Dempster

Ryan Dempster exercised his player's option for 2012.  No surprise here as he is set to make $14M plus in one of Jim Hendry's friendliest holdover deals.

Too bad for the Cubs on this score.  I've never been a big fan of Dempster.  He is certainly not a #1 starter, more like a #4 or #5.  His stuff has been diminishing steadily over the last few years and last year he just plain stunk most of the time.

Theo Epstein keeps talking about assets.  Dempster is not an asset, but the Cubs are stuck with him unless they can unload him in the off-season or at the trade deadline.  At least we did not see Epstein taking the bait Dempster was dangling for a multi-year extension.

The next pressing decisions for Epstein will be Ramirez and Pena, plus, of course, the future of MIke Quade.

World Series Wrapup

You have to congratulate the Cardinals on their success.  They seem to have jelled at the right time.  It kind of demonstrates that with the relative parity of talent in the game today, a mediocre team can make a few changes at the trade deadline, and if they get hot and lucky, well, anything can happen.

Which is not to take anything away from their heroic efforts, especially in Game 6.  I still cannot figure out how Texas was able to lose that game, not once, but three times.  Some of it had to do with managerial choices that were made, particularly putting the tying run in the person of Albert Pujols on base.  Still, it was the Cards who took advantage.

After the devastating loss in Game 6, it was hard to envisage the Rangers coming back, and, of course, they did not.  Game 7, like Game 3, was one-sided, and a bore.

World Series/Theo Epstein

Actually, with the exception of the third game, this has turned out to be at least an entertaining World Series.  The teams seem evenly matched.  Lots of close, tense games.  Last night's game was one of the best thus far with the Rangers pulling it out with an eighth inning rally.  I still expect this to go to a seventh game.

I used to think that C.J. Wilson might be worth pursuing for the Cubs this off-season, but having seen him in the playoffs and now the series, I rather think he is over-rated.  He pitched his best game thus far last night, but he still managed to walk five Cardinals in five plus innings.  Off these post-season performances, I doubt he is going to hit even $15M per year in the free agent market.

Theo Epstein has finally taken over as the Cubs President of Baseball Operations or whatever it is they are calling him.  I am hopeful he will make the necessary changes this franchise needs to succeed.

Some unsolicited advice respecting decisions he needs to make starting the end of the week.  Exercise the option on Ramirez and hope to negotiate two or three years at a lower salary.  Nothing to lose here.

Let Carlos Pena become a free agent.  Discourage Ryan Dempster from exercising his player option to remain a Cub.  Whatever you do, don't negotiate a multiple year extension.

Oh, and when you meet with Mike Quade in person, fire him.

Lastly, this compensation business sure is dragging on.  I saw one note where the Cubs would send Jeff Baker and a low minors prospect.  That seems about right and I would love to see Baker in another uniform next season.

Odds and Ends

The World Series starts today.  Not the most exciting match-up possible, Texas vs. St. Louis.  Actually, it is pretty much of a network nightmare, which is good, I guess, given the awful job they have done covering the post-season so far.  Despite many exciting or at least close games, both TBS and Fox have succeeded in dragging out most contests to close to four hours and generally boring everyone to death.

I was surprised to see the Cardinals advance, as I did not think they were a very good team this season.  The Phillies had to be everyone's choice with their pitching, but, to be honest, they kept the Cards in every game with their poor offensive strategies.  These guys have got to learn plate discipline, which, incidentally, is why they scored so few runs in the regular season as well.

I am not surprised by the Brewers failure.  This is another free-swinging club that also plays bad defense.  Roenicke was just out-manged by LaRussa in the playoffs.

Much as I hate to see a Texas team succeed, the Rangers are a good team.  Just from a baseball point-of-view, they deserve to be there.  Having said that, I had thought that the Tigers and the Yankees were the two best teams and that the winner of that series would be the champion.  The thing is, anything can happen in the current playoff structure, especially in the five game series.  This year, weather played a big part in it.

