After long years of suffering, two of Chicago’s suffering fan bases saw glimpses of light over the weekend.
The Bulls signed the best free agent available, and did it in a very un-Chicago kind of way. They backed up their, “We want you, and we’re going to be good,” talk with the only thing that matters, lots of money. For the low-low price of $60 million big ones, Ben Wallace and his enormous afro will scare the bejeezus out of people at the United Center for the next four seasons.
Meanwhile, the free-falling Cubs (is there any other kind) finally had their general manager say the words we’ve longed to hear. “Time to cut down on the pastries.”
No, wait, actually all he did was give the first real hint that Dusty Baker will get the axe in the next few days.
Signing Wallace probably doesn’t quite make the Bulls’ championship contenders, but it opens up an avenue for a second move that just might. Right now the rumors are that the Bulls will trade Tyson Chandler to the Hornets for what’s left of PJ Brown; young, inconsistent shooting guard JR Smith and anybody else the Hornets have who only goes by initials. Brown is still 6’11, still useful and has an expiring contract. Smith’s deal has a team option for 2007-08 so his salary goes off the books next season, too. Basically, you sign Ben Wallace and end up with cap space next offseason, too. That makes perfect sense.
But now, word is that the Bulls might eschew the cap space route and try to solve their power forward dilemma longer term. They were going to throw lots of cash at Sonics restricted forward Chris Wilcox if Wallace stayed in Detroit, and they still might. It would take a sign-and-trade to get it done, but if the Sonics have any interest in Tyson, that deal would get done.
For what it’s worth, Wallace’s agent (and JR Smith’s by the way), Arn Tellem says that he expects the Chandler to New Orleans trade to happen before week’s end.
So, let’s assume that happens. The Bulls go into 2006-07 with the following roster:
Guards – Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Chris Duhon, Eddie Basden, Thabo Sefolosha, JR Smith
Forwards – Luol Deng, Andres Nocioni, Mike Sweetney, Viktor Khryapa, Tyrus Thomas, PJ Brown
Centers – Ben Wallace, Malik Allen
That leaves one roster spot open for some young go-getter to win in training camp. Is that team good enough to challenge the Cavs, Pistons or Heat in the East? It’s hard to say yes, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you feel better if they could find just one more guy to score?
Would you feel better if they were somehow able to trade Chandler, Deng and Gordon to the Warriors for Jason Richardson and Mickael Pietrus?
I would. But you’d probably have to fly out to San Francisco and get Chris Mullin to fall off the wagon for that to happen. Not that it’s not worth a shot.
What signing Wallace does for the Bulls though, should not be underestimated. They already played great defense, but they couldn’t consistently turn stops into points for themselves. You could see how it should work on those nights when Tyson wasn’t in foul trouble (yes, those actually occurred) and when his back wasn’t bothering him. The defense would funnel people to him, he’d block shots and Hinrich or Gordon could leak out to start the break. The problem was that too often Tyson wasn’t in the middle to make that happen. The Bulls still were good at suffocating other team’s offenses, but they only accomplished half of the goal. With Big Ben swatting stuff around the middle and grabbing rebounds you expect to see a few more breaks and a few more easy buckets.
Plus, having Deng healthy for an entire offseason should help. His bum wrist cost him development time last offseason. The guy’s a talent, and that should come through more this season. Wallace’s presence allows for a longer leash on Gordon, too. He still needs to play better defense, but some of his mistakes will get cleaned up, meaning more minutes for him and more points for the Bulls.
As for Hinrich, the Bulls already addressed his biggest problem. By drafting Thabo, the Bulls hope to have a 6’6 guard they can actually use (unlike Basden), which will mean fewer minutes where Hinrich is guarding bigger, stronger two guards.
And, by teaming Wallace up with Nocioni, you guarantee that the Bulls will lead the league in awkward punches thrown by frustrated opponents. That’s always a plus.
So take a moment to relish what John Paxson has done in a short time as Bulls’ GM. When Chandler leaves, every last remnant of the Jerry Krause years will be off the roster. The Bulls are a 50-55 win team again, they’ve got a deep, talented roster, a coach that seems to have a clue, and people associate the team more with the six-title teams than they do the hideous years from 1999-2000 to 2003-2004. That’s a lot, in a short amount of time.
