Sammy Sofa

Oh, you mean a manager who is aggressive and plays smart baseball? That's a problem? :scratch: Lots of sac bunts, steals, and hits and runs is not smart baseball. It's usually dumb baseball. I just caught this comment. What a stupid viewpoint. No offense, but seriously, that's stupid. I'm sick and tired of people deferring ONLY to sabr and totally discounting things like bunts, steals, the small things in the game. The 2009 Cubs are one of the laziest, stupidest, most fundamentally [expletive] teams I've ever witnessed. How in the blue hell could things get any worse by steering the offense away from the K or 3R HR mentality? Seriously, I get so pissed off reading comments like this. I don't understand it. Help me understand. You guys realize we play in the NL right? There is huge value to all those "dumb baseball" strategies like steals, bunting, etc. Have you watched the Dodgers this year? Did you watch the Rays this year or last? Have you watched the Cubs this year? Yea. There really isn't huge value. They have their place. But being extreme about it, like Baylor was and Brenly would be, is dumb. It runs you into outs. Right. Use those plays and tactics when it's smart, not to blatant excess.

of course not. but if you honestly think that the moves hendry made in the offseason are bad enough to have wrecked this season, you're nuts. when the entire of core of an offense inexplicably sucks and is injured, you're not going to win games. that's my point. hendry did make some bad moves, but they are not the reason this team is so painful to watch right now. Granted, some things likely would have played out the same, like Soriano to this point, Aramis' injury and Fukudome regressing yet again. But on the flipside of that, it's a pretty safe bet that Dunn's production would be much more than Bradley's to this point and DeRosa clearly would have outperformed Miles and Fontenot.

I'm not going to assume Bob's opinions on Len, but simply based on what Bob talks about in the booth it doesn't sound like he's budged much, if at all, from his old philosophies.

Agreed. I'm of course happy to see him coming back, but given the limited number of games before the ASB he'd be able to play in and the nature of his injury I'd prefer if they just waited until after the break.

Baseball managers can do more harm to the team, than they can actually help the team... This. That's why I don't buy into the rants people have that scream that Lou needs to "do something." If anything the best managers are successful because they don't try to manage everything. Going nuts with lineup shifts and double switches and hits and runs and steals and sac bunts and all that crap is usually the reuslt of overmanaging.

Pretty much. He went nuts with that stuff when he was actually managing.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean that it's a good idea to settle for a manager who does it too often like Brenly.

Likely managerial candidates: Alan Trammel Bob Brenly Larry Rothschild Ryne Sandberg Steve Stone? Davey Johnson? Willie Randolph I'm sure there are some young candidates I'm not thinking of, but this would be the primary group, I suspect. Jody Davis. ANy chance Bobby Valentine could be persuaded to come back to our side of the pond? He'd be an interesting choice. I don't remember enough about his tendencies to know how I'd feel about him. I've always liked his personality, though. Me too. In no way do I think he'd be a lock to be a good choice, but he's definitely one that interests me if he can be pursuaded. There's always the dream hire of Larry Dierker, but that's not gonna happen.

It's stupid when the options for "anyone" are Sam Fuld or Reed "even worse than Fukudome against righties" Johnson.

And you just assume the players Brenly would want (which aren't necessarily anyone they could get) would be good? Not hard to best the group of bums he just mentioned. I think Brenly is very baseball smart and he certainly knows what the expectations are here. After the ownership issue is settled, I'd can Lou and give Bob a chance. Well, you clearly just have an old school way of looking at things that favors giving away outs.

And you just assume the players Brenly would want (which aren't necessarily anyone they could get) would be good? And why do you assume that he'd upend the team or even be able to? It's not like managers come in and get all, most or even some of the players they want.

Fontenot was by no means a lock and wasn't going to repeat his numbers from last year over a full season but it was a good gamble to think he'd put up at least serviceable numbers in a 2B platoon.

It's one thing to do a major shakeup (DLing Soriano and playing Hoff instead, etc.) and doing a stupid shakeup (benching Fukudome for Fuld, calling up Taguchi, etc.).

