What if Jim Hendry Had Been Fired in October 2009?

If the Ricketts had fired Jim Hendry immediately upon taking ownership, what would the Cubs’ drafts have looked like in 2010 and 2011? Would Javier Baez have been a Cub?

The folks over at Blogabull have a post up about the biggest "What-If?" scenarios in the last 10 or so years for the Bulls. These hypothetical flights of fancy are quite a bit more vivid in basketball, where so much hinges the status of a handful of players, but it prompted me to think a little about the Cubs. The one question in recent memory that has always stood out in my mind is: "What if Ricketts had acted quickly and decisively upon taking ownership of the team?" One of the criticisms of Tom Ricketts that followed him from the business world is that he took his time in overhauling operations, waiting until well after it was evident that a change was necessary. I think it's fair to say that the same applies to his tenure of the Cubs, as he waited until midseason of 2011 to change regimes.

There are a lot of ways to go with this question, but I'm going to try to be very narrow in my focus. Let's assume that Ricketts had started the search for a new general manager prior to actually taking ownership of the team. He approaches Theo Epstein, who is quite happy in his Boston paradise, thank you very much, but would strongly recommend Jed Hoyer for the gig. Ricketts takes this idea seriously, and instead of joining the Padres, Jed Hoyer takes over for the Cubs and brings along Jason McLeod to run things on the amateur side. (Hey, this is my hypothetical. Don't like it? Make your own.)

I think it's fair to say that the front office's biggest disappointment since coming on was the implementation of the new CBA almost immediately after their hiring, and it's restriction of compensation picks and draft/international spending. Had they taken over after 2009, what might their big budget drafts in 2010 and 2011 looked like? Fortunately, we have some frame of reference here given that Theo and Jed were heavily involved in drafts for other teams.

2010: No Hayden Simpson!

I'm not sure what the Cubs draft would have looked like in 2010, but saying that Hayden Simpson would not have been a part of it is blatantly obvious. Would the team have opted for big bonus-seeking Zach Lee, whom they coveted in the trade talks for Ryan Dempster last year? Or would it have been eventual Red Sox pick Kolbrin Vitek? Maybe they would have reached for Anthony Ranaudo, knowing he wouldn't have been around in the second.

How about Padres second-rounder Jedd Gyorko at 65 overall? He would look good manning second or third for Cubs right now, and the Padres may not have been on him without Hoyer/McLeod pushing for it. Or would it have been Brandon Workman?

2011: Bullet Dodged?

I'm pretty confident in saying that 2010's draft would have looked a whole lot better (I mean, really: could it have been worse?). 2011? Maybe not. You see, in 2011 the Cubs actually spent money on the draft, shelling out for Javier Baez, Dan Vogelbach, and Dillon Maples, among others. The story goes that Jim Hendry caught wind that the new CBA was coming down the pike and convinced Ricketts to spend big (though I personally suspect that Ricketts himself may have been the driving force).

In 2011, the Padres picked second baseman Cory Spangenberg 10th overall, immediately after the Cubs took Javier Baez. And, frankly, I don't think Baez would have been a Cub if Hoyer/McLeod were running that draft. Relevant quotes:

McLeod said there were two players selected before Spangenberg the organization liked, though they essentially got the guy they wanted.

I'm going to assume those two players were Rice third baseman Anthony Rendon, and one of the pitchers (likely Gerrit Cole), given this statement from Hoyer:

“He’s the second-best hitter in the country,” said Hoyer. “For a while, I thought he was our sleeper, but he hit his way out of that.”

And then there's this anecdote from McLeod:

McLeod had just scouted Baez, who played for Arlington Country Day, a Jacksonville private school that became a kind of barnstorming team after withdrawing from the Florida High School Athletic Association.

The competition was suspect and McLeod had no idea what he’d just seen, telling Hoyer: “I don’t know if this kid is going to be Manny Ramirez or not get to Double-A.”

Now, Baez is no sure thing (though, wow), but no GM on Earth is trading him straight-up for Cory Spangenberg at the moment.

