The Mentor?

OK, forgive me, but I cannot resist.  The Cubs have hired Manny Ramirez, one of the nuttier and more selfish players in the game, the same guy who was suspended for like a century for using PEDs, to act as a player-coach at Iowa and mentor some of their budding stars.  Is this surreal or what?

Back on the home planet, the Cubs split a series with the equally hopeless Padres.  An outcome that was fair to all and demonstrated just how far these two teams are from being legitimate major league teams.  The high note was Wood's dominant pitching performance.  The low note Jackson's.  On the bright side, Junior Lake is definitely showing some improvement at the plate and in the field.  He's hitting for power, taking the ball to right field, and striking out less.

Samardzija pitches on Monday.  You wonder what new way the Cubs will think up to deny him a victory.

Damn Yankees!

Well, actually the Cubs played rather well against the Yanks until the 9th inning of the second game, when they just fell apart.  Poor Samardzija, no luck at all.  Seven shutout innings and the team blows another one that was in the bag.

Maybe there is a curse, not so much on the Cubs as on certain players.  I mean, Barney, the most reliable of all the Cubs infielders, makes the error.  How likely is that?  But when you are in a funk, strange things happen.

Of course, after that there were four or five innings of utter futility until the Cubs searched the bullpen to summon Veras to put the game away.

There is a long piece by Jon Heyman at CBSSports. com all about how the Cubs have got to take advantage of Samardzija's run of success and get rid of him now.  Somehow I don't get this kind of reasoning.  You spend five or six years developing an exciting talent and then you are supposed to trade him off because he is ahead of your schedule and he might not be so good as he is today when your current "prospects" arrive even though that date recedes farther and farther into the future.

In return you are likely to get the guys other teams think of as future stars in the making.  You know, guys like Samardzija was three years ago, I suppose.  If fans and management alike thought of these deals in terms of time and effort instead of the balance sheet, I wonder if they would sing a different tune.  Also, lets start referring to the returns not as prospects, but as projects, which they really are.

A side note about Jose Veras.  I thought he had regained his composure after the rehab stint.  Guess not.  Veras is the new Camp.

Lastly, I suppose all Cubs fans received the latest Ricketts video.  What a crock!  I have nothing against going ahead with these plans for whatever they are worth, but calling it "Building a Winner Can't Wait"?  Huh?  "Building a Winner Must Wait" is the real deal here, isn't it?  The whole point of the Ricketts spiel is we cannot spend money on the team until we spend all our cash on infrastructure so we can make outrageous profits and then we'll think about the team because that's what Chicago deserves.  OK?

The Brewers Series

Ten runs in three games, but the Cubs managed to take only their second series in like forever against the Brewers.  This was mainly on the strength of their pitching, superior starts from Jackson (surprise) and Wood.  They might have at least contended for a sweep had they been able to catch and throw the ball in the first inning of Samardzija's start on Friday.

Anyway, the last series kind of underscores what a wasted season this has become.  Contrary to popular belief at the end of last season, the NL Central has returned to its accustomed status as a weak division.  The Brewers got off to a sensational start, but have returned to earth with a big thud.  The Cardinals miss Beltran and are not the same team.  The Pirates, as we predicted, have proved so far a flash in the pan.

The point of this is that the Cubs missed an opportunity to at least demonstrate a level of mediocrity not attained since 2009.  So it goes.

Jesse Rogers has an interesting piece that confirms our earlier observations on the sad state of the Cubs outfield and the seeming unwillingness of Cubs brass to do anything about it.  The arrival of the much vaunted and much hyped outfield saviors, Soler and Amora, is likely three or four years off.  Rogers suggests moving players who are blocked or who would supplant acceptable current starters to the outfield right now, prospects like Bryant and Baez.  Not a bad idea.  I'd put Vogelbach in this mix as well.

Another idea, as in wait till next year, is to pick up an aging veteran with some pop.  Guys like this are always available in the free agent market and could supply some much needed stability and veteran presence to a team lacking both.  Someone to carry the weight until the future "stars" arrive.  And I do not mean placeholders like Schierholtz either.

Same Old, Same Old

The season is about one-fourth finished.  One conclusion you can draw is that the Cubs have no offense whatsoever unless they bring out their right-handed hitting lineup against an inexperienced or indifferent left-hander, in which case they will score ten or twelve runs.

