BigbadB

Those that dwell in the past have no future. I say the Cubs will be 3 games below .500 by June 1st. I watch the game yesterday and actually like what I saw. It's not over.!! I can understand not dwelling on '05. But, the games that have already been played this year cannot be considered "past" since they still count in the overall standings. Not only do they count in the overall standings, they count negatively towards anything they do the rest of the way. Only the KC Royals have scored less runs than the Cubs. KC has scored 154 to the Cubs 156. The Cubs have played 2 more games than the Royals. So, unless KC gets shut out or only 1 run combined over those two games, the Cubs will officially be the worst team in the league at scoring runs. And when you think about how bad KC is, how bad Pittsburgh is and how young Florida is, it doesn't get much more pathetic than this.

Yep, the White Sox had OBP problems last year too. But, they went out and added an OBP stud. Who did the Cubs get? Jacque Jones, he of the OBP impaired. When the White Sox pitching struggles, their offense will pick them up occasionally. They have tremendous balance now. The Cubs pitchers need to throw shut outs everyday if they want to win.

Yes, the White Sox OBP was pretty putrid last year, also. But, they made the best of their situation. They had an OBP of .338 from the lead off spot, and .335 from the #2 spot, right in front of their big bats. The Cubs, on the other hand, had an OBP of .299 from the lead off spot and a .314 OBP from the #2 hitter, right in front of the big bats. Check this out. The Sox #3 hitters were basically pretty atrocious last year, combining to hit .234 AVG for the season in 624 at bats. The Cubs #3 hitters combined to hit .308 AVG in 633 at bats. Much better than the White Sox, yet the White Sox got more RBI out of the #3 position in the batting order than the Cubs by 10. Suppose that .299 OBP and .314 ahead of them might have had something to do with it? I sure do. Imagine Todd Walker and Matt Murton batting 1/2 (two guys with very respectable OBP's) in the line up most of last year instead of Neifi Perez and Corey Patterson. How many more RBI's would Derrek Lee have put up with his amazing season. That's the difference. The White Sox scored 741 runs last year to the Cubs 703. The Cubs did have a better OBP, but Guillen recognized the importance of putting decent OBP guys in front of the more productive hitters, and they scored more runs than the Cubs. If the Cubs had a clue, they would have focused their energy this offseason on getting guys that are good at getting on base instead of focusing on guys who can catch the ball or on guys who are speedy. This year, the Cubs have an even worse OBP and are at or near the bottom in runs scored. It's not really rocket science. Instead of signing poor OBP guys like Jacque Jones, bring in guys who can get on base. Juan Pierre was coming off a season in which his OBP was .326. They traded 3 prospects for a guy who just had a lousy season. The Padres traded Mark Loretta for Doug Mirabelli, a back up catcher. Loretta is an OBP stud. Hendry couldn't come up with a better offer than that? I certainly believe he could. The problem isn't that he couldn't. It's because he doesn't recognize the value of drawing a walk. And that's truly amazing when you consider how many of our very own pitchers give up walks that eventually turn into runs for the OTHER team. If the Cubs pitching staff was completely healthy and they were as dominant as they all can be, this team would still be hovering around .500 because Hendry focused on speed and defense instead of the ability to get on base. There were players who had speed, good defense AND a tremendous ability to get on base that were available this past offseason, and they are playing for other teams. Milton Bradley and Coco Crisp to name a few. This Cubs management team is blind in one eye and can't see out of the other when it comes to what recognizing how to put a winning team on the field. That's because they do not value a walk. Mark Bellhorn will probably end up as the best lead off hitter this team had in the decade of 2000-2009. He's not fast and he's not all that great defensively. But, the guy sure could get on base. And he scored a ton of runs as a lead off hitter. The best lead off option in 2005 for this Cubs team was Todd Walker. How many times did he bat lead off last year? He logged 2 at bats in the lead off spot last year. Murton had 10 at bats there and had a .364 OBP. The two best options last year to bat first logged 12 at bats, or the equivilent of 3 games. Todd Walker had 228 at bats in the lead off spot in 2004 and in a total of 60 games. His OBP? .370 He scored 45 runs in 60 games. What team wouldn't want a lead off hitter that gets on base 37% of the time? Apparently, the Cubs. Interestingly enough, the Cubs already had their answer at lead off. He makes less than half as much as the guy they traded 3 prospects to get. And he would have been a whole lot better than the guy they traded for. Interestingly enough again, Hendry and Co. tried everything they could to get rid of Walker during the offseason. What should that tell you? Could you imagine how how much worse this team would be without Todd Walker on the roster? I shudder to think. Of course, this team makes me shudder enough as it is, so I'll stop thinking about it.