Maybe you want to take the hypothetical further, and suppose that the Cubs would have started shedding older talent in 2010 and ended up with a higher pick. Would we be talking about the young infield tandem of Gyorko and Rendon right now? Would this front office even given a thought to Dan Vogelbach?

What are your all-time Cub "What-If's?"

10 years ago today

10 years ago today the Cubs traded Todd Hundley and Chad Hermanson to the Dodgers for Mark Grudzielanek and Eric Karros. It was not only the best trade that new GM Jim Hendry made in his tenure as GM, but one of the best trades the Cubs made in franchise history. Chris Jaffe writes about that trade today on The Hardball Times.

Eric Karros had one of the greatest first halves of his career. He entered the All-Star break batting a bizarrely high .323—and then he went 7-for-12 after the break. On July 22, he was hitting .338, which would dwarf his previous career high of .304.

Instead he flopped badly. He batted just .202 with eight extra base hits down the stretch, but his early heroics were enough to give him his best overall offensive season in four years. Still, as Branch Rickey had said, it’s better to trade a player one year too early than one year too late, and the Dodgers had just traded him a half-season too early.

Then there is Grudzielanek. Inconceivably, the 33-year-old enjoyed the best year of his career, batting .314. That proved to be no fluke as he hit .302 from 2003-08. Sure it can help leaving Dodger Stadium but it shouldn’t help that much—especially not for someone who was that old.

So the Dodgers traded Karros a half-season too early, and Grudzielanek a half-dozen seasons too early, all for a pair of players who gave them 10 hits.

As for the Cubs, behind the unexpectedly good production from their new first and second basemen, they made the postseason and nearly claimed the team’s first pennant since 1945.

That was one heck of a one-sided trade that occurred a decade ago on Dec. 4, 2002

Season in review: Carlos Marmol

If I told you that in 2012 Carlos Marmol's final stats were like they are below, what would you say?

44 IP, 31 H, 29 BB, 60 K, 3 HR, 2.66 ERA, 3.25 FIP

You'd say I was full of shit because that wasn't his final line, but that's what Carlos Marmol did after returning from his phantom injury in May. I realize that this is nothing more than selective endpoints, but I also realize that something was completely off with Marmol when the season began. Prior to his DL stint, he had thrown 11.1 innings, allowed 9 hits, walked 16 and struckout 12. He allowed 10 runs, 8 of which were earned.

The baseball season doesn't begin after a DL stint so those appearances matter. Overall, Marmol posted a 3.42 ERA, 3.98 FIP, .2 fWAR and .3 rWAR.

Below was Marmol's projection entering the season:

Marmol ended up walking only 1 fewer than 46 despite throwing only 55.1 innings. The projection for him was about 1.3 WAR and he failed to come close to that.

Marmol has always been a wild card in my opinion. He's had a couple really good years, but even in those years he walked a lot of batters. He was never as good as he was at his best and he's probably better than he was this year though probably not by a whole lot.

2010 was a great season for Marmol despite walking the world. He struckout batters at a near record breaking percentage and was unhittable when he threw strikes. With the exception of that year though, Marmol has been your run of the mill late inning reliever over the last 4 years.

On a good team, Marmol wouldn't be the closer, but good the Cubs are not. Marmol's contract wasn't a bad one at the time it was signed and nor was it a good one. What should have given us all pause is that Jim Hendry's record on signing relievers was ridiculously poor. It's difficult to imagine a GM signing as many poor relievers as Hendry did. Not surprisingly, the Cubs got little in return.

If I recall, the Cubs paid Marmol about what we'd have expected him to be worth, but he hasn't really come close to doing that. After his dominating 2010 season he took a huge step back last year and in some ways (FIP, fWAR) another step back this year. His ERA did improve to about the same as 2009. I don't know what to expect from Marmol entering next season, but I'd guess it's more of the same that we've seen over the last 4 years. At times he'll look dominating, but mostly he'll just be a decent and perhaps above average reliever.

The Cubs will have a hard time trading Marmol because he's due nearly $10 million in 2013. The Cubs also don't exactly have anyone who can replace Marmol. No, Rafael Dolis should never see that role again. Ever.