Speaking of general managers with an idea of how to build a roster, let’s address the comments of one who doesn’t. Yesterday, Jim Hendry finally gave some indication that the end is near for Dusty Baker and his brainless coaching staff.
Hendry couldn’t bring himself to come out and say it, but he said he would use the All-Star Break (starts next Monday) to decide if major changes need to be made.
Why would you want to break up the coaching staff and nucleus of a finely tuned machine that is currently two full games ahead of surging Pissburgh for sixth place, and is only 23 games under .500? Hey, the Cubs are only 15.5 games out of first. One hot streak, say, a 37 game win streak or something and they’re right back in this thing.
You need to pause for a moment to figure out just how lousy the Cubs have to be to be 30-53 on the season.
The NL Central hasn’t been this bad since…well, Dusty’s first year, 2003. The Cardinals can’t pitch, the Astros get to .500 and then reject it like an incompatibly transplanted liver, the Brewers are still in it for chrissakes and they’re lousy. The National League is so bad that the AL just got done using it for a snot rag in interleague play, and here are the Cubs, with a $100 million payroll, sitting there with five fewer wins than the Florida Marlins, and their $16 million payroll. Nah, you don’t need major changes. Maybe it’s time to trade for Matt Lawton again?
What seems obvious now, is something that should have been obvious to Hendry two months ago, and something that a perceptive GM would have figured out this time last year. Dusty’s reign is over. Even if you let him sit in the dugout wearing those ridiculous wrist bands and chewing on a toothpick like a Downs Syndrome kid with a lollipop, it’s over. The Cubs lost what faith they had in him during the collapse in the final week of 2004, when he preoccupied himself with the announcers instead of winning the four little games they needed to get back to the playoffs.
A lot of this mess is Hendry’s fault. He handed out two-year contracts in the offseason to guys few other teams would have employed for one. He bungled the very public Rafael Furcal negotiations, he made too public the talks–that went nowhere–for Miguel Tejada and he panicked and gave an extra year to Jock Jones, who would have signed for one year, much less three, just to avoid playing in Kansas City.
But the biggest failing was his stubborn refusal to sign a veteran starting pitcher, instead foolishly pinning the Cubs hopes to the tattered arms of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood. The only starting pitcher he signed was Wade Miller, one of the few humans less healthy than Prior and Wood.
This does not absolve Baker. If he’s such a great players’ manager, why don’t his players ever learn from their mistakes? Why can’t Matt Murton catch a flyball? Why can’t Jock Jones throw the ball 50 feet in the air to a cutoff man? Why did it take Juan Pierre two months to figure out that he was letting the ball get in on him too far before he made contact? Why did Todd Walker change positions when Derrek Lee got hurt, instead of Michael Barrett? Wouldn’t the Cubs have been better off with their best defensive catcher playing every day and batting eighth, than with Neifi batting second?
What’s ironic is that what could be the final nail in Dusty’s Cubs’ coffin is something that doesn’t exist. The timing couldn’t have been worse for Dusty. The Cubs went into another free fall, had a gut-wrenching Saturday loss to the White Sox and Corey Patterson and his respectable batting average came to town to play the Sox two days later. Now all the talk is, “Why couldn’t Dusty get THIS out of Corey?” On Friday, I looked at Corey’s numbers and found that THIS is exactly what Dusty got out of him, but for all of our supposed enlightenment into what baseball numbers are really important, batting average (that inadequate, ill-perceived tool) still impresses the masses.
Corey’s still swinging at crap, still striking out too much and still refusing to walk. Dusty will be absolved before the season ends, but he’ll be sitting in his living room in Sacramento when it happens.
But that’s a good place for him. Hiring Dusty in the offseason between 2002 and 2003 wasn’t a bad move. He was the best manager available, and the club he was given had lots of veterans on it and that suited his style. What we learned is that his style was to take all the heat and win with a team of veterans who didn’t really need to be managed. It’s no surprise that the team took off when Kenny Lofton came in to play center. He led off, he stole when wanted to and that was one less part of the game for Dusty to manage. Dusty even took the bullpen handling out of the game by just riding his starting pitchers until they broke. It nearly paid off with a World Series trip. That would have been worth it. But that didn’t happen. So this became inevitable.
