Baseball

The Disconnect And The Solution

By Sam Fels 1513 0

As I watched the Cubs bullpen fritter away another lead last night, the second game in a row they’ve done so even if it came on a collection of bleeders and excuse-me’s, I have to admit I get the fans’ angst. I might not be there with them, but I can’t tell them they’re wrong. And you know how I love telling people they’re wrong, especially when I’m from the same side. The bullpen this year is perhaps the biggest spot of neglect the Theo Epstein regime has infected the team with since they slammed back into relevance in 2015.

And it of course comes back to this winter. They kept telling us they didn’t have the money for Harper or Machado, and you didn’t have to squint all that hard to see the arguments about why signings like that didn’t make sense for the Cubs. I may not agree with that assessment, but I can understand the argument. However, fixing a bullpen is far cheaper, and for the Cubs to turn their pockets out at the thought of adding the cheapest part of a baseball team was as bewildering as it was infuriating.

And yet, as the winter dragged along and the Cubs made nary a move outside Brad Brach and casting a net to find whatever various flotsam would fall into it, there wasn’t a peep out of the Cubs front office. For a team as savvy with the media (at least on baseball matters) as the Cubs are, surely there would be a leak somewhere or a nudge that Theo and Jed were as surprised with the budget closing as we were. They talked of major changes in the wreckage of a two-day slump last October, and then nothing. Surely if things had changed between then and when the markets opened up, someone somewhere would know. And yet nothing. No whispers of fidgeting anywhere.

That doesn’t mean to cast the front office as perfect. Far from it. No matter their plans, they were counting on Brandon Morrow, which was a poor choice. Perhaps they couldn’t have predicted that Carl Edwards would run farther from competence than toward it, given his age, but he wasn’t in a position to be counted on either. You can’t account for Pedro Strop getting hurt…except he has the last three seasons. While this front office has had its problems identifying and collecting pitching, this seemed an egregious error. It is not like them to stock a complete component of a team with hunches and wildcards. And yet, here we are.

Which I guess perhaps lends credence to this story from Patrick Mooney about the Cubs and Marquee. Now, no one is going to buy this hook, line, and sinker, and nor should they. There are still more than enough variables to fuck it all up, like if no one actually picks up Marquee which Crane Kenney seems so sure of. And anything Crane is sure of you best bet you should take with a whole shaker of salt.

Still, perhaps the lack of any itching or antsy-ness from the front office over the limitations this winter stems from knowing it was a one-year deal? That they would simply have to grit their teeth through this winter knowing with the money coming off the books in the form of Hamels and Zobrist, combined with greater income would turn next winter around? Perhaps they knew with the room they’ve left for midseason acquisitions they’ll be fine? We’re essentially talking about two arms here. And if Kimbrel is going to wait until after the draft to drop the compensation, a prorated salary for half a season is probably only $5 or $6M, no? Half of a Ken Giles will cost $2M. Alex Colome a little over that. I guess I shouldn’t worry.

I don’t want to be that guy who blindly trusts what he’s being told, especially by the uber rich. Still, the complete lack of agitation in the front office, apparently, makes me think something is afoot. And the Cubs being on top of the division only buys them more time. But the answers need to be relatively soon.

Baseball

Neither The Cubs Or Addison Russell Are Equipped For This

By Sam Fels 1813 0

As I’ve said in the past, I don’t know that the easy decision for the Cubs when it comes to Addison Russell–punting him into the nearest trash compactor–was the right one. Nor do I know that this much harder path is the wrong one. Or however you want to lineup those four variables. What seems obvious is that the Cubs and Russell don’t know either, and no one seems to be getting anywhere. And one-half of that equation doesn’t seem interested in finding it anyway.

I still tend to believe Theo Epstein whenever he’s commented on this, but now it’s getting to the point where you wonder if he just doesn’t know what to do or he is outright lying. All of this is spurred again when last night Russell in an interview with the Sun-Times basically expressed that he didn’t think anyone should boo him at Wrigley, and that everyone should prioritize his baseball skills (not that great at this level) and fandom over him being essentially the definition of a scumbag.

The levels of incompetence here staggering, and I’ll try and filter through them if it’s even possible. And Russell trying to walk it back today was clearly after someone in the Cubs’ front office got to him, but it’s too late for that. First, Russell has yet to show any contrition for what he’s done, and his mealy-mouthed and indifferent press conference in Arizona showed that before this. To have no concept of why any fans would be glaring at your return with definite side-eye at best is to be bewilderingly ignorant. It certainly doesn’t express he has any understanding of what he’s done or why he was suspended or why any of this has happened.

