Mid-Season Grades

The All-Star break seems to be as good a time as any to do mid-season grades for our Chicago Cubs. I'm going to grade and comment on some the team's offense, defense, pitching, coaches, organization, and front office. I won't be grading individual players, but of course they will be mentioned in the comments for each piece.

So let's start with the Cubs Front Office... It starts at the top in my mind as these are the guys that put the team together. How much of this was demanded by Grandpa Lou is up for debate, but these guys write the checks and are ultimately responsible. My disappointment with Hendry is no secret on this blog. Since he hasn't done anything recently and his acquisitions have done even less, I have to give the Front Office a big fat F. Considering the ownership issues (i.e they don't have one AND they're considering filing Chapter 11), I don't see anything happening in the next couple of weeks either but it didn't seem like that was an issue this off-season when he was wasting all that money on Milton Bradley. The fact that the team has so vastly underachieved under Grandpa Lou's "guidance" with no talk of a potential managerial change to spark something in this club is also disheartening. The Rockies fired their manager pretty early on and now Jim Tracy is a manager-of-the-year candidate for turning them around quite a bit. What about Brenly as manager? You know he's ready!

Cubs Manager - Grandpa Lou...It continues near the top with the manager. This guy has ZERO control of this team and isn't a dragon either in reference to his response when asked if he should show some fire to get the guys going. How many Gatorade machines have they lost this year? How many other tantrums have we witnessed by these spoiled brats? How many times have these guys not known how many outs there are? What abous losing a ball in the sun at a day game while not wearing sunglasses? Don't these issues transfer to the coaches? When your team is dead last in hitting and RISP, that means your whole team is not getting it done and since you can't fire 25 players and the only other common denominator is the coaching staff. There just doesn't seem to be any control there of the team. One day you get Lou calling Milton Bradley a "piece of ****" and sending him home in the middle of a game and the guy is right back in the starting lineup the next day??? What the heck is THAT? It is my opinion that Grandpa Lou does a so-so job handling a pitching staff but a POOR job running the bench. He seems to sit guys to "rest" them the day after they go 2-for-3 with 2 RBIs. Don't get me started on this whole lefty/righty thing either - Milton Bradley is hitting .200 as a lefty which is worse than Reed Johnson's .222 against righties. The whole sending Sam Fuld back to AAA after he ignited the team like a REAL lead-off hitter was also a joke. I could go on and on, but my grade for Lou and the rest of the coaches is also a big fat F. Let's pick it up guys!

Cubs Starting Pitching...I wanted to get to something positve in here so we'll skip the offense for the moment. Cubs starters lead the MLB with quality starts so what else can you say there. The quality start stat came into being to give starters a more objective stat that would help show how often a starter did his job and kept his team in the game. Well, the Cubs starters have been doing that better than any other rotation in MLB. Unfortunately, the reason for the stat in the first place has been proven by the Cubs as their overall record should be much better by leading the league in that stat. So even though the #1 and #2 starters at the beginning of the season have pulled some real idiotic acts this year with Zambrano "ejecting" after bumping an umpire earning himself a suspension and now Dempster breaking a toe jumping over the dugout railing after a win last week. What else can go wrong? At least Randy Wells has REALLY stepped up - I think he should have been the Cubs All-Star representative. Considering they have zero shutouts as a staff and only one complete game which means the bullpen is working a little too hard, I'll give them a B.

Cubs Relief Pitching...Again, it is no secret that I was not a big fan of letting Kerry Wood walk away like they did. Now the Angels let K-Rod go to the Mets via free agency and their new guy Brian Fuentes leads the entire AL with 26 saves. Neither Kerry Wood's replacement nor Kerry Wood is really doing much of anything and their stats are nearly identical. BUT as a clubhouse guy, the Cubs most certainly lost a little something. The whole Marmol vs. Gregg charade in spring training was a joke as the Cubs had no plans on not having kerry Wood's replacement Kevin Gregg be their new closer. While Hendry worked so hard to make the bench "more lefty", we were stuck watching Neal Cotts give up hit after hit or walk after walk to all the lefties as the only lefty in the pen. Marshall has been doing a nice job lately, but with Dempster on the DL, the Cubs are talking about moving him back to the rotation IF they get BJ Ryan. How good could this guy be if the Jays released him even though they still owe him the rest of his $15 million salary? Anyway, I'll give the bullpen a B- as they are still blowing too many saves and issuing way too many free passes - walks and hit batters.