Marmol is a great example of your average good reliever. He's had 3 really good years and 3 not so good years. Relievers are unpredictable because they throw so few innings per season and Marmol has been no different. There was never a reason to think he would be different.

GM Candidates

It would be easy, and even lazy to put together a post with names most of you have never heard about and talk about why they may be a candidate to replace Jim Hendry. I seem to remember MLBTR even having a list and Baseball America used to put together similar lists. I’m sure many others have. So there’d be no new information other than regurgitating what others had come up with. I don’t think there’s any real point in coming up with a list of candidates. The reason is quite simple: the Cubs can basically hire whoever they want.

Let’s start with the most talked about candidate, Andrew Friedman of the Rays. I’ve read today that people think he may not want to leave Tampa Bay and while that may in fact be true, I don’t think anyone saying that had any information one way or another. Here’s what we do know.

The Cubs can pay Friedman more than the Rays can
General Managers like to have money to spend on players and the Cubs have significantly more of it
Friedman’s contract with the Rays expires after the season

It’s possible Friedman is just happy to sit back and enjoy life in Florida. However, it’s more likely he’d prefer a job that could give him more money and spend more money on players.

Let’s also understand one thing: whoever is the GM of the Cubs when they win the World Series is going to be considered, at least for a brief time, the greatest general manager in sports. The Rays could win a World Series and in 30 years nobody is going to remember who their GM was except a small contigency of Rays fans. If the Cubs win the World Series most people are going to know who the GM and manager were. Considering the egos these guys have, it only makes sense that almost any GM would jump at the chance to be that guy who is forever remembered as the GM to lead the Cubs to a World Series after more than 100 years of failure. We’ve heard managers talk about how great that job would be for that very reason. The Cubs candidates for GM includes every current GM.

The Yankees are without doubt a far more popular franchise than the Cubs. The Reds Sox, too. After them you have a trio of teams in the Cubs, Dodgers and Cardinals who are more popular than the others. Not even the Red Sox owners seems to know how long Theo is signed, but from what I could find on my google machine, it appears he signed a 3-year extension after the 2008 season, which would mean his contract is up after this season. It’s the last I could find of an extension, but perhaps another one was given and we just didn’t hear about it.

Regardles of that, if the Cubs wanted to hire Theo and he was interested in the job, they’d work something out. The same goes for Brian Cashman, but I don’t know why the Cubs would have interest in him to be honest. If we’re making a list of candidates, it begins with all the current GMs in the game.

Other than writing a bunch of names down, I see no reason to compile a list. They can get whoever they want. They have the money, they are a franchise that any GM would love to be the one who wins a World Series with, and GMs are just egotistical enough to think they can be the one to do it. They’re always looking for a challenge and certainly, taking over the Cubs would be just that. It is, however, an organization that any GM could turn around quickly enough.

Continue reading “GM Candidates”

A Look Back: Michael Barrett

This season sucks. I wanted to bring up something (kind of) relevent from year’s past. Different people will have different opinions, but I never fully grasped the impact Michael Barrett had on the Cubs during his tenure. Why Barrett? 1) White Sox-Cubs is tonight, and punching A.J. Pierzynski is something I think we all wish we could do and 2) On this day in 2007 he was traded to the San Diego Padres for Rob Bowen and Kyler Burke.

Michael Barrett was signed in the 2003 offseason (ZOMG JIM HENDRY) on a 4 year deal. He started an average of 103.5 games from 2004-2007. During his 3 productive years (’04-’06) he had a .843 OPS producing 8.3 fWAR. His salary those 3 years was ~$9m. His surplus value was $19.4m.

2007 was a down year for him. With the Cubs, he was hovering a little above replacement level. He was traded on June 20, 2007 following 2 altercations with Z and Rich Hill. In return, they got Kyler Burke who was selected out of HS in the supplemental round of the 2006 draft. He was considered a very good OF prospect. Burke is still in the system. He converted to pitcher and is (or was) at EXST in AZ. The Cubs sent along money in the trade and saved $970K in the second half of 2007.