Florida is going to be sitting pretty by the time they deal Cabrera and Willis. Maybe not this year or next, but very soon they will have balance and depth.

What are they gonna do, set up a fight in the alley after today's game? AJ does nothing after getting clocked, but then he calls out Barrett? A.J. will probably just use Contreras' fastball to get payback. I doubt it since contreras would then be tossed from the game. not to mention he will be batting in wrigley in july. Agreed. The easiest way to get back at Barrett is to put another 7-0 on the Cubs today.

Good Times! The AJ non slide, the Barrett roundhouse, Hill's comments, Guillen's comments. They all mean nothing in the big picture. What has happened is the media has been rerouted to something different to report about, which gives Dusty and Hendry time to breathe. And that's a shame. The Cubs lost this game 7-0. Heads need to roll. Everyone now wants to discuss how Guillen is a tool, while completely ignoring Dusty. I'd trade Dusty for Guillen in a Chicago minute. It's really a no brainer. Your the GM, who do you hire? 1) The guy who is best friends with everyone on the team? The guy who excuses poor fundamentals and actually rewards it with more playing time? The guy who fill out his line up card upside down everyday? The guy who always has a new excuse for why the team is not playing well? The guy who thinks walks clog bases? Or do you want the guy who: 2) Holds players accountable for their mistakes? Gets the most out of his players for fear they will be verbally abused in the Sunday papers? Wins a World Series?

Yep! Only took a month and a half of the 2006 season to make this team the easiest team to hate. Actually, I never did like this team as it was assembled from October of 2005. Completely the wrong direction. I'd trade anyone. Derrek Lee? Yep. I'm embarrassed for him. He should play for a better team. He should play for a team that he doesn't have to dig for excuses day in and day out. He's a class individual and it's horrible that he is stuck here for the next 5 years. Unless they do something NOW! Start firing anyone who believes catching the ball and speed wins games. Pujols is about a half dozen wind blowing in games in Wrigley from passing the entire Cubs team in HR's. But, the only way to truly fix this mess is to go all Florida Marlins on this team. Sell off everyone. Trade them for young talent that haven't achieved their millions yet. Quit bringing in the lazy and uncaring. Quit offering up the big contracts to the talentless guys who don't deserve big contracts. But, if they do this, they need to start with management first.

Wow. They cut some big contract there.

The guy who signed him is a tool.

That's too far down the line to predict whether his arm will still be attached.

Murton=major league minimum Neifi Perez= 8x Murton's salary Rusch= 9x Murton's salary Jacque Jones=18x Murton's salary Shall I continue?

So, other than that, how's your day going? :D

Link please. Welcome back. Haven't seen you around much lately.

Just wow.