Someday soon, probably Wednesday, July 13–the day after the All-Star Game–Dusty and his staff will get sent packing.
What happens next is more important than that obvious move. Unless Hendry hires an obvious interim manager (anybody have Jim Essian’s cell number?), this is the last manager he’ll hire for the Cubs. It’d better be a good one.
The names are already flying:
Lou Piniella — He’s like Dusty, only paler. He’d be better for the young position players, but murder on the pitchers. There’s a mess to clean up here, and Lou doesn’t have the patience to do it.
Jimy Williams — Are you kidding me? We all knew at the time that if the Astros would just keep him around the 2004 Cubs would have gone back to the playoffs. Instead, they fired him, started winning and beat up on the Cubs so many times in the second half that the Cubs finished third instead of second in the Wild Card race.
Tom Kelly — Todd Walker would love it. Kelly and he hated each other so much in Minnesota that it’s a surprise Todd never tried to shove Tom’s head through the dugout water cooler. Kelly’s a good manager, but he was much better with veterans than with young players. Of course, the Cubs never seem willing to go young, so maybe this would work.
Bob Brenly — He’s probably best suited for the job he has. We’ve grown to like him, so why ruin it by forcing us to hate him?
Freddi Gonzalez — He’s the Braves third base coach, and got an interview during the Dusty search (so did Ken Macha). Bobby Cox has come to Freddi’s defense every time he gets passed over, telling teams they’re missing out on a good one by not hiring him. Personally, I, too, would be reluctant to hire someone who can’t spell Freddy.
Phil Rogers wrote a column touting White Sox AAA manager Razor Shines, and if the search goes into the offseason you’ll hear names like Larry Bowa and Tony Pena thrown around, too. Somebody even suggested Gene Lamont for chrissakes.
Whoever it is has to be able to master the things Dusty hasn’t. He has to be able to make out a lineup where the good players get more at bats than the bad ones. He has to be able to not only understand the damage to his pitching that walks can do, but also understand the benefit walks can provide his offense. He needs to spend more time teaching players things they demonstrate they don’t understand and less time lamenting to the media that the players don’t understand them.
He also needs to grasp that a 24 year old with a .268 average and .337 on base percentage needs more at bats than a 35 year old with a .247 average and .307 on base, especially when the 35 year old plays the outfield like he’s trapped under a bulldozer.
But if you get a chance, read Phil Rogers’ column. For him, it’s positively lucid. Though he throws Michael Barrett under the bus for his defense more than even I ever have. I think Barrett’s a useful player because he can hit and knows enough to make pitchers throw strikes. Phil reacted to Michael’s passed ball, turned throwing error two run screw up yesterday like he found Michael screwing his wife in the driveway.
Regardless, all signs point to less Dusty in a week’s time. But if Dusty survives next week, be afraid. Be very afraid.
1. Eat Bearclaws
2. Eat Bearclaws
3. Sign Dusty through 2009
4. Eat Bearclaws
5. Buy Bearclaws
Hendry-Pastry-Donut jokes.
Don’t forget about me, #1.
And fuck you, #2. Until that fat bastard gets on the treadmill, drops a couple hundo elbows and stops getting beat like a drum at his job, these jokes will never get tried.
I am old and senile, so don’t yell at me. What about an interim player manager? For instance, Greg Maddux. He has baseball sense. Other players listen to him. I have seen him take himself out of baseball games when he didn’t have it. What would it hurt to have him try to run the team. It couldn’t get any worse and it would at least be interesting.
10-1 you guys couldn’t name the last player-manager in mlb.
D’OH!
Chandler for Troy Murphy and Pietrus is there if Paxson wants it. The Bulls wouldn’t get Jason Richardson, but they wouldn’t have to part with Gordon and Deng either.
Also, a big plate of cat poop is there if Paxson wants it. Just sayin’.
What bears mentioning is that Hinrich, Gordon, Deng, Noc, Duhon and Sweetney are all well short of their respective primes. That step forward offensively should be enough to improve quite a bit.
