Since I wrote “Part 3: Hope for 2011,” the Cubs have hired Mike Quade, which is encouraging. In fact, it almost makes me not want to write Part 4. There is plenty of time for worries and concerns. The off-season is for thinking about good stuff and hopes for next year, not bad things. But I said I would write about the problems and concerns for next year, so here they are.
First, starting pitching. Our starters were really good in 2010, but let’s face it, we are not deep in starting pitching. Ryan Dempster should be fine, but what about Carlos (Zambrano)? He was great coming back after the anger management class, but who knows how long that will last. He started to slip again in his last start of the season, in Houston. Carlos got upset, in his old way, when Bobby Scales botched a couple of plays at third base in the seventh inning. It was the last weekend of the season and nobody was watching, so it did not get much publicity. And nobody made a big deal out, but it’s a concern. Let’s hope the new Cubs management will not let him get away with what he (and others) has been able to get away with before. (More on that later.)
Unless they bring in a free agent starter (and if they do that, how are they going to fill the hole at first?), the rest of the starting staff has to come from Randy Wells, Carlos Silva, Tom Gorzelanny, Casey Coleman, Jeff Smardzijia and whoever else might be available (Chris Archer, maybe). While that might work out, an injury or two along with a disappointment could cause a real problem.
As for the relievers, Carlos Marmol should be okay and Sean Marshall is solid, but who knows whether Andrew Cashner is for real yet – or could get figured out his next time around the league. It happens to both pitchers and hitters. They start out great, but then the league figures them out, and if they can’t adjust, it’s back to the minors. I don’t think it will happen with Cashner, but we will have to see.
After those three, who knows? Rookies and maybe Jon Grabow. We started 2010 with a relief corps like that and look where we wound up.
To the infield. You have to assume Starlin Castro’s fielding will pick up, but we’ll have to see how things go for him at the plate his second year. (See above re Cashner.) Second is probably okay. That brings you to third and first. Aramis will be back, but which one will he be, the Aramis from first half of 2010 or the one earlier in this career? He’s not old, but last season is unsettling. Unfortunately, we won’t know until we know.
And then there’s the hole at first base. That one’s going to be tough. We don’t have a first baseman in the system. We either have to sign somebody (who doesn’t want a lot of money) or switch somebody there. Tyler Colvin? I have also read that Josh Vitters is taking balls at first (though his hitting in the minors has not been that great). First base could be our biggest hole – even it is not the biggest problem.
The biggest problem, save one, is clearly the outfield. We have two guys we are paying lots of money who just aren’t performing: Alfonso Soriano and Kosuke Fukudome. Hendry might be able to trade Kosuke (if he pays some of his salary – or takes back another overpaid player). But we are stuck with Soriano for four more years. (Sigh.) Marlon Byrd was great in 2010, but does he have two more good years left in him? If not, his backloaded contract will make it hard to get rid of him. Finally, Tyler Colvin had a solid first year, but consider what I said about Cashner. That is really true for Tyler. Will he be able to repeat, and improve on, his first year? We’ll see.
But now the biggest problem. Management has to get this team under control. The Cubs made a big deal about suspending Carlos Zambrano in June because of his tirade in the dugout at U.S. Cellular Field. They said his behavior was unacceptable, which it was. But this kind of thing has been happening for years, and not just with Carlos, and it has been accepted. It almost seems like it was become standard operating procedure.
The September issue of Chicago magazine had a long story about Sammy Sosa. According to the article:
“When Don Baylor became the team’s manager in 2000, he challenged Sosa to become a more complete player and threatened to put an end to the musical power games: ‘If Sosa plays that boom box, I have more bats that he has boom boxes,’ Steve Stone recalls Baylor saying. But Baylor was ‘informed by the powers that be that it’s best to let Sammy be Sammy.’”
In 2004 the players, or at least some of them, were able to run the Cubs’ TV announcers out of town, and the team didn’t stop it. In fact, Dusty Baker threatened to not do the pre-game show with Steve Stone in 2005.
I don’t remember where I saw it, but I recall reading that, near the end of the 2004 season, Greg Maddux went around apologizing to umpires because of the behavior of some of his teammates.
In 2007 Carlos Zambrano beat up on Michael Barrett, the Cubs catcher, and the Cubs responded by trading Barrett. (And you wonder why Carlos did what he did in June.)
Gordon Wittenmyer reported that one of the Cubs’ veteran players said, after Carlos’s tirade at the Cell, “I’ve seen more crazy sh-- since I’ve been here than I’ve seen anywhere else in my career.”**
The Cubs have to get their act together, starting with management and working on down to the players. Carlos’s tirade this year should never have happened because he should have been told to stop it, and made to stop it, a long time ago. Selfishness, crybaby antics, and “crazy sh--“ have been tolerated for way too long. It needs to stop.
Jim Hendry has been here during these problems and either didn’t care or wasn’t able to stop them. But the Rickettses weren’t here. And while Mike Quade was a coach, he’s the manager now, so he’s in charge. Maybe a combination of the Rickettses and Mike Quade can get this thing turned around.
They need to. It’s one thing to be embarrassed about the Cubs because they haven’t won a World Series since the Roosevelt administration (Teddy) and haven’t won a National League pennant since the year we dropped the bomb on Japan. I getting tired of being embarrassed by the selfish and stupid way some of the players act, too.
---------
* Shane Tritsch, “Sammy Agonistes,” Chicago, September 2010.
** Gordon Wittenmyer, "Cubs: Highlights, questions and Quade," Chicago Sun-Times, October 5, 2010.
Comments