Cubs Offense...There's more to scoring runs than just hitting so I'm calling this category offense instead of just hitting. Of course hitting is a BIG part of it, and while they are last in MLB for hitting, the Cubs are primarily struggling with the timely hitting. Again, they are last in MLB with RISP. Remember folks, you don't win games by having the most hits; you win games by having the most RUNS. That means RBIs and the Cubs SUCK at that as they are 15th of 16 NL teams ahead of only the NL West last place Padres. I have hammered D-Lee in this blog earlier in the season but he has clearly been carrying the team lately. We all know the story - Aramis has been out for 2 months with an injury, "prized"free agent Milton Bradley has 9 less RBIs than Ryan Theriot and under 25% of the NL-leading Pujols (21 vs. 85 - that's a TOTAL JOKE!), Soriano STILL hasn't done anything since April, and Fukudome has been ultra-inconsistent. The Cubs must have the most unproductive outfield in MLB especially if you factor in the money these guys are getting paid. The loss of DeRosa has been well chronicled on this blog so I won't rehash all of that. When your entire club is NOT hitting, you have to manufacture runs and the Cubs don't do this either. Their 13th in the NL in sac flies and sac bunts and 14th in SBs. Soriano had 41 SBs for the Nats in his contract year...he has 45 SBs in 2 1/2 years with the Cubs. Did he really get that old that quickly or is he just not running? I know he's running to the bank to cash those HUGE checks though. My grade for the Cubs offense is an offensive D. The only reason it is not an F is because of D-Lee and Theriot and the injury factor with Aramis.

Cubs Defense...The Cubs defense has been a bit spotty thus far with a mixture of nice plays, web gems, balls lost in the sun or just straight up dropped. They are 12th in the NL in turning the "pitcher's best friend" - the double play. Of course, this has a lot to do with the pitchers too so that's not exactly a telling tale. They're also 12th in outfield assists which is a little surprising as Soriano is usually up there and Fukudome has a good arm too. The Cubs are 6th in the NL in defensive efficiency which is pretty good as it measures the percentage of balls in play that are turned into outs. The Cubs have one guy that could potentially get a Gold Glove in D-Lee, so they are far from extraordinary. I'll give the Cubs defense a solid, but nothing fancy C+.

Overall, the Cubs have tremendously underachieved this season. Yes, there is a lot of baseball left and they are certainly not out of it by any stretch of the imagination. Their pitching has been well above average; their defense hasn't hurt them; but their hitting is a joke as they are 14th in the NL in overall hitting, 15th in runs scored, 15th in productive outs (this is how you KILL an inning!), and LAST in MLB with RISP. Nobody seems to come through with that big hit to drive in two with the bases loaded. The non-productive outs keeps them from squeaking across even one run at a time as they seem to have trouble doing...the big K or pop-up with runners at 1st and 2nd and one out. They are middle-of-the-pack in double plays so they aren't killing themselves too much there, but with no speed you just have to advance the runners even when you make an out and they don't do that. So overall, I'll give the Cubs a pretty generous and injury-adjusted C-. If they can just get a B in the second half, they'll make the post-season for a club record-tying 3rd straight time and you just never know what can happen when you get there. Remember, the Cards won the World Series just 3 years ago after posting a record low 83 wins. The Cubs tried the whole "win the most games" thing last year and were 0-3 in the playoffs. Maybe struggling to get in will work out better this year.

In conclusion, I think both teams have potential to make the post-season but right now, I just don't know how well they will do if they get there. Ironically, both clubs sit 3 1/2 games back in their respective divisions. But both teams are in different situations in my mind. The Cubs have their $135 million payroll and plenty of fan support filling Wrigley for just about every game; but they don't have an owner which will more than likely keep them from making any moves before the trade deadline. The White Sox allowed their payroll to drop over $25 million from last year and dropped them below $100 million for the first time since 2005 and we all know what happened that year. Based on this comment from the Sox GM "Money is more of an issue now because we expected a little more [fan] support than we've gotten," it doesn't seem like the Sox will be making any moves this month either. The Sox have only sold out 4 games so far this season including all 3 with the Cubs so I have to say Kenny is right - where are you Sox fans? So it seems, barring some big and very surprising change in philosophy, we are looking at the teams that will or won't bring Chicago's baseball teams to the post-season or not.