It won’t put them in the top ten of offensive efficiency (they were 23rd last year), but the defensive jump alone (replacing Sweetney with Wallace, replacing Chandler with Brown, adding Thomas and Tha-bo) should be enough to vault them from 6th to 1st in defensive efficiency. They were 2nd in 2004-05. The 6th-to-1st jump will be enough for around 53 wins. Any offensive jump will be gravy, and a few wins on top of that.
I’m a bad ass, I make fun of everyone else’s jokes and posts. All behind a clever name that gives away nothing of my identity. Man, this makes me feel so much better. I’m going to go and berate my employees, wack down a six pack and beat my wife now.
Ummm…Bill Russell? Hank Aaron? What was the question again?
Screw you #2. I never get old.
I am not poop! Sacre bleu!
How can Pax not trade for Murphy? He’s Irish, he went to Notre Dame, he’s averaged at least 10 boards three times in four years and he turns bright pink when he runs. Seems like a natch thing to do.
Besides, if you get Pietrus in the deal it gives you another language for Skiles to be sworn at in.
Tell Chandler there’s only room for one mack daddy in the Oh Kay See.
And Hendry, man, that’s the worst mistake a pimp can make…. marrying one of your hoes. Now that it’s beginning to look like, at long f’n last, Hendry might be getting about ready to kick said ho to the curb once and for all, there really is only one reasonable course of action.
Fire Dusty. Have that fire sale you’ve been trying to convince yourself through the media that you’re not willing to do, and isn’t needed (because you know damn well, deep down, that it IS needed,) get Quade up here asap with a rock-solid promise that unlike Kimm, his desk will be waiting for him in Iowa after this season mercifully ends, then….
…fly down to Miami and lock yourself in a room with Loria and Girardi. Bring as many eclairs, long johns and fritters as you think you’ll need, but swallow the damned key (triple-dip it in chocolate if need be) until Joe f’n Girardi is the new manager of the Chicago Cubs.
For fuck’s sake, Donuts, you’ve got $100MM or so with which to do… uh… whatever it is you do. Theoretically you’re under budget. God knows you’re going to be itching to do one of your patented fruitless, uninspired deadline deals. Make it count this time. Loria can be bought. Girardi would come here. And stay. Give Loria whatever the hell he wants and GET GIRARDI HERE.
Enough is enough. There’s absolutely no reason for Girardi not to be the next manager of the Cubs. It’s a match made in heaven. Anything less is just yet another Band Aid. If Girardi fails, he fails. Nothing we haven’t seen over and over. And over. And over again. But failing with Girardi is a hell of a lot better than failing with Piniella. Or Kelly. Or, God forbid, Jimy or Fredi.
Firing that charlatan Baker releases many endorphins and makes me happy for a short while.
But then I come back to the cold, discomforting reality which says that the problems with this franchise run deeper than the fraud in the dugout and that nothing that happens in the future will be cause for optimism unless it is done by people not named Jim Hendry and Andy MacPhail.
I’m hoping this club continues to suck and those two bozos are dumped in October.
I guess I agree with #12, Alabaster. I honestly didn’t write that. I wish I had.
Why on earth would I want to come to the Cubs? Are you kidding me? Any talent they have, and that’s a stretch, will be traded here anyway. Plus we will win a World Series here well before the Cubs even sniff the playoffs again.
Mike, calling those two bozos is an insult to bozos everywhere…
If Joe Girardi comes here, I’m not shaving my goatee. @#$% that.
Of all the names mentioned in the papers and on the radio, I’d like to see Lloyd McClendon. I think he would bring the right energy and certainly knows how to play younger players.
You all do know that it was a wild pitch, not a passed ball, and an error on Prior, not me. Right?
Hola…. Soy Dominicano!
“You certainly want to give us a chance to see if we can make a run here before the break,” Hendry said about the five games left before the All-Star Game. “See if we can do well the rest of the week.”
So if the Cubs go 0-5 in the next couple games I fire Dusty, but if they go, say 3-2 then consider this warning I will offer him an extension, 12 years at $28 million per.