Gordon Wittenmyer makes some observations about the Cubs offense.  In the same article, Renteria makes noise about how the Cubs are battling and there is nothing he can think about doing to remedy their flaws.  Today, Renteria notes in a Tribune article that he plans to stick with the idiotic platoons and matchups:

"We're still mixing and matching, and we'll probably continue to do so until we see where we're all at," Renteria said Tuesday. "The way we balance it out, everyone is getting at-bats. Everyone is playing, so … let them do what they need to do. Besides the practice, they need to play in games to show what they're able to do.''

Not to be too snotty about it, but the Cubs ought to know exactly where they are.  They are in last place in their division and they lose, on average, two of every three games they play.  Their starting pitching is quite good, their bullpen is spotty but reasonably effective.  They lose because they do not score runs and because they often play sloppy baseball in close games.

Now no one expects miracles, but there are things you can do that may or may not work and I do think you owe it to the game to put the best possible lineup on the field and to include on a regular basis players who are of major league caliber or have the potential to achieve that level of merit.  That is not happening right now and it is not just because, by and large, the Cubs do not have a productive major league outfielder on the team.

I think the Cubs need to be brutally honest with themselves this season, and by that I mean they have to demand a certain level of achievement and progress from their young players.  In return, the Cubs need to give these guys a chance to play consistently.

For example, Olt, who has started roughly half the time, leads the team in home runs and has as many RBI as the "cleanup" man Castro.  Sure, he has struck out a lot and has an anemic average, but don't you want to know what he can do day-in, day-out?  Worse case scenario he turns out to be a bust or a flash in the pan.  Luis Valbuena has nearly the same number of plate appearances as Olt and has struck out only four fewer times.  Why is there a virtual platoon here when you know Valbuena's potential (utility man, pinch hitter) and you need to find out Olt's?

Lake is another guy they need to find out about.  When he connects he is great, but he has a lot to learn and maybe he will never learn, but, heck, let him play everyday for a couple of weeks and if he does not respond, send him down to AAA to get straightened out.

On the issue of progress, what is most disappointing is the seeming lack thereof of many of the Cubs youngsters.  This year I assume the Cubs were looking for breakouts from players with some major league experience like Castillo, Rizzo, and Castro.  I think they are getting the kind of play they expected from Castillo and Rizzo.  I've got my doubts about Castro and whether he will ever be the player they have projected him to be.

This is Castro's fifth year.  Everybody says he is having a bounceback year.  However, if you look at the numbers, they mirror almost exactly his numbers from 2012, which was the first of his disappointing seasons.  Yeah, it is a bounceback, but not even to his rookie level.

Also, he has not improved at all in his erratic performance in the field.  He still hurries plays he doesn't need to, botches routine plays, and nonchalants plays he needs to rush.  If you are content with a .280 hitter with occasional power who strikes out a lot and rarely walks, then Castro is your shortstop.  Ordinarily, these are good numbers for his position, but then SS is a defensive position, so if you get good defense, fine, and if you don't, time to move the player either to another spot or another team.

To close the book on Castro, I just do not see him as a #4 hitter, and I rather think the numbers bear out this opinion.  Castro is batting .211 with runners in scoring position.  His average and production batting fourth is pretty much in line with his career production since 2012, which, however, is nowhere near the production you expect from a #4.  Castro should hit #6.

To close the book on Renteria for now, how many times does he need to blow a game with wild relievers who obviously have nothing going for them that night without having someone warming up?  I mean, you announce you have closer by committee so that the presumed closer doesn't have his feelings hurt or lose confidence when you get somebody up when he is in trouble.  Last night was pathetic but this has happened at least four or five times this year.

Samardzija

Wow, this guy just cannot get a win no matter what.  Nine innings, three hits, one unearned run, a double and scores the only run an anemic Cubs offense can produce.  Net result: no decision.

There was an interesting piece from Gordon Wittenmyer this morning in the Sun-Times.  More interesting for what is not said than what is said.  The general tenor is the Cubs players think Samardzija is great, as do the fans, but it is a foregone conclusion that because Samardzija will not sign a team-friendly extension, he will be traded in July for more prospects that it will take the team five or six years to develop.  Just as it has taken the Cubs six years to develop Samardzija.