And even if Russell is all that, and I tend to believe that he is, then this “training” or “therapy” is meant to change that. Well, it’s been over six months since Russell was suspended, and it’s clear to us that there’s little progress has been made. That doesn’t mean I think Russell’s “process” should be public. I don’t need to know when and where he’s going and who he’s going to see, and that would be illegal anyway. If it’s happening at all. The Cubs have told us that there are steps and a long road to go, and they can’t really define that, but surely this is part of that?

And beyond all that, before Russell is allowed to be interviewed, you’d have to think there would be some bullet points the Cubs themselves would go through with him if only to cover their ass. One of them, and probably at the top, would be not criticizing the fans and at least pretending to understand what they might do. The Cubs got there, but only after Russell had defecated out of his mouth first. It’s someone’s job to know that, but here we have another organization confusing their popularity with their public relations and media skills.

Theo may say as right of things as he can, and even if he is all the way into this and not just hoping he can skate through until Russell is either traded or the Cubs are winning in the fall and everyone’s distracted, he’s not directing anyone else in the organization to help the cause. Julian Green wheel-posed his head into his own ass trying to silence a FanGraphs writer. Russell hasn’t had anything to say that seems like it’s moving forward. Someone let him walk into an interview to spew garbage that has to be walked back. The team should have had a plan too. Doesn’t appear that they did.

Again, our feelings are lower on the totem pole. Melisa and her child are most important, and the Cubs have stressed that. So whether Russell placates the fans is down the list. But his clear bewilderment at being booed shows he’s not really invested in this, or at least gives off that impression. If progress for him was the whole point, where is it?

Whether you believe Theo’s heart is in the right place or not, it’s hard to see where the Cubs have gotten a good deal of this right. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try, because simply admitting they can’t forge a new path on domestic abusers and just letting Russell do whatever isn’t an answer either. But it feels like the only bar the Cubs are asking Russell to clear is that he not punch anyone else.

The most likely answer is that the Cubs did mean well when they tried all this, but we’re unequipped to follow that road. And they were that way partially because they’re dealing with a rock-headed dickbrain who can’t recognize what he’s done, and probably just as bad doesn’t really want to. He just wants to tick the boxes to not deal with it anymore and go back to playing baseball and being a dipshit in peace. And it’s hard to see a path where this gets any better, so maybe it’s time to just say goodbye?

 

Baseball

“Stubbing Your Toe” Will Now Be Known As “Being The Chicago Cubs”

By Sam Fels 1498 0

If you thought the Cubs, and perhaps you as a Cubs fan, would escape their self-created hell of an offseason just because baseball games were being played again, then the world is going to have some awfully violent market corrections in store for you. But I admire your optimism and hope in these times. It appears that the Cubs stepped in it again, or more to the point it became public knowledge that they’d stepped in it again, yesterday with reports that the Cubs were declining access or threatening writers who did not give positive coverage of Addison Russell. With his return to Wrigley now imminent, and most everyone except Russell wishing it would never happen for a litany of reasons, the Cubs are clearly going to a prevent defense of the highest order. The problem with a prevent defense of course is that it does give up a ton of yards.

It started with Sheryl Ring of FanGraphs. That was picked up by NBC’s Hardball Talk. This was followed by a few beat writers who follow the team saying they hadn’t heard this and certainly hadn’t been threatened by the team, and then some other writers or media members not as close to the team saying they had heard this or been on the receiving end. You know us, we go by the amount of smoke something has, and this one has a ton. Sheryl Ring and FanGraphs aren’t just some yahoos in the dark, even if some would like to still portray them as such, and all this comes from somewhere and something.

And really, when you’re on the side of Bob Nightengale on anything, you’re on the wrong one.

There is nothing comfortable about anything surrounding Russell right now. His suspension, the Cubs handling of him, his impending return, but most of all who he is and what he’s done, and whether or not he has any interest in not being that (sure doesn’t feel like it). While I am as uncomfortable as anyone, just because I’m uncomfortable doesn’t mean I can’t see where the Cubs are on this at the base level. Since the suspension, which at first they didn’t handle well at all, Theo Epstein’s openness has been if not welcome, at least a change. There is no clear answer on whether or not heaving Russell out of Chicago and his job is beneficial to Melisa Reidy and to survivors at large. Some say it does worse damage, others say it doesn’t. Perhaps the Cubs cherry-picked the experts they talked to, but in this day and age a sports organization talking to anyone is a step in the right direction.

