Z to the pen

[J.R.]

I agree that the incentive to try this has greatly diminished since Baker came into the fold.

[inari]

I agree that the incentive to try this has greatly diminished since Baker came into the fold.

 

Be sarcastic about it all you want, but you're right - it's not. It's not even worth trying. Soriano has years of experience playing second base and he's really bad at it. That's been proven. He'd cost more with his glove than he'd help with his bat.

[samhainn77]

I absolutely hate this move on so many levels. However, what's been eating at me is that maybe Lou ISN'T this dumb. What if they are playing dumb to hide an injury that is severely going to limit Z's innings this year? Maybe they know about some fraying that they are keeping under wraps and they are trying to get as much out of Z this season as possible.

[Yeti]

hahaha

 

 

its beginning to look like my prediction of the cubs finishing 3rd in the division may have been a touch optimistic

[Sammy Sofa]

I absolutely hate this move on so many levels. However, what's been eating at me is that maybe Lou ISN'T this dumb. What if they are playing dumb to hide an injury that is severely going to limit Z's innings this year? Maybe they know about some fraying that they are keeping under wraps and they are trying to get as much out of Z this season as possible.

 

What would be the point of that as opposed to shutting him down and putting him on the DL or having him have surgery if that's necessary? Again, we're talking about a 28-year-old pitcher here in the middle of a huge, largely untrade-able contract. How does it benefit the Cubs to "hide" an injury or let him pitch through it?

[Guest]

I absolutely hate this move on so many levels. However, what's been eating at me is that maybe Lou ISN'T this dumb. What if they are playing dumb to hide an injury that is severely going to limit Z's innings this year? Maybe they know about some fraying that they are keeping under wraps and they are trying to get as much out of Z this season as possible.

 

What would be the point of that as opposed to shutting him down and putting him on the DL or having him have surgery if that's necessary? Again, we're talking about a 28-year-old pitcher here in the middle of a huge, largely untrade-able contract. How does it benefit the Cubs to "hide" an injury or let him pitch through it?

 

Yeah, there's significantly stupid and then there is unbelievably stupid. I'm sure moving Zambrano to the bullpen was only significantly stupid. Having him pitch his way through an injury would be unbelievably stupid.

[SouthSideRyan]

Carlos Zambrano has been dropped by 8388 teams in Yahoo! leagues

[Guest]

Stock market crash is probably next.

[IowaCubbieFan]

Anyone who posts here and says this is a good idea... I'm going to punch you in the face if I ever see you.

 

:-))

[ReadytoPlayCF]

Lou Piniella has led the Cubs to 2 division titles in his 3 years here. That is the only stat I am concerned with as a fan. Especially concerning the bad contracts and strange personalities he has been given.

 

Baseball, and all of life, is played by humans. I love Strat-O-Matic and other sim games, but they are not realistic to the real world of humans. Piniella is very unconventional, but he seems to have a keen understanding of his group of humans.

 

A quick analogy: pure socialism is the best economic system ever devised...on paper. It allocates the resources the best and most efficient way possible. But it doesn't work with humans!!! Human greed is not satisfied in pure socialism. Pure capitalism doesn't work either in the human world because it only satisfies human greed. It has to be a mix of the two systems to have a chance to work with humans. The debate will always be what kind of mix, but history has proven that the extremes of both systems have failed every time.

 

Sports work the same way. If you just go by the pure stats and statistical models, I truly believe you will fail. And if you only go by the eyeball test and gut feeling, then you will fail too. It has to be a mix. Piniella seems to side more with gut feelings and uncoventional means to motivate his players, but 2 titles in 3 years speaks for itself. I'm not ready to kick him out the door when his success has been the best in the last 100 years of Cubs history.

 

Moving Theriot to 8th in the lineup and moving Byrd to leadoff doesn't make sense in a logical statistical world, but it may make sense in a human world. Theriot was put back to the top of the lineup yesterday and snapped out of his slump. Not all of Lou's moves will, or have worked, but I'm betting on the side of the only stat that really matters...winning 2 out of the last 3 division titles.

 

others have already mentioned it, but you are giving Lou too much credit for taking a team with a top payroll to the playoffs 2 out of 3 years....that certainly isn't the only 'stat' that really matters regarding whether we should trust Lou's decisions or not.

 

The Cubs haven't been to the playoffs 2 out of 3 years since the first decade of the 1900's. Chicago has been a major market during that entire time. Some credit has to go to Lou, Hendry, or the Tribune. And all I've read on here is how terrible the whole regime is. Then how in the hell did this horrible regime do something no one had done in 100 years?

[SouthSideRyan]

Fine, I'll play.

 

Lou Piniella has won as many playoff games as I have as Cubs manager, thus he is an abject failure. Bring back Jim Frey!!

