Lou Pinella, What the hell are you doing?

[dew1679666265]

 

I'd probably give Lou a C to C+ at this point. Marmol's odd usage is my biggest fault to him.

The big problem with Lou is that he's had 2 really big, really stupid mistakes that he's been repeating for weeks. It's like a B student in math class who can't multiply by 2 and 5.

 

Which mistakes are you referring to specifically? So many people have varying opinions on what he's doing wrong, so I'm honestly not sure which ones you're referring to.

 

Really, though, on general philosophy, I'd probably give Lou a B+ to A-. Thus, the C range is taking into account mistakes he's made.

Marmol usage and Pie benchiness

 

That's what I'm saying. I don't think he's overusing Marmol too much (yet), but I don't like when he's using him. I also don't think he's committing unspeakable crimes against Pie (though signing Edmonds is pretty close), but I think he should get more at-bats.

 

So yes, both of those mistakes factor into me lowering his overall grade.

If you take out the stupid uses of Marmol. he's down to something like a 90 inning pace. High, but not absurd.

 

With Pie, it's pure stupidity through and through. Johnson isn't just not hitting righties now, he's not hitting anything at all. There's no way Pie would be worse than Johnson has been in the last month

 

I don't mind going extremely slowly with Pie (though again, signing Edmonds is a truly terrible idea), but I agree he should be getting more playing time than he is now. Johnson simply isn't an everyday player and it's showing.

[ronsanto10]

yeah...lou is a moron...the cubs deserve being in last place....oh...wait...the cubs are in FIRST place....never mind...... :oops:

Ok, Ive had it with Lou. He has made so many mistakes, and over managed so much this year its ridiculous. Just from last nights game, lets start with having a starting pitcher, who has a history of control problems, sit for 9 days in between starts. Yea good call Lou, that will help him throw strikes. Secondly, in a game where we had to bring in the bullpen in the 1st inning, its absolutely ignorant to have any pitcher throw to just one batter, especially when that pitcher is a starter. Let Marshall pitch to more than just damn lefties, and maybe we could have saved our pen just a little last night. Thirdly, why in the hell did Lou let Cedeno bat, and then not let him take the field, while bringing in another 2nd baseman at the same time? Seriously, Lou let Cedeno play, and quit burning players throughout the game. And lastly, Chad Fox threw a good inning last night. However, there is no excuse for not bringing in Marmol as soon as somebody reached against Fox, none.

 

And all of this isnt even counting leaving Soriano in to play LF against the Brewers.

 

Ok thats it just from last nights game, but Lou the entire year has pissed me off, and made ignorant decision after ignorant decision, and Ive had it.

[Rob]

yeah...lou is a moron...the cubs deserve being in last place....oh...wait...the cubs are in FIRST place....never mind...... :oops:

 

So... since the players have covered for Lou's mistakes, he's excused for all of them?

[VVMattVV]

yeah...lou is a moron...the cubs deserve being in last place....oh...wait...the cubs are in FIRST place....never mind...... :oops:

 

You sure showed him

[imb]

SUCK IT KEENER

[David]

yeah...lou is a moron...the cubs deserve being in last place....oh...wait...the cubs are in FIRST place....never mind...... :oops:

 

 

DAMN.... ownage

[ronsanto10]

yeah...lou is a moron...the cubs deserve being in last place....oh...wait...the cubs are in FIRST place....never mind...... :oops:

 

So... since the players have covered for Lou's mistakes, he's excused for all of them?

 

 

its easy to "arm chair" manage.....lous record this year, and over his career show that he knows what he is doing...im not trying to be mean, but hey, a win is a win, and if the cubs are in first, to me, im happy about it.....thats all im saying.....

[mul21]

yeah...lou is a moron...the cubs deserve being in last place....oh...wait...the cubs are in FIRST place....never mind...... :oops:

 

So... since the players have covered for Lou's mistakes, he's excused for all of them?

 

 

its easy to "arm chair" manage.....lous record this year, and over his career show that he knows what he is doing...im not trying to be mean, but hey, a win is a win, and if the cubs are in first, to me, im happy about it.....thats all im saying.....

 

How do you feel about the potential signing of Edmonds?

 

How will you feel about our bullpen when Marmol's arm falls off in August from overuse in unnecessary situations?

 

How do you like Reed Johnson's .250 avg. against righties when we have a young player with a history of needing a couple of months to adjust at each new level who happens to hit from the left side of the plate sitting on the bench on a regular basis?

 

How do you like the use/non-use of Ronny Cedeno, who has shown a better approach at the plate, has been tearing the cover off the ball, and is twice the defensive player Fontenot is?

