Sammy Sofa

Hahahahahahaah! Soto with his 2nd homer! 8-3!

Byrd again! Cubs up, 6-3!

#300 for Lee!!!!

I don't know about anybody else, but I don't think Lou sac bunts way too often. He tends to let the wrong guys steal sometimes (Theriot when he's not having success) and he hits and runs a bit too much, but I don't think he overly sac bunts all that much. Yeah, it seems the issue with small ball with Lou is the hit and run and too many attempts stealing with the wrong players and at the wrong times. He doesn't really call for many sac bunts. And who is "seeking salvation" in Trammell?

Hendry and Lou getting the boot isn't likely to suddenly make them start playing solid baseball. This is a poorly constructed team even with Lou's crazy lineups. I'd have no problem seeing both fired today, but I'd be stunned if the team ended up playing much better than .500. It isn't a poorly constructed team. The contracts are horrible. I'll give you that. But, this team is good enough on paper to win more games than they lose. That doesn't mean much. It could easily mean they end up something like 82-80. That's a stretch.

It's a dumb idea right now. If Lee and Aramis were actually hitting I wouldn't be opposed to it.

That makes it make more sense to have him in the middle of the order, but it doesn't make getting one of our best hitters the most ABs dumb. But we're not pondering the general role of the lead off hitter. We're talking about the specific needs of this team, and Soriano is best served hitting in the heart of the lineup right now. That coupled with the presence of Fukudome make it a really bizarre idea given its timing.

When was Lou any different? Because he had that one time when he kicked his hat and yelled real loud at the umpire and made an ass of himself? Lou's been the same bullpen-murderin', bad lineup-makin', no answers-havin' goon the whole time. He's just been able to get away with it when the team's talent outweighed his goon-ishness.

I know others have picked at this lineup already, but why is Soto hitting behind Tracy? Tracy is WSR's newest crush due to his minor league numbers. It'll end messily, as these things always do. Prepare for his cries of "DFA TRACY!" by the end of the month.

You could make the argument that it's because his OBP has steadily dropped since April: April: .443 May: .348 June: .333 I don't know if there's a better option, though. Most of the candidates' numbers have trended downward. He's still by far the best option based on past history. It's just dumb to suggest that anyone else on this team should be leading off (against RH pitchers). I don't see why saying Soriano should leadoff is dumb – he's performing very well to this point. Though I agree that going by past history Kosuke probably should lead off. Because this team desperately needs power in the middle of the lineup and Soriano is one of the few sources of it this year even with as streaky as he is?

You could make the argument that it's because his OBP has steadily dropped since April: April: .443 May: .348 June: .333 I don't know if there's a better option, though. Most of the candidates' numbers have trended downward. He's still by far the best option based on past history. It's just dumb to suggest that anyone else on this team should be leading off (against RH pitchers).

Obviously agree with the first two, not sure about the last one though. Seems to me that most of the time I read about older pitchers they had the ability to throw more pitch types than guys today. I've often come across stories about power pitchers (just for example) from the 50's or 60's also mixing in a knuckler in there. There's a great picture of Walter Johnson demonstrating his grips for six different pitches. I'd think pitchers today are more skilled at fewer pitch types. It seems like in the "old days" guys could go out there and just power-power-power and then throw in a trick pitch or specialty pitch or whatever every so often whereas today guys basically need to mix it up constantly due to both the lower mounds and the proliferation of power and the smaller parks. Yeah, the old guys could often throw more pitches, but they didn't need to throw as many different pitches over the course of a game or even an AB as they have to today. I don't look at it as an issue of who was tougher or more skilled...it's just different eras of baseball.

I will because hockey blows.

Hendry and Lou getting the boot isn't likely to suddenly make them start playing solid baseball. This is a poorly constructed team even with Lou's crazy lineups. I'd have no problem seeing both fired today, but I'd be stunned if the team ended up playing much better than .500.

What? Why the [expletive] would it be anyone besides Fukudome?

The example of bunting with the 3 hitter with no outs in the first inning, is definitely a bad sign. There is something to be said about playing the game the right way. To me that means hustling, picking up your 3rd base coach instead of looking over your shoulder at the ball, hitting the cutoff man, knowing when to try to get the runner going to third or throwing to 2nd to keep the double play in order, etc. Basic fundamentals of playing. Expecting your players to do those things is not a bad thing. Playing the game the right way doesn't mean calling for a sacrifice bunt in the first inning from your #3 hitter. Since I have no input to who the next manager of the Cubs will be but have a feeling it will be Ryno, I just hope he succeeds. It's not expecting guys to hit the cutoff man or pick up the 3rd base coach that people are worried about. No kidding. This Ballgame guy keeps going off on some weird tangents.

