Final Thoughts on Chicago Sports

An Email thread on the Cubbies

Here's a couple of emails from Friday, when I was supposed to be working.  Once again, the other half of this thread will be played by my cousin, Jim.

MJ: Good morning.  I'm bored.  Any thoughts on Soriano and the Cubs?

Jim: I think they'll miss Soriano, obviously, but it shouldn't have too much of an effect.  I was remembering when he was on the DL the first time this year and I was making the absurd argument that they were better without him.  What a schmuck.  He's basically been mashing since he come off that first DL trip.  Overall, probably their best offensive player. 

But this team is so deep everywhere, that they should be able to at least keep themselves afloat if not continue to kick ass.  Piniella is so good at just continuing to move guys around until something works.  They can ride the combination of Johnson & DeRosa and be fine.  My question is why didn't they bring up Murton.  This situation screams for him.  As decent of a player as he's been in the past, I think he could really do well in this lineup.  We'll see, I wouldn't be surprised to see him up at some point. 

It's amazing to be talking about a Cubs team being good enough to absorb the loss of a superstar player without much repercussion.  I've never seen a Cubs team so deep.  It's June 13th, so I won't talk about it at length, but this team appears to be the most capable in my lifetime of actually going to and winning the WS.  Was it '88 that Sandberg got hurt and how bad they were without him (well, they were bad all the time back then, but you know what I mean).  2006, they went from probably being a .500/slightly sub.500 team to being the worst team in the NL after Lee went down. 

On the other hand, think about the good Cubs teams of your lifetime and think how long it takes you to name the MVP of that year.  84, Sandberg, '89, harder but you take Maddux off that team and they aren't a playoff team, '98, easy Wood & Sosa, '03, easy Wood & Prior, '07, harder. 

2008 you can make the case for probably 9 different guys - Marmol, Zambrano, Dempster, Fukudome, Soto, Ramirez, Lee, Soriano, Wood, shoot even Theriot you could make a case for.  It's just strange because every good Cubs team I have seen before has been carried by a few guys and this one is carried by like 10.

MJ: Yeah, I had some pretty harsh words for Soriano, too.  I do recall saying that they'd miss him during his DL stint, but I also remember calling him a "bust" on the blog.  The fact still remains that 18 million per year over 8 years is too much money for such a limited player.  Horrible defense (outside of his arm), no patience to speak of, sore legs (though he's been running better of late -- and the silver lining of this "break" is that it will also give his legs further rest).  That said, he's been shutting me up quite considerably since then.  Tons of clutch hits, as evidenced by his 40 RBIs out of the leadoff spot, despite missing 15 games.  Ridiculously good, even if his head doesn't always appear in the game.
 
I have to actually disagree with the choice of Murton.  Some of my friends here at work joke that I'm related to him, for as much as I've sung his praises in the past.  But after his last stint here, I've changed my tune.  Dude didn't hit one ball out of the infield, and all of his singles were of the swinging-bunt variety.  It was sick.  Ok, that's one bad week, but then I looked at his numbers in AAA this year.  Sure, he's hitting .311 with a .410 OBP, but he only has one HR, and his slugging is less than .350.  That's basically what Theriot is doing this year, which is fine and dandy for a shortstop.  But you need more power than that from a Left Fielder.  Murton's defense and speed are nill, too, so all you'd be getting from him is a potentially solid OBP, at best.  I'm afraid there's no room for Murton on this team unless (knock on wood - but not Kerry, please) Fukudome joins Alfonso on the DL.
 
I'm OK with Patterson, though personally I'd maybe give Hoffpauir an extended look or perhaps sneak Cedeno in there some with DeRosa shifting to left.  Personally, I think the Cubs are fine with any of those options.  I think Patterson has a future as a major leaguer, though I don't think he's good enough to supplant DeRosa for the starting job or Fontenot as a bench guy.  Maybe he's better than Fontenot, because he's not that special, but still, Patterson's no star.  I'm thinking Patterson will have a productive career starting with someone like Pittsburgh or Kansas City.  (Hoffpauir and Murton will probably end up the same way, for that matter.)  Did you see the Cubs recently re-signed Jason Dubois?  He's hitting the ball hard in AAA, of course.

