thing which made me scratch my head, was the mistake of sitting both Alfonso Soriano and Milton Bradley on the same night. I understand that you need to get your everyday players a day off when you can, I just feel that last night was not the time to rest them both. Soriano, I am fine with him sitting out. Maybe the rest will do him some good, and let him get his head on straight. So far so good, as he led of tonight’s game with a single. But why sit Bradley when he is finally starting to hit the ball? Taking him out of the lineup was a mistake, because you don’t want to sit a player in the middle of a hitting streak, of which he is close to the 10 game mark. A short streak, but a streak all the same. Putting Micah Hoffpauir and Jake Fox into the corner outfield slots was also a mistake I feel. Yeah, you want to get them at bats, but not both in the same night please. Especially when you have Fox starting his first game at the Major League level in left field.
While I think that was a big mistake by Piniella, that was not the biggest. For that mistake, you have to fast forward all the way to the top of the seventh inning. After struggling in the bottom of the sixth inning, and laboring hard to close things out without a run scoring, Ryan Dempster was set to lead off. What a better time to use either Bradley or Soriano to pinch hit for him. While you can never be sure that Soriano or Bradley would have gotten a hit, you would have to like either of their chances to succeed more then that of Dempster’s, even with his recent slump. One thing Piniella has got to stop doing, is allowing his players to talk him into things, such as letting him try to pitch another inning after clearly struggling. One factor that may have played into his being convinced, was the availability of the bullpen, which has been heavily used the past few games. However, if you have an opportunity to pinch hit for your pitcher in a much needed spot, you roll the dice and take your chances.
Enough of last nights game, lets talk Cubs players, more specifically Derrek Lee. I remember many Cub fans calling for his head after his slow start to the season. Fans were calling into sports talk stations saying that he should be traded, or benched so that Hoffpauir could get his shot at first base, and give the Cubs some offense. People seem to forget, that Lee has been a slow starter for his whole career, and then he goes out and puts up his normal numbers for the year. The problem that I see, is everyone fell in love with Lee when he went wild putting up monster numbers in 2005. That year was a career year for him, and those numbers will never be met again. The way fans turned on him at the start of this year reminds me of his first year with the club in 2004 when fans were chanting Hee Sop Choi’s name at him every time he came up to bat. Now, Lee is our hottest hitter, and he is carrying our club on his back. Would you still rather see Hoffpauir at first base instead of Lee? I sincerely hope not.
Another player which has faced a lot of the Cub fan’s wrath since his arrival, is closer Kevin Gregg. The fans want nothing to do with him, and want him to go away as quickly as possible. My question is why? Gregg has not done a bad job at all this year for the team, in fact, I commend him on how well he has pitched this year. What more can he do, then he has already done? He has gone 10 of 12 in save opportunities, with a 3.66 ERA and a 1.38 WHIP (Walks and Hits per Innings pitched. Despite one bad outing, where he allowed four runs without recording an out, he has been fantastic on the mound for the Cubs. If you take out that one bad game, he has an ERA of 2.84 and a WHIP of 1.25, which while not great, that’s not a bad stat. Most fans likely hate Gregg, because he is not Wood. They are holding a grudge and taking our their anger at General Manager Jim Hendry for letting Woody walk away on Gregg. That’s not fair in my books. Let the man do his job, and judge him on the job he does.
That actually brings up a big problem that I have with Cub fans, which rose up over the weekend with the series against the Cleveland Indians. I know that everyone loved DeRosa, and were pretty mad when he was traded, but I can not understand how a man who spent a total of two years with the team got a better ovation then a man who as with the team for 10 years. The way the fans were cheering DeRosa, you would think that he was the second coming of Ernie Banks. Yeah, I get the picture, DeRosa was a fan favorite who always went above and beyond. He did whatever was asked of him, played six different positions and was considered to be the most valuable player of the team last year. I understand all of that, but Wood has been a face of this franchise for a decade, and he played second fiddle to DeRosa. Kid K deserved a better welcome then the one DeRosa got, and while he got a nice welcome back from the crowds, there is no comparison. To give the fans at Wrigley Field a little credit, perhaps they were a bit subdued because they were afraid he was about to slam the door on the Cubs, saving another game for a team that wasn’t the Cubs. That may very well be the case, but when he started to walk to the mound, he still should have gotten a bigger and better ovation then DeRosa. Just my opinion, feel free to disagree all you want.
The Cubs are playing game two of a very long 10 game road trip, and tied 1-1 in the top of the 5th, much like last night the offense is being held in check. Hopefully the bats will come to life as they did when we were playing the lesser teams of the American League Central last week. Lets just wait and see, we have four innings of baseball left to play tonight.
