It's Time

[Little Slide Rooter]

"The masses" will never be screaming for Sandberg to be fired. "The masses" are nowhere near even wanting Lou to be fired.

 

At least as far as people I know who are more "casual" fans, there seem to be a lot more out there who are hopping on the fire Lou bandwagon.

[bhogg]

this is turning into 2006 for me. That year, I woke up every morning hoping that Baker had been fired. I didn't give two craps whether or not the cubs won games.

 

 

Might as well fire Lou, bring up Sandberg and see how that works for them.

 

Why would they do that? Lou is gone at the end of this year even if they do fire him, and it's pretty clear they're looking at Sandberg as someone they want managing for at least a few years. Why saddle him and the perception of him as a manager with a bad team?

 

 

I'd rather Ryno have a less than stellar interim job and ride off into the sunset. I'm not looking forward to the day when the masses, myself included, are screaming "Fire Sandberg!" It's gonna happen.

 

In all honesty, Lou is not to blame in this mess. It's spread quite evenly from Hendry right down the line to the players.

 

 

It's just depressing to know this team has, maybe, a 1 / 1,000,000 chance of turning this crap around.

 

Do you mean that Lou isn't the only one to blame, or that he is completely blameless? Because if it's the first statement I agree wholeheartedly, but if it's the second I couldn't disagree more.

 

 

Ha, I didn't do a good job typing that, did I? Lou is is far from blameless.

[Guest]

He had to sit on the sideline with a freak injury as he watched his 09 team completely tank in a historic underachievement, even by Cubs' standards.

 

Wait, what? Talk about being melodramatic. Finishing 83-78 was underwhelming and a letdown, but a "historic underachievement?" Yeah, right.

 

The Cubs entered into the top 3 in payroll for the first time since average payrolls exceeded $10 million back in 1988. So yes....historic underachievement in not making the playoffs.

 

The 2008 Seattle Mariners season was a historic underachievement. The 2009 Cubs, not so much.

[jersey cubs fan]

Eh, 4 games under .500 on May 10 wouldn't cause me to panic even if I had high expectations coming into the season.

 

My mind is much more focused on securing the best possible opportunities starting in 2011.

 

4 games under .500, 10th place in the wild card.

 

It's a fairly daunting task.

 

Not that I expect this team to contend, but I don't see how being in "10th place" right now has much cogency at all. Sure, that's a lot of teams to pass but 130 games is an exceedingly long time to do so. They're a half game behind three of those teams (Florida, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles) and only five games back of the wild card leader (San Francisco).

 

Because you can be fairly certain one team in the hunt is going to put together a solid season that makes it very difficult for teams in the back of the pack to hang. For all the talk of it being "too early" to worry, this is foreign territory for recent Cubs teams that have been in contention. They've led the division at this point of the season, been in second place, they've been at .500 and right at the head of the wild card race, but there's only one team in the NL with a worse record than the Cubs right now. That's a very big problem.

[Hawk4Hall]

Ever since Hendry gutted this team after the their last playoff run, the Cubs have never been the same.

[SouthSideRyan]

For all the talk of it being "too early" to worry, this is foreign territory for recent Cubs teams that have been in contention. They've led the division at this point of the season, been in second place, they've been at .500 and right at the head of the wild card race,

 

That's not true. The Cubs were 22-31 on June 2nd in 2007. And yeah, that team only wound up with 85 wins as it backed its way in, and 85 wins isn't going to get it done, but we're also not 9 games under on June 2nd YET.

Edited May 11, 2010 by SouthSideRyan

[kujay]

YET.

[jersey cubs fan]

For all the talk of it being "too early" to worry, this is foreign territory for recent Cubs teams that have been in contention. They've led the division at this point of the season, been in second place, they've been at .500 and right at the head of the wild card race,

 

That's not true. The Cubs were 22-31 on June 2nd in 2007. And yeah, that team only wound up with 85 wins as it backed its way in, and 85 wins isn't going to get it done, but we're also not 9 games under on June 2nd YET.

 

But at this point in the season they were only 1 game under .500 and in 5th place. They dipped down then came right back up. This team has been bad all season. They are already this far in the whole, and while you can blame underperformance from a couple guys, they've been getting overperformance by just as many, if not more.

 

Also while they were 9 games under on June 2nd, they were scoring more runs than they were giving up at the time (and on May 11 of that year they were +27), the record was bound to recover. This team is being outscored.

 

There's no point in pretending it's early and that their current standing doesn't mean anything. When they've been in this position before, it has led to really bad seasons. The odds are against them.

[biittner77]

Nuts & Gum wrote:

mean, you can't really slam Ricketts if he promotes Sandberg. I defy anyone to show me an owner that wouldn't go with such an obvious golden choice in terms of making the fans and the media happy.

