I hate to say it, but great Mariotti article...

[Larry Horse]

http://www.suntimes.com/output/mariotti/cst-spt-jay15.html

 

Good summation.....

[soapy]

Why does he insist on constantly saying "Cubdom". I hate it.

 

I have to disagree with Mariotti on a few points:

 

1. No thanks to Lou Piniella. He and Dusty have pretty similar philosophies.

 

2. The Cubs corporate ownership isn't the problem. Management is the problem. They've been given an enormous payroll and have done nothing with it.

[goonys evil twin]

Couple problems:

 

Lou is not the answer.

 

And why should Andy have been fired years ago? I could see making the claim that he should be fired now, but years ago? What did he do years ago to deserve a firing? It took a while to take hold, but his insistence on rebuilding the farm system was the right decision and it start to pay off in the late 90's. As of early this decade the Cubs were in fantastic position to get to the next level. There was nothing wrong with hiring Hendry at the time. The one thing I blame him for in the past would be never insisting on bringing in some new school ways of thinking into the baseball hierarchy (that means more than hiring a PR guy to crunch numbers). And now that it's become painfully obvious that Hendry wasn't getting the job done, Andy should have looked outside the organization before granting an extension. But that is recent stuff. Andy didn't deserve to be fired years ago.

 

And you can't completely ignore his ability to draw more revenues out of the baseball operations. That's an important part of a club president's role.

[frostwyrm]

We're going to have a bunch of 1st and 2nd year pitchers competing for spots next year. I don't want Piniella around for that.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I actually agreed with Jay on a few points. I feel dirty now.

[Larry Horse]

I do agree with a nay on Piniella.

 

I'm not a big of fan of their farm system. It hasn't panned out as great as once promised.

[YearofDaCubs]

I totally agree w/ Mariotti. He is on point with this one.

[CUBZ99]

Why does he insist on constantly saying "Cubdom". I hate it.

 

I have to disagree with Mariotti on a few points:

 

1. No thanks to Lou Piniella. He and Dusty have pretty similar philosophies.

 

2. The Cubs corporate ownership isn't the problem. Management is the problem. They've been given an enormous payroll and have done nothing with it.

 

I disagree with that statement, Lou would never put up with the inordinate amount of mental mistakes made by the team, accountability would be higher, and the fundamentals would be stressed more.

 

It would be nice to see a manager with a little bit of fire in him.

[cheapseats]

I hate the idea of bringing in Lou Piniella.

 

But other than that, for once, Marriotti wrote something worth reading. If anything, he doesn't go far enough.

 

ie, perhaps it's not just bad luck that we can't count on Wood and Prior to be healthy? What role did Baker's overuse of his starters in 2003 have on their current health? What role does the Cubs' training staff play in our constant injury problems? Do we take longer to get injured players back on the field? Are our players more likely to have a serious injury during the season?

 

Or what about the role of the front office? Do we sign more injury-prone players than other clubs?

[soapy]

Why does he insist on constantly saying "Cubdom". I hate it.

 

I have to disagree with Mariotti on a few points:

 

1. No thanks to Lou Piniella. He and Dusty have pretty similar philosophies.

 

2. The Cubs corporate ownership isn't the problem. Management is the problem. They've been given an enormous payroll and have done nothing with it.

 

I disagree with that statement, Lou would never put up with the inordinate amount of mental mistakes made by the team, accountability would be higher, and the fundamentals would be stressed more.

 

It would be nice to see a manager with a little bit of fire in him.

 

That part may be true, but you'd see a lot of playing time for inferior vets, just as you do with Baker. That's more of what I was talking about. This is the same man that converted Alex Gonzalez to a 3B and kept him in the lineup. Ouch.

[frostwyrm]

The one thing I blame him for in the past would be never insisting on bringing in some new school ways of thinking into the baseball hierarchy (that means more than hiring a PR guy to crunch numbers)

Actually I think they do crunch numbers, but they do it incompetently. When Hendry stated last offseason that Burnitz had the 6th highest slugging percentage of any player with 120 or more strikeouts it seemed plain to me that some number-crunching staffer came up with that pearl of statisical wisdom.

[goonys evil twin]

The one thing I blame him for in the past would be never insisting on bringing in some new school ways of thinking into the baseball hierarchy (that means more than hiring a PR guy to crunch numbers)

Actually I think they do crunch numbers, but they do it incompetently. When Hendry stated last offseason that Burnitz had the 6th highest slugging percentage of any player with 120 or more strikeouts it seemed plain to me that some number-crunching staffer came up with that pearl of statisical wisdom.

 

That's my point. They moved Chuck Wasserstrom from some PR or media relations type of job into some sort of Baseball Information analyst. At the time it was obvious the organization wanted to make it look like they were paying attention to the new wave of thinking sweeping across the league, but they didn't hire anybody who could be expected to a do a great job at it. From all accounts all the guy does is click the sortables on ESPN.com and come up with interesting, but completely worthless, trends.

[frostwyrm]

The one thing I blame him for in the past would be never insisting on bringing in some new school ways of thinking into the baseball hierarchy (that means more than hiring a PR guy to crunch numbers)

Actually I think they do crunch numbers, but they do it incompetently. When Hendry stated last offseason that Burnitz had the 6th highest slugging percentage of any player with 120 or more strikeouts it seemed plain to me that some number-crunching staffer came up with that pearl of statisical wisdom.

 

That's my point. They moved Chuck Wasserstrom from some PR or media relations type of job into some sort of Baseball Information analyst. At the time it was obvious the organization wanted to make it look like they were paying attention to the new wave of thinking sweeping across the league, but they didn't hire anybody who could be expected to a do a great job at it. From all accounts all the guy does is click the sortables on ESPN.com and come up with interesting, but completely worthless, trends.

 

I didn't know about that. That does explain some things.

[badger1679666666]

I'm to the point where I don't care WHO it is, as long as it's not dusty.

[FergieJ31]

...2. The Cubs corporate ownership isn't the problem. Management is the problem. They've been given an enormous payroll and have done nothing with it.

 

Bingo.

 

Half of the problems on this team can be attributed to how the team is constructed; the other half to how it's coached and managed. Booting Dusty doesn't mean our problems go away. Even though Hendry has made some good trades in his tenure, *his* extension was the big mistake. The horse is already out of the barn; Dusty's extension almost doesn't matter at this point.

[C.C.]

I'm not a big Sweet Lou fan either. Too similar to Baker. What about giving Chris Speier the interm job and see how he does?

[CubfaninCA]

Mariotti's the same guy who cried and cried for getting Baker. What does he know.

[Monco]

The one thing I blame him for in the past would be never insisting on bringing in some new school ways of thinking into the baseball hierarchy (that means more than hiring a PR guy to crunch numbers)

Actually I think they do crunch numbers, but they do it incompetently. When Hendry stated last offseason that Burnitz had the 6th highest slugging percentage of any player with 120 or more strikeouts it seemed plain to me that some number-crunching staffer came up with that pearl of statisical wisdom.

Wow,justifying having a player with over 120 k's.So Jacque must be in the top 5?

[RegulusBlue]

Speier would be a good double whammy for us. Not only is he a guy that should be able to manage a team at least as well as Dusty (like everyone alive), but he also doesn't hit the Cubs in the oh so important pocketbook this season, and even if we gave him a contract after the season, he wouldn't be making 4 mil, that's for sure.