 

Just because a result turns out well doesn't mean the method that got you there is right.

[CuseCubFan69]

yeah...lou is a moron...the cubs deserve being in last place....oh...wait...the cubs are in FIRST place....never mind...... :oops:

 

So... since the players have covered for Lou's mistakes, he's excused for all of them?

 

 

its easy to "arm chair" manage.....lous record this year, and over his career show that he knows what he is doing...im not trying to be mean, but hey, a win is a win, and if the cubs are in first, to me, im happy about it.....thats all im saying.....

 

How do you feel about the potential signing of Edmonds?

 

How will you feel about our bullpen when Marmol's arm falls off in August from overuse in unnecessary situations?

 

How do you like Reed Johnson's .250 avg. against righties when we have a young player with a history of needing a couple of months to adjust at each new level who happens to hit from the left side of the plate sitting on the bench on a regular basis?

 

How do you like the use/non-use of Ronny Cedeno, who has shown a better approach at the plate, has been tearing the cover off the ball, and is twice the defensive player Fontenot is?

 

Just because a result turns out well doesn't mean the method that got you there is right.

 

Is it possible Lou is using Cedeno is situations he can have success in? I agree about the Johnson part but Lou seems damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

[badger1679666666]

All fans know better than lou, and if we are winning it's the players and if we're losing it's Lou. Is that pretty much it?

 

Yea using Reed Johnson against righty's sucks, and using marmol in 5 run games sucks, but he's also put guys like Riot and soto in places to excel, has fostered a team attitude of patience (one never here with our predecessor) and other positive things including pinch hitting Soriano and Ward the other night, pinch hitting cedeno in good spots.

 

He's not all bad, he's not all good, and some of our successes are attributed to him and some of our failures are attributed to him.

 

It's so frustrating to read over and over again that the good things are lucky and the bad things are him being terrible.

[Tyrant]

has fostered a team attitude of patience (one never here with our predecessor)

 

Or at any point in Cubs history, it seems.

[brinoch]

Yea using Reed Johnson against righty's sucks, and using marmol in 5 run games sucks, but he's also put guys like Riot and soto in places to excel, has fostered a team attitude of patience (one never here with our predecessor) and other positive things including pinch hitting Soriano and Ward the other night, pinch hitting cedeno in good spots.

 

Somehow I just can't give Lou any credit for Soto. I don't know why. Maybe its because Soto is Soto and is leading the Cubs -- and is 8th in all of MLB -- with a 1.000 OPS. I could be wrong, though, since the Cubs preferred to play Michael Barrett, Henry Blanco, Rob Bowen, Koyie Hill, and Jason Kendall over Soto last year until Soto came up at the end of last year and posted a 1.110 OPS and hit the same number of HR's in 53 AB's as the Blanco/Bowen/Hill/Kendall monster posted in 331 AB's.

[El Ridda]

Only issue I really have with Lou is the 3-4 times he has used Marmol in games when the Cubs were comfortably in the lead... especially the time he pitched him for two innings. Besides that I think he has done a good job.

[Soul]

Wait a minute. Signing Edmonds? WUT? Where did this one come from?

 

No. freaking. way.

[C.C.]

It's been a while since we had homegrown guys like Soto, Cedeno, Theriot and whomever else doing well. It's a good problem to have a bench as strong as ours, and players giving 100% to get playing time. It's a long season and a lot can happen, just be happy with the depth we have. The only gripe I have is how Marmol is used in useless situations. All in all he's

handled the starting pitching ( except for Hill ) well. I can't remember the last time one of our starters was abused.

 

Lou and his coaching staff have otherwise been a godsend in changing our approach, purifying us for Dusty's flith.

[Jehrico]

Lou drives me nuts with some of his decisions. That said, I don't think there's ever been a manager that doesn't make some moves that fans find stupid. I'm happy with Lou because we have a good, fundamentally sound team. Dusty never did provide that. Even in 2003, we were a fundamentally bad baseball team, Dusty never had this team ready coming out of ST. This is MLB, there's no excuse to be fundamentally unsound at this level.

[badger1679666666]

Yea using Reed Johnson against righty's sucks, and using marmol in 5 run games sucks, but he's also put guys like Riot and soto in places to excel, has fostered a team attitude of patience (one never here with our predecessor) and other positive things including pinch hitting Soriano and Ward the other night, pinch hitting cedeno in good spots.

