Good Bye Granpda Lou!

Here I am again for the second straight post saying good bye to another Cub...this time Manager Lou Piniella after he announced his sudden retirement today. Arguably, he's been retired since last July when he gave up on a winnable division, but as of August 22, 2010, it is now official...Grandpa Lou is GONE!

There was a lot of irony or coincidences or as Lou called them, Cubby occurrences with today's festivities. Today was the day the Cubs chose to honor Braves manager Bobby Cox who is making his final appearance as a manager here at Wrigley Field (completely official now with the Cubs NOWHERE near the playoff picture). I don't know when the Cubs announced the fact they would honor Cox (is it weird that an opposing team would be honoring him while still managing against them?), but my guess is that it was quite some time ago when the Cubs had not yet been eliminated from the playoffs (actually, they still probably haven't been officially eliminated). Anyway, so the Cubs chose to honor the opposing team manager on a day when their own manager announced his own retirement due to personal reasons related to his mom's health. Many people, myself included were wondering why Lou didn't just stay down in Florida with his sick mother a couple weeks ago when he took some time off to be with her...why want a couple weeks and hang on watching (OK, maybe managing...) this lousy team? The GM is dumping his players left and right and he's "stuck" with all these rookies, so why come back? He had the perfect excuse with the sick mother...stay home and be done with this!

In a bit of pathetic irony, the Cubs lost today's game (I was there unfortunately) 16-5 to the Braves which gives Lou bookend losses to the same team by the same score to start and end his final season as manager. Some similarities between the two games were LONG bombs hit by Braves rookie Jason Heyward although he actually hit two dead into a 15-20 mph wind today. Heyward also had 4 RBIs in both games. One big difference was the Cubs' starting pitching...in the Opener, former #1 starter Carlos Zambrano gave up 8 ER in 1 1/3 innings while today it was primarily the bullpen giving up the runs (although Wells was charged with the first 2 runs as he started the 7th) as the Braves scored 11 runs in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings. Did Lou really come back to manage a bullpen with guys like Justin Berg, James Russell, Tommy Diamond, and Marcus Mateo? Diamond was the diamond in the rough today only allowing 1 run but at least it was unearned. Berg was the victim of some more HORRIFIC Cubs' defense although somehow all 5 of the runs he gave up were deemed earned. Actually, he was on the mound or responsible for 8 total runs as he inherited bases loaded and allowed all three to score on THE worst defensive play of the season (and that's saying a LOT with this lousy team - more on this later). Mateo finished it off with 2 more runs in the 9th raising his ERA to 11.37. Lou came back to manage these guys?!?

The Braves have seemingly been inspired by knowing this is Bobby Cox' last season as they've pretty much come from nowhere (literally NOBODY picked them to finish higher than 3rd in the NL East) to lead their division right now. I don't think they'll have enough juice to hold onto their current 2 1/2 game lead with the Phillies getting healthy and surging up from behind them. Their big key is their ridiculous 44-17 record at home which leads the entire MLB. The Cubs were in the same boat this year with their manager almost certainly retiring at season's end and look what they've done - today's loss leaves them 21 1/2 games behind the Reds in the NL Central. Want some more irony? How about the fact that the first place Reds are managed by Dusty Baker? The Reds payroll is just a little more than half that of the Cubs. Irony can be so ironic...