You DO want lip service, because the only action they can take right now would be little more than superficial moves. Yes, replacing Hendry would be a step in the right direction, but his replacement would be severely hindered by the current financial situation and how this team is currently made up in terms of contracts. So you don't want lip service, yet you want them to "act like winning is more important than anything?" That's basically the same thing. I'm not saying they're broke. They're trying recoup some of the cost and also not make stupid business moves that would inflate the already inflated payroll of a very mediocre team. What exactly would be the point of adding another bloated contract to this group, and who the hell do you even expect them to spend money on right now? I can say with 110% certainty that firing Lou will not make this team significantly better. He's obviously not helping, but this team simply is not very good as a whole. A team without 3-4 hitters isn't going anywhere. And yeah, you could marginally improve things by doing something like putting Byrd and Soriano 3-4, but they're both too impatient and far too streaky to turn this team around. Sure, but firing Lou doesn't fix anything you just listed. It doesn't make the team any better this year and it won't make people more interested in the team this year. If they want to fire Lou, great, he deserves it, but it's not going to do any of the things you seem to think/hope it would do.

Lower mounds, more power hitters, pitchers needing more pitches in their arsenal.

I hope you guys will be OK.

Probably despite him. A trained chimp as manager likely could have won with a lineup that stacked. Girardi's biggest knocks against him are in regards to his pitching management, and he's lucky he has a team as loaded as the Yankees are, though even already his primary flaws are being exposed. Not many, though I would definitely prefer to at least start with someone who isn't a "big name" hire. There are plenty of people with managing experience who aren't going to come in with swinging-dick egos like Lou and Sandberg. Well, that brings up one of the few things I think a manager should do, which is smart lineup management. Lou fails completely and utterly in that regard in every possible way. Many of the baserunning issues are the result of the moronic hit and runs and steals he keeps calling for. And "dropped fly balls?" Since when has that been a problem? Nobody's saying it's all Lou's fault. Sure it can. I expect little out of a manager besides smart lineup construction and knowing how to use the bullpen. They can cause a ton of harm if they can't handle either of those tasks, as we've seen with Lou, and if they feel they have to over-manage by calling too many steals and hit and runs and the like.

The big knock against Sandberg is his seemingly old-school approach to the game. He appears on the surface to favor conventional wisdom over statistical analysis. The thing with managers is that they very rarely ever do things to add wins over the course of a season. However, they do add losses by poor in-game management. Their job is to put their players in the best position to succeed. A logical construction of a lineup and proper management over the course of an entire season will have the team reaching its potential. Batting Theriot 1 or 2 while he's never getting on base, leaving Soto and his 400-500 OBP either in the 8 spot or on the bench, bringing in Grabow to blow 1 run leads because he can't get people out, etc. is not the best way to achieve good results. I have no clue how Sandberg will manage the pen, but I can only guess he'd leave Theriot at the top of the lineup because he's small and looks quick. Yeah, Sandberg seems too caught up in small ball, over-managing and "playing the game the right way" based on his rhetoric and how he's managed in the minors. It's a cliche at this point, but managers have much more impact on a team losing than they do on a team winning, and the prime way to get them to lose is with bad lineups and over-managing based on silly baseball cliches.

Well, obviously they could.

Sure, but the poster I was replying to seems to be making like the Ricketts can make moves now to significantly reverse the course of this team. That's simply not the case. A "sane" lineup doesn't actually make this team good.

Again, what do you want them to do right now? Firing Lou isn't going to magically make a mediocre team good. They're not sitting on a glut of prospects (or even just one) in the farm system that they can start playing who are likely to make the team better in the immediate future. The money isn't there yet to try and fix this with big FA signings. So again I ask, why do you keep making this statements as if there's anything they can do now that would actually make the team better? Just admit them you only want them to effectively ply you with more lip service, because that's all they can effectively do at this point. Sure, they could and should fire Hendry at some point, but again, no money to start rebuilding and why would you want them to start trading off their prospects for a team this old and flawed? Fixing this is going to take time.

Why? It's never a bad thing for guys to get extra time off, especially when they're one of the few useful players on the Cubs right now. You want Marmol rested for what exactly? 2011? Sure, why not? He's young enough that there's no reason to want to over use him in the meantime. Id say 2012. 2011 is likely to be a very ugly rebuilding year. That's not the point.