By Steve Rhodes
The Cubs may win the NL Central again, but they aren’t a World Series team. And it’s a team more vulnerable than many of its fans thought it would be going into spring training. Even Lou Piniella knows something is wrong. And once again, Jim Hendry is to blame.
Hendry’s trademark is putting together rosters that simply don’t fit.
Take the lineup.
In the beginning of the season last year, Lou’s mad scientist ways almost lost the team until he plugged Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot into the lineup about the same time the team emerged with a fighting spirit missing for . . . ever.
Piniella’s mixing and matching turned out to be the only way to coax 85 wins out of the team.
This year, amazingly, the lineup problems persist.
Hendry’s big off-season acquisition is a prime example. Kosuke Fukudome may turn out to be a nice player, but he’ll probably hit .280 with no power. His on-base percentage will be unusually high for a Cub and he’ll be a good defensive player, but he’s not an All-Star.
In fact, his skill set is so problematic that Piniella has tried to hit him second and third – two very different places in the lineup – talked of batting him leadoff, and has now apparently settled on him in the five-hole, where he most definitely does not belong.
“And I know that the 2-hole is more suitable for the young man, but right now, the way we’re put together, I just feel that Ramirez out of the 4-hole will get more protection with Fukudome hitting behind him,” Piniella said recently.
Look at that again. Piniella isn’t using Fukudome where he is best suited because of “the way we’re put together.” Which screws up two spots.
And really, I’m not sure how much protection Fukudome gives Ramirez. But the truth is that Piniella would probably like to put Fukudome even lower in the lineup given his difficult spring. He’d be an ideal number eight hitter.
Now let’s look to the other corner outfielder clogging things up. Alfonso Soriano was signed to the richest contract in Cubs history to play center field and lead off. It turns out he can’t do either. Lou considered batting Soriano third and fifth before settling on the two-hole, which is only one degree less ill-suited than leadoff.
Soriano would like nice in the six-hole, where Corey Patterson always belonged. But you can’t really have Hendry’s two big acquistions batting sixth and eighth, can you?
(In fact, given the dicey Felix Pie, the Cubs entire outfield should hit at the bottom of the order . . . )
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UPDATE 3/26: The Cubs’ acquisition of Reed Johnson gives the team . . . another marginal player who is being touted as a platoon leadoff hitter. Think about that.
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The truth is that Ramirez doesn’t really need protection as much as he can give it to others. That’s why keeping him behind Derrek Lee makes sense. Hell, put him behind Geovany Soto and watch Soto’s numbers soar.
But no, Ramirez, the stat hog, was at one point moving down in the order, to fifth. Which he preferred to clean-up. Head case much?
That move would have left D-Lee in the cleanup spot at a time when the Cubs have to be concerned about Lee’s prolonged slump, which is now more than a season old.
One thing about Piniella is that he doesn’t stand on ceremony the way Dusty Baker does. Piniella tends to play the players who deserve to play. But he’s starting this season in a surprisingly familiar place: not knowing what kind of team it is. It doesn’t have much speed, but it’s not really a power team, but it’s not really a scrappy team with the exceptions of Theriot and Mike Fontenot.
The bullpen is similarly muddled. Mike Ditka used to say that if you had three quarterbacks, you didn’t have one. That’s the way I look at the closer role. I think Marmol is the guy. We all know Kerry Wood’s history. And Howry doesn’t get going until a couple months into the season. So disaster looms. Kerry Wood, people!
Thank God Scott Eyre is headed to the DL, opening up a spot for the more deserving Carmen Pignatiello or Sean Marshall.
Expect Lou to use the Iowa Shuttle liberally once again.
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The one strength the Cubs have is their complement of starting pitching, and props to Sweet Lou for keeping Jason Marquis in the rotation. Marquis has been lights out this spring, and his April and May numbers are traditionally pretty killer. His late-season fades are a problem, of course, and they might be someone else’s problem this year, but it’s a better tradeoff than a still-questionable Ryan Dempster, who is just as likely to fade at the end of his first season back as a starter.
There’s been some bitching and moaning that Rich Hill didn’t do anything this spring to win a spot in the rotation, but spring isn’t everything. Pulling Hill from the rotation would have been the worst thing they could do to the budding star.
I like Marshall, too, but it’s probably for the better that Jon Lieber ends up as the long man in the pen. Lieber is a swingman at best at this stage in his career. (As Elliott Harris wrote in the Sun-Times, “Nothing like having a glut of No. 5 pitchers.”)
Instead of a healthy competition among the pitchers, the combination of the oversupply plus the closer’s drama and the never-ending Brian Roberts rumors, seemed to cast a pall over spring training this year. Off-season optimism has kind of faded.
The Cubs could very well win this division, but only because it’s a crappy division. They are not in the same league as the Mets, Rockies and Diamondbacks, nor probably the Phillies, Dodgers and Padres.
I saw a report on ESPN the other day about the joy the Rockies took in an oddball fielding drill, and it kind of made you pine for that sort of feeling among the Cubs. No Troy Tulowitz here, though.
The Cubs could have had that. I was a Joe Girardi man, but I will admit that Piniella won me over last season. He was a master at taking the leftovers in Hendry’s kitchen and turning it into a fine meal.