Why not? Because Brenly was a pretty bad manager who rode an amazing starting rotation to a WS. I'm not saying this as a fan of Lou because I was not a big fan of hiring him in the first place, but I definitely do not want Brenly. Bob seems like good people and I really like him as the color guy but I do not want him managing the Cubs. I'm very curious if people wanting Brenly managing now wanted him for the job back after 2006. Wanting Brenly just screams of change for the sake of change. Plus, let's be clear: if Lou quits or is fired before the end of the season Trammel will finish the job.

The thing is, on paper, Hendry didnt put together a bad team, not this bad anyway. Granted, he over paid for these players, but they're still good players that should be scoring runs. Theres no point firing Hendry now, not until the off season anyway. Its not like firing him will undo the moves he made. I agree with this completely. Definitely. If Hendry is to be fired the time to do it is in the offseason. And I really hope to God that anyone who wants Lou fired seriously does not want Brenly to replace him.

He won't cost much monetarily, so the only cost to the team would be prospects. If Bell cost something like Wells/Thomas or something like that, we probably would still have the means to add offense - if the money's there. Ping will be thrilled by this, I suspect. I guess. It's a very smart move if they still have the resources/money to make some kind of improvement to the offense, too.

Why? The Cubs need to be able to actually score runs to have leads for the bullpen to save.

Normally I'd agree, but he's been SO bad for SO long now. Something is up with him. At the very least he should be put on the DL if that nagging knee problem is helping drag everything down. I'm worried he's playing hurt and this team needs the old streaky Soriano ASAP. Continuing to play him hurt (if he is) isn't the way out of this. I'd say if he's not hurt then let him play out of it, but he's had well over a month to play out of it. I agree with everything you said in your post, but Soriano needs a break. Yeah I would definitely be in favor of a DL visit. Give him a couple weeks off, and throw him against weak AAA pitching on a "rehab assignment," see if we can jumpstart a hot streak by getting his confidence up. But I really don't believe he's done, but you're right about this prolonged period of awful production. At first I thought it was just my frustration towards the team unfairly directed at one person, but he hasn't had an OPS below 600 in any month before this one in the last 4 years, not to mention having a 657 OPS the month before it. Anyone watching him can see his legs are bothering him after supposedly coming into the year ready to steal bases again. I know it would give Fukudome a ton of ground to cover in center if he's got Fox and Hoff on either side of him, but honestly Fox has to be covering more ground out there than Soriano at this point. All we're doing right now is making Soriano's legs worse, which could have implications far beyond this season, especially with his history of being VERY slow to heal. Exactly. We all know his contract is an awful thing, but you might as well try and maximize what you can get out of him. Playing him while he's hurt and this bad is not doing that.

Normally I'd agree, but he's been SO bad for SO long now. Something is up with him. At the very least he should be put on the DL if that nagging knee problem is helping drag everything down. I'm worried he's playing hurt and this team needs the old streaky Soriano ASAP. Continuing to play him hurt (if he is) isn't the way out of this. I'd say if he's not hurt then let him play out of it, but he's had well over a month to play out of it. I agree with everything you said in your post, but Soriano needs a break.

ELOHELOHELOHELOH

The Pirates only managed 4 runs in 2 games against the Ass Cubs. I'd hate to be THOSE guys.

Their problems scoring go WELL beyond Soriano at this point. He is the number one culprit. You have a leadoff hitter who NEVER and I mean NEVER ignites a rally to start a game. I've been saying that for a while now here, and when he does snap out of it for short periods of time, the results are good. I can't even remember the last time he "snapped out of it", other than a few gap and bloop hits. That's the very real concern. He always had his cold streaks but usually they lasted like two or three weeks, tops. He's been awful for over a month now.

Their problems scoring go WELL beyond Soriano at this point. He is the number one culprit. You have a leadoff hitter who NEVER and I mean NEVER ignites a rally to start a game. I've been saying that for a while now here, and when he does snap out of it for short periods of time, the results are good. Soriano is hardly the "#1 culprit" for this team's offensive woes. He's been awful, but he's not causing the other players to crap the bed with runners on or in scoring position, which IS actually the number one culprit as to why their offense stinks.

Their problems scoring go WELL beyond Soriano at this point.

Sure, but they'll stink, too. If Aramis is smart he'll opt for surgery and just stay out the rest of the year.