Barrett, while unappreciated by some, provided enormous value given his salary. When evaluating Jim Hendry, many point to his successful trade history and awful contracts he’s handed out. Somehow lost in all this was a free agent catcher Hendry signed that produced like a top hitting catcher but was paid like he was in arbitration.

If only Hendry could go back to finding hidden talent instead of splurging on his then-manager’s wants and wishes. We’d have more Michael Barretts and less Sorianos, Fukudomes, and Bradleys.

Oh ya, he punched A.J. Pierzynski in the face during the Crosstown Classic.

Continue reading “A Look Back: Michael Barrett”

Even Phil Rogers is sometimes right

Phil Rogers wonders how much longer Jim Hendry and Crane Kenney will be employed by the Cubs in his most recent article.

In baseball, you usually can see the end coming, whether it’s for a player, manager or executive. It was a relief for almost everyone, not a surprise, when Lou Piniella opted to resign last August. His team was in freefall, having lost 20 of 24, and a feeling of defeat had taken hold on the franchise.

That feeling has returned over the last couple of weeks. Recurring mistakes, a run of injuries and a lack of timely hitting have buried first-year manager Mike Quade under a 24-36 record, and both the schedule and the public outcry for change are unrelenting.

Something has to give, and probably soon, even if the calls for an organizational clean sweep have yet to penetrate the clubhouse doors.

I recently said that Mike Quade would be fired before long and I still believe that. Take the last two managers who have left mid-season. Don Baylor was fired in 2002 (Hendry was assistant GM) and Lou Piniella was forced to resign last season. The 2002 Cubs were 35-50 when Baylor was fired. The 2010 Cubs were 51-74 when Lou resigned. Baylor’s team was playing .408 ball while Lou’s team was playing .412 ball.

The 2006 team is the only other team in Hendry’s time with the Cubs as assistant GM or GM in which the team has played as poorly as that and that was in 2006. That is until 2011 of course. Baker was not fired as you know and was allowed to finish the season. Two other times though, the manager has been relieved of his duties.

You may say that Baylor and Lou were in the final season of their contract and that’s true, but each of those managers was due about the same amount of money after being let go as Quade is through the end of his contract. Money isn’t going to prevent the Cubs from firing Quade. It didn’t prevent them from spending the same amount in getting rid of Baylor or in getting Lou to retire. I doubt it stops them now.

The other thing to consider is that while actual attendance was down late in 2006, the reported attendance was 4,000 higher per game than it already is in 2011. The 2006 tickets sold were higher than in 2004 and 2003. Attendance is already down and it will only continue to decline. The empty seats we saw at the end of 2006 are already comparable to the empty seats we saw early in the 2011 season. The empty seats we see late this season will be similar to the empty seats we regulary saw in the 1980s and 1990s.

Even if it’s a mostly empyt gesture, the Cubs will have to be seen as doing something to correct the problems we see on the field. Unless this team turns it around, and if you look at the roster you realize that’s not possible, I find it hard to believe Quade lasts the entire season.

I also doubt Jim Hendry does either. I’m not sure what will happen with Crane Kenney and don’t actually care. Phil Rogers points out that Andrew Friedman is not under contracty by the Rays after this season so I wouldn’t be too surprised to see him named the next General Manager.

Continue reading “Even Phil Rogers is sometimes right”

Phil Rogers is Still Wrong – Because He HAS TO

MB, you ignorant slut.

As someone who has been around the Cubs blogosphere for as long as you have, you should know damn well that Phil Rogers is never right about anything. I’m fairly certain he needs a couple of tries to get his own name right in the byline.

It was disturbing to realize that I was coming down on the same side of things as Steve Rosenbloom when talking about the Cubs’ ownership and administration, but it is wholly unsettling to realize we may also be looking at information before us and coming to the same conclusions as Phil Rogers. That can’t possibly be good for our credibility as the most unrediscredited Cubs blog in existence.

So, given that we know Phil Rogers is always wrong, we have to look and determine how that could be so. Because, as anyone who has ever Wikipedia’d Sherlock Holmes knows, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

We’ve been awfully upset lately about the Ricketts’ apparent disconnection from the issues at hand with the team. We’ve been jumping up and down on him pretty hard for seemingly ignoring the calamity that is unfolding as the season progresses (hence the new banner) and foolishly clinging to the idea that the Cubs, once healthy, are a force to be reckoned with.

