KingCubsFan

That's different than what the original quote said. I doubt Piniella was the only manager resting his starters. And do you really blame him for going easy on Harden (obviously injured) Zambrano (coming off injury/probably injured) and Dempster (threw alot more innings than the previous year) and resting people like Marmol (too many apperances) and Wood (injury history). Why do people keep trying to pin the playoff demise on someone? The whole team choked, period. They couldn't handle the pressure and folded. It was a team-wide failure.

Link to Piniella telling players to change their approach/change their roles before the playoffs?

I think that goes without saying

I don't know, I'm not a pitcher. Why didn't people just throw Jim Edmonds high fastballs all the time when he was in his prime? It would be an interesting thing to ask good pitchers about their approach when facing hitters like that.

I think by the point the crowd expected the Cubs to win the game and go to the World Series, unlike this year's crowds who expected a Cubbie occurance to happen. I doubt it has any tangible effect on the performance either way, but its nice to see a Cubs crowd that isn't scared and tentative. You could cut the tension with a knife in game 1 this year. Not enjoyable at all. I think the difference was that the Cubs actually played well that year, whereas they were pretty awful from start to finish this year. Can't cheer when there's nothing to cheer about. I agree the crowd was a bit tentative in Game 1 after the grand slam, but that's a big difference when you have a lead in Game 6 of the NLCS.

wow, this is just an atrocious post top to bottom. everyone realizes that soriano has a tendency to occasionally swing at garbage. however, if it were as simple as just throwing breaking pitches low and away, don't you think "control artists" like haren and smoltz would do just that to retire him? i mean, they're "control artists" after all. In his defense, you're using guys whose best pitch is their fastball (except Lohse). They use the fastball to get ahead of hitters. He's pointing towards junkball pitchers who don't have a plus fastball and hope to get hitters out by swinging at crap outside the zone.

care to elaborate? I think there was one website, or publication that compared Brendan Harris to Albert Pujols due to their minor league numbers. It was the Northside Baseball Bible, also known as Baseball Prospectus

i'm not saying its going to happen...but if...IF...he can have one of his patented hot streaks in the post season...his numbers won't be as terrible anymore...just saying He's been in the postseason five times and has never been good. He's not a very good cold-weather player and he has huge holes in his swing. I really don't see it ever happening.

you don't think they think about their jobs as much as we think about their jobs? My point is that they probably think about their jobs just as much as most people think about theirs. Which, considering most people here spend their days thinking about the Cubs while at work, is why I think most of them were over it within a few hours. Do you think about your job much when you leave the office? Not everyone's current occupation is their dream job. I'm not sure what you do for a living, but was it something you dreamed about doing as a child? Did you tell everyone that you aspired to be a ? When you got home from school as a kid and went out to play with your friends, instead of grabbing a ball and bat, did you go out and practice ? I'd have to think that if I spent my entire life practicing my butt off to be a professional athlete, actually reached that goal, had a legitimate chance to make baseball history by being a part of the first Cubs team to win a World Series in 100 year and had that chance end in an embarrassing manner, I might not get over it in just a few hours. This is the part I disagree with. I have no doubt that, as ultra-competitive people, they care about losing a game more than the normal person. But I don't think they (outside of a few exceptions like Wood) have the same emotional attachment to the Cubs organization that most fans do. That results in a bigger letdown for the fans.

you don't think they think about their jobs as much as we think about their jobs? My point is that they probably think about their jobs just as much as most people think about theirs. Which, considering most people here spend their days thinking about the Cubs while at work, is why I think most of them were over it within a few hours. Do you think about your job much when you leave the office?

So you make a comment like that and then disappear? http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p228/irish1289/catchingfeelings.jpg

Because Hamilton is injury prone and Zambrano is an ace caliber pitcher, which they sorely need. The problem is that Zambrano is not an ace-quality pitcher. If Texas thinks that though, this could be the steal of the century

I just can't get over the fact that the players typically care about the results less than we do. well, that just isn't true. and if it was true, and you really do care more about the cubs postseason than the players, you should probably re-examine your priorities in life. I doubt they spend as much of their free time thinking about the Cubs as we do. It's their job, they get paid to do it, end of story. I'm sure some players were upset, but I bet most of them were over it by the time they boarded the plane.

