Rebuild 1.0 saw the Cubs dump veterans Ryan Dempster, Paul Maholm, Geovanny Soto, and Reed Johnson for, essentially, Aroldys Vizcaino, the perpetually injured Atlanta prospect who has yet to throw a pitch, and several bags of baseballs.
As I have noted before in these pages, I have nothing against trading vets for prospects per se, but these guys are just dumping salary and they ought to admit it to everyone and move on from there. And I think trading Maholm was an short-term error. (Maholm is 9-6 with an ERA under 4, which is pretty much where he was last year with the Cubs when he was traded).
As for Sveum, you can say what you like about him having been dealt a bad hand - and, of course, this begs the question of who dealt that hand - but all you have to do is study his bullpen management of the Friday Seattle game to realize he is not ready for prime time. Playing in an American league park, use your long man Villanueva for 2/3rd of an inning, then bring in Russell to face some lefties even though he has appeared in consecutive games, then stick with the rookie Parker for three innings, and turn to the worthless Sean Camp to finish things off.
In any case, the Cubs did take the series in Seattle even though they made heavy weather of the final game and blew the lead in Saturday's game before picking up an extra-inning victory. Again the bullpen was the ostensible culprit, but really, this team doesn't score runs or add on. By and large, they are pretty much done by the fourth inning even when they have the lead.
I saw another piece in the press (USA Today) that may point to some internal dissension on the team. Samardzija is quoted to the effect that all this talk about rebuilding is an insult to the players.
"As a 28-year-old, the word rebuilding sends chills down your spine. The word rebuilding is a total front office-type thing. Those words don't resonate down to the team. To tell you the truth, it's disrespectful to even say to the team."
You have to admit that he has a point. Garza is a good example of this kind of front office double talk. Garza is only one year older than Samardzija and, of course, his career is full of significantly more achievement that Samardzija's, yet, almost from Day 1 of the new regime, there has been relentless speculation on where he will be traded and when he will be traded and how obvious it is that he has to be traded.
Give me a break. This guy is a good pitcher and he is 29 years old. Plus the Cubs are always talking about how hard it is to get good pitching and how they have no good pitching in the system. So why don't they just shut up about Garza and sign him to an extension? Because they are too cheap.
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