On the Epstein front, things also seem to have dragged on to the point where no one really gives a damn whether the Cubs get him or not.  This is largely the result of the completely unreasonable stance taken by the Red Sox front office in demanding unprecedented compensation for a front office executive.  The Cubs should just sit tight and wait these guys out.  They should certainly not give away a significant prospect.  They simply cannot afford to do so.

Wait Until Next Year – Part Two

With the same preface as my evaluation of pitching in Part One, here is a shot at evaluating current personnel and moving forward toward next year.  Just a warning, the outlook is not good, or at least not so good as the Cubs management may think.

This pessimism must be contrasted with the notion that more surprising recoveries have happened in the past.  The Diamondbacks this season, for example.  Also, the Cubs play in one of the weakest division in all of baseball.  The Cardinals will likely return the same lineup and pitching as they fielded this season.  The Brewers, despite their performance thus far, are not a genuinely good team.  They have not won a series from a team with a winning record since April or something.  They will very likely lose both Prince Fielder and K-Rod, and they will very likely be eliminated in short order by the Phillies when they meet in the post-season if the Cardinals don’t knock them out first.

Catcher

Geovanny Soto has been really bad this season, offensively and defensively.  He calls a predictable game, has indifferent mechanics, doesn’t thwart a good running game.  Fundamentally, he is a weak player.  He doesn’t seem to manage his pitchers very well.  I am constantly noticing the little plays he does not make, backing up first and third base, etc.  Offensively, he had an off-year after a pretty good year in 2010.  Strikeouts are up, walks are down, average is down.

I was hoping to get a look at Wellington Castillo in the September call-up, but a hamstring injury made him unavailable.  The Cubs did call up AA catcher Steve Clevenger, who seems to be able to hit, after the AA post-season is done, but Quade did not give him much of a look.

Catcher is definitely a spot where the Cubs, who are probably thinking they are OK, need a serious upgrade.  If they are going with youth – and I cannot see they have much choice – they should trade Soto while he is still a marketable commodity and let Castillo and Clevenger contend for the spot.

Koyie Hill is an OK backup who knows how to play even though he seems to lack the talent to actually play competitively.  Maybe they should offer him a coaching spot.  It would be a sign of serious desperation to bring him back as a backup.

First Base

Carlos Pena has had what has become a typical Carlos Pena year, that is, he hit for a low batting average, but had an OBP about 120 points higher because he is a patient hitter, so he walks a lot  He hit close to 30 HRs.  This year his RBI were down.  For my money, that is inexcusable.  Batters ahead of him in the lineup are getting on base.  He is not coming through.  His batting average with men in scoring position was lower even that Marlon Byrd’s.  Pena’s walks are a little deceptive.  Because he bats in front of the phenomenally unproductive trio of Byrd, Soriano, and Soto, right-handers are often pitching around him, knowing the players behind him are not going to drive him home.  Defensively, Pena is a plus.

You could possibly live with Pena at first for another year, but certainly not two, which is what he will want to get in terms of a contract.  If you think an OPS in the high 700s or low 800s is OK for a first baseman, then you’ll stick with him.  This is a position where the Cubs also need an upgrade.

Fans are agog with the idea of bringing in either Pujols or Fielder as a free agent.  These guys are really good.  I would not be all that keen on giving Pujols a long-term deal considering his age.  Also, I cannot see the Cardinals letting him walk.  Fielder might be worth a shot.  He’s a lot younger.  Of course, he is not much of  defensive player and he does not look like the kind of guy who will have a long productive career.  If the Brewers advance beyond the NLCS, I can’t see them letting Fielder go cheap.  Anybody who gets him will overpay, so the question is whether getting him is going to put you over the top.  Is Fielder the one guy who brings it all together?  For the Cubs, neither Pujols or Fielder does this for the roster.  The Cubs right now are a bad team in many ways.  The addition of a single superstar will not make the difference.  Lets face it, the Cardinals, though perennial contenders, were losing games and playing crappy baseball with Pujols on the roster before they backed into the playoffs, and the Brewers, before they improved their pitching, were a mediocre team with both Fielder and Braun on the roster.