Yes, this team has decent depth.  I'd say the most valuable Cubs in terms of what kind of downgrade they'd see with his backup in the lineup is as follows:
 
Soto - Blanco and some AAA guy like Koyie Hill.  Massive, massive loss.
Lee - his bat would be replaced by Hoffpauir/DeRosa/Ward, his D would be replaced by nobody
Fukudome - his D would be a huge loss, his left-handedness as well.  Murton would get the call.
Zambrano - you can't replace an ace with Sean Marshall.  You'd miss his bat, too.
Ramirez - despite the fact that he's probably the best hitter on the team, his loss would not be quite as bad as the others because DeRosa would shift to third and Cedeno into the lineup.  He seems quite competent these days.
Marmol - Wuertz would be next in line, and he's not so hot and I suspect leads would start getting blown a lot more frequently.  Though I'm really starting to like Cotts in the role.
Wood - Marmol's in line, which would be fine, but who would then take Marmol's spot?
Dempster/Lilly - go on down the line with Marshall/Lieber, etc. 
 
Like you said, it's hard picking a MVP.  I might go with Marmol, though.  You know how often he takes a game from the 7th to the 9th?  An average bullpen will blow a few leads, and a bad one will blow it every time.  He's so, so clutch.  Woodie hasn't been bad, either, except in those few high profile screwups.  But only in those screwups, otherwise he's lights out.  After him I'd go with Soriano or Soto.  Soriano for all the game-winning hits (he has something like 8 or 9 while the guy with the next most on the team has 3 or 4).  Soto because he's such a massive boost to the offense.  Look at this team.  We've got corner-outfielder type of production from a spot that's traditionally a lousy stick at best.  And his defense/arm is great, too.  It's such a huge bonus to have a catcher that can hit like that.

Jim:  They do need to find out what they have with Patterson, but, if he sucks like his brother they should bring up Murton and give him another shot.  He had some power in 2005.  I think he has the ability to hit home runs, he just hasn't gotten much of a shot since 2006.  He'll never have ideal corner outfielder power, but he's a competent major league hitter that they should use once they've exhausted the Patterson/Hoffpauir options. 

I put Marmol #1 on the MVP list, because I truly believe he is the MVP.  They would have probably, at least, 5 losses more at this point without him.  Maybe more, even much more.  He's been the definition of clutch.  And, I'd agree that Soto & Fuku would probably be next on the list just because the replacement drop off would be huge.  And, Fuku has been almost as clutch hitting as Marmol pitching. 

<insert weekend here>

MJ:  Nice road trip in Toronto.  Some thoughts:

• Nice game from Marquis on Saturday.  He's in one of his hot streaks where he's getting the ball down and thus buying himself another half-dozen turns in the rotation.  When he's on, he's on.  He's not striking people out, though, which means that this will never last.  We knew that, though.  But I'm not going to complain till he starts sucking again, and by my calculations he has 1 or 2 more good starts to go before bad Marquis rears his ugly head.
• Lilly was effectively wild for six scoreless innings today.  He either walked a guy or struck him out.  Nothing in between.  Gallagher on Friday wasn't horrible, he just had the one bad inning and the offense just failed repeatedly on their dozen chances.   Oh well.
• The reaction Reed Johnson in Toronto got just kills me.  Loud standing ovations, signs everywhere, ladies giving him the "Professor Indiana Jones in Raiders I love you" markings on the face (seriously).   He's pretty good.  Gives 100% on every play.  He had a few real nice seasons there.  But I can't fathom any current Cub leaving and getting that sort of response on his first trip back to Wrigley.  Not while he's is playing for another team.  The only guy I can think of that came even close to that reaction in the past 20 years is Mark Grace.  Maddux still gets an awful lot of respect, too, on his trips back after his second stint with the Cubs.  But I don't remember signs.  And those guys were Wrigley legends.  Maddux's first trip back in '93 wasn't very heartwarming.  He was booed mercilessly, and I even remember him hitting a foul ball in his first at-bat and having it thrown back on the field.  To quote Richard Gere, of all people, "That's Chicago!"
• Derrek Lee is taking walks again, and he's starting to get big hits, too.  Perfect timing with Soriano out.
• I hate how David Eckstein chokes up on his bat, and I hate Scott Rolen's squinty eyes.  Almost as much as I used to hate Jim Edmonds.  (He ain't so bad lately.)
• I like watching Matt Stairs homer.  The quintessential softball-league player looks like a fun guy to have a Molsen with.
• It was pretty cool watching the dome close during today's broadcast.  Watching the shadow creep across the field during the inning was like watching The Ten Commandments.  It was, perhaps not so oddly, like "night and day" between the top half and bottom half of the third inning.  Very cool.  We should have built a retractable dome for the Bears.  It's too late now, but it would have been so much more useful for the city.  We could have had a Super Bowl, a Final Four, you name it.  Now all we get is maybe a dozen NFL games per year and three or four of them are in craptastic conditions.  Yippee.

And that's it.  The Hall of Fame game today sounds interesting, even though it doesn't mean anything.  Cooperstown is a great place to visit.  If you have the means, I highly recommend taking a trip out there.  Till next time...