FireDavidHaugh: Summer Solstice Edition (Part II)

There's some event and media, entertainers and others from out of town come to town.  Being in Chicago there's a pretty set list of things they talk about.   Usually there's some talk of deep dish pizza.  Some will reference the Blues Brothers or Superfans.  You'll also get the occasional talk of an Italian Beef or Oprah.  It's repetitive and unoriginal, but they're from out of town and they mean well so its all right.

Then you get a local writer from a major newspaper writing about the Cubs and Sox.  His metaphor, his example, his "angle": The unpredictable Chicago weather!  Yep, that wacky weather-- it rains one minute and is sunny the next.  Who can keep up with it?

But here's The Beta Band.  Dry The Rain.  (I can be clever too).  Article after the song.

Sox, Cubs as predictable as weather

By David Haugh

June 21, 2010

On the first day of summer Monday in Chicago, it rained. It shined. It perfectly reflected the city's two baseball teams that had the day off.

Rained and shined.  The perfect dichotomy this side of Fire & Ice.

Stormy. Mild. Hot. Cold. At least we care about baseball's temperature again around here.

But whose baseball Doppler predicted in April, for instance, that 68 games into the season Gordon Beckham would be hitting .205 andFreddy Garcia and Carlos Silva would lead their respective teams in wins with eight? Or that the Sox team stuck nine games under .500 and 9½ games behind the Twins on June 9 could win 10 of its next 11 to become 34-34?

Who could predict that teams go on streaks?  Or who could've made the bold prediction that 68 games into the season the Sox would be an Earth shattering 34-34? 

Consistency has been so intermittent with the Sox that Tom Skilling could have sat in the booth between Steve Stone and Hawk Harrelson and not missed the rapidly changing pressure patterns he's used to seeing. 

Intermittent consistency-- that sounds like a .500 record.  I also have no idea what the Tom Skilling pressure pattern part is about or whether Skilling is watching the Sox or the weather itself.  (Note to self: Think about working on Hawk-doing-the-weather impersonation)

(Second note to self:  don't let anyone hear it.)

So then there's some more paragraphs where I stay on my Sox being a .500 team bit.

Besides the 2005 World Series, can anybody recall a 12-game stretch of starting pitching as dominant? By the way, pitching coach Don Cooper makes every Chicago sports fan's list of the top-five assistant coaches of the past 25 years, doesn't he?

I didn't realize every Chicago sports fan had a list of top assistant coaches.  I just have a list of assistants to fire in case the team is doing bad.  Sure he can be on the list.  But Phil Jackson was an assistant, he'd be #1.  I always like Ron Adams too.  Dick Pole shouldn't be on the list, but I like his name.  How about Ron Turner for one year?  Ok, this game bores me.  He can be on the list if you want.

Perception is reality, and while Reinsdorf was showing signs of corporate leadership Cubs counterpart Tom Ricketts was showing, well, new signs at the ballpark. While Reinsdorf was getting credit for using his noodle to resolve a crisis, Ricketts was introducing noodle art to the Wrigley Field landscape.

If only there were someone in the city to tell us the difference between perception and reality.  Some sort of scribe who could enlighten the people who only see the media hype.  Isn't Reinsdorf notorious for being cheap?  Ricketts is trying to get as much money as he can to possibly (I hope) add onto a bloated Cubs payroll.  Jerry told his manager and GM to play nice.  

Just checking, this is unacceptable baseball for an organization with a $136 million payroll, right?

Its really unacceptable for any team at any payroll.  However, its not totally a surprise, since they played about this badly last year.

Yes, despite an underachieving 31-38 record and defense worse than the North Korean World Cup soccer team, the Cubs still could rip off a Sox-like streak to get back in contention by the July 31 trade deadline. Snow also could fall in Chicago by then.

Maybe Skilling sees a different extended forecast for the North Side. Meanwhile, I'll start researching connections between Cubs' futility and global warming.

Time to wrap it up with the weather again (and a soccer reference!).  The Cubs could actually be .500 team!  Wow, I'm excited for the season now.  Wait, there's that snow part.  You don't think the Cubs could rage back and have 10 straight days of good baseball.  Fair enough.  

And stop name dropping Tom Skilling.  We know who he is. 

The point of this article: The Sox are back to .500, therefore a far superior team (and organization) to the Cubs.  Simply because of the last 10 games.  Who'll stop the rain (more cleverness).

Don't Call It A Comeback

I've been gone for a while-- climbed some mountains, found myself, wrote a song about it, had surgery and spent too many hours creating my own Stanley Cup champion on NHL 2k10 (Kaner!!!).  In the process, I've neglected you loyal reader.  For that I am deeply sorry.  Hopefully I can make it up to you.  I'll buy you a beer- or just try to write more.

