Sammy Sofa

Just for reference, Joe Torre had zero years managing a minor league team. That's terrific. He was a catcher and this isn't 1977 and didn't have Sandberg's track record of asinine beliefs in smallball and "playing the game the right way" in 2011.

5 years is not enought time? And how can you get experience without getting a shot? What else does he need to do? At least work as a bench coach or hitting instructor or something first. I'd still want him to spend a few more years managing in the minors before that.

Sandberg has spent a grand total of, what, 5 years of managing in the minors? And absolute no experience coaching on the major league level? Let's stop talking about him like he's some managing dynamo who needs a shot right now. And fans loving him is moot. People don't pay to come see managers. If the Cubs stink even Sandberg doing cartwheels on the dugout and peeing "23" into the grass isn't going to bring them out.

No, you're not curious, because it's obvious to anyone who takes two seconds to look to see where he was worst. Here, I'll spell it out for you: personally, I don't think it's a good idea to shuffle guys around more than is necessary. I especially don't think it's a good idea with flawed, declining hitters. He showed he could be serviceable hitting 6th last year, and he seemed fine with it, so I have no idea why they would have given him so many starts hitting 5th this year. As I've already stated, my main issue with all of this is Quade's crappy, inconsistent lineups more than anything else. The only time it would have made sense to have Soriano hitting 5th is the couple of times he want on a hot streak, and the numbers reflect that wasn't how it went down. And Soriano "struggled" at varying levels everywhere because he's a flawed, declining hitter. Bouncing him around needlessly, even just between 5-7, potentially just acerbates that issue. Do I know that to be a fact? Of course not, and I never said it was. It's just my opinion. You're trying really, really hard to make this something it isn't.

Well, lets not forget who else has been rumored to join the Cubs from the Phillies organization. The dots seem to be getting connected here. Not really.

Well, this may be true. However, Ricketts is a business man and a Cubs fan to boot. He loves Sandberg and he knows the fans love him. He has an angry fan base and he knows a move like this will appease 80% of them. Add Prince to this and he sells out every game. Signing a manager, even Sandberg, isn't going to be enough to bring people to the game. Managers can't make a team win. Good players and winning games are what bring the most people out. You want a good GM to bring in and develop good players. Telling your GM who they have to hire as manager isn't a smart way to bring in a good GM.

Yeah, see the "one spot" part?

Signing Ryne [expletive] Sandberg over Pujols or Fielder and acting like that's some kind of good move is insanity.

Not what I said. Stop trying so hard. I said I understand why he's complaining, and that for some players it can possibly be a detriment, not that it was the actual reason for his decline.

The ideal big "PR moves" this offseason are first hiring the right GM, signing the right FA and then letting that person hire the management/coaching staff THEY want. If they actually want Sandberg, ech, that's bad enough, but if Sandberg is effectively being forced onto whoever is hired by the Ricketts then that's no good. What the Sox are doing is completely irrelevant in this.

This annoys me. Unless "reconciliation" means Sandberg apologizing profusely for storming off like a spoiled brat who wasn't bought the toy he wanted. And at this point I really don't want him working as a coach anywhere in the organization, because as soon as (and every time) the new manager goes through a bad stretch that's all you're going to hear about.

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

Heroin is for closers. Failure gets stepped on crack.

The site has been running ridiculously slow a good 50% of the time for me the last few days, and refreshing brings back that error message pretty often.

Exactly. When he's useless or he's blocking a better option, boom, he's gone.

You would shop Dempster in the offseason? That doesn't seem...wise.

I think that is a whole bunch of nonsense. Soriano is a bad baseball player in a mediocre lineup. He should expect to have to move around. In his case, the vast majority of his time has been in the 6th or 7th hole, which are virtually indistinguishable from a player's perspective. Being a 5/6/7 hitter isn't like he's going from 1/4/8. He just can't hit. No excuses about where in the order. Unbelievable. It's like if you say anything beyond trashing the guy certain people here assume you're praising his hitting ability.

Ridiculous. You don't cut a guy who can still be useful just because you don't like him. He still put up a .271 .312 .500 .812 line against LH pitchers this year. Why not just platoon him? If he's already complaining about batting 7th don't you think he's going to complain about being platooned? Also, though the numbers against lefties are slightly above average I fully expect his numbers to be even worse next year. I'd rather let Brett Jackson take up LF full-time or find a better replacement than have Soriano there against lefties and taking a roster spot to do so. That's my opinion of course. If Jackson is in LF and Soriano is cut to make you feel better, who is playing the other OF spot? Where is this better replacement coming from? Are we passing on Fielder/Pujols because we have to spend money on the OF to satisfy Soriano's bloodlust? There should be a decent amount of OF free agents next year that would come cheap and be better than Soriano. Jackson is already being counted on to take over in CF. Byrd is only a stopgap in RF for one season at the most. Soriano is trending downwards, but if you platoon him enough you're likely to get serviceable or better LF production next season that is more cost effective and productive than going out and signing someone off the scrapheap and paying that person on top of Soriano's salary. The time will come, but they're likely not yet at the point where they need to cut him.

