champaignchris

Considering that the offense looks exactly like it did under the previous two hitting coaches, one would hope upper management could see that the hitting coach isn't the problem.

I count 7 guys on their current active roster or the DL who are former Cubs.

I recently read Moneyball for the first time and I was struck by the early chapters' description of Billy Beane as a "5-tool" prospect who simply didn't have the mental makeup to hit major league pitching with any consistency. I immediately thought of Corey Patterson. That might not be fair to Corey, though. He's had a much better career than Beane did.

Given Ricketts' statements at the beginning of the year to the effect that he thought the pieces were in place to be competitive this year, I'd be shocked if, after seeing the results, he kept Hendry on. This seems like a "evaluate what we've got" sort of year, while next year looks to be the start of the "molding the team into what I'd like it to become" process. And like others said, I'd be willing to put a nice sum on Gonzalez being the manager in ATL next year.

20 runs scored in the last 10 games. It's just brutal, brutal baseball they're playing right now.

The Cubs have now become a bad Saturday Night Live skit... "You got shut out by the Pirates again, Cubs. Really, Cubs. REALLY!" "The Pirates are 9-3 against you, Cubs, and 18-48 against the rest of the league. Really. REALLY?!?!" ...and so on, ad nauseum.

The Mets of recent years have had bad pitching (everyone but Santan) and injuries (Beltran, Reyes, Delgado). The Mets were my first thought, but not the current Mets. Rather the post-Subway Series Piazza/Mo Vaughn/Leiter Mets from about 2001 to 2005.

About nine months ago, I posted a thread to mock-seriously "prove" that Aaron Miles' '09 season was the worst offensive performance in Cubs history. Compare: Ram '10: 185 PA, .162/.227/.269 Miles '09: 170 PA, .185/.224/.242 Yikes! The only explanation is that Ram is being possessed by the ghost of Aaron Miles.

They nullify multiple innings in rain-outs all the time, which is why the first official home run hit during a night game at Wrigley (Lenny Dykstra) isn't actually the first home run hit during a night game at Wrigley (Phil Bradley, the night before). For some reason, it's always particularly bothered me when a guy gets hurt while playing a game that gets wiped out by the rain. Everyone remembers the "pine tar incident" and George Brett flipping out. What they don't remember is that the Royals played the rest of the game under protest and AL President Lee MacPhail reversed the ump's decision. The last two outs of the game were wiped out, and the remainder of the game was replayed about three weeks later. The change from a win to a loss, moved the Yankees from a game behind the Orioles to two games behind the Orioles as of July 24. The Orioles ended up winning the division by 6 games.

It would be a lot easier to throw hate at the ump if he acted like an ass. Instead, he apologized for the call and is pretty obviously despondent about the whole thing. As it stands, Galarraga's perfect game may end up being the most historically significant perfecto in a while. It might just be the incident that finally drags baseball screaming into the 20th Century with instant replay. Imagine, Joyce blows the call... Galarraga yells over to Leyland that he got the out... Leyland calmly strolls over to the home plate ump and asks for a replay... The home plate ump walks over to the repay booth, watches the replay for about 20 seconds and awards Galarraga the out... Celebration ensues... That Joyce originally blew the call becomes nothing more than a footnote. Yeah, that's much worse that the way things are now. That might be what finally gets replay in baseball: It'll take the umps off the hook for this sort of thing.

nor was he strong looking. He looked overweight to me. I believe the word you're looking for is fat. As was Jose Lima. If his death had anything to do with a foreign substance being put into his body, that foreign substance was probably cheeseburgers. Still, that didn't stop someone upthread speculating about steroids.

No idea if that's the case or not, but the single worse thing to me about the steroid era in sports is that any time someone dies way too young, there's always going to be that speculation... Kirby Puckett, Reggie White, Florence Griffith Joyner, etc.

Babe's called shot at Wrigley in the 1932 Series.

It's about how many Girardi got. Cubs haven't drafted anyone that's had as many at bats since 1986. No greater significance than that. Point isn't that we're drafting guys that turn into mediocre big-league ballplayers. Rather, with only a hand full of exceptions, we're drafting guys that barely ever make it to the bigs. By the way, I used AB because that's what comes up on the BR year-by-year draft boards and I'm lazy. However, I listed everyone with at least 2000 AB since 1986 and everyone with at least 500 AB since 2000, of which there were exceedingly few.