 

The owner of the Orioles hasn't made Cal Ripken Jr. Manager of the Orioles.

 

What do I win?

 

Wait, what? When did Cal ever make efforts to manage the Orioles? It should be obvious I'm talking about the type of situation Sandberg is in, not just beloved players randomly being asked to manage out of the blue.

 

I thought that he had expressed interest before he started buying minor league franchises. Actually he expressed interest in buying the Orioles if Angelos were willing to sell. I would not be surprised if Ripken jumped at the chance to manage the Orioles but I haven't found any quotes so I'll concede that point.

 

It seems like Billy Williams used to want to be the manager of the Cubs.

 

Babe Ruth never got to manage the Yankees, though I guess they were never in a position to need the publicity of that hire.

[SouthSideRyan]

Why are we acting like a team's record on May 11th is more important than their record on June 2nd? That team's record wasn't likely to "bounce back" Based on their run differential they were expected to finish about 8 games under 500.

 

Nobody is Scott GFing this saying we have a great chance to make a run, but yes, 5 games under after 33 games is too easy to write off a season.

[jersey cubs fan]

Nuts & Gum wrote:

mean, you can't really slam Ricketts if he promotes Sandberg. I defy anyone to show me an owner that wouldn't go with such an obvious golden choice in terms of making the fans and the media happy.

 

The owner of the Orioles hasn't made Cal Ripken Jr. Manager of the Orioles.

 

What do I win?

 

Wait, what? When did Cal ever make efforts to manage the Orioles? It should be obvious I'm talking about the type of situation Sandberg is in, not just beloved players randomly being asked to manage out of the blue.

 

I thought that he had expressed interest before he started buying minor league franchises. Actually he expressed interest in buying the Orioles if Angelos were willing to sell. I would not be surprised if Ripken jumped at the chance to manage the Orioles but I haven't found any quotes so I'll concede that point.

 

It seems like Billy Williams used to want to be the manager of the Cubs.

 

Babe Ruth never got to manage the Yankees, though I guess they were never in a position to need the publicity of that hire.

 

But the difference is Ryno has put in his time in the minors. Lots of guys wanted to get the gig handed to them, but it was hard to justify. Ryno has played good soldier for 5 years and is almost a lock to get an offer.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I hope we're only 9 games under on June 2

[hardcorecubfan]

Nuts & Gum wrote:

mean, you can't really slam Ricketts if he promotes Sandberg. I defy anyone to show me an owner that wouldn't go with such an obvious golden choice in terms of making the fans and the media happy.

 

The owner of the Orioles hasn't made Cal Ripken Jr. Manager of the Orioles.

 

What do I win?

 

Wait, what? When did Cal ever make efforts to manage the Orioles? It should be obvious I'm talking about the type of situation Sandberg is in, not just beloved players randomly being asked to manage out of the blue.

 

I thought that he had expressed interest before he started buying minor league franchises. Actually he expressed interest in buying the Orioles if Angelos were willing to sell. I would not be surprised if Ripken jumped at the chance to manage the Orioles but I haven't found any quotes so I'll concede that point.

 

It seems like Billy Williams used to want to be the manager of the Cubs.

 

Babe Ruth never got to manage the Yankees, though I guess they were never in a position to need the publicity of that hire.

 

But the difference is Ryno has put in his time in the minors. Lots of guys wanted to get the gig handed to them, but it was hard to justify. Ryno has played good soldier for 5 years and is almost a lock to get an offer.

 

 

Agreeing with you on this one, the guy has done everything you are suppose to do, a lot more than Joe Girardi.

[CubColtPacer]

This has been a strange year so far. So far the Cubs peripherals are better than the Cubs actual runs scored and runs allowed which is in turn better than the Cubs actual record.

 

For example, look at the Cubs ranks in their peripherals:

 

Batting

OBP: 4th in NL

SLG: 4th in NL

OPS: 4th in NL

HR: 4th in NL

BA: 5th in NL

BB: 7th in NL (tied)

K's: 6th fewest in NL

And just in case they were making tons of outs on the bases:

SB%: 5th in NL (3rd fewest caught stealing)

 

Pitching:

BB/9: 3rd fewest

K/9: 2nd

K/BB: 1st

HR: 6th most

OBP against: 7th

SLG against: 10th

OPS against: 9th

WHIP: 7th

BAA: 8th

 

The peripherals would suggest an above average offense. They are solid in just about every category.

 

On the pitching side, it would suggest average to above average. They are giving up too many extra base hits and home runs to be very good. They have also likely gotten unlucky in the BABIP department to be below league average in BAA with such good K numbers and not exceptionally high HR numbers. Even with that bad luck, they should still be at least average in runs.