Wow.

Ridiculous. You don't cut a guy who can still be useful just because you don't like him. He still put up a .271 .312 .500 .812 line against LH pitchers this year. Why not just platoon him?

Yet again, I'm not saying any player should just hit in one spot. I'm saying in this case he had too many PA spread across three spots. That's not saying a player can't do that, but I think with a lot of guys there is a threshold where it becomes too much. Like I said, I think this wouldn't have even come up if Soriano was bounced primarily between 6 and 7 with only a few PA hitting 5th, but instead he got enough where, to him, it seemed like too much variation and it weighed on him. Some guys seemingly can't deal with that, for whatever reason. That's why I don't think his complaint was outlandish, because it's not like he's demanding or insisting that he hit in a key spot. It's not like this is a guy who is going to automatically throw a tantrum if he's hitting lower in the lineup, as last year showed.

You're challenging me on points I'm not making, so please stop trying to goad me into fights I'm not starting. I've stated numerous times now that this is likely primarily a "head" issue and indicative of the mess that Quade has made out of the lineups. I'm challenging you to provide any sort of concrete rationale for this statement: "almost any player, regardless of ability or skillset, is going to struggle in at least one spot if they're being bounced across at least 3 spots in the lineups for significant PA" I haven't been able to come up with anything myself, and you've given us none, either. The rationale is that it's my opinion. I think that you start giving players significant PA across too many slots it starts to screw things up. That's primarily due to it likely being indicative of poor lineup/team construction, but I also think that with many players it plays a part mentally/psychologically/whatever. I'm not saying it's some kind of baseball fact.

No, what specifically about being moved around the lineup between 5 and 7 do you think causes a problem? His pregame routine is the same, right? The pitches he sees are basically the same, right? His approach in any given AB is basically the same, right? (And if not, that would change much more as a function of game situation (score, inning, # outs, runners, etc) than lineup spot, and that effect would be there even if he hit in the same lineup spot all year long.) So what specifically would make it so challenging to hit 5th one day, 7th the next, then 6th, etc? What's changing? You're challenging me on points I'm not making, so please stop trying to goad me into fights I'm not starting. I've stated numerous times now that this is likely primarily a "head" issue and indicative of the mess that Quade has made out of the lineups. Moving Soriano between 5th, 6th, and 7th is not an example of Quade messing up the lineup. As I stated last page, no MLB player this season has started even 80 games in the 6th spot or the 7th spot. Every player in those spots has to get used to hitting 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, or 9th in the AL. It's unreasonable for Soriano to believe he should get to stay in one spot when nobody in MLB in that part of the batting order has gotten to stick in one spot. I'm not saying he definitely should have only hit in one spot. Personally, I think players who typically hit 6 and below shouldn't be hitting in the 1-5 spots except when necessary. And how does the lineup construction of this season somehow become a hard and fast rule? OK, so no player started more than 80 games from those spots. Last season Soriano started 105 games hitting 6th. So which is "right?"

No, what specifically about being moved around the lineup between 5 and 7 do you think causes a problem? His pregame routine is the same, right? The pitches he sees are basically the same, right? His approach in any given AB is basically the same, right? (And if not, that would change much more as a function of game situation (score, inning, # outs, runners, etc) than lineup spot, and that effect would be there even if he hit in the same lineup spot all year long.) So what specifically would make it so challenging to hit 5th one day, 7th the next, then 6th, etc? What's changing? You're challenging me on points I'm not making, so please stop trying to goad me into fights I'm not starting. I've stated numerous times now that this is likely primarily a "head" issue and indicative of the mess that Quade has made out of the lineups. oh lord..Stop trying to make excuses for an over the hill player. I fully expect Soriano's numbers to be even worse next year. The only thing I'm "making excuses" for is what he he's saying in the article. As for his ability I said this: My point to you when I said "Oh Lord" was how you just want him cut when they already have the huge question of what to do with RF. Worse comes to worse they can still platoon Soriano in RF so that he's mostly facing LH pitchers. Now is not the time to cut him just because of some stupid article. The other part was your blanket statement of how it's always a bad idea to sign "30+ year old's to long contracts." The Cubs foolishly overpaying for Alfonso Sorinao doesn't mean that any FA 30 and up is going to play out the same way.

No, what specifically about being moved around the lineup between 5 and 7 do you think causes a problem? His pregame routine is the same, right? The pitches he sees are basically the same, right? His approach in any given AB is basically the same, right? (And if not, that would change much more as a function of game situation (score, inning, # outs, runners, etc) than lineup spot, and that effect would be there even if he hit in the same lineup spot all year long.) So what specifically would make it so challenging to hit 5th one day, 7th the next, then 6th, etc? What's changing? You're challenging me on points I'm not making, so please stop trying to goad me into fights I'm not starting. I've stated numerous times now that this is likely primarily a "head" issue and indicative of the mess that Quade has made out of the lineups.