In-house, the Cubs have professional minor league star Bryan LaHair.  I liked what I saw this September even though he was playing out of position.  Is he the reincarnation of Micah Hoffpauir or Casey McGehee?  The Cubs are so loathe to expose their minor league talent that you can never be certain.  One thing I cannot figure out is why Carlos Pena played every day when you knew everything you needed to know about him.  Letting him build up his numbers also just made him more expensive if you were thinking about extending his contract.

Second Base

I’m OK with Darwin Barney, at least for the short term.  I’d like to see him take more pitches, but he is at least as good as Ryan Theriot with a lot more upside.  You cannot remake an entire team, much as you would like to do so.  Besides, Jim Hendry really liked second basemen, so the team now has Blake DeWitt and Jeff Baker as backups, as well as Ryan Flaherty and D.J.LeMahieu waiting in the wings.  They ought to think about trading one or both of their veteran backups, especially the utterly useless and over-rated Baker.  DeWitt can also play third base (not, despite Quade’s beliefs, left field), and he bats left-handed, so he could be back as a bench player.

Third Base

Aramis Ramirez had a solid year after an awful start.  The Cubs have an option on him for $16M and he has a player option to refuse.  The Cubs are likely to be in a bind here as both Ramirez and his agent have indicated he wants a multiple year deal, believes the Cubs are in rebuilding mode, and is likely to test the market.

I’m always of two minds on the Ramirez question, largely because the Cubs have no replacement.  They should probably offer to pick up his option knowing he will refuse.  This gets them a draft pick.  Now that they have a GM in Theo Epstein, he might negotiate a quick two or three year deal for around $12M per year.  Ramirez has sent signals he would take the deal.

If they don’t get it done, it looks like the Cubs will be shopping for a new third baseman.  The free agent market is pretty lean here, so unless there is a hidden gem in the minors, it looks like a trade is the only option here.

Stay tuned for Part Three, the Outfield.  That’s where things look really grim.

Playoff Coverage

I don't know about you, but playoff baseball, which should be exciting, tends to be spoiled by the endless commercial delays, as well as by the dreadful announcing.  Quite my least favorite is the Fox Sports color man, Tim McCarver.

Now Tim is usually just a treasure trove of irrelevant and trivial and just plain dumb nattering, but last night he outdid himself.  Brandon Inge was batting for the Tigers.  McCarver stated that Inge would never see a fastball in this at-bat, that he didn't pull the ball anymore and that he had lost his power.  Inge promptly deposited a fast ball over the left field wall.  This kind of insight is hard to top.

Cubs Fans: Be Careful What You Wish For

Chicago Cubs fans might do well to beware getting the object of their desire.  I have nothing against Theo Epstein and by all accounts he has done a fine job with the Red Sox franchise.  But it is not as if he has not made decisions that in retrospect do not look a whole lot better than some of the moves Jim Hendry made during his tenure with the Cubs.

There is a very informative piece at MLB Trade Rumors detailing the rotations that Epstein has built during his tenure with Boston.  Bottom line: they don’t look a whole lot better than Hendry’s.  Pitching has never been Boston’s long suit.  In addition, if Epstein were to leave his current post, he would be leaving behind several long-term disappointing contracts, most notably Carl Crawford, John Lackey, and Disuke Matsuzaka.

I don’t categorically oppose hiring Epstein per se.  I mean, anybody would be an upgrade from the prior Cubs regime.  However, you have to wonder what it is that attracts Cubs owner Tom Ricketts most about him.  To my way of thinking, there are two points of attraction from Ricketts point-of-view.  First, he is a safe choice.  Ordinary fans can’t knock his record of success.  He proves that Ricketts is serious.

