Firing Baker is the answer..

[TB_11]

I'll follow your lead, okay allow me to ask again. Why hasn't anyone else hired Riggleman? By the way, the 1998 Cubs had a very good Lieber and Wood pitching combo, and Sosa who was head and shoulders better than anyone on the 2003 and 2004 teams. But my main question is why hasn't Riggleman been hired by anyone else? I don't have an issue in firing Bakre if you change personnel on the team or at least provide a better name than Jim Riggleman.

I'm pretty sure Lieber wasn't a Cub until 1999. Wood, Trachsel, Tapani, Gonzalez, and Clark were generally the starting five in 1998, right?

 

Those were the five - although Gonzalez was injjred for part of the year and we had Mulholland and Mike the Journeyman Morgan fill in.

[cubs dane]

fire hendry!

 

thanks jim for blowing this oppurtunity to break a 100 year drought.

 

yes, let's fire hendry around the time of year that he's proven time and again that he does his best work.

 

if hendry is going to be fired, it has to be when the season is over, not now, because you'll do nothing but hurt the team more.

 

 

Hendry should be fired because he allowed the Cubs to limp into the regular season without making necessary personal moves to be competitive. No LF, RF -questionable backfill, no lead-off man, and the bullpen in shambles!

 

Offensively we lost 25% of our offensive in the OF. The same offense that struggled against mediocre pitching. Losing personal like Alou, Sosa, (look at their numbers last year), Clement, Farnsworth, Grzsalanick(whatever).

 

We added Blanco, Burnitz, and Hairston.Oh, and subtracted from an already weak BP by failing to sign a closer and lost farns

[ltb]

fire hendry!

 

thanks jim for blowing this oppurtunity to break a 100 year drought.

 

yes, let's fire hendry around the time of year that he's proven time and again that he does his best work.

 

if hendry is going to be fired, it has to be when the season is over, not now, because you'll do nothing but hurt the team more.

 

 

Hendry should be fired because he allowed the Cubs to limp into the regular season without making necessary personal moves to be competitive. No LF, RF -questionable backfill, no lead-off man, and the bullpen in shambles!

 

Offensively we lost 25% of our offensive in the OF. The same offense that struggled against mediocre pitching. Losing personal like Alou, Sosa, (look at their numbers last year), Clement, Farnsworth, Grzsalanick(whatever).

 

We added Blanco, Burnitz, and Hairston.Oh, and subtracted from an already weak BP by failing to sign a closer and lost farns

 

lol

no LF OR RF? i don't know if you know this, but we signed a guy named burnitz, who is outproducing what sosa did by this time last year.

 

the bullpen wasn't in "shambles" to start the year - sure, we could have used a reliever - but what did you want? a 3 year, $21 million commitment to benitez? or how about a 2 year, $12 million contract for percival? if you think we should have signed one of those guys to be our closer, you're crazy.

 

hendry said, starting in the offseason, that dempster was going to be the closer this year. dusty, however, made his guy (latroy) the closer and put dempster in the rotation. now dempster is in the role hendry said he should have been in all along, and guess what, he's doing just fine.

 

losing sosa is something that a lot of people whine about because of the home run totals - burnitz is outproducing him this year, so i don't see why you even bring sosa's name into the argument, as it only weakens yours. alou's offensive numbers would be nice in left field, but considering the contract he got from sf, no thanks. farnsworth had fallen out of favor with the entire organization and it was decided that he had to be moved - i didn't like the deal all that much (though with scott moore doing so well, it's looking a lot better), but it may have been one of the things forced on hendry by macphail (which the sosa deal was).

 

we couldn't afford to keep clement, so why are you crying about that?

 

i'd also like to point out that you completely missed the point of my post. COMPLETELY. why would you fire your general manager that has proven that he can make great deadline deals year after year right around that time? i said that if you're going to fire hendry, you have to wait until the offseason to do it. i guess reading comprehension just isn't your strong point.

[cubs dane]

fire hendry!

 

thanks jim for blowing this oppurtunity to break a 100 year drought.

 

yes, let's fire hendry around the time of year that he's proven time and again that he does his best work.

 

if hendry is going to be fired, it has to be when the season is over, not now, because you'll do nothing but hurt the team more.

