Cubs First Half Grades
Easiest and most obvious post in the world, so lets get to it. Here's how I grade:
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A - Greatly exceeding expectations
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B - Meeting the higher end of expectations
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C - Getting the job done, barely
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D - A disappointment
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F - A disaster
A
Dempster, Wood, Soto, Theriot
Dempster's the only guy truly exceeding my wildest expectations on the team. And his performance in the All-Star Game was awesome. Wood's been mostly great, except for a handful of games. Of the eight guys that made the All-Star, Soto was by far the most deserving. He's the only guy that I would really have complained about had he not made the team.
B
Zambrano, Marmol, Cotts, Lee, Ramirez, Fukudome, Soriano, DeRosa, Edmonds, Johnson, Fontenot
No complaints about any of these guys, as they're all basically doing what about as well as we could have possibly expected. Marmol's been shaky, but hopefully his good appearance in the all-star game will right the ship. I guess Cotts is a pretty big surprise amongst this group. I never thought we'd see him again after last year. Edmonds deserves props, too, for the same reason. And what a nice pickup Reed Johnson was. None of these last three guys were expected to be on the team, let alone contribute as much as they have. Fukudome needs to start hitting again.
C
Lilly, Marquis, Marshall, Lieber, Howry, Eyre, Ward, Blanco, Cedeno
All of these are getting the job done, though none have exactly dominated at any point. I expected a little more from Lilly. Him and Howry are the only real guys they were really counting on among these "barely adequate" guys. Can't really complain, though. Even about Marquis. I mean, he still sucks, but he's been his usual occasionally great but mostly shaky self. Cedeno has been mostly worthless since his blistering hot start.
D
Wuertz, Pie
Both guys are now in AAA, if that tells you anything. I think Wuertz simply needs to pitch more. Once a week generally doesn't cut it for relievers. When he's on, though, he's pretty great. But he deserves this D. And Pie...well, there's always next year. Hopefully he'll have a ring on his finger.
F
Hill
The one true disaster in the group. Can you imagine if he had his head screwed on right and did what we expected him to do? I expected somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 wins, and all I got was 15 walks in 15 innings. Horrible. And there's virtually no way he comes back this year. He's done.
Incomplete
Harden, Gaudin
Harden's here for one reason only: the postseason. All the experts analyze the trade and say that he'll make a 3 or 4 game difference in the standings this year. That might not sound like much, but it's pretty good. But really, I think they could have won the division without him. The Cubs made the trade simply to increase their chances of winning it all. The postseason is a different animal than the regular season, if Harden's healthy then the Cubs have two aces. Two aces, along with Dempster (if he can keep it up), and this team will be really, really tough to beat in October. I think Gaudin's going to pay huge dividends as well. In fact, it wouldn't shock me if he was the 2nd best reliever down the stretch, even better than Howry and Marmol.
Lou
Lou gets an A. He's already the best manager the Cubs have had in my lifetime. That's with just one playoff appearance under his belt (and he got swept to boot.) There's so much I can add here that it probably deserves its own post. So be on the lookout for that in the coming months.
And now, we wait. Till next time.