Tag: optimism

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”