Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
June 13, 2007
Cubs in Conflict

Michael Barrett keeps arguing with his pitchers:

Hill was long gone by then, but he was involved in a familiar scene in the Cubs dugout early on, getting involved in an animated discussion with Barrett between innings after Seattle pitcher Jarrod Washburn singled home a run in the fourth. Pitching coach Larry Rothschild stepped in to calm Hill down, avoiding another made-for-ESPN scene as the TV cameras followed their every move.

Coming on the heels of the Barrett-Carlos Zambrano fight that occurred only 12 days earlier, the latest dugout drama is likely to fuel speculation that Barrett's days with the Cubs are numbered. If the No. 1 catcher can't get along with his pitchers, something has to give, and it's much easier to deal a catcher than a starting rotation.

Hill denied there was a problem, saying he was angry with himself.

"No, no, no," he said. "No disagreement. I just told him I was upset about the pitch. I just wish I made a better pitch to Washburn. He said 'Just hang in there and keep us where we're at and we're going to win this game.' "

Barrett talked around the subject, but conceded the talk was heated at times.

"It was the heat of the moment," Barrett said. "We just talked things through. Rich did a pretty good job overall. I think he was disappointed about hanging the slider to Washburn. It wasn't even a big deal. Whatever happened, I don't even know. We were just talking about pitch selection, and what we were going to do the next inning.

On top of that, Lou Piniella doesn't want to talk:

Manager Lou Piniella blew off the media after the loss, stewing in his office while Barrett, Hill and Will Ohman faced the music in the clubhouse.

The Cubs appear to be a team on the verge of a breakdown, with Piniella in the middle with nowhere to hide.

When does bad luck turn into bad managing? The Cubs have three slots in the lineup, #5, #7 and #8 in which they're getting substandard production, OBAs around .300 and slugging percentages below .400. The lack of production from the five hole creates a huge void in the order and wastes the talents of the number six hitters (no one to drive in, no to keep the rally going). Maybe Lou could come up with a better order. But this is a team of great strengths and even greater weaknesses. The two balance, so the Cubs score a decent amount of runs. But if there's a game that needs a timely hit, almost half of the order is unlikely to produce one. At this point, the GM needs to find better players to complement his superstars.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:12 AM | Baseball Jerks | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Just curious if you could elaborate on what those great strengths might be. As I wrote today, the only thing they are consistently good at is finding new ways to lose. This team is horrendous.

Posted by: The Zoner at June 13, 2007 12:39 PM

Dave,

What really makes the production in the 7 and 8 slot bad is that Soriano is batting leadoff. You have your big money free agent batting behind your 7,8, and 9 guy. Because of that the Cubs look like this:

Runners On when batting (AB's):

Soriano 117 (243)
Ryan Theriot 125 (194)
Cliff Floyd 98 (111)
Cesar Izturis 96 (154)
Mark DeRosa 143 (184)
Jacque Jones 144 (189)
Michael Barrett 160 (197)

So, your platoon guys and lower in the lineup hitters have seen from about the same to WAY more people on base than your highest paid player (and best power hitter, in theory).

Just bad baseball.

Posted by: Bill K at June 13, 2007 12:55 PM

Soriano, Lee and Ramirez are extremely good hitters. The starting pitching strikes out tons of batters without walking very many.

Posted by: David Pinto at June 13, 2007 01:04 PM

Lee is an extremely good hitter. Soriano and Ramirez are not. As for K/BB ratios, Lilly, Hill and Marshall are solid but Zambrano and Marquis (quickly reverting back to his usual form) are not.

Posted by: The Zoner at June 13, 2007 03:06 PM

Is Soriano an overrated commodity? Certainly. $136 million for a guy with a career .327 OBP is absurd.

But you're going to have a hard time arguing is not an extremely good hitter when he's won three consecutive Silver Sluggers and his HR totals over the past five years look like this:

39
38
28
36
46

To add to that, he's taking more walks now. He had a great year in 2006 even by a sabermetrican's standpoint.

But I understand the Soriano thing, to an extent. I do not, however, understand how Aramis Ramirez isn't a good hitter. He's hit 30 HR, had OBP's over .350 and an OPS over .900 for three years running, and he'll do it again this year. He walks more than he strikes out, rakes doubles, and notches RBI's in bunches. He's probably a top-30 or so hitter in the game.

Posted by: Derek Nelson at June 13, 2007 03:47 PM

It's semantics at this point between what is 'good' and what is "extremely good" as Dave write. And I suppose also what is a good "hitter" as compared to an offensive threat/force.

I'm not sure where you got that Ramirez walks more than he K's as it isn't the case. He does K much less than other power hitters.

I'm obviously an embittered Cubs fan. One thing we all can agree on is this team is bad.

Posted by: The Zoner at June 13, 2007 05:21 PM

I don't quite understand while, despite being 6 games UNDER .500 AND still trying to figure out how to field a team with no true corner outfielders (does Jacque Jones even count anymore??) AND having to deal with Aramis Ramirez on the DL, many pundits are still predicting the Cubs will "get it together" soon and win a weak NL Central.

Does everyone just believe the Brewers will go away quietly? Will St. Louis and Houston choose NOT to "get it together" this year? It's funny - the Cubs spent money (a LOT of it) this offseason, so the knee-jerk reaction is "hey, they must be better than this!" Sadly, they are not, and the "experts" would benefit more by looking at the players on the field than the payroll before making predictions.

Posted by: The Commish at June 13, 2007 05:29 PM
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