More or Less Even
I've seen 24 Cubs games so far this year. They're outscoring their opponents 111-103, but have a 10-14 record. Why is this? The plain truth is, Dusty Baker can't construct a lineup to save his life.
Granted, the Cubs have had to deal with an insane number of injuries over the past two years. The Cubs had a stellar lineup going into this year. But, with a few exceptions, every team goes into every year looking pretty good. It's the manager's job to iron out the difficulties posed by unforseen injuries and baseball's long season.
Dusty has done an absolutely terrible job of performing these essential managerial tasks this season. If he was doing a great job, over the 24 games I've seen in person (a reasonably good sample of the entire year--about 25% of games) the Cubs should be a game or two up, instead two games down. If Dusty were a good manager--not even a great manager, mind you--they should win more games even given a higher runs/runs-allowed differential.
Tonight he finally showed some sense by unshackling Michael Barrett from the 8 hole, bumping him up to 6th in the order. Why in the world he had Barrett, who has more than enough potential to hit .290 and drive in 80+ runs, buried at the bottom of the lineup is beyond me. Traditionally, of course, the catcher has been viewed as little more than the pitcher in protective gear--a defensive specialist whose offensive production is a secondary evaluation in considering value. (Every generation, of course, has exceptions to this rule of thumb, such as Bench, Berra, and Piazza.) If the catcher is a high-average, doubles-to-the-wall type of hitter, why not move him to the middle of the lineup, where he'll have more at-bats per year, and have a greater potential of driving in top-of-the-order guys with their higher probabilitis of getting on base?
If Neifi Perez and Derrek Lee (and, since May 1, Aramis Ramirez and Jeromy Burnitz) hadn't played perfect baseball nearly every day, Dusty would be fired at this point. The Cubs have thrived on pure luck to stay slightly above .500 with half the season gone. With Baker's approach to lineup construction, they should be 10 games under, and we should be looking forward to upcoming off-season moves, not a run at the playoffs.
Let's face it: the Cubs are going to be really tough with Wood and Prior back. Even though they're prone to injury, at least they won't pitch hurt. This is partially a problem, that they refuse to pitch except when they feel perfect. But, when those two are perfect, there are few pitchers in either league who can match their control over the outcome of a game. I hope they got all the bullshit out of their systems and bear down for the rest of their starts. If the Cubs can hang on the next two weeks while waiting for 1 and 1a to get back to full strength, they should win the Wild Card and, I would argue, make it very, very difficult for the Cardinals to repeat a division title.
Barring any further injury, using the players currently on the team or on the disabled list, the Cubs 25-man roster would look something like the following come the playoff time:
1 Patterson 8
2 Perez/Nomar 6
3 DLee 3
4 Ramirez 5
5 Burnitz 9
6 Barrett 2
7 Walker 4
8 Dubois/Holly 7
Bench: Hairston 4/8, Macias 5/6, Blanco 2, Wilson 4/6
SP: Wood, Prior, Zambrano, Maddux, Williams
LRP: Rusch (L), Mitre
MRP: Wuertz, Novoa/Wellemeyer, Ohman/Bartosh (L)
CP: Dempster
Honestly, I don't think that the above line-up necessarily warrants a trade. Aside from the injuries, the media has pounced on two points of weakness with the current team: the enigmatic Corey Patterson, and the supposed void in left field represented by Dubois and Hollandsworth.
Let's first examine the status of Patterson. This is a case of talent mismanagement possibly unmatched in sports history. Although he's been up for a while, Corey's still a very young player. He needs direction, and he needs to be told his role by management. From the first day of Spring Training, Baker should have established Patterson as the Cubs lead off guy and let him work it out. He's the fastest guy on the team, and with the exception of Pierre, Podsednik, Renteria, and a couple others, one of the fastest in either league. With his speed and instincts, this guy should have been told from Day One, "Get on base any way possible, and wreak havoc on the basepaths." Instead, he has as many stolen bases as Jeromy Burnitz, a pretty slow power hitter. That's pathetic. Now it's June, and we're expected to wait a few dozen at-bats for Patterson to get used to hitting first. We should have gotten over those growing pains in April. What a wasted opportunity.