One chance to save the Cubs, Fire Lou Piniella
I have never been one of those guys who have openly called for the firing of anyone on the Chicago Cubs. When the Cubs fans were sitting through the ever growing list of bad managers that sat in that home dugout for my team, I had nothing but the utmost confidence in them, that they could get the job done, and do whatever was in their power to do, in order to get the Cubs to play to the best of their ability. However, here I am, today, calling for the firing of Cubs Manager Lou Piniella, effective immediately. The time has come where I feel that the ties have got to be cut.
Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled to death when Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry hired him to lead this ball club. I felt that he was the man who could take this group of, so called, “Loveable Losers” to the next level and give the fans that long waited World Series title. For the first two years, Piniella led this team almost perfectly, bringing us to the post season in back to back years. That was the first time in 100 years the Cubs made the post season in consecutive seasons. Last year, under his guidance, the Cubs had the second best record, and second best offense in the Major Leagues, and this team seemed destined for a championship. However, when the regular season ended, that’s when everything fell apart for Piniella and the Cubs.
That brings us to this year, and all of the hype and expectations that were laid at the feet of the ball club. Going into this season, we had five all stars from 2008 on this team that we could run out there every day, six if you count Derrek Lee who was an All Star in a previous year. The team struggled out of the gate, and the offense never fully got started, losing Aramis Ramirez only added to the painful to watch offense. From there, the season started to nosedive into the complete and utter mess that we find ourselves in now.
We have an offense which is not able to knock in the runners who are on base, no matter how many outs we have left, and too many hitters in the order who are trying to hit homeruns, when all we need is a clutch base hit. To top things all off, we have a manager in Piniella who is seemingly sitting on his hands and waiting for everything to get better. I hate to break this to you captain, but things will not get better. At least, they will not get better on their own. Something has got to be done in order to send a message to this ball club, something more then firing a hitting coach.
If you ask Piniella, he will shrug his shoulders and give you the tired old line, “what can I do?” Wasn’t there a certain Chicago Bulls coach fired last December for basically saying the same thing? There are still plenty of ideas that you can throw out there in order to try to shake things up. How about benching players who are not playing up to their abilities? Here is another idea for the captain of the sinking S.S. Cubbies, why not send Alfonso Soriano down in the order and try someone who is actually hitting like a major leaguer? If you have to, move Soriano back to his original position of second base so you can get a fresh bat in the order in Jake Fox? I don’t want to see Soriano at second, but if that means getting someone who can hit into the order, I am all for the change.
But no, we get “what else can I do”. After yesterday’s game, Piniella promised us changes to try and help this struggling offense. What change do we get? We get Geovany Soto being elevated to the fifth spot in the order, and Andres Blanco taking over at second. Are you freaking kidding me? These are the “big changes” you have up your sleeve? Give me a break Piniella, show that you are at least trying to do something to spark this team. Hell, I will even take one of your patented staged arguments with an umpire, just do something to show that you are still alive over there on the Cubs bench. If your manager basically says that he doesn’t know if there is anything that he can do to make things better, you need to find a man who can.
You know we are going through hell this season when Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen is trying to calm the nerves and frustrations of the Cub fans. In case you missed what he said, he was basically stating that the Cubs will be fine, and the fans should worry about other things that are more important. He claims that the Cubs will win the division by 10 games. While I don’t have the exact quote on hand, you know you are going through hell when the opposing manage is talking your team up. Whether that was all tongue in cheek is unknown.
I honestly think that Piniella has taken us as far as he can, and the time has come to set him free. Hendry should stay, only because I don’t want to bring in another General Manager whose hands will be tied thanks to the mess that was left by the previous one. Hendry should be forced to ride this mess out until the bitter end. He must go down with the ship, but cut ties with his first mate first.
Stick a fork in them, the Cubs may just be done
Today, I am going to cut straight to my thoughts, because lets face facts. The 2009 version of the Chicago Cubs, at least right now, are completely pathetic. Just about everyone on the 25 man rosters, save for the pitchers and one or two of the batters, are looking absolutely pathetic. The way they are swinging the bats, they are looking as though they do not even belong in the major leagues. Sure, there are a few hitters who are able to hold their own, but for the most part this team has got to be the worst offensive team I have seen on the north side of Chicago in a very long time.