We wonder how it could be so. We wonder how any rational human being with two operational brain cells to scrape together could possibly look at this team and this season and possibly be surprised at how it’s going.

Maybe they’re not surprised. Maybe they knew damn well this disaster was a possibility.

We all saw the projections before the season. As much as Jim Hendry scoffs at advanced metrics, he had to be aware of them. Surely someone somewhere in the Cubs office realized this was a 77 win team if things went our way, and would surely be a trainwreck if they went typically Cub-style as the season wore on. We talk about how stupid they are, but they seem to at least be literate people who presumably don’t need to be reminded to inhale and exhale. (Maybe not so much Todd, but he may be the exception that proves the rule.)

So maybe this was semi-expected. Maybe the reason we haven’t gotten votes of confidence on Quade and Hendry is because ownership isn’t panicking over something they foresaw as long ago as we did. Maybe Hendry is being allowed to go on his merry way in the rebuild because they knew all along this was going to be a potential shit storm and it couldn’t be helped.

I’ve talked before about the attendance floor and the buffer zone the waitlist provides allowing the Cubs to do some things that aren’t popular. I’ve always put it in a context of raising ticket prices and basically screwing over the fans in the pursuit of cash, but it works just as well for doing things on the baseball side that are unpopular amongst the common fan. Think about it, Rogers thinks that the Cubs HAVE TO do something soon to offer up a sacrifice to the masses.

Something has to give, and probably soon, even if the calls for an organizational clean sweep have yet to penetrate the clubhouse doors.

Where have we heard that before? Now suddenly we find ourselves on the same side of the argument as Rosenbloom, Rogers, AND Yellon? Holy shit! What bizarro universe is this?

We have to ask ourselves, if the Cubs do not fire anyone and allow the season to go on the way it has, will Al Yellon quit being a season ticket holder? I’d be shocked if he did. And I’d be shocked if most of the thousands of season ticket holders that have stuck with this team through the 80’s and 90’s would jump ship at this point. There will be turnover. There is no getting around it. the attrition might even be higher than the Cubs expected in their worst nightmares, but they do not act like a team that is concerned.

They say they aren’t concerned and none of their actions indicate they are concerned. Even Hendry always seems pretty calm for someone who is supposedly one more lost series away from the unemployment lne:

“People don’t believe me, but I don’t worry about that,” he said when asked if he’s concerned about losing his job. “I’ll leave that up to what (Chairman) Tom Ricketts thinks is best for the club.”

So we are left with two possible conclusions. 1) The Rickettseses don’t give a shit or 2) They saw this coming and are working through their playbook to some endgame that involves the team getting better through Jim Hendry and Crane Kenney.

I am going to throw out the idea that they don’t care. They may not be the kind of Cubs fans that we want them to be, but they do care. You don’t sink $850 million into something during the worst economy since the Great Depression if you don’t care about it. They might not have understood what they were taking on and may have underestimated just HOW bad it was going to get as they ran their playbook, but they have a plan.

I believe that plan involves Jim Hendry and Crane Kenney, and if it involves those two, then it also involves Mike Quade at least through the season. The Cubs don’t HAVE TO do anything drastic to assure that 26,000 seats are sold for every game next year. On the flipside, I also don’t think any additional seats will be sold this year or next year based on who manages this team or who the general manager is. Anyone who abandoned the Cubs over Hendry still having a job isn’t going to come back the minute Hendry is gone. They will wait to see how the next guy does, so there is no short term gain to be had by cleaning house. This leads me to suspect that no meaningless change for change’s sake is imminent.

We can argue about whether the plan the Rickettseses have is any good or if they are actually on the right track, but what I don’t think is likely is a scrapping of that plan when they have no real reason to do so and it hasn’t been allowed to play out as they drew it up. They say their goal is to continue to build up the farm system and spend money more smarter (or something). Well, as MB pointed out, the just concluded draft showed a change from recent Cubs drafting history and if they do manage to sign some of the guys who fell because of perceived signability issues, they might have done a nice job re-stocking the system.