 

Instead, the offense is 6th in runs/game and the pitching is 11th. Both numbers are a couple of rankings below what the peripherals would suggest (and the pitching one would be further off if not for the BABIP differential).

 

Even with those run scored/run allowed numbers that are worse than they should be, the Cubs expected win/loss would be 16-17. But they are even underperforming that so far with their 14-19 record.

 

So before we even get into which Cubs have overperformed/underperformed so far, there is a problem in the Cubs team numbers. All the team numbers suggest they should have been better than they are. They should have scored more runs, they should have allowed less runs, and they should have won more ballgames based on their performance so far. So far, none of those things have happened.

 

As far as I can tell, there isn't really a good explanation for why that is. The NL randomly being more clutch than the Cubs accounts for some of it. On the batting side, the NL is 53 points better in OPS with RISP this year while the Cubs are only 6. On the pitching side, the NL is 46 points worse in OPS with RISP while the Cubs are 179 points worse. But I have a hard time thinking that is all of it.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Reminds me a lot of the 2002 Cubs, who were in the same boat.

[Sammy Sofa]

He had to sit on the sideline with a freak injury as he watched his 09 team completely tank in a historic underachievement, even by Cubs' standards.

 

Wait, what? Talk about being melodramatic. Finishing 83-78 was underwhelming and a letdown, but a "historic underachievement?" Yeah, right.

 

The Cubs entered into the top 3 in payroll for the first time since average payrolls exceeded $10 million back in 1988. So yes....historic underachievement in not making the playoffs.

 

The 2008 Seattle Mariners season was a historic underachievement. The 2009 Cubs, not so much.

 

Yeah, I just don't see what was so "historic" about 2009. Spending a lot of money doesn't automatically mean that it's been spent well. If they had shelled out a ton of money for a bunch of young, really good or even great players and then ended up with 2009's record, OK, that would be historic. Instead it was an overpaid, older, slightly above average team that finished with a slightly above average record. Ho-hum.

[Sammy Sofa]

Nuts & Gum wrote:

mean, you can't really slam Ricketts if he promotes Sandberg. I defy anyone to show me an owner that wouldn't go with such an obvious golden choice in terms of making the fans and the media happy.

 

The owner of the Orioles hasn't made Cal Ripken Jr. Manager of the Orioles.

 

What do I win?

 

Wait, what? When did Cal ever make efforts to manage the Orioles? It should be obvious I'm talking about the type of situation Sandberg is in, not just beloved players randomly being asked to manage out of the blue.

 

I thought that he had expressed interest before he started buying minor league franchises. Actually he expressed interest in buying the Orioles if Angelos were willing to sell. I would not be surprised if Ripken jumped at the chance to manage the Orioles but I haven't found any quotes so I'll concede that point.

 

It seems like Billy Williams used to want to be the manager of the Cubs.

 

Babe Ruth never got to manage the Yankees, though I guess they were never in a position to need the publicity of that hire.

 

But the difference is Ryno has put in his time in the minors. Lots of guys wanted to get the gig handed to them, but it was hard to justify. Ryno has played good soldier for 5 years and is almost a lock to get an offer.

 

Right. That's been my point regarding Sandberg; few teams are in the golden position (from a PR standpoint) that the Cubs are with him.

[J.R.]

Also while they were 9 games under on June 2nd, they were scoring more runs than they were giving up at the time (and on May 11 of that year they were +27), the record was bound to recover. This team is being outscored.

 

The run differential looked good until Saturday night's debacle.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Also while they were 9 games under on June 2nd, they were scoring more runs than they were giving up at the time (and on May 11 of that year they were +27), the record was bound to recover. This team is being outscored.

 

The run differential looked good until Saturday night's debacle.

 

The whole point of run differential is that bad teams tend to get blown out more than good teams.

[ConstableRabbit]

Nobody is Scott GFing this

 

LMAO =D>

[soapy]

I enjoyed that as well, SSR. Haven't thought about that in a while.

[imb]

Nobody is Scott GFing this saying we have a great chance to make a run, but yes, 5 games under after 33 games is too easy to write off a season.

 

well this is just the post of the year

[javy knows my name]

Guessing that Scott GF was a poster during the 2006 season who insisted we could rebound from about 20 games under .500 and somehow back into the playoffs. Am I close?

[imb]

Guessing that Scott GF was a poster during the 2006 season who insisted we could rebound from about 20 games under .500 and somehow back into the playoffs. Am I close?

 

no he was the general manager of the chicago white stockings in 1912

[NCCubFan]

The reference may be to this thread, which in fact was in 2006. It was Scott G.F.'s most active thread.