When you have player like Alfonso Soriano, who more less demands to bat leadoff because that is the only place he can hit, batting in the low .200s, your offense is already starting behind the “eight ball”. I have defended him in the past when the discussion comes to the leadoff situation, but no more. He says he cant hit anyplace but leadoff, but guess what, he isn’t hitting there either. Who care about previous declarations about him staying in the leadoff slot, he needs to be dropped immediately. If he isn’t going to hit, I would rather see him not hitting in the seven or eight slot. The problem that comes up with that, is which of the under performing scrubs do you throw in to that slot? None of the players are playing well at all, and would still likely leave us with an early hole to dig out of.
The heart of out order is barely beating at all, but at least they are showing signs of a pulse. Derrek Lee has been on a tear as of late, one of the few Cubs to actually show that he cares. Granted, he is hitting only .273, but he brought his average up to a half way respectable level in this current stretch. Then you have Milton Bradley, who like Lee is showing signs of life with his bat. However, with his offense starting to wake up, his defense completely fell off the face of the planet as we all saw yesterday. Bradley is still in the pathetic zone of the .220s, but his hits are starting to trickle in. Though not fast enough to make fans forget about his ineptitude. Yesterday, he made several defensive and offensive mistakes that have occurred many times in many players careers. His problem was they all took place in the same game. Losing a ball in the sun, losing track of the number of outs and making a costly base running error overshadowed his great day at the plate.
How about “Cajun Connection” of Mike Fontenot and Ryan Theriot? Theriot’s “power bat” has gone to his head, and he has seen his average take a massive dip. He has struggled so mightily that he has been dropped down in the order, only to be replaced by his LSU team mate Fontenot who is also looking rather pathetic at the plate. Watching him play baseball these past two months makes me miss Mark DeRosa even more then I thought was ever possible. While Fontenot has improved his play at third, DeRosa wouldn’t have taken so long to look like a half way legitimate third baseman. Hell, his offense would have been a massive upgrade as well, as we can now see that Fontenot is not, I repeat NOT, an everyday player.
How do you say bust in Japanese? Once again, after a great start to the season, Kosuke Fukudome is starting to look like the world biggest bust to ever play the game of baseball. Sure, he looked great in April and the first part of May, but since then he has looked like a lost little puppy dog, just as he did last year at this same time. His average is still a respectable .270, but he wont stay that way for long. We are likely watching him take another ride on the super slide. Unlike last year, our offense is not good enough to continuously run him out onto the field in hopes that he will “figure things out”. He needs to be benched, or sent down to the minors. Whatever the case is, get him out of our lineup, and throw Reed Johnson in.
Speaking of busts, how about one year wonder Geovany Soto. He has reverted back to his early days in the minor leagues, and has forgotten what he did to improve his game to make the majors and win the rookie of the year award. Scratch that, he has either forgotten, or decided not to. Nowadays, he has turned into a fat blob behind home plate who cant hit for a decent average with warning track power. His reverting back into what he was is a devastating blow to this ball club as he was being leaned on hard to put up similar numbers to his rookie year. Instead, he is looking to join Jerome Walton on the wall as players who win the award, then retire without telling anyone.
The only saving grace to this season, is the pitching. The starting pitching has been outstanding, and they have either been hung with an undeserving no decision, or an even more undeserving loss to show for their efforts. The bullpen has even stepped things up, helping the Cubs starters keep this lackluster offense in the game. However, their efforts have also gone to waste with the offense in their deep slumber. The pitchers get a complete pass from me right now, as they are doing everything they can do to keep the Cubs in the game. When you close to the Major League lead in quality starts, there is no way you can blame them for the losses which keep piling up. Short of throwing a shutout every time out of the gate, there is nothing else they can do to help this team actually win a game.
That brings me to Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry and Manager Lou Piniella. How excited were we when Piniella came here, and Hendry started spending money. My how those days have started looking really sour right now. Piniella looks to have turned into Dusty Baker on that bench, with the “deer in the headlights” look. He is at a loss with this team right now, and I cant say that I can blame him. But when a manager starts saying, “I don’t know what else I can do”, maybe, just maybe, the time has come to cut him free. While I do not think that firing Piniella will do this ball club any good, perhaps that’s just what needs to be done. As far as Hendry goes, all credit for actually spending money the past few years, he actually landed some big fish that people wanted in Fukudome and Soriano. But they have turned into two of the biggest busters we have seen in a while. I would say that the time has come to blow this team up, but I fear that will not be as easy as one would think. With all these longer term, high dollar contracts with no trade clauses, they are almost immovable. Sad to say, that basically means we are stuck with these guys. Every last one of them will more then likely finish off their contracts here. So get used to these bums, as there is very little Hendry can do, unless he finds a trade where he can match contracts dollar for dollar. Congrats Hendry, you got some top names in free agency, but you screwed yourself over in the long run. Thanks for trying though.
