Renteria

So the choice is Rick Renteria.  We are hearing all the good things it is possible to make up about this guy.  Some of them may be true.  Some may not.  At bottom, unless you are dealing with a proven commodity, you have to defer to management in terms of the choices they make.  In any case, how could he be a worse choice than Dale Sveum?  Of course, on the other side of the ledger, the same team that chose Sveum has chosen Renteria.

In other news, we hear from Theo Epstein that the Cubs will be passionate in their pursuit of quality pitching.  Sounds good, but lets recall that in their brief tenure, Epstein and Hoyer have traded away five starting pitchers of some ability, Cashner, Dempster, Maholm, Feldman, and Garza, only one of whom, Dempster, who is over the hill, would have any difficulty breaking the Cubs current rotation.  In addition, they traded the solid set up man Sean Marshall.

Now they have received a bunch of guys in return and one of more of them might turn out to be keepers, but, so far, in terms of major league talent, they have got back Anthony Rizzo, a first baseman, and Travis Wood, a genuine good pitcher.  Still, I doubt anyone would care to hang their hat on that level of return.

Supposedly the Cubs are all in on the Japanese phenom Masahiro Tanaka.  One hopes this means what it says.  Last time around, the Cubs underbid on two genuine star international free agents, Darvish and Cespedes.  They would have been a different team with either of those players on the field.

Back to Renteria, one legitimate concern, actually two, is his history.  Everybody talks about how great he is in developing young talent, but I cannot recall a single young talent, a real talent, that San Diego has developed recently.  Of equal concern is that San Diego doesn't exactly have the reputation of being a franchise that has a winning tradition.