[ReadytoPlayCF]

I'm just saying it seems really strange to me to get rid of the manager who has won like Lou has because he doesn't fit what the wannabe managers and GMs on the board would do themselves.

 

And which manager should the Ricketts hire who has a stellar history?

[SouthSideRyan]

I'm just saying it seems really strange to me to get rid of the manager who has won like Lou has because he doesn't fit what the wannabe managers and GMs on the board would do themselves.

 

And which manager should the Ricketts hire who has a stellar history?

 

Dusty Baker won the first playoff series in 95 years and he should've been tossed on his ass before the NLCS was over. Stellar history? What happened to Lou's stellar history when he went to Tampa??

[Sammy Sofa]

I'm just saying it seems really strange to me to get rid of the manager who has won like Lou has because he doesn't fit what the wannabe managers and GMs on the board would do themselves.

 

And which manager should the Ricketts hire who has a stellar history?

 

Lou hasn't won. He's managed teams that have won. People want him gone not because he doesn't "fit" with what we want so much as he's continually making inexplicably bad decisions and it's getting worse as the years go on.

 

If I could have any input as to who the Ricketts should hire as manager I'd be perfectly happy if they could get someone like Larry Dierker or Bobby Valentine.

[ReadytoPlayCF]

I'm just saying it seems really strange to me to get rid of the manager who has won like Lou has because he doesn't fit what the wannabe managers and GMs on the board would do themselves.

 

And which manager should the Ricketts hire who has a stellar history?

 

Dusty Baker won the first playoff series in 95 years and he should've been tossed on his ass before the NLCS was over. Stellar history? What happened to Lou's stellar history when he went to Tampa??

 

Or the World Series in Cincinnati or his 116 wins in Seattle.

[Andy]

Joke account? No one is stupid enough to still believe managers are the reasons teams win...right?

[Sammy Sofa]

I'm just saying it seems really strange to me to get rid of the manager who has won like Lou has because he doesn't fit what the wannabe managers and GMs on the board would do themselves.

 

And which manager should the Ricketts hire who has a stellar history?

 

Dusty Baker won the first playoff series in 95 years and he should've been tossed on his ass before the NLCS was over. Stellar history? What happened to Lou's stellar history when he went to Tampa??

 

Or the World Series in Cincinnati or his 116 wins in Seattle.

 

How'd that 116-win team do in the playoffs? Ah, I guess that's not his fault. Managers only get credits for the wins!

[samhainn77]

I absolutely hate this move on so many levels. However, what's been eating at me is that maybe Lou ISN'T this dumb. What if they are playing dumb to hide an injury that is severely going to limit Z's innings this year? Maybe they know about some fraying that they are keeping under wraps and they are trying to get as much out of Z this season as possible.

 

What would be the point of that as opposed to shutting him down and putting him on the DL or having him have surgery if that's necessary? Again, we're talking about a 28-year-old pitcher here in the middle of a huge, largely untrade-able contract. How does it benefit the Cubs to "hide" an injury or let him pitch through it?

 

Yeah, there's significantly stupid and then there is unbelievably stupid. I'm sure moving Zambrano to the bullpen was only significantly stupid. Having him pitch his way through an injury would be unbelievably stupid.

 

First off, make no mistake, I'm not advocating this. I'm just afraid that we have Lou/Hendry pegged for the wrong kind of dumb. You have a GM and Manager who are both in win-this-year-or-else mode. This pair also happily rode Rich Harden's "no risk to damaging it further, 5/6 inning" arm. You have an extremely hard headed starting pitcher who spent a significant amount of last few years skipping starts to rest a sore arm. While I agree that it is incredibly stupid, I wouldn't be totally surprised if the plan was to get him through the year and fix him after the playoffs (that we are throwing a hail mary at).

[Sammy Sofa]

I absolutely hate this move on so many levels. However, what's been eating at me is that maybe Lou ISN'T this dumb. What if they are playing dumb to hide an injury that is severely going to limit Z's innings this year? Maybe they know about some fraying that they are keeping under wraps and they are trying to get as much out of Z this season as possible.

 

What would be the point of that as opposed to shutting him down and putting him on the DL or having him have surgery if that's necessary? Again, we're talking about a 28-year-old pitcher here in the middle of a huge, largely untrade-able contract. How does it benefit the Cubs to "hide" an injury or let him pitch through it?

 

Yeah, there's significantly stupid and then there is unbelievably stupid. I'm sure moving Zambrano to the bullpen was only significantly stupid. Having him pitch his way through an injury would be unbelievably stupid.

 

First off, make no mistake, I'm not advocating this. I'm just afraid that we have Lou/Hendry pegged for the wrong kind of dumb. You have a GM and Manager who are both in win-this-year-or-else mode. This pair also happily rode Rich Harden's "no risk to damaging it further, 5/6 inning" arm. You have an extremely hard headed starting pitcher who spent a significant amount of last few years skipping starts to rest a sore arm. While I agree that it is incredibly stupid, I wouldn't be totally surprised if the plan was to get him through the year and fix him after the playoffs (that we are throwing a hail mary at).