Much of the ridiculously large crowd (announced at over 37,000 although take it from someone that was there, NO WAY - lots of no-shows!) seemed to be cheering Lou each time he came out of the dugout to make pitching changes including a fairly surprising double-switch in the 7th. I have to say I was NOT one of the idiots people cheering for Grandpa Lou. WHY would anyone cheer for this guy? His trip to Chicago was a complete and utter failure! I know he said he feels like he raised the bar, but WRONG again Lou...the bar was already raised when you arrived big guy. I know he recently came out and said he didn't really understand what he was getting himself into when he was brought in to manage the Cubs to a World Series win. What did we get instead? We did get a surprise visit to the playoffs in Lou's first year which ended quite unceremoniously with a 3-0 sweep against the D-backs in the first round of the playoffs...not to worry...we weren't even supposed to be in the playoffs in 2007. In 2008, Lou led the Cubs to the best record in the NL with 97 wins..NICE...but another 3-0 sweep ended that season much more abruptly and Lou's managing had a LOT to do with that sweep. How does Fukudome start game 1? How does Ted Lilly (a.k.a. Bulldog for his tenaciousness) NOT get a start in that series? How does Z get a start? Other than what proved to be a total fluke with a no-hitter on 9/14, Z had given up 5, 8, 3, 6, 5, and 9 runs in 6 of his final 8 starts heading into the playoffs...not exactly the run you were hoping for although he kept it "going" by giving up 7 to the Dodgers in game 2. Harden pitched well in LA, but no O finished off the Cubs. The team played very tight - Dempster walked 7 in less than 5 innings in game 1, the 4 errors by the entire infield in game 2, and 0 RBIs by their 3-4 hitters in Lee and Ramirez. Unfortunately, the 97 wins in 2008 was Lou's best "moment" as Cubs manager as he couldn't even helped the Cubs earn a single playoff game win, let alone series win or World Series ring. Lou's record as Cubs manager finished up at 316-292 which is above .500, but we were past that point weren't we? I thought so, but apparently Grandpa Lou didn't.

So now, the dreaded interim manager tag goes to Mike Quade. He has never managed in the bigs before, but he did manage well over 2000 games in the minors including 4 seasons at AAA Iowa. What happened to Alan Trammell? Hendry said he "made a decision in the process moving forward that Alan would not be considered for the managerial job after this year." Yikes! As I have mentioned before, NOBODY else "gets it" and it will take an ex-Cub to get this thing turned around. That leaves just Joe Girardi and Ryne Sandberg as I'm not aware of any other ex-Cub candidates. Bob Brenley won a World Series with the D-backs a few years ago and he would seem to know what he was getting himself into having been the Cubs television broadcaster for the last several years. I like what he has to say on TV and maybe out of any of the other candidates, he might actually "get it" so I'd throw him in there as the #3 candidate. As I've also said before, we've gone the "experienced" route with the last two disappointments...Girardi has some experience including a World Series ring as a manager and 3 more as a player ('96, '98, and '99 Yankees). He won the manager of the year award in 2006 while managing basically an entire minor league Florida Marlins team to a near .500 record and is now in his 3rd year as Yankees manager so he has proven he can coach young kids AND also handle big name, big money guys too...sounds PERFECT as that's just what the Cubs will have next year.

So the hope for me starts with Tom Ricketts firing EVERYONE ($145 million payroll is on pace for 96 losses and STILL nobody has been fired!) including Crane Kenney, Jim Hendry, and ALL the coaches. Then I hope the Yankees hold on to win the toughest division in baseball but fail to win the AL pennant again...then the Yankees don't renew Girardi's contract and the Cubs jump on that opportunity...he brings in Ryno, Mark Grace, and Greg Maddux to help him take this fairly young (all of a sudden!) team to the "promised land". Grace and Sandberg should certainly be able to work with this HORRIBLE defense (do you think Grace could help Colvin become a pretty good 1B?). Do you think Maddux could show Marmol how to throw strikes? What about teaching Samardzija a second or third pitch? What about Zambrano? The Cubs have him for at least 2 more seasons so lets try to make the best of a poor situation and it definitely starts with the coaching and atmosphere in the clubhouse.