 

 

Hendry should be fired because he allowed the Cubs to limp into the regular season without making necessary personal moves to be competitive. No LF, RF -questionable backfill, no lead-off man, and the bullpen in shambles!

 

Offensively we lost 25% of our offensive in the OF. The same offense that struggled against mediocre pitching. Losing personal like Alou, Sosa, (look at their numbers last year), Clement, Farnsworth, Grzsalanick(whatever).

 

We added Blanco, Burnitz, and Hairston.Oh, and subtracted from an already weak BP by failing to sign a closer and lost farns

 

lol

no LF OR RF? i don't know if you know this, but we signed a guy named burnitz, who is outproducing what sosa did by this time last year.

 

the bullpen wasn't in "shambles" to start the year - sure, we could have used a reliever - but what did you want? a 3 year, $21 million commitment to benitez? or how about a 2 year, $12 million contract for percival? if you think we should have signed one of those guys to be our closer, you're crazy.

 

hendry said, starting in the offseason, that dempster was going to be the closer this year. dusty, however, made his guy (latroy) the closer and put dempster in the rotation. now dempster is in the role hendry said he should have been in all along, and guess what, he's doing just fine.

 

losing sosa is something that a lot of people whine about because of the home run totals - burnitz is outproducing him this year, so i don't see why you even bring sosa's name into the argument, as it only weakens yours. alou's offensive numbers would be nice in left field, but considering the contract he got from sf, no thanks. farnsworth had fallen out of favor with the entire organization and it was decided that he had to be moved - i didn't like the deal all that much (though with scott moore doing so well, it's looking a lot better), but it may have been one of the things forced on hendry by macphail (which the sosa deal was).

 

we couldn't afford to keep clement, so why are you crying about that?

 

i'd also like to point out that you completely missed the point of my post. COMPLETELY. why would you fire your general manager that has proven that he can make great deadline deals year after year right around that time? i said that if you're going to fire hendry, you have to wait until the offseason to do it. i guess reading comprehension just isn't your strong point.

 

I'll make this brief and to the point. The off-season was a disaster. We went backwards. We had certain needs and they went unfulfilled. Our offense was adequate, no more. I cite the September fold as an example.

We lose 2 of our most productive players and meekly filled in the positions. Our Bullpen was inadequate last year. We had no closer. Nor did we get anyone to fill that spot.Plus we lost Farnsworth, who ate up alot of innings, most of the time in an acceptable manner.

 

To address your specific points...

 

OF, to me it is not of consequence that Burnitz is outperforming Sosa. Sosa was thru by the end of last year. The fact that we lost 70+ hr's ( in Sosa and Alou,)plus big-time RBI production. In an offense that was flawed last year. We did not make up for that production on paper, and its playing out.

 

The closer situation, LATROY? as closer? Joe Borowski? Clubs that are world serious have a good pen. Losing Farn's without replacing him was also an mistake.

 

I say Hendry has to carry the load and be held responsible for the poor product that is being put out on the field. The Nightmare started in the off-season, and all we're doing is watching it unfold. I felt this way from the very beginning, go back and check my postd if you doubt.

 

Little offense, and little bullpen make for a disaster, I don't care how good you're starting rotation is. If you think Hendry can pull a rabbit out of his arse, the time to have done that was not when we are 13 games out.

[CubfaninCA]

Hendry's done an above average job. Lets remember that he's the guy who swung the deals for Ramirez and Lee. A lot of people were quite peeved about the Lee trade, but in retrospect, the Cubs would be 15 under w/ Choi hitting .220 at 1b.

 

Hendry's not the guy who sent Prior and Wood out for 140 pitches in 2003. Hendry's not the guy managing the uber-talented Patterson into the ground. Yes, some of Hendry's moves haven't panned out (Maddux, Nomar & Hawkins) and if hindsight was 20-20, Alou & Clement would still be Cubs, but overall he's built a nice roster of talent. Baker's the one who's not utilizing the talent properly.

[hardcorecubfan]

Dusty is neither a good manager nor a bad one. He is quite average. You could do better, you could also do much worse. And, believe me, the CUBS have done much worse over the years. Frank Luchessi, Preston Gomez, Charlie Metro...... there's no point in going on.

