Our team just lost consecutive weekend series to the Pirates. I think that’s the best way to describe this team: we routinely lose to the Pirates. At least for now. So where do we go from here?
Aramis needs to stop stroking his cock and start swinging some wood and knocking some balls around. There's a dick joke in there somewhere, I just can't find it. Also: penis. BTW, googling his name and finding pictures like this is why i heart the interwebz. Best, Series. Of. Tubes. Ever.
First, we need Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez to start hitting. They are the ONLY weak link in our lineup, which sucks for us considering that they are supposed to be our two biggest run producers. We have 6 guys in our lineup hitting over .300. That’s literally every position player except D Lee, Aramis, and the pitchers’ spot. People are getting on base, and they’re not getting driven in. It’s a massive hole right in the middle of our lineup. If you want to point a finger at why we’re a losing team, the only logical direction is at the two of them. It’s the reason why our starters are getting no-decisions, it’s the reason why our bullpen has struggled under the expectations of holding slim leads, or keeping us only a few runs down with no chance for the offense to catch up if we’re behind more than a couple of runs. It’s the reason Zambrano is in the bullpen. It’s the reason we called up a 20 year old kid and asked him to carry more of the load than a 20 year old should (and yet he’s not buckling under the pressure, but more on that later). It’s the reason Lou has had to juggle our lineup several times since the season began. It’s the reason were already thinking about next year.
So what do we do? This year, all we can do is hope that Lee and Ramirez turn it around in order to give us a shot at the division. That’s not too far off for Lee, who is usually a slow starter. In fact, he had a good week offensively and raised his average about 20 points. Aramis is another story. He doesn’t seem recovered from his injuries, and given the amount of time he’s spent on the DL in his career, he might be breaking down completely. But another reason was hinted at by Len and Bob on the air a few weeks ago: he’s not listening to Rudy Jaramillo’s hitting instruction. Rudy’s reputation as the best hitting coach in the game should be enough credentials, but if you needed more evidence of his ability to get the best out of hitters, you only need to look at what he’s done to bring back the old Soriano that he used to instruct in their days in Texas together. If Aramis is ignoring his advice while trying to find his swing coming out of injury, than we should bench him until he either figures it out on his own or agrees to listen. There’s no room on our roster for someone to be so stubborn while not producing. We don’t have the luxury of allowing him the time it would take to find his groove without any help. Right now his VORP (Value Over Replacement Player for the non-nerds) is -11.4. What that means is, offensively he creates 11.4 less runs than the average replacement player. Just to let you know how bad that is, there is only ONE PLAYER WORSE in all of MLB, Brandon Wood of the Angels. So, as long as we replace Aramis with literally any other player in all of baseball, we will get better. So what we need to do first, is bench Aramis and replace him with Chad Tracy until he figures it out (while sending Jeff Baker to the minors to make room). Then, we use whoever is more effective out of those two until Josh Vitters is ready, which might actually be right now.
Ace's don't throw tantrums, they throw gems... often.
Next, we need to stop this stupid Zambrano-in-the-bullpen experiment. The only reason we did it is because we had a gap between our middle relief and our closer which was constantly giving up runs. But why Z? What not Gorzelany? And if we were scoring more runs with a decent middle of the order, would that even be that big of a problem? On top of that, if no one on our current staff can get it done, than promote someone from our minor league system, like Cashner, who will do better. If the veterans can’t do it, you might as well give the kids a shot.
But all of that is only a prescription to how to make us respectable this year, when we know the best this team can possibly do is win the division (that was proven in ‘07 and ‘08). So how do we get better for the future? Simple, we do nothing. By that I mean, we build from our system, something the Cubs have never done in my lifetime. This is the first Cubs era I have ever remembered that properly invested in our system, from proper Scouting Directors like Tim Wilken, who drafted all of those young, talented Rays who have been setting the league on fire for the last 3 years. THose players he drafted are then taught how to excel as a professional by the likes of minor league manager Ryne Sandberg. Then they are slowly brought along by our intelligent front office now headed by Jim Hendry (who deserves some criticism, but has easily been our best GM since the 1940s), and his Assistant GM Greg Maddux.
Our future Manger and GM. I can smell the nostalgia from here.
So once Lou moves on this year or next, he will be replaced by Sandberg. And when Hendry moves on, he will be replaced by “Professor” Maddux. And those two brilliant baseball minds, with the help of our stellar head scout, the best hitting coach on Earth, and a host of other major and minor league staff, will give us a winning team made up almost entirely of our own products. It’s already started: Soto, Castro, Theriot, Marmol, Marshall, Wells, Colvin… and they will soon be joined by Vitters, Cashner, Chris Carpenter the Sequel, and who knows who else we have stashed in there waiting to be unleashed. That will pretty much have us set for the next decade provided we make a few (vital) moves.
Which moves are those? Well, first there’s the problem with our aging corner infielders. Aramis will eventually give way to Josh Vitters. So that covers 3B for the next dozen or so years. Lee is trickier. He hasn’t struggled as much as Aramis, and has been pretty steady in his production over the years. He’s also got a Gold Glove at 1st, which is hard to replace. My opinion is that we should try to sign him for less than he earns now for a 2 year contract. I think Lee would take it given the market for aging hitters this past off-season (Jermaine Dye anyone? Anyone?!? Seriously!? No one?!? Wow. Sorry Jermaine.) Aside from that, Lee’s family have made a home in Chicago and are active members of the community, and he is universally revered by the Cubs faithful and his teammates. I think at this point he would take a discount to stay at home with his family. As for long-term solutions at 1B, we would either have to develope someone on the quick, or sign a free-agent. My brother tried to convince me that we should go after Adrian Gonzalez, but I wouldn’t trade anyone on our farm system with the way we’ve been pumping out future stars. We would probably need to sign a free agent, but I would rather keep Lee for a few years than sign any of the free agents next year, o whom Adam Dunn is easily the most appealing.
Cliff Lee doesn't care for catching pop-ups. He finds it to be vulgar, and thinks it is something commoners should do for him.
As for our pitching staff, we have a lot of live young arms coming up, but we would still be lacking something: an Ace. We haven’t had one since Wood and Prior left Wrigley in matching ambulances. Zambrano has served as our best pitcher, but he was never a stopper, never consistently dominant enough to match up against the other contenders’ best guy. I thin kby now we have to admit that he just doesn’t have it in him to be better than a number 2 guy. But, there is a readily available solution: Cliff Motherfucking Lee. That’s right. A guy who won a Cy Young, then DOMINATED THE YANKEES SINGLE-HANDEDLY in the World Series. He’s a free agent after this year, and he and his agent have said that re-signing in Seattle isn’t in his plans. The Rickett’s family would really be showing their commitment to winning by signing a proven ace to lead our staff and set the tone for our team. We need it. He’s available. We should get him. No reason not to make this happen.
Other than that, all we really have to do is let our kids grow up. I’ve already covered how good Starlin Castro is going to be. We’ve seen the resurgence of Soto. We’ve seen glimpses from Colvin already. We can do this with the talent we have. We just need to be patient with them, and surround them with the occasional acquisition and we should be title contenders within the next three to five years. Don’t worry Cubs fans, it’s gonna happen. And I don’t think I’m asking too much when I ask you to be patient. We should all be used to that by now. Only this time, it’s not just blind hope. We finally have several reasons to be optimistic.
Developing talent like this is now the rule, not the exception. Let's keep 'em coming.
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