Theo has been careful to mention Melisa and their child’s interest at every turn, and even has said Melisa herself didn’t want Russell cut loose. Maybe that’s not exactly what went down, but if it went against her wishes I think we’d know at this point. And considering the hell she and their child have been through, they are deserving of whatever share of a major league paycheck they get. Maybe it’s uncomfortable and upsetting that Russell will continue to get to work here specifically for most, and I get that because no one wants this around. At the same time, it may be that it has to be somewhere. You’re not supposed to feel good about it, or like it, or comfortable, but just because it lacks all of those things doesn’t mean it’s completely wrong. Yes, the point of sports fandom is to feel good and happy and fun, but this is also real life, which is basically none of those things most of the time.

I won’t really know what’s going on until Russell screws up again, which it seems like he will because no one other than those with vested interests have made it seem like he’s even considered at least contrition. Or maybe until the Cubs make it clear what they feel like is screwing up again and then cut him loose. What’s their threshold? Then we’ll know where their interests lie, whether it truly is a life concern and helping or whether it’s simply about baseball concerns (and considering the makeup of the Cubs infield right now, even that seems like it shouldn’t be much of a concern for them either).

But with this, the Cubs aren’t taking responsibility as they’ve said they would and in some ways have. The awkwardness, to be polite, of the the whole thing is part of the story. Trying to whitewash what Russell has done and who he is  is part of the problem. Russell carries this with him everywhere he goes, and will from here on out, which is part of what I would assume his therapy is. The Cubs, by deciding to keep Russell for whatever process they want to run through, chose to take that on. They didn’t have to. So coverage of that isn’t wrong or unfair. It’s the story.

The Cubs can’t have it both ways, though lord knows they’ve spent the offseason and now into this season trying. They made work of making it clear just how transparent they’ve been to everyone about everything, but then are snippy when that bites them in the ass, however true it may have been. The Cubs could have avoided this conflict, at least on this particular problem, and these kinds of tactics by not choosing to retain Russell. Here we are. One wonders if they’re so thorny on this because they know that Russell is just a fuckwad who will do fuckwad things again and are trying to shield themselves.

Figuring out the endgame of this particular tactic is not uplifting. One can only assume the Cubs thought that a rash of positive, “overcoming” stories would make fans forget what had gone on, bringing questions about it to an end, and smoothing over as much as possible what is going to be an even stickier situation than it already is when Russell gets here (if he gets here, which he doesn’t have to, and the Cubs might want to consider that one strongly. Iowa is…well I don’t care what it is this time of year, but an extended stay there is certainly a card to play). Which is in direct opposition to the things they’ve said since Russell got suspended, which has emphasized what he did and what he must do pretty much at every point.

The Cubs keep saying they want to be part of the solution and lead. It might be just words. But if they’re truly to set a new way of sports dealing with domestic violence, that means accepting all that comes with it and not just the aspects that make yourself look good. No one is going to look good out of this. That’s the path the Cubs chose, and I don’t know if it’s necessarily the wrong one. It’s just the much harder one. And maybe they’re balking at just how hard it is. But it’s too late for that.

Baseball

You Get What You Pay For, And Life Is Real High-Priced

By Sam Fels 1490 0

Put a couple beers in a Cubs fan right now, never that hard of a task, and I bet a good portion of them would tell you there’s a level of schadenfreude with the team right now. After they spent the offseason crying poor, the front office pointing fingers every outward but certainly not inward, and everything else, the Cubs are being undone by what they ignored and arrogantly thought would fix itself, the bullpen. And it being this early in the season, and only four games, it hasn’t come anywhere close to derailing the season. You can just see how it might.

At the top, and as I’ve repeated all offseason, you can remake a bullpen on the fly. The Nationals did it just two years ago (with Brandon Kintzler as part of that). The Red Sox simply ignored their bullpen in the postseason last year. There will be a bevy of guys on teams out of it who for no reason whatsoever are throwing 97 with a slider from nowhere that you can have for B-level and C-level prospects. This is probably what the Cubs will do, and most likely they’ll be fine. It just didn’t have to be like this.

I had wondered if Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer knew about the budget Tom Ricketts was going to hand them at the outset of the offseason. But as was pointed out to me on Twitter, the fact that they sent Drew Smyly away to extend Cole Hamels probably indicates that they did. So one has to ask if that really was the right move. Because if the thinking was that the pen as currently constructed was going to just right itself, it makes you think that pitching isn’t just a spotty mark on the record of this regime, but a clear blindspot. Remember, we’re still waiting for the first pitcher Theo has drafted to actually come up for air and do something here. Hendricks and Edwards Jr. are trades, and we’ll get to the latter soon.