 

Somehow I just can't give Lou any credit for Soto. I don't know why. Maybe its because Soto is Soto and is leading the Cubs -- and is 8th in all of MLB -- with a 1.000 OPS. I could be wrong, though, since the Cubs preferred to play Michael Barrett, Henry Blanco, Rob Bowen, Koyie Hill, and Jason Kendall over Soto last year until Soto came up at the end of last year and posted a 1.110 OPS and hit the same number of HR's in 53 AB's as the Blanco/Bowen/Hill/Kendall monster posted in 331 AB's.

 

 

Is it up to Hendry to make those moves or Lou? I don't think Lou is studying our farm system on a daily basis, sure he might be in on discussions but that's up to others to let Hendry know when players are ready right?

[brinoch]

I think it's fairly clear from the tenures of both Lou and Dusty that the manager has an awful lot of say over roster decisions. How much? No way to know.

 

Did Hendry keep Soto in the minors over Lou's objections? Did Lou really want Soto and Hendry kept saying no? I'd say that both are doubtful. But, again, there's no way to know. More likely is that Lou didn't think much of Soto, and, given Lou's history of veteran preference and snap determinations, the record of futility posted by the 2007 catching corps resulted. All of last season (538 AB), Cubs catchers (excluding Soto) hit 11 HR's, scored 53 times and drove in 62 runs. Already this season (124 AB), Soto has 6 HR, 16 runs, and 26 RBI.

 

The fact that Soto languished in the minors last season despite the futility of the catching corps was a travesty of leadership by some combination of Hendry and Lou. We'll never know how to accurately apportion that blame.

 

With respect to this season, we've received no production from CF, for all intents and purposes, and the Cubs still are tied for the best record in baseball and have scored the most runs (223 in 38 games). Why not give Pie an actual everyday chance? There's no burning need to upgrade there because the offense, while perhaps a little inconsistent, is getting on base and scoring a lot of runs. This is the time to have patience with Pie. There's never going to be a better opportunity than this. And, yet, we have a case of Lou demonstrating absolutely no patience with a struggling rookie.

 

That's poor leadership and decision-making by Lou, and Lou alone.

[David]

yeah...lou is a moron...the cubs deserve being in last place....oh...wait...the cubs are in FIRST place....never mind...... :oops:

 

So... since the players have covered for Lou's mistakes, he's excused for all of them?

 

 

its easy to "arm chair" manage.....lous record this year, and over his career show that he knows what he is doing...im not trying to be mean, but hey, a win is a win, and if the cubs are in first, to me, im happy about it.....thats all im saying.....

 

I'm not trying, at all, to say that Lou is as bad as Dusty was, but do you realize that that is basically the same argument people were using in defense of Dusty toward the beginning of his tenure here? It's an extremely flawed argument.

[TruffleShuffle]

apparently putting theriot and soto in places they can excel means "in the starting lineup"

[WilcoFan]

I have a real hard time getting on managers about individual game decisions, as there are so many complicating factors that most fans are not privy to (players' health, personal distractions, etc.), coupled with the fact that, regardless of the manager, I would probably disagree with about 65-70% of any decision made (and both of us would probably be wrong at least 50% of the time).

 

As such, the best I can hope for is a manager who has what seems to be an overriding philosophy that helps the team. For the most part, Piniella has displayed in his decision making a philosophy with which I agree. There are plenty of instances in-game in which I disagree with him, but I doubt that would be any different regardless of the manager.

 

Evaluating GMs, however, is another story...

[Hairyducked Idiot]

What's Piniella's career winning percentage? It isn't bad, but I don't think it shows he unquestionably knows what he is doing either.

[Tyrant]

What's Piniella's career winning percentage? It isn't bad, but I don't think it shows he unquestionably knows what he is doing either.

 

1,627-1,512. That's a .518 winning percentage.

 

If you remove the Tampa Bay years, which were some of the worst teams ever assembled, his winning percentage goes to .538.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

What's Piniella's career winning percentage? It isn't bad, but I don't think it shows he unquestionably knows what he is doing either.

 

1,627-1,512. That's a .518 winning percentage.

 

If you remove the Tampa Bay years, which were some of the worst teams ever assembled, his winning percentage goes to .538.

 

Why would we remove those? Can we remove his best three seasons also?

 

Either way, that's good but it isn't earth-shattering.

[SouthSideRyan]

yeah...lou is a moron...the cubs deserve being in last place....oh...wait...the cubs are in FIRST place....never mind...... :oops:

 

So... since the players have covered for Lou's mistakes, he's excused for all of them?

 

 

its easy to "arm chair" manage.....lous record this year, and over his career show that he knows what he is doing...im not trying to be mean, but hey, a win is a win, and if the cubs are in first, to me, im happy about it.....thats all im saying.....

 

So Dusty Baker was a good manager in '03?