Also, if the Cubs suck this year (and we had every reason to think that was just as possible as contending), they’ll get a nice draft position to further the stockpiling of prospects. The trade for Garza makes less sense if we choose to completely believe their words about building the farm, but it seems far more likely a deviation than one that involves Phil Rogers being right about something.

So I’m going to say that the Cubs stick with the status quo if for no other reason than to not be in agreement with Phil Rogers. He wants the Cubs to go after Ned Coletti, for crying out loud. When looking at the Dodgers and seeing Kim Ng and Ned Coletti side by side, Rogers wants Ned. This is not someone I ever want to agree with on something as basic as pizza toppings.

Continue reading “Phil Rogers is Still Wrong – Because He HAS TO”

Obstructed View Opening Day Roundtable – part 2

Your fearless Obstructed View Executive Chairmen got together to discuss various topics related to the 2011 Cubs season. We looked at the offseason and the new additions to the club in part one. Here’s part two, which focuses on our predictions for the 2011 season.

Ryan Theriot

[mb21] : How many times will Theriot get a standing ovation when the Cardinals come to town?
[aisle 424] : Zero.
[aisle 424] : He will be roundly booed.
[berselius] : zero
[aisle 424] : That “right side of the rivalry” bit got a lot of traction.
[berselius] : The Hobbitton Gazette will make sure to bang the drum on his “right side of the rivalry” comments
[mb21] : I actually hope he doesn’t get booed. He was a player on back to back division championships. He’s an idiot, but I hope he doesn’t booed.
[aisle 424] : Prepare to be disappointed.
[berselius] : That’s the 2011 motto (dying laughing)
[aisle 424] : (dying laughing)

Who will surprise, who will disappoint?

Continue reading “Obstructed View Opening Day Roundtable – part 2”

Obstructed View Opening Day Roundtable – part 1

Your fearless Obstructed View Executive Chairmen got together to discuss various topics related to the 2011 Cubs season. Here’s part one of our roundtable, that focuses on the offseason and specific players/figures. Part 2 will focus on our predictions for the 2011 season.

Mike Quade

[mb21] : Should we start with Quade?
[aisle 424] : Sounds as good as anything.
[berselius] : Sure
[AndCounting] : Sure. Quade is my hero.
[mb21] : More of a hero than Super Starlin?
[AndCounting] : Until Quade started talking I thought I was the most longwinded person in the tri-state area.
[AndCounting] : Heh, yeah. Even more than SS.
[berselius] : I don’t mind that Quade is long-winded
[aisle 424] : I think it’s going to get him in trouble, eventually.
[mb21] : I really wish Quade wouldn’t talk as much, but then I also feel like a hypocrite. Fans said players like Bradley and Jack Jones should just shut up and I argued they had every right to speak up.
[berselius] : If he draws the quote-generators away from the players he’s doing his job
[mb21] : I also think it will get him in trouble. Not sure how, but talking that much in public is dangerous.
[berselius] : He needs to go to the Crash Davis School of One Day At A Time
[aisle 424] : Exactly. Especially with the likes of the Chicago beat writers looking to make stories out of nothing.
[mb21] : He is if he’s not throwing his players under the bus. I’m not sure he’s done exactly that, but I don’t feel like he’s stuck up for his players either.
[AndCounting] : Sometimes I think he could say something ridiculously offensive and outlandish and bury it in so much gibberish no one will even quote it. That’s a skill.
[mb21] : I’ll say that I’m much more anxious to see how he actually manages though. If he turns out to be a good manager, I don’t really care how much he talks.
[berselius] : The Castro stuff last year is certainly the most troubling incident. I don’t really mind what happened with Silva. He handled the Silva-Ramirez dust up like he should have
[aisle 424] : It’s the Ozzie method.
[berselius] : One big plus for Quade is that he knows all the young guys well
[berselius] : Lou was always too hard on young players
[mb21] : I don’t mind the Silva situation either, but it just seemed a good opportunity to show some professionalism. To me it seemd they were just kicking a guy who was already down.
[berselius] : I remember hearing that a lot of the young pitchers like Coleman, etc were much more comfortable after Quade took over
[mb21] : Did we learn anything about Quade’s managerial tendencies last season?
[aisle 424] : I also think there is something the players feel in playing for Quade that they didn’t for Lou. Whether that is just a result of the late push or because of Quade’s methods, or just the circumstance is what we don’t know.
[berselius] : As MO has been saying for awhile, Silva has a rep as a bad clubhouse guy. I don’t mind Quade venting some steam if everyone there thought he was a jackass.
[mb21] : I’m sure it’s been easier for young players to work with Quade than Lou. Lou demanded as much or more than any manager in the game.
[aisle 424] : I think they also knew he wasn’t long for the team. whether they did stuff his way or not, he was going to be gone.
[mb21] : I think we’ll learn a lot more about how the players feel about Quade this season than we did last year. It’s easy to like a manager when you’re playing so well.
[aisle 424] : The first losing streak will be pretty telling.
[AndCounting] : I don’t think we learned much. At least not much about the in-game stuff. Obviously he earned the respect of the players, which is nice. But yeah, I’m most curious about how he’ll handle things when they go bad. Because there’s no way they don’t go bad at some point.
[mb21] : Good to hear he’s not going to run as much as he made it sound early in spring training. That was troubling. I’m sure he looked at 7 SB and 8 CS and thought, wait, this team cannot run. At all.
[mb21] : Especially if they go bad early on. Teams tend to fall apart in the clubhouse when it’s starting to feel like a very long 162 game schedule.
[aisle 424] : So he either has a good learning curve or he’s just a flip-flopper