Because what did the Cubs have coming out of last year? Pedro Strop, who is wonderful and insane and I love him but also has missed big chunks of time with injury two of the past three years and turns 34 this season. It seems to me that the Cubs want to treat their signing of Brandon Morrow as something other than bad, but it very well may be. Morrow only has one full season of being a dominant reliever and a whole lot of injury problems. He’s far from a sure thing, and yet the Cubs are happy to tell you his absence is the main problem in order to do themselves credit, as well as blaming Joe Maddon for having the temerity to pitch him three days in a row at the end of May. The end of May is when a pitcher should be in peak health. If he can’t do it then, he can’t do it, and hence is not a plus piece to have around.

Carl Edwards Jr. is a basketcase and has never proven to be anything else. Brandon Kintzler has one good season, and his ground-ball rate, his main weapon, has been dropping for three straight years. Randy Rosario doesn’t strike anyone out and was bad last year and can only claim to throw with his left hand. They couldn’t honestly sell Tyler Chatwood as anything other than a lottery ticket bought while drunk and using consecutive numbers.

Perhaps they thought they could count on Steve Cishek. Here’s the problem: the history of relievers who crack 80 appearances over the age of 30 is not really encouraging.

Zach Duke did it three years ago at 33, and the next season saw his K/9 rate drop in half and his FIP double. In 2017  Bryan Shaw reached 79 appearances at 29. The next year his walk-rate doubled. Only Joel Peralta survived that threshold in 2013 at that age and came back fine the next year. Or at least his peripherals did, but his ERA was still over 4.00.

The Cubs front office has been acting like the smartest guys in the room for so long now that perhaps they’ve failed to realize they’re getting passed.

Now you can also throw this at the Ricketts, who even if they took the “Look what you’ve done with our money already” tact can’t then tell the front office to go stuff it with such a clear weakness. But is that $13M net-spend on Hamels worth more than two relievers right now? If the multi-year commitment to Andrew Miller made them nervous because he’s already in decline in skill and physically, that’s cool. Don’t want to blow it all on Zach Britton? Fair, or at least understandable. I wasn’t married to Jesse Chavez. He’s a guy.

But maybe Joakim Soria? Only $7.5M per. Seems a better bet than Brad Brach.

It’s important to reserve judgement until we see what the Cubs do over the next few months. Maybe they hated the reliever market in the winter altogether and didn’t want to force it. Fine. But when they say they have the deepest crop of pitchers waiting in Iowa they’ve ever had, why should anyone take that at face value? Again, this isn’t a front office that’s produced a quality reliever or starter yet (Hector Rondon was their Rule 5 pick, but that just means he didn’t come through the system). The Cubs couldn’t wait to tell every beat writer about their technology and gizmos to measure their pitching in the system. But at this point, Cubs fans are more than excused for not wanting the labor pains, just the baby.

Actually, sounds a little like the Hawks and their blue line, doesn’t it?

Baseball

A Cubs Fan’s Lament/Fear

By Sam Fels 1905 0

I told you we were going to try some new stuff here. Today it begins. My lament as the season draws close.

I had a hope that the approaching of Opening Day, along with watching basically the dress rehearsal against the Red Sox last night, would erase any feelings of bile or mistrust of the Cubs to come. Sadly I’m still searching for that..

If I were to tell you it’s not been the easiest offseason for Cubs fans, I’d have a pretty handy headshot and resume for an audition for the role of Captain Obvious. That would also seriously understate some pretty heavy issues that surround the Cubs, and baseball as a whole, that they encountered and failed to navigate all that well through the winter months.

I’m not going to tell you how to feel about the Cubs and your fandom. Your fandom is yours and yours to do with what you will. I don’t think there are any wrong answers. That’s not to suggest I’m at ease with any of it: Sinclair, Addison Russell, the lack of spending and the reasons/confusion/lies for it. While it seems silly to equate what the Cubs spend on their payroll to serious, all-world issues like domestic abuse and biased/bought media, at the base of it it still does get to labor relations, union rights, and income inequality, and that is an issue in our time.