O.K., facts... Joe Girardi was taken by the Cubs in the 5th round of the 1986 draft (the last one by Dallas Green) and he was in the league as a regular catcher for a number of years and amassed over 4000 AB. The next player the Cubs drafted to accumulate over 4000 AB was... ...well, Jeff Cirillo in 1987, but he didn't sign with the team and was re-drafted by the Brewers in 1991. The guy after that was... Well, it hasn't happened yet. Doug Glanville (1991) got to 3,900. Corey Patterson (1998) is at 3,500 and counting (slowly). Others drafted and signed since 1986 to get to at least 2000 AB are Matt Wallbeck (1987), Eric Hinske (1998), Theriot (2001), and that's all she wrote. The sum total of draftees with at least 500 AB (about one season's worth as a starter) since 2000 are: Bobby Hill (2000), Brendan Harris, Soto, and Theriot (all 2001 - a veritable draft bonanza for the Cubs), Casey McGehee (2003). So the best (and by "best" I mean saw significant action as big leaguer) position player drafted (and signed) by the Cubs between Joe Girardi (1986) and Theriot/Soto (2001) was either Doug Glanville or Corey Patterson. Which ties back into my earlier post about the '90s being hell for Cubs.

There are 2 on the current team. How dare you interrupt my hyperbole with facts!!!

I was thinking along the same lines. I'm nowhere near my lowest point with the Cubs, which would have been in 1992-1993, when they didn't resign Maddux, the culmination of a series of bizarre front-office moves that more or less started with the trade of Lee Smith for Calvin Schiraldi and Al Nipper after the 1987 season, and saw everything Dallas Green had built up (i.e., the farm system) systematically destroyed. I don't think I went to a game between 1991 and 1999. I basically don't remember anything about the Cubs from 1993 to 1997. Other than the 0-14 start in 1997, they were a completely unremarkable team. If the Sammy-McGwire thing combined with Woody coming up and an out of nowhere playoff run hadn't all happened in 1998, I may never have paid attention to the team again. Even this Century, this year isn't anything close to how I felt in 2006. At some point in 2006 I saw that they were on pace to break the Cubs record for worst winning percentage in a season. At that point, I started rooting against the team. I figured that if I was going to pay attention to them, they might as well do something I'd never seen before. I'd seen plenty of .400 seasons before... Gimme a .360 season! When they went 3-18 during a stretch in late-August to early-September, I thought I could be witnessing history. Of course, their valiant 10-9 "surge" to end the season put an end to the excitement. It's May and we're only 6 games out. What's a bad first quarter of a season in the grand scheme of things to a franchise that hasn't drafted an every day position player since Joe Girardi?

As an aggregate, the Cubs offense is actually a bit better than last year's. 7th in the league at 4.6 runs a game versus 9th in the league at 4.39 last year, across the board better BA, OBP, and Slugging. The problem is that it's sooooo inconsistent. 15 games scoring two runs or less out of 35. Houston, the worst scoring team in the league at 3.06 runs per game, has had 17 games of two runs or less out of 34. The second worst scoring team in the league, Pittsburgh, at 3.35 runs per game has had 14 games of two runs or less out of 34. The Padres are the third worst scoring team in the league at 4.29 runs per game, and they've only had 10 games of less than 3 runs out of 34 games. Essentially, while the Cubs aggregate numbers are mediocre, they have been just as likely to put up an offensive no-show as the worst offensive teams in the league. Generally, you'd expect a team's offensive production to graph out like a bell curve with a big hump between 4 and 5 runs and a gradual decline from there. However, if you graphed out the Cub's offensive production, you'd see a giant spike at 2 runs, and then a nearly flat graph from there. The bullpen certainly hasn't helped. The team ERA is up about a half a run, and that can be attributed largely to the bullpen, whose ERA is up a whole point from last year. The starters' ERAs are up about .3 runs.

They'll score 10 or 11 tonight so that their aggregate numbers continue to look mediocre.

So, I know it's only a month into the season, but that Silva for Bradley trade is looking pretty darn good.

Already stated upthread, but had to be repeated: I bet Monica Seles is O.K. with this. Tom Gamboa, too.

Anyone else notice that our starting shortstop is having a positively Juan Pierre-esque season so far.

There was no hype about him in the minors, he was exposed to the Rule 5 draft, picked by Toronto, then released by Toronto back to the Cubs, and he played his first full major league season at the relatively "old" age of 26. He was in the minors for six full seasons, posting nice but never dominant numbers. I know all of the above is mainly stemming from the fact that he's a converted catcher who consequently bloomed as a pitcher later than might usually be expected, but there's still some doubt there. Like a mini-Roy Hobbs effect... "Who is this guy, and where did he come from?" And, I suppose, there's not a little bit of Cubs fan pessimism involved as well.

I went into this season thinking that if Wells put up 3rd or 4th starter type numbers that this year would be a success for him - 180+ innings, an ERA right around 4, an average starter, basically. I still thought last year was a bit of an illusion and that at his age, and for his salary, league average would make him a great asset for the team. But, to this point, he's equaling, or even surpassing his performance from last year. His WHIP is up a smidge, but he's still not walking anybody and he's keeping the ball in the park. Can a guy who was considered a non-prospect that didn't post eye-popping stats in the minors keep this up? I note that his H/9, HR/9, and BB/9 he's posted so far in the bigs, while better, are still very similar to the stats he posted in his 7 years in the minors. So, maybe he can keep this up...

If Silva continues to post a sub-1 WHIP for the rest of the year, Rothschild should be inducted into the Hall of Fame immediately.