As far as left field goes, a statistical comparison is in order:
AB H TB R BI BB K
Holly 174 45 68 15 22 12 34
Dubois 133 33 65 14 22 7 47
H+B 307 78 133 29 44 19 81
Burnitz 287 79 136 44 42 25 52
Burnitz is having a great year, there's no question about it. He's playing better than Sosa did for the last 2 years, and certainly better than Sosa is currently playing for the Orioles. His greatness is exemplified in what I call my Efficiency Index (EI): R + RBI = H. When a player is driving in and scoring a number of runs equal to his number of hits, he is performing as efficiently as can be reasonably expected. (This theory double-counts runs and RBIs scored as a result of home runs, but I think the minor variance more than makes up for the number of times the batter was stranded on base--in other words, the number of time the guys gets on base but other guys don't get their job done is balanced by the number of times the guy hits a homer.) By this measure, Burnitz has scored and driven in 84 runs compared to 79 hits--5 runs more than efficient. The Cubs' two left fielders, by contrast, have managed to score and drive in 73 runs compared to 78 hits--5 runs less than efficient.
Blaming Hollandsworth and Dubois for the Cubs' woes is preposterous. They are essentially interchangeable with the glove and arm-wise, though neither will ever compete for a Gold Glove. In terms of intangibles, I think it's important for the Cubs to have Dubois--a homegrown prospect--come up and get some day-to-day experience. Hollandsworth brings the club an attitude of professionalism and hustle that is second to none. Given their slightly weak bats, I don't see why Baker refuses to bat them at the bottom of the lineup. If they're going to put up average (but not impotent) offensive numbers, let them do it from the bottom slot, not the six hole as has been the case all year (until tonight).
The Cubs offensive woes lie in the ineffectiveness of the power spots. In particular, batting Burnitz clean-up behind Lee is a joke. I don't understand why Burnitz hasn't batted either second or fifth all year, allowing Lee and Ramirez to hammer away from the power slots. Burnitz either strikes out, pops out, hits a homer, or doubles. In my observations, he does not tend to ground out to the middle or hit singles to the short outfield. Given these tendencies, a lead-off hitter should be protected from a potentially lethal double play situation and should further be likely to score if on base. From the five hole, Burnitz would provide Ramirez with as much protection as he currently does to Lee. By batting either Corey-ShortStop-Lee-Aramis-Burnitz or Corey-Burnitz-Lee-Ramirez-ShortStop, you're forcing a pitcher to face two lefty bats in pretty short order, which is more often than not bound to cause gameplan problems for any opposing staff.
For the six hole, you really need a guy who gets a lot of singles and the occasional home run, a guy who can get a few RBIs now and again, someone who consistently makes contact to all fields. You would ideally have a left-handed batter, to contribute to the unbalance created by the two lefties batting earlier in the order. Don't look now, but I just described Todd Walker. Why this guy doesn't play every single day, I'll never know. You can't tell me that Hairston's slight advantage in the speed department, or Enrique Wilson's..I don't know what...override the natural advantages presented by Walker's skills. Also, he's a far, far superior routine defender than the other two, and he's excellent at turning double play balls.
I think that's it for now. There's more--oh, you know there's always more. This is just the crap that I thought about tonight during tonight's 2-0 win over Milwaukee. Amazingly, they won a close game with little offense for either side. Basically, Zambrano won the game by keeping it simple and DLee hit a big homer, while Doug Davis got the loss because he walked two guys in the same inning. It was an interesting game because of the timing of walks and wild pitches, but that's about it. I really love that type of game, when everything ends more or less even. Unfortunately, more or less even is exactly how this year's Cubs have performed thus far. Here's to more productive times to come.