What a TOTAL DEBACLE today at the "friendly confines"! Did it get off on the wrong foot by honoring a manager whose team has pretty much tormented the Cubs during his 25 years as Braves manager? Maybe...shouldn't knowing today's game was officially the end of Lou's tenure have made up for that though? If it did, it certainly wasn't obvious...Cubs starter Randy Wells gave up a lead-off HR to Omar Infante who would touch 'em all twice for his 5th and 6th bombs of the season (i.e. not exactly a power hitter folks). Wells was charged with 7 runs, but didn't get a lot of help. His defense was atrocious and the relievers did little to relieve anything as I mentioned above. I haven't seen worse 3B play than Aramis displayed since attending an Iowa Cubs game last summer and watched Bobby Scales look more like a matador than a 3B. Aramis was only issued with 1 error on a terrible throw on an easy DP ball right to him where he stepped on 3rd and threw a one-hopper to Xavier Nady at 1B. Another hard hit ground ball that went right at him was called a hit (nice for Aramis; not so nice for the pitching staff) but helped lead to 4 runs in the 7th for the Braves which broke open a 5-3 game. He also played matador when his old buddy D-Lee hit a ball to his right that he failed to get a glove on for a bases clearing 3-run double (Lee's first RBIs and first "hit" as a Brave). I mentioned above that the Cubs made the worst defensive play of the year in the 7th inning. With the bases loaded, Alex Gonzalez hit a flare to short LF...Cubs rookie 20-year old SS Starlin Castro broke back to the ball immediately while Cubs veteran LF Alfonso Soriano must not have because Castro beat him to the spot but neither player got a glove on the ball...it was a flare so it didn't go far, but Soriano overran the ball so Castro had to retrieve the ball...no communication at all on the infield as Gonzalez was frozen between 1st and 2nd while the runner from 1st rounded 3rd...Castro didn't know what to do with the ball and the hesitation cost the Cubs a run that even the scoreboard operator didn't get for a few minutes...they did get Gonzalez out for the 3rd out of the inning, but the runner from 1st scored before they got the out so that run scored too. So for those of you scoring at home...that's a 3-run single with no error!

So GOOD BYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE GRANDPA LOU! I for one will NOT miss you AT ALL. Enjoy your retirement...now you can wear your 1977 Yankees World Series ring all you want!

Cubs future? Bright as far as I can see...

Well, my son is FINALLY on the board with a Cubs W after 3 losses this year. My record moved to 4-3 which means I'm 3-0 without him, but he finally got to sing "the song" today. Boy, there were a LOT of Cardinal fans, but every time they tried to get a chant going "Let's go Cards!" they were quickly overrun by Cubs fans so that was good. I will say they don't know how/when to exit the ball park though...it took forever to make it out from my upper deck box seats as they were just standing around blocking the paths to get out of there.

This has obviously been a pretty disappointing season as even after back-to-back Ws against the hated, rival Cardinals still leaves them 8 games under .500 and 9 1/2 games out of first in a pretty weak division. The problem is that the most expensive guys that we've counted on over the years are ALL having brutal years at the same time - D-Lee, Aramis, and Big Z. Soriano has been OK, but Fukudome and Dempster are in that list of underachievers as well.

Now what has been a big surprise, especially with Lou remaining at the helm, is the play of the youngsters. Lou has a definite reputation of not playing too many rookies, but he's been forced to go against his rep this season not only because of the make-up of his team this year, but also because the kids have proven one thing - THEY CAN PLAY! It started with Tyler Colvin setting the world on fire in Spring Training forcing his way on to the Opening Day roster; not as a starter but it was promised he would be playing somewhere (he can play anywhere in the outfield) at least a few times per week. It took a little while, but Colvin has now forced his way into the lineup virtually every day. Rookie left-hander James Russell also made the Opening Day roster as well and he's been pretty solid if not great. Then they brought up Starlin Castro in early May as well to try and spark the under performing team. That didn't work, but Castro has started virtually every game since his call-up. Andrew Cashner was brought up at the end of May and he is a fixture in the bullpen.

After hitting his second lead-off HR in as many days, Tyler Colvin is now 2nd on the team in HRs with 15 which leads all rookies including the much-hyped Jason Heyward (11). He's only 8 RBIs behind D-Lee in 145 fewer ABs.

Castro has been simply amazing. After a rough start defensively and a rough month of June offensively (.227 BA), he has proven himself as a real MLB SS. He has come back strong offensively with a .389 BA in July following a 3-for-4 day today with his 3rd HR, 2 more runs scored and 2 more RBI. Andrew Cashner is proving to be an asset out there in the pen. He entered the game in the 7th inning today with runners at the corners and nobody out with Pujols and Holliday coming up; that's confidence in your rookie! He got Pujols to fly out for a sac fly, Jon Jay was caught stealing 2nd for the second out and then ended the inning when Holliday grounded out to Aramis. I thought Lou should have taken him out to start the 8th (why not stick with the plan - Marshall in the 8th and Marmol in the 9th?), but he left him in. It looked like a bad move to start with back-to-back singles, but he got Brendan Ryan to hit a double-play ball to Theriot who ended up booting it for a run-scoring error (rough day for The-Riot with this error, another one that should have been called on a hard hit grounder by Holliday and following his lone hit, he was picked off) leaving runners at 1st and 2nd and nobody out. But pinch-hitter Randy Winn flied out to Byrd in CF and then Tyler Greene hit into an inning-ending DP. Cashner then turned the ball over to Carlos Marmol who pitched a near perfect 9th for his 18th save.

