don't be fooled

[Shilzzz]

even if baker gets fired tomorrow:

 

as long as hendry is the gm, obp will never be a priority, and walking hitters will not be a concern of the pitching staff.

[RynoRules]

even if baker gets fired tomorrow:

 

as long as hendry is the gm, obp will never be a priority, and walking hitters will not be a concern of the pitching staff.

 

You may be right, but I'd like to see what happens.

[Shilzzz]

even if baker gets fired tomorrow:

 

as long as hendry is the gm, obp will never be a priority, and walking hitters will not be a concern of the pitching staff.

 

You may be right, but I'd like to see what happens.

 

don't get me wrong, i want dusty gone the same as everyone, but hendry is still the one signing people like neifi and rusch to insane contracts.

[RynoRules]

even if baker gets fired tomorrow:

 

as long as hendry is the gm, obp will never be a priority, and walking hitters will not be a concern of the pitching staff.

 

You may be right, but I'd like to see what happens.

 

don't get me wrong, i want dusty gone the same as everyone, but hendry is still the one signing people like neifi and rusch to insane contracts.

 

Hard to argue with you. I could have lived with those deals had he done something to bolster the rest of the team. Alas, he brought unto us a pox called Jacque.

[Shilzzz]

even if baker gets fired tomorrow:

 

as long as hendry is the gm, obp will never be a priority, and walking hitters will not be a concern of the pitching staff.

 

You may be right, but I'd like to see what happens.

 

don't get me wrong, i want dusty gone the same as everyone, but hendry is still the one signing people like neifi and rusch to insane contracts.

 

Hard to argue with you. I could have lived with those deals had he done something to bolster the rest of the team. Alas, he brought unto us a pox called Jacque.

 

it just seems like he doesn't pay attention to what he's doing. like he has this idea that he must have a lh right fielder and goes out to get that instead of the best person available. while there may not have been too many options, jacque was not even a decent one.

[Fro]

A manager worth his salt should be able to change Hendry's opinions on what type of players to bring in.

[XZero771679666304]

Jim has been bad, but don't think for a second Dusty hasn't had a lot of input into Hendry's moves.

[Soul]

Dusty's postgame said it all. He's a beaten man. There are no answers forthcoming, no moves that will be made.

 

It's suckfest royale, and there's no end in sight.

[hrowengartner]

what did he say?

[CubmanPi]

Dusty's postgame said it all. He's a beaten man. There are no answers forthcoming, no moves that will be made.

 

It's suckfest royale, and there's no end in sight.

 

I think there's a silver lining to this. If the Cubs hold this pace and win 6 games a month through the end of the year (no, I really wouldn't be surprised at all if that's what happened), then maybe someone above Hendry will finally wake up and see what their staff has done with the $100M payroll and clean house, top to bottom.

 

The one thing I don't want to see is the Cubs rattle off 8 or 9 in a row to finish out the end of May, only to play barely sub-.500 ball the rest of the year, leaving the door open to talk of bad breaks, injuries, goats, getting baffled by 50-yr-old ladies in opposing bullpens who just so happen to have found their groove when they got to Chicago, etc.

[Fro]

So what's wrong with the payroll besides Rusch, Perez, and Jones?

 

And would replacing that payroll with a couple good players really have kept us from sucking in this stretch?

[LeftCoastCubFan]

even if baker gets fired tomorrow:

 

as long as hendry is the gm, obp will never be a priority, and walking hitters will not be a concern of the pitching staff.

Even as horrendous as the offense has been, our pitching has not kept us in games. We lost 14 of 16. In those 14 losses, our pitching has been giving up more then 6 runs in 10 of them (16, 9, 8, 6, 6, 8, 6, 9, 10, and 9) for an average of 8.7 runs in those losses. Even with a better offense, we would expect to lose all or most of the. Add in the 5-1 loss in Arizona and our pitching has only kept us in 3 games. Add in Dempster’s blown save yesterday and you are down to the 2 1-run games in San Diego that could be considered winnable.

 

So even though the offense was weak, we weren’t really in many games where a higher OBP would have mattered. Our pitching has been terrible. The offense just made it more lopsided.

[Sabermetrician]

So what's wrong with the payroll besides Rusch, Perez, and Jones?

 

And would replacing that payroll with a couple good players really have kept us from sucking in this stretch?

 

Consider those three guys equal Giles.

 

That alone makes us a much better offensive team.

 

And there's also a such thing as addition by subtraction.

[stitchface]

even if baker gets fired tomorrow:

 

as long as hendry is the gm, obp will never be a priority, and walking hitters will not be a concern of the pitching staff.