 

If you think that replacing Dusty Baker is the answer, you're quite delusional. Even the ghost of John McGraw couldn't make chicken salad out of chicken s**t !!!

 

Thank you for saying/stating the obvious. Many do not realize that Nefi and Jose are not starters nor lead off hitters, who does he have to turn to?

[ltb]

fire hendry!

 

thanks jim for blowing this oppurtunity to break a 100 year drought.

 

yes, let's fire hendry around the time of year that he's proven time and again that he does his best work.

 

if hendry is going to be fired, it has to be when the season is over, not now, because you'll do nothing but hurt the team more.

 

 

Hendry should be fired because he allowed the Cubs to limp into the regular season without making necessary personal moves to be competitive. No LF, RF -questionable backfill, no lead-off man, and the bullpen in shambles!

 

Offensively we lost 25% of our offensive in the OF. The same offense that struggled against mediocre pitching. Losing personal like Alou, Sosa, (look at their numbers last year), Clement, Farnsworth, Grzsalanick(whatever).

 

We added Blanco, Burnitz, and Hairston.Oh, and subtracted from an already weak BP by failing to sign a closer and lost farns

 

lol

no LF OR RF? i don't know if you know this, but we signed a guy named burnitz, who is outproducing what sosa did by this time last year.

 

the bullpen wasn't in "shambles" to start the year - sure, we could have used a reliever - but what did you want? a 3 year, $21 million commitment to benitez? or how about a 2 year, $12 million contract for percival? if you think we should have signed one of those guys to be our closer, you're crazy.

 

hendry said, starting in the offseason, that dempster was going to be the closer this year. dusty, however, made his guy (latroy) the closer and put dempster in the rotation. now dempster is in the role hendry said he should have been in all along, and guess what, he's doing just fine.

 

losing sosa is something that a lot of people whine about because of the home run totals - burnitz is outproducing him this year, so i don't see why you even bring sosa's name into the argument, as it only weakens yours. alou's offensive numbers would be nice in left field, but considering the contract he got from sf, no thanks. farnsworth had fallen out of favor with the entire organization and it was decided that he had to be moved - i didn't like the deal all that much (though with scott moore doing so well, it's looking a lot better), but it may have been one of the things forced on hendry by macphail (which the sosa deal was).

 

we couldn't afford to keep clement, so why are you crying about that?

 

i'd also like to point out that you completely missed the point of my post. COMPLETELY. why would you fire your general manager that has proven that he can make great deadline deals year after year right around that time? i said that if you're going to fire hendry, you have to wait until the offseason to do it. i guess reading comprehension just isn't your strong point.

 

I'll make this brief and to the point. The off-season was a disaster. We went backwards. We had certain needs and they went unfulfilled. Our offense was adequate, no more. I cite the September fold as an example.

We lose 2 of our most productive players and meekly filled in the positions. Our Bullpen was inadequate last year. We had no closer. Nor did we get anyone to fill that spot.Plus we lost Farnsworth, who ate up alot of innings, most of the time in an acceptable manner.

 

To address your specific points...

 

OF, to me it is not of consequence that Burnitz is outperforming Sosa. Sosa was thru by the end of last year. The fact that we lost 70+ hr's ( in Sosa and Alou,)plus big-time RBI production. In an offense that was flawed last year. We did not make up for that production on paper, and its playing out.

 

The closer situation, LATROY? as closer? Joe Borowski? Clubs that are world serious have a good pen. Losing Farn's without replacing him was also an mistake.

 

I say Hendry has to carry the load and be held responsible for the poor product that is being put out on the field. The Nightmare started in the off-season, and all we're doing is watching it unfold. I felt this way from the very beginning, go back and check my postd if you doubt.

 

Little offense, and little bullpen make for a disaster, I don't care how good you're starting rotation is. If you think Hendry can pull a rabbit out of his arse, the time to have done that was not when we are 13 games out.

 

i realize english is not your first language, but what you've just stated has absolutely nothing to do with the post i made. you basically repeated yourself from your first post, which i responded to. this is all the response you'll get this time.

[neely crenshaw]

burnitz is out performing sosa but that does not nmake him good. he would be fine if we had 2 other stud ofers but we don't. burnitz is our stud and he is not cut out for that role. factor in that we are still paying sosa type dollars for burnitz's performance(due to still paying sosa $) and it is a poor deal. hendry has a 100 mil payroll and a 40 mil team. that is his doing..he absolutely handicapped this team and completely relied on the starting pitchers carrying us.