 

That would just be insane.

[ReadytoPlayCF]

I'm just saying it seems really strange to me to get rid of the manager who has won like Lou has because he doesn't fit what the wannabe managers and GMs on the board would do themselves.

 

And which manager should the Ricketts hire who has a stellar history?

 

Lou hasn't won. He's managed teams that have won. People want him gone not because he doesn't "fit" with what we want so much as he's continually making inexplicably bad decisions and it's getting worse as the years go on.

 

If I could have any input as to who the Ricketts should hire as manager I'd be perfectly happy if they could get someone like Larry Dierker or Bobby Valentine.

 

 

And I'm not saying Lou is a GREAT manager and should never be fired.

 

I guess my main point is that there are so many decisions a manager makes in one season, let alone several seasons, that a fanbase ends up with a long list of "horrible" decisions and wanting a change NOW. Valentine or Dierker or anyone could be better than Lou, but within a couple of seasons all of their "horrible" decisions would be listed. I'l bet you could go to any message board for any team and most of the fans are overly critical of their manager ~ warranted or not.

 

 

The manager of a team may be overrated to a degree, but I do believe the human element of a team is too overlooked by today's stat based fan, myself included. Therefore I am holding out the possibility that Lou's unconventional moves may have some merit based on his success here.

[ReadytoPlayCF]

I'm just saying it seems really strange to me to get rid of the manager who has won like Lou has because he doesn't fit what the wannabe managers and GMs on the board would do themselves.

 

And which manager should the Ricketts hire who has a stellar history?

 

Dusty Baker won the first playoff series in 95 years and he should've been tossed on his ass before the NLCS was over. Stellar history? What happened to Lou's stellar history when he went to Tampa??

 

Or the World Series in Cincinnati or his 116 wins in Seattle.

 

How'd that 116-win team do in the playoffs? Ah, I guess that's not his fault. Managers only get credits for the wins!

 

Touche. But once again, who can the Ricketts hire who does have a stellar resume? Dierker and Valentine have a lot of blemishes too.

[samhainn77]

I absolutely hate this move on so many levels. However, what's been eating at me is that maybe Lou ISN'T this dumb. What if they are playing dumb to hide an injury that is severely going to limit Z's innings this year? Maybe they know about some fraying that they are keeping under wraps and they are trying to get as much out of Z this season as possible.

 

What would be the point of that as opposed to shutting him down and putting him on the DL or having him have surgery if that's necessary? Again, we're talking about a 28-year-old pitcher here in the middle of a huge, largely untrade-able contract. How does it benefit the Cubs to "hide" an injury or let him pitch through it?

 

It doesn't help at all, long term. It would be devastating. Short term, however, maybe you steal an extra 5 or 6 wins and sneak into the playoffs - thus saving your job until next year where you have to deal with Z recovering from surgery.

 

Again, this isn't an option for competent, forward thinking GMs. Neither are 8 year deals with NTC to 31 year olds.

[Sammy Sofa]

Touche. But once again, who can the Ricketts hire who does have a stellar resume? Dierker and Valentine have a lot of blemishes too.

 

Every manager is going to have "blemishes." It's not like Lou has some amazing history that blows them or all other candidates out of the water. I just want a manager that isn't going to over-manage and lose games, because that's what a manager has far more impact over than teams actually winning.

[Sammy Sofa]

I absolutely hate this move on so many levels. However, what's been eating at me is that maybe Lou ISN'T this dumb. What if they are playing dumb to hide an injury that is severely going to limit Z's innings this year? Maybe they know about some fraying that they are keeping under wraps and they are trying to get as much out of Z this season as possible.

 

What would be the point of that as opposed to shutting him down and putting him on the DL or having him have surgery if that's necessary? Again, we're talking about a 28-year-old pitcher here in the middle of a huge, largely untrade-able contract. How does it benefit the Cubs to "hide" an injury or let him pitch through it?

 

It doesn't help at all, long term. It would be devastating. Short term, however, maybe you steal an extra 5 or 6 wins and sneak into the playoffs - thus saving your job until next year where you have to deal with Z recovering from surgery.

 

Again, this isn't an option for competent, forward thinking GMs. Neither are 8 year deals with NTC to 31 year olds.

 

But we're talking the long term now since it's only 2 weeks into the season. If Z has an injury that is keeping him from starting then he's not going to last the whole year, or if it does it won't be as an effective reliever or as one that you can call in enough to "steal those extra wins." It's simply not a realistic scenario at all.

[17 Seconds]

Lou has become a terrible manager, period.