Even as horrendous as the offense has been, our pitching has not kept us in games. We lost 14 of 16. In those 14 losses, our pitching has been giving up more then 6 runs in 10 of them (16, 9, 8, 6, 6, 8, 6, 9, 10, and 9) for an average of 8.7 runs in those losses. Even with a better offense, we would expect to lose all or most of the. Add in the 5-1 loss in Arizona and our pitching has only kept us in 3 games. Add in Dempster’s blown save yesterday and you are down to the 2 1-run games in San Diego that could be considered winnable.

 

So even though the offense was weak, we weren’t really in many games where a higher OBP would have mattered. Our pitching has been terrible. The offense just made it more lopsided.

 

but help is coming for the pitching staff.

[Fro]

So what's wrong with the payroll besides Rusch, Perez, and Jones?

 

And would replacing that payroll with a couple good players really have kept us from sucking in this stretch?

 

Consider those three guys equal Giles.

 

That alone makes us a much better offensive team.

 

And there's also a such thing as addition by subtraction.

 

Not a big difference... maybe a game or two against lefties?

 

Giles' OPS thus far: .759

Jacque's OPS thus far: .806

[Shilzzz]

even if baker gets fired tomorrow:

 

as long as hendry is the gm, obp will never be a priority, and walking hitters will not be a concern of the pitching staff.

Even as horrendous as the offense has been, our pitching has not kept us in games. We lost 14 of 16. In those 14 losses, our pitching has been giving up more then 6 runs in 10 of them (16, 9, 8, 6, 6, 8, 6, 9, 10, and 9) for an average of 8.7 runs in those losses. Even with a better offense, we would expect to lose all or most of the. Add in the 5-1 loss in Arizona and our pitching has only kept us in 3 games. Add in Dempster’s blown save yesterday and you are down to the 2 1-run games in San Diego that could be considered winnable.

 

So even though the offense was weak, we weren’t really in many games where a higher OBP would have mattered. Our pitching has been terrible. The offense just made it more lopsided.

 

that's what i meant in the second half of what i said. the pitching coaches don't seem to realize the problems that walking batters has had. it's orginizational, top to bottom, control seems to be something that is not curbed.

[LeftCoastCubFan]

So what's wrong with the payroll besides Rusch, Perez, and Jones?

 

And would replacing that payroll with a couple good players really have kept us from sucking in this stretch?

 

Consider those three guys equal Giles.

 

That alone makes us a much better offensive team.

 

And there's also a such thing as addition by subtraction.

A couple more walks a week the last few wouldn’t have helped us much the last 16.

 

- Neifi had 33pa in that stretch and his .303obp was better then the teams

- Jones had 52pa for a .327obp and an ops around .800

- Rusch gave up 13 runs in two games

 

There performance contributed to the losing, but to single them out when it was a complete team breakdown doesn’t make sense. The starting pitching sucked. The bullpen sucked. The entire offense sucked. The defense sucked.

[stitchface]

there really are two discussions here: One is the last two weeks of cubs "baseball" and the other is the overall signings. While its true that those three can't be singled out for causing the losing streaks, that in no way makes their signings less bad. I think you need to park adjust the numbers when comparing Giles. My feeling is that Giles would provide a significant obp upgrade and probably be similar power wise (although historically giles has had better power as well.

 

When you start to look at the last couple weeks, and this really got ugly in the brewers series, the cubs have been exposed. They are sadly lacking in baserunners and power - the two things that produce runs. You can run numbers and point fingers at whoever you want, but the bottom line is the cubs don't have enough good hitters. Murton is a nice role player but his production is not sufficient for LF. so you can probably live with that if you have power in RF. Basically the same logic applies to Jones. Then you have CF - the blackhole. You have Walker who is a good hitter at 2b but mediocre at best at 1b. Cedeno is a good enough hitting SS given his defensive abilities but not a top of the order hitter. Ramirez has been awful. Basically this team has a bunch of role players that would fit in nicely with 3 or 4 great hitters and that's not going to get it done. the only way an offense with so little power scores runs is to have guys all over the bases - the cubs have the opposite.

[stitchface]

as far as the pitching goes, we've had starters getting knocked out in the 5th and 6th innings all season. Sooner or later the bullpen was going to give in. They are good but not that good.

[Shilzzz]

as far as the pitching goes, we've had starters getting knocked out in the 5th and 6th innings all season. Sooner or later the bullpen was going to give in. They are good but not that good.

 

but do you think that dusty jumped the gun a little bit a couple times?

[stitchface]

as far as the pitching goes, we've had starters getting knocked out in the 5th and 6th innings all season. Sooner or later the bullpen was going to give in. They are good but not that good.

 

but do you think that dusty jumped the gun a little bit a couple times?

 

you mean pulling starters too early? maybe early in the season. lately he hasn't had much choice short of just giving up on the game. I think the Cubs are in part paying the price for the young pitchers they are running out there. even if they will be good down the road, they are going to have their days early in their careers.