20 HR, 100 RBI for that "older then dirt" player. He's also two years younger then Manny. He's worth a two year deal. EDIT: 371 OBP as well. The guy can still play and play at a high level. Worth a two-year deal? Perhaps. Willing to sign a two-year deal? Doubtful. He's going to want at least three, possibly four. While he does do a good job of getting on base, his walk rate is also starting to decline. I might go three years if I had to. Lets face it, our offense is the problem and has been in the postseason the last two years. We have been worked over by dominant, right handed pitching. Imagine this: Roberts in a trade for Derosa. Fukudome Soriano A-Ram Abreau Lee Soto Cendeno or Theriot You're not going to get Roberts in a deal for DeRosa. Just isn't going to happen. And considering the Cubs had the best offense in the league, I find it odd to say the offense is the problem. Yes, they struggled in the postseason. But you don't say the offense is a problem based on a three-game sample. The pitching and defense played a large role in the Cubs playoff failures this season, so it's not fair to lay it all on the offense. I also find it odd that you want to trade DeRosa, considering your emphasis on postseason offense, when he did a good job with the bat this postseason. Even though it's a small sample size, his career postseason numbers are very good. I like DeRo, I just think we need to deal for Roberts and MacPhail will absolutely want DeRo in any package we give the O's. Yes, our pitching and D were not very good. However, our offense has never allowed our pitching and D to relax in the last two postseasons. We need to change the offense. Other than Game 1, our pitching (and mostly defense) gave up the runs first, causing our offense to press. Dempster blew it in Game 1 with all his walks. In reality, it was our pitching and D that didn't allow our O to relax.

It's not a crapshoot when you turn in one of the worst playoff appearances of all time. The team choked, and Soriano is one of the worst playoff performers of all time considering the number of at bats he's gotten. Nothing wrong with trying to get rid of him. There is if there is no better option to replace him. Getting rid of him to let Hoffpauir play is akin to moving Alou so DuBois can play. Now if you sign Manny Ramirez then by all means move Soriano. Even if we do that though, Soriano has a no trade clause and a huge contract that both make it impossible to move him. I'm not advocating replacing him with someone like Hoffpauir. But if someone will take that contract, you jump on it.

It's not a crapshoot when you turn in one of the worst playoff appearances of all time. The team choked, and Soriano is one of the worst playoff performers of all time considering the number of at bats he's gotten. Nothing wrong with trying to get rid of him.

The comment didn't seem all that bad to me. Soriano's just a guy who is really disappointed, searching for answers like the rest of us. There's no answers to search for. It's blatantly obvious what happened. There's really only two phrases that any player should be saying: 1. "I'm sorry" 2. "We choked."

The only thing wrong with the "make-up" of the team is that they are a bunch of cowards who can't take the pressure of playing as the Cubs in the playoffs. Plain and simple. This team had a lot of expectations thrown on them, and it's going to be that way for every good Cubs team until they finally win it. This team clearly couldn't handle it. The walks, the errors, the lack of clutch hits all mean the team was playing tight. It has nothing to do with the fact it was a short series (with the way we played we could have easily lost 8 straight games), or that we weren't "built" for a short series (we had 3 good starting pitchers) or that the playoffs are a "crapshoot." Soriano and the rest of the team (although I haven't heard anyone else make these type of excuses) need to shut their mouths until they can actually win a playoff game.

There's a point where a certain level of underperformance becomes statistically improbable to the point where you have to wonder what is going on. A good team losing is expected. Good teams losing by a combined score of 54-18 over eight games isn't. It's really not hard to see what's going on. They can't handle the pressure, period. Does Lee have a no-trade clause for next year? Zambrano? Huh? Z has performed well the past two years. You're right. I was just thinking of trading him before his shoulder is officially Prior'd

There's a point where a certain level of underperformance becomes statistically improbable to the point where you have to wonder what is going on. A good team losing is expected. Good teams losing by a combined score of 54-18 over eight games isn't. It's really not hard to see what's going on. They can't handle the pressure, period. Does Lee have a no-trade clause for next year? Zambrano?

Why is that relevant?

That would be funny if they were actually that stupid to trade him. They could have pretty much anyone they'd want on the team not named Soto

Except that Wuertz hasn't been very good this year either.

While I agree with this... the Reds are going to be very very scary around 2010/2011. I'm sure Cardinals fans said back in 2002/2003 that the Cubs would be scary for years to come too. Dusty's influence has no boundaries. Volquez, Cueto and Bailey will not be around by then (either injured or ineffective), Cordero will suck, Dunn is already gone, and Votto looks like an above-average first baseman (nothing special). So that leaves Bruce, Phillips and Walt Jocketty, who has the anti-LaRussa in his dugout and is missing the best hitter in the league.

when you get 1.5 more guys on base per game via the walk than you did 2 years ago, your offensive production is gonna go way up. lou has been an upgrade over dusty in just about every way imaginable, except for ability to fish and chew on toothpicks, while hendry has made much better personnel decisions over the past couple of years, but nothing is more important than this organization's epiphany that getting on base is a good thing. I think that can mostly be attributed to Lou and the coaching staff, though.