Granted, the Cubs have had to deal with an insane number of injuries over the past two years. The Cubs had a stellar lineup going into this year. But, with a few exceptions, every team goes into every year looking pretty good. It's the manager's job to iron out the difficulties posed by unforseen injuries and baseball's long season.
Dusty has done an absolutely terrible job of performing these essential managerial tasks this season. If he was doing a great job, over the 24 games I've seen in person (a reasonably good sample of the entire year--about 25% of games) the Cubs should be a game or two up, instead two games down. If Dusty were a good manager--not even a great manager, mind you--they should win more games even given a higher runs/runs-allowed differential.
Tonight he finally showed some sense by unshackling Michael Barrett from the 8 hole, bumping him up to 6th in the order. Why in the world he had Barrett, who has more than enough potential to hit .290 and drive in 80+ runs, buried at the bottom of the lineup is beyond me. Traditionally, of course, the catcher has been viewed as little more than the pitcher in protective gear--a defensive specialist whose offensive production is a secondary evaluation in considering value. (Every generation, of course, has exceptions to this rule of thumb, such as Bench, Berra, and Piazza.) If the catcher is a high-average, doubles-to-the-wall type of hitter, why not move him to the middle of the lineup, where he'll have more at-bats per year, and have a greater potential of driving in top-of-the-order guys with their higher probabilitis of getting on base?
If Neifi Perez and Derrek Lee (and, since May 1, Aramis Ramirez and Jeromy Burnitz) hadn't played perfect baseball nearly every day, Dusty would be fired at this point. The Cubs have thrived on pure luck to stay slightly above .500 with half the season gone. With Baker's approach to lineup construction, they should be 10 games under, and we should be looking forward to upcoming off-season moves, not a run at the playoffs.
Let's face it: the Cubs are going to be really tough with Wood and Prior back. Even though they're prone to injury, at least they won't pitch hurt. This is partially a problem, that they refuse to pitch except when they feel perfect. But, when those two are perfect, there are few pitchers in either league who can match their control over the outcome of a game. I hope they got all the bullshit out of their systems and bear down for the rest of their starts. If the Cubs can hang on the next two weeks while waiting for 1 and 1a to get back to full strength, they should win the Wild Card and, I would argue, make it very, very difficult for the Cardinals to repeat a division title.
Barring any further injury, using the players currently on the team or on the disabled list, the Cubs 25-man roster would look something like the following come the playoff time:
1 Patterson 8
2 Perez/Nomar 6
3 DLee 3
4 Ramirez 5
5 Burnitz 9
6 Barrett 2
7 Walker 4
8 Dubois/Holly 7
Bench: Hairston 4/8, Macias 5/6, Blanco 2, Wilson 4/6
SP: Wood, Prior, Zambrano, Maddux, Williams
LRP: Rusch (L), Mitre
MRP: Wuertz, Novoa/Wellemeyer, Ohman/Bartosh (L)
CP: Dempster
Honestly, I don't think that the above line-up necessarily warrants a trade. Aside from the injuries, the media has pounced on two points of weakness with the current team: the enigmatic Corey Patterson, and the supposed void in left field represented by Dubois and Hollandsworth.
Let's first examine the status of Patterson. This is a case of talent mismanagement possibly unmatched in sports history. Although he's been up for a while, Corey's still a very young player. He needs direction, and he needs to be told his role by management. From the first day of Spring Training, Baker should have established Patterson as the Cubs lead off guy and let him work it out. He's the fastest guy on the team, and with the exception of Pierre, Podsednik, Renteria, and a couple others, one of the fastest in either league. With his speed and instincts, this guy should have been told from Day One, "Get on base any way possible, and wreak havoc on the basepaths." Instead, he has as many stolen bases as Jeromy Burnitz, a pretty slow power hitter. That's pathetic. Now it's June, and we're expected to wait a few dozen at-bats for Patterson to get used to hitting first. We should have gotten over those growing pains in April. What a wasted opportunity.