I guess what is left unsaid is implied in the remarks of Jake Arietta that are quoted in the piece.  It must be incredibly demoralizing for the players to see talented teammates traded away each and every year while you are marking time for the same fate.

In short, there are a lot of downsides to the current rebuilding strategy and, to my mind, rather little to recommend it in terms of success.

Oh, the Cubs lost another heartbreaker last night in the newest version of winter baseball.  These 30 degree windchill games in May are not really baseball.

Last night the Cubs and Sox put on a kind of clinic in how not to play winning baseball for the first half of the game, then settled into a sounder, more decorous version where you wonder if anybody will ever score a run and you know when it happens it is going to be pretty ugly.

The Cubs blinked first in the twelfth, allowing two runs to a two-out rally by the Sox, fueled mostly by Cubs reliever Justin Grimm's inability to throw strikes.

Two thoughts on this, viz., what is it about he lefty-righty matchup that so fascinates Rookie Renteria?  I mean, Wright can pitch to right-handers too and in a twelve inning game, shouldn't you conserve your bullpen?  And how come nobody is ever warming up during these control meltdowns?

The Cardinals Series

First off, the good news.  The Cubs played intelligent and fundamentally sound baseball for 26 innings against the Cards, falling one inning short of a sweep.  They showed a much more patient approach at the plate, working up the pitch count against three really good St. Louis starters, viz., Wainwright, Wacha, and Lynn.  Rizzo, in particular, had an excellent series and is emerging as a really professional hitter against both left-handed and right-handed pitching.  Castillo is also starting to live up to his promise.  The Cubs also got good starts from Wood, Arietta, and Hammel, even though the first and last did not have their best stuff and had to scuffle a little to keep the team in the game.

Now the bad news, which is mainly Renteria.  OK, I won't dwell on the constant lineup changes and the bizarre attachment to playing Sweeney and other mopes nearly every day.  What really lost the chance for a sweep was using Rondon for the third consecutive day with the game on the line.  I know he threw hardly any pitches the first two days, but unless you have a guy like Rivera or Eckersley, you don't want to give an opponent three straight days of looking at the same stuff.  Good teams are likely to figure you out.

When Rondon got in trouble, how come only a lefty was warming up?  Once Renteria decided to stick with Rondon against Carpenter, you knew he would not bring in Wright to face Molina as had Molina won the game, which he did, everyone would have asked him why he put Wright in an unfavorable matchup.

There is a deeper issue here that I have with the way the Cubs are managed.  They are being handled like a AAA team.  Everybody is getting tested and evaluated  and moved around and so on, but not in a way that is designed to win games, but to figure out if they are capable of certain things, etc.

Contrary to the hope that this sort of style will build confidence or enable management to make sound decisions, this sort of thing can have just the opposite effect.  Furthermore, players are not getting a consistent look.  They just play every now and then so they can never get in a groove.  Or, if they get in a groove, they sit for a few days, come back, and start pressing to get more playing time.

The Cubs certainly know who potentially fits into their plans and they ought to play these guys all the time to at least find out what the score is.  That means the placeholders and benchwarmers do not play regularly.

The other thing I have against this style is really that it dishonors the game.  In the majors, you field your best lineup on a day to day basis and you manage to win games, not to teach lessons or test situations.  That's why they call it a championship season.

Cincinnati

The Cubs split a rain-shortened series in Cincinnati.  They finished the month 9-16 and are 9-17 for the season, not having won a single series going back to mid-September of last year.  Their record is second worst in the league just ahead of Arizona and third worst in all of baseball, just slightly better than the hopeless Astros.  Not much to boast about and certainly no reason for optimism.

Notwithstanding this performance, the Cubs have three real starting pitchers and the makings of a decent bullpen.  The reason they lose is largely because they cannot hit a lick and do not know how to play winning baseball, how to adjust to situations.  You might chalk this up to their youth, but they have been playing this way since 2010, so who knows.  Maybe they are just not very good and their potential is not especially great.

Renteria sent out the lineup I have been advocating most of the season and got good results in the Wednesday game.  Of course, it was his right-handed lineup, but it also contains his best offensive and defensive players.  The Cubs ought to stick to this lineup for a while and maybe let these players adjust to playing every day for the time being.  Perhaps someone will finally figure things out.