So that's 4 rookies playing significant roles on this team; add that to Randy Wells who played a significant role on last year's team and that's a pretty nice young core. Unfortunately, we have to wait for all of Hendry's mistakes to play out their contracts unless he can erase some of the mistakes sooner (the sooner the better as far as I'm concerned) before we can really get this team going in my opinion. Ironically, the one guy most linked to trade talk is Ted Lilly; I say ironically because that was one of Hendry's best moves. He was able to dump his second biggest mistake Milton Bradley (biggest mistake is still Soriano - 4 more years!) on the Mariners for one of their biggest mistakes Carlos Silva...but the question is, can he work that same magic to dump Fukudome, Aramis, and/or D-Lee? I'd be OK with him sticking around next year if he could get rid of two of these guys and actually get something back in return (yes, a bag of balls would be something). Otherwise, he remains #1 on my "hit list" of people that MUST go from this organization - NOBODY has spent more money for less playoff wins in the last 7 years - total Cubs payroll from 2004-2010 was $769,201,597 for an average of nearly $110 million per season and ZERO playoff wins.

The Cubs even got a few more guys down in the minors that are looking pretty good too. Josh Vitters at 3B (ba-bye Aramis!), Brett Jackson in CF, and as good as Castro has been, I read that Hak-Ju Lee is even better and could force Starlin to 2B. If Hoffpauir could ever figure out how to hit at the MLB level consistently, he could play 1B. There a couple other pitchers down on the farm too from what I've heard - Jay Jackson and Casey Coleman. What a difference to actually have some talent in the minors as opposed to having to overpay for free agents every year.

The last question is how much credit does Jim Hendry deserve for all this talent in the Minors. I obviously can't answer that for sure, but it would seem to me that the GM of the big club wouldn't really have all that much to do with the college draft or signing free agents in Latin America. According to Ken Rosenthal's article last week, "Tim Wilken, the team’s scouting director since December 2005, delivered virtually all of the Cubs’ young talent" and "Oneri Fleita, the team’s vice president of player personnel and head of international operations" seems to be handling Latin America. That's enough for me - Jim Hendry had little to do with the organization's current young talent. The problem according to Rosenthal is that dismissing Hendry would mean losing Wilken and Fleita as they're close with Hendry. To me, why not promote Wilken to be GM?

Anyway, there's one week left until the trade deadline...we'll see what happens in the next 7 days...

Is this THE year or just another "Wait til next year"?

Well, the Cubs did it again last night showing us a new way to lose a game. The bullpen blew ANOTHER chance for Randy Wells to earn his first MLB W. He left with a 5-1 lead in the 8th after giving up an HR to Garret Anderson and E-3 on "gold glove" D-Lee (not fair as this was only his 1st E of the season) as he just whiffed on a low throw from Theriot. Enter Marmol who promptly walks Francoeur on 4 pitches, gets a nice catch by Fukudome on a hard-hit liner to RF and then plunks the .129 hitting Norton to load the bases. Ya .129 so let's start him off with a slider low and in...perfect. He's not done yet...as he walks in a run with .250 hitting Kelly Johnson to get to the middle of the Braves order. A sac fly by Escobar made it 5-3 and then he gets Chipper to ground out to end the inning and the damage. By the way, at this point the Braves had all of TWO HITS and 3 runs.

Moylan throws an 8-pitch inning for the Braves in the 9th to lower his not-so-stellar ERA to 4.82. It started with a horrific "I've never faced an MLB pitcher before EVER" AB by Soto on a 3-pitch strikeout where he guessed wrong on ALL three pitches swinging (if that's what you want to call it) at the last pitch that was 2 feet off the plate outside.

