Preemptive Mike Quade Fan Club

[Keener98]

The guy is a [expletive] moron.

[TruffleShuffle]

yeah the guy said a lot of good things in the preseason but he's been a complete dunce once game play started.

[Sammy Sofa]

His in-game management is sadly typical.

[Rob]

For those of us who didn't get a chance to watch the game tonight, what'd he do to inspire new posts?

[treebird]

For those of us who didn't get a chance to watch the game tonight, what'd he do to inspire new posts?

 

he seems to have instituted a "pitch until the game is close" rule with ryan dempster.

 

i swear, this game would still be in the 7th inning if the cubs had been up 15.

[Keener98]

For those of us who didn't get a chance to watch the game tonight, what'd he do to inspire new posts?

Dempster was obviously gassed in the 6th inning but managed to wiggle out of it. Then he lets Demp go out in the 7th already over 100 pitches, gives up a home run to Bill Hall, then gives up a double off top of the wall. Umpires do a review, Quade still leaves Demp in, who then gives up a 2 run homer, and makes the score 5-4. No reason at all Demp should have been in to pitch the 7th

[ctcf]

Lock this thread. And then burn it.

[Guest]

For those of us who didn't get a chance to watch the game tonight, what'd he do to inspire new posts?

Dempster was obviously gassed in the 6th inning but managed to wiggle out of it. Then he lets Demp go out in the 7th already over 100 pitches, gives up a home run to Bill Hall, then gives up a double off top of the wall. Umpires do a review, Quade still leaves Demp in, who then gives up a 2 run homer, and makes the score 5-4. No reason at all Demp should have been in to pitch the 7th

 

And correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he not even have anyone warming up in the pen at the beginning of the 7th? It might have been during the jam in the sixth but I can't remember.

[Guest]

If Quade keeps this up and turns out to be a horrible manager, Lou will have screwed us over by not finishing out the 2010 season. I'm guessing it's unlikely that Quade would have gotten the job had the Cubs not finished the season going 24-13 under him, which wouldn't have happened had Lou not retired early.

[Northside Blues]

It's amazing how quickly the tide can turn. My god. Grow up.

[apete6]

It's amazing how quickly the tide can turn. My god. Grow up.

 

It's amazing how Quade can say all of the right things yet manage his pitching staff in a terrible manner.

[CubColtPacer]

I'm not off the Quade fan club yet:

 

Pros

He's taken close to the best 25 with him

His lineups are pretty good (only things I take exception with are Byrd in the 3 spot and the times when Barney appears in the 2nd spot). His rotation for the leadoff spot is very good, and something many managers wouldn't do.

He isn't forcing the action on the basepaths very much.

 

Cons

He tends to focus on batter/pitcher matchups a little too much

As far as the pitching, he's been a little too trusting of his veteran starting pitchers. Sometimes it has worked (Z got an extra inning when he clearly could have been done that night) and other times it hasn't (Dempster last night). He hasn't quite got the right balance yet on how to try to win the game in front of him while trying to save his arms for the long season as well.

 

As long as he doesn't abuse the young pitchers in particular, I care much more about the things on the pro list than the ones on the con list so I'm pretty happy with him so far.

[Guest]

In a perfect world, Dempster never comes out for the 7th inning last night. But in reality, he was facing 8-9-1, was "only" at 101 pitches, he was facing the horrible Astros offense that he had dominated thus far, and the bullpen needed to be preserved as much as possible because there's basically a bullpen start tomorrow. The problem is when back to back guys take the ball out(Bourn scored anyway, but I think it probably should have been a HR) and you have a 5 minute delay before facing the 2-3-4 hitters with 1 out, you need to make a move. That's the one that pisses me off.

 

As far as extrapolating that to Quade being an idiot or an awful manager, I think there's an unreasonable standard being set. No manager is going to be 100% right, and many of the times people get upset with a manager's decision, upon inspection it's not such a bad decision at all. There are shades of gray, and many people need to realize that.