For me, and I’m not prescribing this for you, I don’t want to be robbed of something I’ve loved my whole life, and has been a big part of my life, by someone I can’t beat through that route anyway. I could turn in my fancard, not buy tickets, burn all the memorabilia and not acquire more, not watch, but the only person who loses anything there is me. And you can say that if more felt like that, owners like Tom Ricketts would feel the pinch. Maybe, but even then he’s still a billionaire (or more accurately, the son of one), and the loss is small if even noticeable. There are other routes to change, and those are the ones I prefer to follow.

But there is one angle I can’t reconcile, which frightens me because it only comes about if the Cubs defy the projections and are the last one left standing come the end of October. And that’s a real possibility and that’s supposed only fill me with excitement and anticipation of the coming season.  Which is the whole point of being a fan, or most of it. And it was inspired by a piece on Deadspin by David Roth.

It generated an image inside my head, of the Cubs on the field at Wrigley, having just disposed of the Astros in six tough games (in what you’d have to call an upset, as the Astros lineup is the baseball version of the Infinity Gauntlet). Rob Manfred hands the trophy to Tom Ricketts. And he has this smile that doesn’t say he was right all along, but that he got away with it. You know that smile. You’ve seen it on tons of people who have advantages they didn’t earn and you don’t have, and also think they’re entitled or deserved, or worse, earned them. The smile of the guy you know you’ll never get one over, the one who’ll never lose. The one that says he knew better, when you know for damn sure he never did.

I’ve never thought of Ricketts as a dumb man. I’m not sure he is. I don’t think he’s a baseball genius or anything close. It doesn’t take a deep well of baseball understanding to just go and hire the best guy with the biggest name as an executive to lead your team’s turnaround. I think he probably is a genuine fan, but not as much as he plays up to cover what’s really going on. If he were a real fan, this offseason probably looks different.

I’m sure like me, you haven’t bought RIcketts’s claims that there just isn’t money for the Cubs to spend. It’s there, he just doesn’t want to. Doesn’t think he needs to. And he doesn’t, because the Cubs will be massively profitable no matter what happens on the field this year. Remember, he didn’t take action on his baseball operation until the stadium was half-empty most days. Which, fair enough, I guess.

But until the media asks some serious questions, which they haven’t, and the Ricketts family is forced to show the math on where the money is or where it didn’t come pouring in from that it was supposed to, no Cubs fan is going to take him at face value. You see the sellouts, you see the prices, you see the developments around the park, you know about BAMTECH, the new TV deal, etc. It’s the evidence you have.

And it’s not just the Cubs, of course. This is a baseball-wide problem. Teams aren’t going all out simply because they think there’s a better way or they have to stick to a more efficient way. They’re doing it because they can, because the CBA allows them to, because they’re still going to be profitable no matter their team’s fortunes, because the union can’t do much for another couple years, and even then it’s hard to figure how you break a cabal of billionaires. They’re doing this because they can.

And it is likely that the trophy and confetti and champagne will rain down on someone like Ricketts or Ricketts himself who will get away with it. The Dodgers could have a $300M payroll if they want, and they’re almost certainly the NL favorites. They may find the Yankees or Cleveland when they get there. You could extend this out, because really any team these days can spend what it wants. They didn’t.

On the surface, due to my personal feelings on the city of Boston after living there for three years, another Red Sox championship left my food tasting like dust. But deeper, it’s somewhat righteous. Because the Red Sox didn’t sit out last year’s free agent market and got themselves a J.D. Martinez. They could go even higher, but money didn’t seem to be filthy lucre to them. Sadly, they seemed to have been the only ones.

And it could be the Cubs. A healthy Darvish and a healthy Bryant makes a bigger difference to this team than a lot realize. They only need solid or expected contributions from pretty much everyone else, and maybe one surprise, to be zeroing in on 100 wins. The playoffs can be anything, as we know.

And should it result in the second parade in four seasons, something we couldn’t even conceive of just 10 years ago. Ricketts will be up there about being true to their plan, how they knew all along, that all we had to do was trust their work and the system. That’s what he’ll be selling, at least.

And it will all be horseshit.

They’re on this plan because Ricketts didn’t give Theo and Jed any other choice. Those two didn’t want it this way I’m almost sure of that. They didn’t do this because they had to. They did it because Tom could. And another championship lets him get away with it. To smugly smile at all of us who couldn’t do anything about it, or more likely, forgot about it entirely while being swept up in the season and playoff frenzy. That will be part of the moment I still dream about every day. That’s how they always get away with it. It’s the perfect crime. 

I’ve got seven months to figure out how to deal with it, if it comes to that. I may need them all.  

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