Who would have thought the loss of Aramis Ramirez would hurt this club this much. While losing your best offensive player is always painful to the offensive production, you should not see this much of a decline. When he comes back, I fear the Cubs will be too far out for him to matter. At the same time, you have to wonder how much of an impact he will actually have. As much as this pains me to say, the Cubs season may be a week or two away from realistically being over.
Cubs are hurting, but help may never come
Just when you didn’t think things could get much worse for the Chicago Cubs, surprise, they have jut gotten worse. I guess this was to be expected when you are a fan of the Cubs, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. The offensive slumber continued on for a third straight game, while the starting pitcher once again threw the ball well enough to pick up the win. For that matter, the bullpen has pitched great this series as well. Unfortunately, all their hard work was for nothing. While this is nothing new, there are new concerns coming to light that Cub fans should be aware of, as they will follow our team around for the rest of the season. With his recent actions and comments, Cubs Manager Lou Piniella has apparently lost his mind, or is very close to having a massive meltdown. To top everything off, Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry may not be able to do a thing to help out our ball club with a trade.
Last night, Sean Marshall continued the trend by pitching well enough to keep the Cubs in the game. However, the offense also continued their trend by not scoring enough runs to win the game. For the second time in this series, the Cubs scored only a single run in the game. In case you are keeping score, that is a grand total of two runs in the three game set. I don’t care who you are, you are not going to have much success if you can only tally two runs in three games. Don’t play the blame game on the pitchers either, they limited the St. Louis Cardinals to eight runs in the three game set, but that was obviously not enough. I was joking when I said the pitchers may just have to throw a shutout every game to have a chance of winning, but that is looking to be the case more and more with every passing game. With our offense in a slumber this deep, the great pitching they have been getting wont matter one bit. While we are still only in the month of May, and only four games out of first, time is slowly starting to pass the team by.
With our offense struggling to score runs, Piniella and his coaching staff are trying to find ways to add more offense to the lineup. Due to Mike Fontenot’s failure to live up to expectations, Piniella threw an idea out, which he deems as the last resort. His idea? Move Alfonso Soriano back to second base and insert Micah Hoffpauir into the vacated spot in left field. Personally, I feel that this would be the biggest mistake our manager could make, and would likely do more harm then good. For one, I don’t think anyone remembers just how bad Soriano was at second base. He has averaged 21 errors a season while playing in the infield. To top that off, Hoffpauir isn’t exactly a great fielder either. So while we may improve our offense, I don’t believe that they will be able to out hit their errors. Leave them where they are, adding offense by taking away from our defense will not solve any of our problems.
Some people may be speculating that this is all just talk coming from Piniella as a way to tell Hendry the Cubs need help fast. However, that help may never come as Hendry’s hands may very well be tied. With word coming out that the ownership situation with the Cubs may not be settled until at least August, I don’t know how much Hendry can do to improve this team. Without a true owner anymore, and the team in the final stages of being sold, the Cubs funds are all but limited. That is one reason why the Cubs were unable to finalize a trade for Jake Peavy over the winter, they could not guarantee the $22 million dollar option at the end of the contract. That’s the same reason why the Chicago White Sox were unable to get Peavy’s nod of approval. Without any money to spend, the Cubs appear to be stuck with the team they currently have, only adding to the team through promotions from the minors. So anyone who was hoping to land Peavy or a bat to help the offense at the deadline, you can likely count that out. The trade deadline will likely pass before the Cubs officially change hands, and any major player will not clear waivers so we can make a deal.
From the looks of things, this is going to be a very long season. The Cubs best hitter Aramis Ramirez is still over a month away from returning to the team, and there is no telling just how much of an impact he will make when he does get back. While Derrek Lee is starting to look like he is getting back into form, Geovany Soto continues to struggle, Fontenot has fallen below the Mendoza Line and Milton Bradley still cant buy a hit. In his defense, though, he has been driving the ball hard lately. The problem is, he is hitting the ball at people. The hits will start to fall, and while he may not end the season around the .300 mark as we would have hoped, he should start to be a contributor on a regular basis. Don’t even get me started on Aaron Miles, he has been nothing short of a disaster thus far in the season. After our 1-2-3 hitters, everything else seems to be up in the air, and with that being the case the Cubs are headed nowhere fast. Thankfully, Carlos Zambrano is returning tonight. Not only do the Cubs get back a great pitcher, but they get back a much needed bat. Even if he will not be running as hard as he could, his bat could give our boys at least a little bit of a much needed spark.
Anno Catuli
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