There was a lot of Stanley Cup bad writing- and I'll get to that in due time.  There's also more bad thoughts I'm gonna go after in the next few days:  Dr Phil commenting on Lebron James, the Bears beat writers writing about how incredible the Bears are, former Bear Muhsin Muhammad talking about how easy Mike Martz' million+ play offense is, and much, much more.  Oh, there was Lou Piniella throwing a fit over criticism Steve Stone made of him-- then (the next day) doing what Stone suggested. (Don't think I'll need to write on that one.  It takes care of itself).  So get ready for this and much, much, much more.  (Much more)

I don't want to make the reset entry too long so I'll make this one a quick one:

Let's pretend you have 2 catchers:  Catcher #1 is hitting .268 with an on-base percentage over .400.  He's hit for a little power (7 hrs).  He's two years removed from being an All-star.

Catcher #2 is hitting .236 and doesn't walk too much.  He has also hit 0 (zero) home runs for the year.

Add in the fact that your team hasn't hit all year and is desperately trying to score runs.  Knowing this (as balanced as I've made it), which catcher would you start?

If you said Catcher  #2-- Congratulations!  You can be the manager of the Chicago Cubs.  Lou Piniella, through a season of odd choices spanning from moving Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen to not getting an up & coming prospect more playing time, has made another odd choice of starting Koyie Hill over Geovany Soto.  Here's a Daily Herald story on it. 

Here's Lou's quote: I'm probably going to put Hill behind the plate, too. We're not scoring any runs. We need somebody that keeps the other team from running. We'll do that tomorrow and see what happens. I know these guys are trying. I know they're trying. But, boy, I tell you what, we see the same thing every day, day in and day out.


So you're not hitting, not scoring runs so the logical solution is to get a worse hitter as many at-bats as possible.  I still can't even understand it.  Really, I can't.  I haven't seen any stellar defense out of Koyie Hill.  All I know is that he's a pretty consistent out and a pretty consistent bad at-bat.  


Have I not done this justice?  Go here to fangraphs.com article on this.  Its called Piniella is losing his marbles.  That sums it up nicely.  


From the story: 
The reason, of course, is the old manager crutch: handling pitchers. Since Hill can’t hit, he’s earned the reputation as a good defender. 


For some reason, I hadn't thought about that before.  I'm surprised I haven't-- but its a simple idea.  A guy can't hit, therefore, he must be in the league for some reason.  That reason must be he's a great defensive catcher.  So simple and so wrong and such a bad sports thought. 


Well, its good to be back.  I'll be back with more cutting & pasting & snarkiness & everything that the reader would like.   Here's some The Mountain Goats

Phil Rogers Time

I need to post more, but here's entry #2 from the Tribune's Phil Rogers. Here he talks about formers Cubs managers managing on other teams. For a while, the Cubs were the last stop for managers until Dusty Baker joined the Reds and Jim Riggleman joined the Nationals.

Long-departed manager getting second shot with Nationals
...

Riggleman points to the improvement of the Cubs' franchise for helping the standing of those who have worked there.

The premise of Riggleman getting a chance now is the Cubs being good now. Apparently the Cubs are now a prestigious enough organization that a downtrodden manager can finally find a job with the worst team in baseball. It also has nothing to do with any of the former managers' abilities apparently.

Riggleman, 57, oversaw one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the franchise's history, winning a one-game playoff over the Giants for a wild-card spot into the '98 playoffs one year after a 68-94 season. He was fired after injuries to Kerry Wood and Kevin Tapani contributed to a 95-loss season in '99 and waited almost 10 years to get another chance to manage.

The Cubs did have a resurgent year. Not mentioned here is the breakout out year of the magically more muscular Sammy Sosa. Medicine and the hop helped propel the Cubs to the turn around.

There is also an inference that injuries were the reason Riggleman didn't get a job until last season (Wood and Tapani Out = 10 years of no being a manager). I don't recall a healthy Kevin Tapani being good enough to be the difference between a playoff and a 95 loss team.

Riggleman, whose team is 3-12 this spring, is looking forward to the chance to manage at Wrigley Field again. He knows this is a critical season for Piniella, who is trying to rebuild the mojo the Cubs seemed to have before being swept in the first round of the playoffs in '07 and '08.

Thanks for the spring training record- it really helps establish Riggleman's abilities as a manager. We all remember the spring training record of the Yankees last year, right?

And the real problem with the '09 Cubs was mojo. I had been thinking it was Soriano hitting in the low .200s and Milton Bradley getting off to a bad start and Geo Soto being overweight and bad and not having a major league caliber replacement for the hurt Ramirez and Kevin Gregg blowing saves.

I was watching the wrong team this whole time. They just needed their mojo back. Yeah baby. Unless the Austin Powers reference is too dated. I personally like "How Piniella Got His Groove Back" a little more.

He [Riggleman] believes the negativity of fans takes on a life of its own.

"It's tangible,'' he said. "It's a tangible feeling. In '99, when things started to go bad, it was tangible. We got the feeling, ‘Oh, God, we're not going to turn this around.' "

Why not end the article blaming the fans. I mean, the booing must be worth about 20 losses according to my advanced algorithm. That would've possibly made the Cubs a playoff team and saved Riggleman's job. But time was not so kind.

Don't worry- Riggleman isn't going to be able to hear the collective booing of the dozen fans in DC.