As far as left field goes, a statistical comparison is in order:
AB H TB R BI BB K
Holly 174 45 68 15 22 12 34
Dubois 133 33 65 14 22 7 47
H+B 307 78 133 29 44 19 81
Burnitz 287 79 136 44 42 25 52
Burnitz is having a great year, there's no question about it. He's playing better than Sosa did for the last 2 years, and certainly better than Sosa is currently playing for the Orioles. His greatness is exemplified in what I call my Efficiency Index (EI): R + RBI = H. When a player is driving in and scoring a number of runs equal to his number of hits, he is performing as efficiently as can be reasonably expected. (This theory double-counts runs and RBIs scored as a result of home runs, but I think the minor variance more than makes up for the number of times the batter was stranded on base--in other words, the number of time the guys gets on base but other guys don't get their job done is balanced by the number of times the guy hits a homer.) By this measure, Burnitz has scored and driven in 84 runs compared to 79 hits--5 runs more than efficient. The Cubs' two left fielders, by contrast, have managed to score and drive in 73 runs compared to 78 hits--5 runs less than efficient.
Blaming Hollandsworth and Dubois for the Cubs' woes is preposterous. They are essentially interchangeable with the glove and arm-wise, though neither will ever compete for a Gold Glove. In terms of intangibles, I think it's important for the Cubs to have Dubois--a homegrown prospect--come up and get some day-to-day experience. Hollandsworth brings the club an attitude of professionalism and hustle that is second to none. Given their slightly weak bats, I don't see why Baker refuses to bat them at the bottom of the lineup. If they're going to put up average (but not impotent) offensive numbers, let them do it from the bottom slot, not the six hole as has been the case all year (until tonight).
The Cubs offensive woes lie in the ineffectiveness of the power spots. In particular, batting Burnitz clean-up behind Lee is a joke. I don't understand why Burnitz hasn't batted either second or fifth all year, allowing Lee and Ramirez to hammer away from the power slots. Burnitz either strikes out, pops out, hits a homer, or doubles. In my observations, he does not tend to ground out to the middle or hit singles to the short outfield. Given these tendencies, a lead-off hitter should be protected from a potentially lethal double play situation and should further be likely to score if on base. From the five hole, Burnitz would provide Ramirez with as much protection as he currently does to Lee. By batting either Corey-ShortStop-Lee-Aramis-Burnitz or Corey-Burnitz-Lee-Ramirez-ShortStop, you're forcing a pitcher to face two lefty bats in pretty short order, which is more often than not bound to cause gameplan problems for any opposing staff.
For the six hole, you really need a guy who gets a lot of singles and the occasional home run, a guy who can get a few RBIs now and again, someone who consistently makes contact to all fields. You would ideally have a left-handed batter, to contribute to the unbalance created by the two lefties batting earlier in the order. Don't look now, but I just described Todd Walker. Why this guy doesn't play every single day, I'll never know. You can't tell me that Hairston's slight advantage in the speed department, or Enrique Wilson's..I don't know what...override the natural advantages presented by Walker's skills. Also, he's a far, far superior routine defender than the other two, and he's excellent at turning double play balls.
I think that's it for now. There's more--oh, you know there's always more. This is just the crap that I thought about tonight during tonight's 2-0 win over Milwaukee. Amazingly, they won a close game with little offense for either side. Basically, Zambrano won the game by keeping it simple and DLee hit a big homer, while Doug Davis got the loss because he walked two guys in the same inning. It was an interesting game because of the timing of walks and wild pitches, but that's about it. I really love that type of game, when everything ends more or less even. Unfortunately, more or less even is exactly how this year's Cubs have performed thus far. Here's to more productive times to come.
posted by Pat at 12:35 AM
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