Every team in sports has injuries. Good teams can over come them, especially with a good front office who prepares for them. Let's look at the other side of town. Last year, Thomas hurt and Orlando Hernandez sore, resign Everett and bring up McCarthy. This year, Contreras gets hurt, oh, there were 6 capable starters on the team anyways. At some point you also have to look at the coaching staff. There's an issue when the same guys keep getting hurt. Do you look at the specific coaches, trainer, GM for putting so much stock in these guys, or GM for not getting backups in the offseason (the pitching didn't knock your socks off with everyone healthy anyways, unless you like 4 man rotations, plenty of starters were out there). It makes it worse with a guy like Wood who has never really proven anything (remember when someone found his scouting report in the clubhouse and it was one of an average pitcher. He's making a living off of one game) and when guys not affiliated with the team or city are pointing out mechanics problems Derek Lee was a freak accident, but this Cubs bench is horrible, you need some suitable backups! Welcome to NSBB!

Outside of a few HOFers, I can't think of a whole lot of people in this era that are millionaires many times over that moved straight into coaching from their big league career. Not saying it can't happen, but it would surprise me if Maddux did it.

All is not lost. Ticket prices will probably only go up "slightly" next year. :D

Only thing I recall Womack getting started is losing streaks. Womack, like Lofton? I don't think so. Womack- .273/.316 AVG/OBP lifetime K. Lofton- .299/.373 lifetime

With 5 out of 8 everyday position players batting right handed. So much for right/left splits Dusty. If you took Murton's numbers out of the equation, it's much worse.

After the Beurhle performance, the Cubs team is: .190 AVG .270 OBP .278 SLG .548 OPS against lefty pitchers this year.

Considering their just going to bunt anyone who does get on base over, and since the pitchers are probably the best bunters on the team (outside of Pierre), why not just go with a pitcher? It's not my strategy, but if small ball is the strategy which is pretty apparent, doesn't it make sense?

The situation is this team is horrible and something needs to be done. And I have plenty of criticism to offer until it does. :P

Greeeaaaaaaaatttttt! If 2006 wasn't bad enough, you gotta bring up the last 50 years now too. :P

Whoops, I guess someone did already mention Womack in this thread. My bad.

I haven't agreed with a lot of Sullivan's columns in the past, but if he wrote a derogatory column about Jacque Jones and his 3 miscues at 2nd base in the last two weeks, his column was right on the money. For Hendry to criticize a writer for blasting someone who deserves to be blasted is silly. I suppose Sullivan could have written a column that praised all the other times that Jones didn't get caught off base, but it isn't really newsworthy. Maybe a bit of bad press is what these clowns need to quit ignoring the basic fundamentals this game was founded on. Maybe Hendry should take that article into the Cub clubhouse and tell his team that he doesn't want to read another article about poor fundamentals from this team. Not because the writers were scolded not to do so, but because the team needs to stop playing fundamentally poor. It's one thing to strike out 4 times in a game. It's one thing to give up 5 or 6 home runs from the mound. It's something totally different when guys can't perform the basics that are taught in little league. It blows me away that Hendry and MacPhail think the writers should completely look away when a player drops a can of corn (Bynum). That they should look away when Jacque Jones attempts to advance a base on a routine fly ball that requires TAGGING UP first, etc.... Actually, Hendry and MacPhail are extremely lucky that the Tribune owns this team. If it weren't for that small issue, there would be more writers in this town roasting this horribly awful baseball team. Yeah, MacPhail can probably have Sullivan removed from the clubhouse and probably even from the front page of the Tribune just like they had Steve Stone and Chip Caray removed from Tribune/WGN broadcasts. These guys (Stone, Caray, Sullivan) aren't the problem. Shutting them up only masks the problem. The problem is this team sucks and no one seems to care enough to do something about it other than shut up the people who report how badly this team sucks. What will they do next? Plead with ESPN to change the games won and lost in the standings so that it isn't blatantly obvious how bad this team is? I've got a better idea. Make some trades and kick the nonproductive people to the curb. There is no time better than now to blow it up and start over. Cut your losses. Even if you have to pay these clowns for the remainder of their contract, you don't have to reward their poor play with more playing time. Bottom line: Jim Hendry's poor decisions are what created these articles that point out his poor decisions. It isn't putting a stop to those who write the article that will fix the problem. Getting rid of the guy who makes the poor decisions is a much better start.