But I would still prefer to see a Cubs roster without Soriano, Ramirez and Fukudome that instead had Mark DeRosa at third, Theriot and Fontenot up the middle, Murton in left, and All-Stars in the other two outfield positions and as closer.
COMMENTS BELOW.
Blue Flu
When Lou Piniella uttered the phrase “a Cubbie occurrence,” he officially became one of us.
Ex-Cub Factor
Let’s play a little Where Are They Now.
Michael Barrett: In a Padres platoon with Josh Bard at best.
Hee Soep Choi: With the Kia Tigers in the South Korean KBO League.
Randall Simon: Appears to be retired. He had 21 at-bats with Philly in 2006.
Mark Prior: Opening the Padres season on the DL and may not pitch until late May or early June.
Jacque Jones: “The Tigers’ big free-agent acquisition is hitting .190 with no extra-base hits, and he looked slow in leftfield Friday,” the Detroit Free Press reported on Saturday. Slated to start in left and bat eighth.
Jim Riggleman: Bench coach for the Mariners.
Corey Patterson: “With one week left before Opening Day, Patterson is batting .367. He played two years in Baltimore, batting .276 with 45 steals in 2006 and .269 with 37 steals last year.”
Patterson looks like he’s won the starting centerfield job in Cincinnati for his old pal/nemesis Dusty Baker, much to the chagrin of many Reds fans who want to see top prospect Jay Bruce.
Steve Stone: New gig is almost enough to get me to listen to White Sox games. Almost.
Hi-Tops: Is now Harry Caray’s Tavern. Harry Caray is now officially overexposed.
Clean Sox
I like a Sox lineup that starts with Swisher, Cabrera, Thome, Konerko, Dye and Crede. A lot of ifs in the last four returning to form, but better than folks think it will be. The Sox problem is their rotation, pure and simple. Yet, they have Buehrle and Vazquez at the top, which is more than my Twins have. And that’s who they’re competing with this year, for third place.
Beer Wars
The Cubs open with three games at home against the Brewers and close with three games in Milwaukee.
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Comments welcome. As always, please include a real, full name when explaining to me why I’m wrong.
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COMMENTS
1. From Marty Gangler: Dude – are you nuts? The jury is certainly out on [Fukudome] but if you want to look at the other high profile Japanese players that have come over, they have all been fundamentally sound and good players that are capable of adjusting to the U.S. game and competing at a high level. To bat him 8th? That’s insane. Are you serious?
DeRosa is not an everyday player and you’re equally nuts to think he should be at third every day. The guy is in his thirties and had been nothing but a utility guy his whole career – did he just get a whole lot better? He had a career year last season and it wasn’t even that good. He’s a great guy to have on your team and I am a fan, but like it or not Ramirez can hit. I’m not a huge fan either, but there really aren’t that many guys with 35-HR power in the league.
I can’t stand Soriano either, he mucks up the whole lineup, but I trust Lou to get a lot out of this team. And I certainly am not a Hendry fan. And we’ll see what happens with the closer situation. The only thing I like is that Marmol is like The Wolf from Pulp Fiction. He fixes things in the mid- to late-innings. I like the way he was used last year. Another year of that from him before the closer position might not be bad. But counting on Wood, sheesh, that’s a tall order.
Get over the Fontenot thing. Until he handles some breaking stuff he’s going to do nothing but be a marginal major leaguer. I want to believe, but he hasn’t made the adjustment after two weeks of great hitting and nothing else afterward.
Rhodes Reply: I would say this: If Fukudome isn’t going to bat second, then he’s got to be much lower in the lineup than 3,4,5,6. I would put him 8th rather than 7th because you want a guy like him in front of the pitcher. High on-base average, a lot of sacrifice bunts behind him. He’s essentially Tadahito Iguchi.
I think DeRosa showed last year he could play every day. The point isn’t that he’s a great third baseman, but if you trade A-Ram for a top flight outfielder, then you have to make a sacrifice.
Fontenot slumped at the end of the season, but that coincided with a decrease in playing time. He can hit and he can field, he’s had a good spring. He and Theriot have great DP chemistry. This is about Pirahnas. Again, you give a little at some positions in return for others. A solid defensive infield buttressed by a big-hitting outfield.
I’m not suggesting the Cubs just cut Ramirez. I think he’s great trade bait; I advocated trading him during or after Baker’s last season, along with Barrett. You trade players like that after their career years. Let Ramirez be a millstone on someone else’s team. The guy doesn’t want to hit clean-up, is a bonehead on the basepaths, and has an iron glove. He’ll carry a team for two weeks with his bat and then fall into a black hole for three.
Marty Responds: I’ve read the comparisons to Iguchi, but I don’t think iguchi was a multiple batting champion. I think he should be better than Iguchi. You have to think he’ll be close to a .300 hitter and last I’ve seen, .300 hitters don’t hit in the 8-hole. i just don’t get what you are saying about much lower in the order.
Rhodes Reply: Do you hit .280 hitters in the 8-hole? Because that’s what I think he’ll be.
Posted on March 25, 2008