Secondly, and I think maybe foremost in Ricketts’ mind, is the whole marketing miracle surrounding the rehabilitation of Fenway Park and its environs.  This process has got to make any greedy owner salivate, but should the Cubs decide to follow the same path, be prepared for the franchise to take advantage of any way they can to make money and to market the team and its ballpark.

My primary misgiving in the whole quest to obtain Epstein, though, is the fact that he is under contract and that the Red Sox are likely to want substantial compensation should the Cubs lure him over.  Some pundits have suggested Starlin Castro would be the price.  I don’t like the idea of trading real everyday assets for a front office guy anyway, but the Cubs don’t exactly have a bunch of chips to put on the table, do they?  Even thinking about something more than the kind of compensation the White Sox got for Ozzie Guillen is just crazy.

Of the other names of current GMs that have been bandied about, Andrew Freidman of the Rays has always struck me as a better bet.  His achievements with the low budget, no attendance Tampa franchise are far more impressive than those of a guy who has had virtually no financial constraints.

There are also quite a few prospective top executives who are working as assistants now with impressive credentials.  Picking one of these would be daring for the excessively cautious Ricketts, but for me it would be a gutsy and correct move given the state of the Cubs franchise.  The success stories we are looking at now were once, to use Steve Jobs’ term, “hungry and foolish.”

Another thought occurs to me respecting Epstein, and that is he is possibly just playing Ricketts to get an extension and more control from the Red Sox ownership.  It’s not as if a similar scenario did not play out before between the parties when he resigned for a few months back in 2005.

Bartman!

I’ve watched the ESPN documentary, Catching Hell, about the Bartman game twice now.  It is quite well done and worth a look, especially if you are a follower of the Cubs or the Red Sox.  I suppose there is a rough comparison between the zealous fan base of each team, their long history of post-season futility and late season meltdowns, etc.  There are also parallels in the treatment of the scapegoats Buckner and Bartman.  However, to my mind, that is where the observation ends.

For one thing, Buckner was a player who made a physical error.  The game also was played in New York, not in Boston, so the fan reaction had much less impact on the outcome of the game or the series.  The blame that attached to Bill Buckner seems almost retrospective.  The Buckner error clearly cost the Red Sox the game, but, especially considering the rainout of the seventh game, the whole incident developed over a more extended time. 

In contrast, the Bartman incident took place in Chicago.  The reaction was immediate and visceral and peculiarly universal.  By that I mean pretty much everyone in the stands and all the participants in the game, both the Cubs and the Marlins, instantly recognized the utter and devastating significance of an apparently commonplace occurrence, the attempt of a fan to catch a foul ball near the field of play.  That is really the heart of the matter: we were just waiting for something bad to happen, we were not just fearing it, we were waiting for it and so was the team.

You have to ask yourself how this relatively routine event could have had such an impact and how, thinking back upon it, everyone realized right then and there the inevitable nature of that impact.  I’m not a psychologist by any stretch of the imagination, but the entire affair suggests a set of eerie speculations on the psychology of crowds and how deeply a form of negative energy can infect a group and the focus of that group’s attention.  For me, anyway, that is the most interesting aspect of the whole affair.

The following narrative is certainly anecdotal, but I very much remember the night of the Bartman incident.  I didn’t have tickets for the game, so I was watching at home with my wife.  I remember thinking to myself how well the game was going.  Mark Prior seemed to be in command.  The Cubs had built a three run lead going into the eighth inning.  What could go wrong?  Yet in the back of both our minds there lurked a nagging doubt.  It was almost too easy.

We lived only a few blocks from Wrigley Field then and we were debating when we should leave the house to walk over and join the celebration.  Something was holding us back.  We decided to watch the top of the eighth before going.  Then it happened.  My wife said it was all over.  I tried to argue that it was just a fluke, a bad break.  But I really knew deep down it was over and I was just not willing to admit it.