 

That said, Quade's done a few things early on that look like clear blunders to me. Ironically, the two that stick in my mind both came in wins, so it hasn't really cost the team. Given that he's pretty early in his managerial career, and like CCP mentioned has done some relatively progressive things so far, I have some hope he'll be able to fix those going forward. But seriously, the rabble rabble rabble rhetoric is a bit much.

[bukie]

Really, the only issues I have with Quade thus far have been minor quibbles:

 

- Left Dempster in one inning too long twice (and here, the biggest problem was that nobody was ready to go, so that Demp ended up facing McCutchen/Bourn right after giving up a rocket)

- Bats Byrd 3rd, when Byrd clearly isn't the Cubs best hitter (although, 1-7 the difference is actually pretty minimal overall)

- Used Wood and Marmol 3 days straight prior to Cashner's first start, making both unavailable for a start likely to need bullpen help early (although, the manner in which Cashner left the game was impossible to anticipate)

 

I have no issue with him using Marmol for 4 outs, especially when that first out was with a runner on 3rd in a one-run game.

[Derwood]

as long as Byrd keeps hitting, I don't mind him high in the order.

 

Just don't hesitate to drop him when he cools off

[BeerHere]

2B platoon has gone well but I fear that Baker will cool off and the league will figure out Barney. Good to see the BB last night from Barney though (not to mention a nice triple with the runner on the move). I especially liked the way that Byrd was taking all the way after the 4 pitch walk to the previous AB (Barney). Made Figueroa prove that he can throw a strike before swinging. Excellent patience there although the AB ended with a GO.

[Sammy Sofa]

Just take two seconds to look at Baker's career numbers vs. lefties.

[BeerHere]

Just take two seconds to look at Baker's career numbers vs. lefties.

 

slg .545 Like I said....I like the platoon.

[sneakypower]

2B platoon has gone well but I fear that Baker will cool off and the league will figure out Barney. Good to see the BB last night from Barney though (not to mention a nice triple with the runner on the move). I especially liked the way that Byrd was taking all the way after the 4 pitch walk to the previous AB (Barney). Made Figueroa prove that he can throw a strike before swinging. Excellent patience there although the AB ended with a GO.

yeah, you could say that: a .410/.442/.564 line

[Sammy Sofa]

So there's probably not too much concern over him "cooling off" too drastically over the course of the season if he's used against LH pitchers. Yeah, we're not going to see too many monster games like the one against the Brewers (and his early stats are obviously inflated higher than his career norms because of it), but I'm not sure what you're worried about with him. He is what he is.

[TruffleShuffle]

I'm pretty sure there was a game where he PH reed Johnson against a RH closer with fukudome and Dewitt on the bench. That was pretty damn dumb.

[bukie]

I'm pretty sure there was a game where he PH reed Johnson against a RH closer with fukudome and Dewitt on the bench. That was pretty damn dumb.

There have been 2 instances where Johnson didn't come in as a defensive replacement:

 

- Once against the Pirates with 2 outs in the 7th (bases empty) down 3 against Paul Maholm. He struck out, and Quade led Fukudome off the following half inning where he walked and the Cubs eventually scored 5 runs to win the game.

- Once against the Brewers with 2 outs in the 7th up 2 (bases empty) against Sean Green, a middle reliever. He struck out, and the Cubs still won 7-4 despite not using Fukudome a whole game and giving him a full day off.

 

Which one of them was inexcusably dumb?

[Guest]

He's talking about Marmol's blown save. Johnson was double switched in for Soriano in the top half of the 9th, then had to lead off after the blown save and was promptly struck out. Quade should have either not pulled Soriano in a 1 run game, not double switched so that he could use a LH hitter(since the odds of a LH reliever coming out for the bottom of the 9th to face PH/Castro/Barney/Byrd are slim to none), or just double switched Fukudome into the game.

[nick23]

Speaking of Reed Johnson, he sucks.

[bukie]

Ahh, so more of a lack of foresight on a defensive replacement switch. Understandable, since there's no good reason to even double-switch there (unless he planned on using Marmol for a theoretical 10th...which I'm not sure is a good idea either).