[MikeyLikesCubbies]

While Dusty hasn't exactly managed that well, and in hindsight Hendry didn't make the moves he needed to, I don't think firing them is the answer. People seem to forget that we have had two consecutive winning seasons under Dusty, something that the Cubs weren't able to do in more than 2 decades.

 

Before the season, the only areas I really questioned were LF and a closer. WHo would have guessed that Nomar would be hitting .150 and then go down for the season? Did anyone really expect Corey to be this bad? Hawkins to be horrible to the point of a trade before the All Star break, or for Wood and Prior to be injured again, and not return to form...or Zambrano to be so inconsistent? I honestly thought Rusch would step in for Clement and be fine. things haven't gone according to plan, and it's not like either of them have easy solutions that new management could cure.

 

There have also been things that were better than expectedm like Lee's unbelievable season, Burnitz being better than Sammy(especially defensively) and Dempster stepping in and competently closing.

 

The bottom line is that no one is hitting right now, and you can only blame Dusty to a point. This is a rough streak, but the season isn't over. Look at the Astros last year- everyone had written them off at the halfway poin and they came back to take the Wildcard.

[ltb]

People seem to forget that we have had two consecutive winning seasons under Dusty, something that the Cubs weren't able to do in more than 2 decades.

 

a [expletive] monkey could have managed those teams to winning records.

 

Look at the Astros last year- everyone had written them off at the halfway poin and they came back to take the Wildcard.

 

they also fired their manager.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

Look at the Astros last year- everyone had written them off at the halfway poin and they came back to take the Wildcard.

 

they also fired their manager.

 

As did the '03 Marlins...

[Illini Iceman]

burnitz is out performing sosa but that does not nmake him good. he would be fine if we had 2 other stud ofers but we don't. burnitz is our stud and he is not cut out for that role. factor in that we are still paying sosa type dollars for burnitz's performance(due to still paying sosa $) and it is a poor deal. hendry has a 100 mil payroll and a 40 mil team. that is his doing..he absolutely handicapped this team and completely relied on the starting pitchers carrying us.

 

It is better than paying Sosa type dollars for Sosa. As far as I can tell, there was no realistic option C so I think Hendry made the right move considering the alternatives available to him.

[cubs dane]

ltb wrote

i realize english is not your first language, but what you've just stated has absolutely nothing to do with the post i made. you basically repeated yourself from your first post, which i responded to. this is all the response you'll get this time.

 

No need to insult. If you and I disagree, thats fine. That's all you'll get from me.

[brinoch]

i realize english is not your first language, but what you've just stated has absolutely nothing to do with the post i made. you basically repeated yourself from your first post, which i responded to. this is all the response you'll get this time.

 

I don't see how cubs dane's skill with language has any bearing on the content of his post. Please keep your comments directed to the post, and not the poster. Thanks.

[ltb]

i realize english is not your first language, but what you've just stated has absolutely nothing to do with the post i made. you basically repeated yourself from your first post, which i responded to. this is all the response you'll get this time.

 

I don't see how cubs dane's skill with language has any bearing on the content of his post. Please keep your comments directed to the post, and not the poster. Thanks.

 

he repeated himself. the comment was not an insult, it was me pointing out that i understand that he's communicating in a language that is not native to him. perhaps you should look at that before you try to scold me for something that i didn't even do.

[rocket]

i realize english is not your first language, but what you've just stated has absolutely nothing to do with the post i made. you basically repeated yourself from your first post, which i responded to. this is all the response you'll get this time.

 

I don't see how cubs dane's skill with language has any bearing on the content of his post. Please keep your comments directed to the post, and not the poster. Thanks.

 

he repeated himself. the comment was not an insult, it was me pointing out that i understand that he's communicating in a language that is not native to him. perhaps you should look at that before you try to scold me for something that i didn't even do.

 

yeah we're all crazy for thinking your posts towards cubs dane were condescending and insulting

[BadKermit]

People seem to forget that we have had two consecutive winning seasons under Prior, Zambrano, Clement, and Wood, something that the Cubs weren't able to do in more than 2 decades.

Fixed.