In retrospect, it seems as if the whole stadium and all of Cubs fandom and the team itself was waiting for something to go wrong.  All it took was a fluke to set it off.  Alou’s reaction to the play, the stomping up and down, the glove throwing, was totally out of proportion to the event itself.  How tightly wound does a team, a player, or a crowd have to be to provoke the cascade of events that followed?  And how intimately connected is this loop of tension to the actual outcome?

In a way, the ESPN documentary distorts the real-time flow of things.  I suppose this is inevitable given the desire to follow two threads of the story, the crowd reaction to Bartman’s interference and the Cubs collapse/Marlins rally that followed.  I had occasion to watch a replay of the inning itself on the Internet last week.  What you see there is how central the foul ball is to the inning, how obsessed the crowd and the Cubs become with the play and its aftermath.  The whole place loses its composure.  Most of the crowd is focused on abusing Bartman.  Even as the inning continues and the Cubs team goes into a tailspin, you can see the Cubs players looking up into the stands, pointing fingers, shaking their heads.  They have obviously lost their concentration.  Every subsequent pitch, every subsequent play adds to their frustration.  Once things have started snowballing, nothing can stop the momentum.

So, is there a Cubs curse?  I don’t think so, but there is an expectation of failure among the Cubs fan base, and that expectation carries over to the team.  No team plays tighter that the Cubs when the chips are down, and the continued history of failure must be a contributing psychological factor.  This feedback loop has become a part of the team’s tradition, almost a part of its definition, so much so that it is difficult to imagine the team’s personality without it.

My father was a lifelong Cubs fan.  Each year he would look forward to the start of the season with hope and enthusiasm.  He was convinced, however, that the team would ultimately fail.  Even in the magical season of 1969, he knew it would not last.  This syndrome was the case even though when he was a young man, in the twenties and thirties, the Cubs were a good team, filled with star players, perennial contenders who regularly went to the World Series even though they did not win it.

There are only three players left on the roster from the 2003 team, Aramis Ramirez, Kerry Wood, and Carlos Zambrano.  From a combination of free agency, injuries, and just weird circumstances, it is possible the Cubs will start 2012 without any of the holdovers.  For Cubs fans like myself, it’s not likely to make much difference.  In our hearts we know it is going to take some miracle to stop the slide.  We just don’t know what it could be and we just don’t believe it will happen.  We keep watching and hoping though, which probably makes it hurt all the more.

This post is also available at The Fan Manifesto.

The Playoffs: A Guide to the Perplexed

It is playoff time again and time to dust off time-tested methods for politically aware fans to at least decide the teams for which to root in the coming weeks.  Surprisingly, the method predicts the champion about three-quarters of the time.

The theory is pretty simple.  One must always root for the team from an unequivocally blue state.  If there is a contest between two such states, one may pull for either team or attempt to break the tie by selecting the team which is an original major league franchise, preferably one that has never relocated.

So this year in the AL, since the Yankees and Detroit are both from blue states and both original ML franchises, there is no clear favorite.  Personally, I am hoping Detroit wins because it is the underdog and from a rust belt state to boot.  In the case of Tampa vs. Texas, Florida is considered a swing state or a purple state, so it is OK to root for them, though in the LCS, one must cheer for the winner of the Yankees/Tigers series.  In no case can rooting for a team from Texas be considered legitimate even if you are from Texas.

In the NL, there are clear choices as well.  In the Cardinals/Phillies series, Pennsylvania is the bluer state.  Some pundits consider Missouri a purple state, though I have my doubts.  Fortunately, the Phillies trump this dilemma.  Wisconsin is considered by many a state that leans left and is thus blue.  However, given the abomination of the Scott Walker regime, you have to have serious doubts here.  Thankfully, they are playing the Diamondbacks from Arizona, so the issue is categorically resolved.  Just as in the case of Texas, one may never support a team from Arizona.

The NL LCS presents issues should the Cardinals and Brewers advance.  If you think Wisconsin is blue, it's not a problem.  We will cheer for the Phillies and hope the issue is put to bed.