This set the stage for Gregg's second blown save (not sure how that's possible with a Borowski-like ERA of 5.24). It started well enough with a harmless fly out to Soriano (does anyone else HATE that little hop?). The next batter is the key to why I am calling this a new way for the Cubs to lose. On a 1-2 pitch, Gregg throws a nasty slider that Anderson swings over the top of for strike 3 and the second out, but wait...Soto fails to block the ball in the dirt instead letting it get all the way to the wall behind the plate and Anderson reached on a dropped 3rd strike so there's still only one out and a guy on first bringing the tying run to the plate. Prado flies out harmlessly to Reed Johnson in CF for the real second out although the Cubs should be out of the inning with a rare road W.

Now someone needs to explain the Francoeur pitch sequence to me. You've got a guy in Francoeur they once called "The Natural" batting 7th in a not-so-powerful Braves lineup because the rest of MLB figured out he can't hit a breaking ball. He's up there representing the tying run and does have some pop in his bat and Gregor Blanco up next still looking for his first hit of the season. Again, the scouting report says he CANNOT hit a breaking ball. You just struck out Garret Anderson on a nasty slider so what is the pitch sequence to Francoeur? How about 4 straight (and I mean STRAIGHT) 4-seam fastballs measured at 92-93 mph with the last one going out faster than it came in to tie the game with a 2-run HR. Soto wanted low and outside and Gregg threw it belt high on the inner half ending Wells' latest attempt to get his first MLB W despite a sparkling 1.69 ERA. The Braves summary through 9 innings is now 5 runs, 3 hits, and 1 error.

So WHAT was going through Lou's head (I would say "brain" but I'm not sure there's one in there) in the 12th? I have to admit I stopped watching after the 10th, but just looking at MLB Gameday (is this THE BEST applet EVER?!?) I can see what happened. With 1-out, base hit by Escobar who then stole second for his 2nd SB of the season and 9th in his 3-year career. Come on guys! This was big as Chipper singled to LF to win the game for the Braves in the bottom of the 12th and complete the blown 5-run lead with 6 outs to go by the Cubs and probably worst loss of the season to date (there's still a LONG way to go for them to top this though). Anyway, so WHY does Lou pitch to Chipper with 1st base open? McCann was 0-4 for the game regardless of what he had been doing prior to this game so I just don't get it. Why was Soriano so deep in LF that he didn't even attempt a throw to get the winning run out at the plate?

So do I blame Lou for this loss? Fair or not, YES I do. Why pull Randy Wells after merely 83 super efficient pitches? The bullpen has proven time and again they can't hold a lead for this guy so why not let him try to finish it up himself? Would he have pulled him if Lee hadn't whiffed on the Theriot throw? Doubtful so why pull him after the E-3? The 83 pitches marked the LOWEST pitch count this season for Wells who threw 111 in his last start preceeded by 95, 97 and 84 in his three previous outings this season. Next...who is in charge of calling pitches and scouting reports? Why does Francoeur get 4 straight 4-seam fastballs when EVERYONE in MLB or watching at home knows he can't hit a breaking ball? Was Soto calling the game and worried about another wild pitch? Who cares?!? You had a 2-run lead so the guy on base means NOTHING.

Can't you just tell this season just has NO good vibe at all? Prized free-agent (prized by Hendry anyway) left the game with a strained calf in just his 33rd start this season (out of the Cubs 50 games) as it is including a suspension. Theriot, Fontenot, and Fukudome have as many HRs as Bradley and are only 1 behind D-Lee for second on the team with 5 apiece. Zambrano has been hurt and suspended; Aramis apparently nearly lost his arm with as long as he's been out. Soriano leads the team in RBIs from the lead-off spot with Theriot second! In 19 games in the entire month of May, D-Lee drove in 9 runs. Just to put that in some perspective for 1st baseman getting paid what the Cubs pay D-Lee, Pujols had 7 RBIs in ONE GAME back in April.

In conclusion...this is NOT the year! Sorry Cubs fans - "Wait til next year!" AGAIN!