Continue reading “Obstructed View Opening Day Roundtable – part 1”

Mike Quade Has Tiger Blood. Hooray?

There are two basic schools of thought about Mike Quade’s recent comments on Carlos Silva: 1) Mike Quade is the greatest, toughest, smartest son of a gun in baseball; 2) Mike Quade is a verbose, no good, sucker-punching fool. There is no in between. Of course there is still only one school of thought on Carlos Silva: he’s fat ugly, mean, and terrible at baseball.

I guess I’m a little slow, because I don’t understand what got Quade’s scalp all smudged. Let’s take another look at what has been said of late, and let’s see if we can get to the bottom of who’s the awesome stud and who is loco. Here’s what Silva said after the announcement that Andrew Cashner would be the team’s 5th starter and Silva was invited to invest in rentals in Iowa a half hour after he was told he was pitching well:

“I’m like, if you have to say something, be straight,” Silva said. “[Cubs pitching coach Mark Riggins] has to learn he’s in the big leagues now. There are no kids around here. . . . The way he laid it out, it was like, I don’t know what he was trying to do.

“He was like ‘Man, you’ve been throwing the ball good, you can pitch, all of that, blah, blah, blah. If you go out there to Triple-A and throw some games to continue building, to continue getting better.’ I was like, ‘I don’t need to go there. I’m ready to go. I feel good and I’m ready to pitch.’

“Then he told me there was not going to be a spot in the rotation or in the bullpen either. He should have started with that first, and then say you’re strong (throwing) in the bullpen.”

“Say what you have to say and say it,” he said. “Don’t say people are competing for a spot because it wasn’t true. Nobody was competing for a spot. They already had their rotation done. It was very clear.”

I emphasized that last part because I hope it was true. But all in all, it’s not at all shocking. It’s a classic example of someone who copes with the reception of bad news by blaming the messenger and the method of delivery. I would have felt better about losing the lottery if the spokesmodel wasn’t so smiley about it. Or I wish you would have told me sooner or You couldn’t have waited for a better time to tell me? And my personal favorite, Following the Cubs would be a lot less depressing if it wasn’t for the crappy beat writers. We all do it. Carlos shouldn’t be proud of his comments, but they weren’t that bad.

Then we got Jim Hendry’s reaction to Silva complaining about how he was informed he was out of a job:

Continue reading “Mike Quade Has Tiger Blood. Hooray?”