Cubs Update: Why is this man smiling?
You see this guy here? This is the man that ruined my summer. The Cubs are hopelessly out of contention, and it's not even June yet. No June Swoon this year, my friends. This year we've got a May Decay. This team really is what Mr. T likes to call "dead meat."
It didn't have to be this way. As optimistic as I was at the start of the season, I knew this team was heading in the wrong direction. A team with postseason aspirations shouldn't settle, and that's exactly what they did when they attempted to upgrade the offense this offseason. Jacque Jones is a platoonable stopgap at best, yet the Cubs signed him for three years. Juan Pierre seems to have lost a step, and that single step is apparently what separates him from being a good leadoff hitter and being pure dreck. Murton and Cedeno are doing OK, but neither is setting the world on fire. Counting on two of those guys to succeed this year was a decent gamble, but thinking all four were going to pan out was simply not a safe bet.
Ditto for Wood and Prior. Why didn't Hendry attempt to trade for, say, Javier Vazquez? He'd be the number two starter right now, and he'd look a whole lot better than the four-headed monster that is Williams-Hill-Guzman-Ryu. Not to mention Glendon Rusch.
Yes, a healthy Lee and a productive Aramis could have masked some of these problems. But this offense still wasn't built for the postseason. It was built for .500. Everything had to go perfect this year for this team, as constructed, to have even a chance at the wild card.
While we're here, let me just go on record to say that Tony Womack isn't the answer either. Every hit he gets is a thorn in my side. You just watch, he'll hit .370 over the next 60 at-bats and Hendry will give him a two-year deal. Nevermind the 5,000 at-bats of suckage he's had in his career, this is the real Womack! Reminds me of another guy that Hendry foolishly extended after a few hot weeks.
Tomorrow, I'll be back to tell what I'd do if I were Jim Hendry. Warning, it won't be pretty. Stay tuned...