Over the past few years, Pax and Skiles have had the luxury of being able to build the core of a hard-working young team without any scrutiny. Last season, it didn’t matter to either them or any of the other teams in the league if they finished with a better or worse WL record than the previous year, the entire nature of the team was a work in progress.
Now, by drafting a defensive PF and SG and now effectively swapping Tyson for Big Ben, PJ Brown and JR Smith, the Bulls are immediately a target. A traget for scrutiny, as much as for praise.
Last season, the league saw the start of a renewed era – teams like Steve Nash’s Suns and Chris Paul’s Hornets were suddenly unbeatable despite eshewing the traditional core of a dedicated, defensive system frist, and an offensive structure second.
Now, the Bulls have nailed their future to that of a 31-year old offensive vacuum in the hope of improving a defense that was already among the L’s elite.
It’s an interesting strategy – if all your competitors are focussing on offense, what do you do? You either follow the pack and try and out-Phoenix Phoenix, or do you realise that now’s the ideal time to make defense a strategic advantage.
Interesting times indeed.
Did ya hear the one about a cruller and Jerry K’s love for Tim Floyd?
The New Orleans/OK City Hornets weren’t a part of us.
What #24 is trying to say is, we are/were far from unbeatable.
Apparently someone saw Krause at an Iowa Cubs game tonight. No joke.
HendryKrauseDonutgate … it’s growing.
pinella, williams, kelly, brenly, gonzalez, essian… they’ll all wrong for this team. There is no single person that can coach the Cubs. It hasn’t worked for the last hundred years or so. So let’s go Bill Veeck-style and give the fans Yes and No cards. Doris the usher can count the votes and away we go.
I hired Bill Veeck’s daddy to run my team.
He had been a sportswriter. He criticized our team so much, I asked him “Why don’t you try to see if you can do better?”
He took the offer and built a perennial contender. To date, the franchsie has never seen this success reappear.
So maybe it’s time to consider going this route again.
It’s too bad Tribune’s own sportswriters suck ostrich eggs and wouldn’t know modern baseball from a hole in the ground. Still, maybe your team could hire Bruce Miles.
Yeah, well I hated the Veecks, so I ushered them out the door. I was so awesome. Did anyone like my College of Coaches idea?
Ummmm….bonjour? Une personne est-il ici ? Je suis un bon joueur !
#22 – The Bears were 2nd in NFL Defense this year.
What did they draft for in the first four rounds?
Offense? Nah.
Smashmouth Chicago Sports – I Love This Game!
Sad but true
I’m sick of the donuts jokes. I’m trying to run a baseball team here and I have more on my plate than just donuts. I don’t just wonder about what’s the best assortment for a dozen donuts. I’ve got coaching and player decisions to make. Do I keep Jelly Baker or eat his contract? Should I trade Glazed Maddux for some minor league pastries? Is Krispy Kreme Wood ever coming back? Dozens and dozens of donuts to eat I mean decisions to make. So lay off the donuts jokes.
Dusty and Hendry had a meeting about Dusty’s future and Dusty’s “optimistic.” I imagine that means he’s optimistic he won’t have to watch the friggin’ Cubs every day anymore.
“He also needs to grasp that a 24 year old with a .268 average and .337 on base percentage needs more at bats than a 35 year old with a .247 average and .307 on base, especially when the 35 year old plays the outfield like he’s trapped under a bulldozer.”
Andy, you’re a great fella.
I should get updated once in a god**** while
All this talk of my buddy Phil at the Chicago Mouthpiece, you forgot to mention my Ben Wallace column in the same day’s paper, titled “Gritty wallace the answer to Bulls’ manhunt.”. My favorite line that I wrote while I was slapping the piece of shit together 15 minutes before deadline was: “You know what Bulls players should say every time Wallace walks into the locker room?
Papa’s home.
It’s time for them to do their chores. No more letdowns. No more disappearing acts against inferior opponents. No more worrying about who’s starting and who’s taking the shots.”
Anyways, OUTSTANDING article Andy. You should be the one writing for the big city newspaper, and I should be quickly added to the Trib’s long list of talentless, windbag idiots that need to be unemployed.
I made myself giggle after pulling up the pair of columns Morrissey cobbled together before the NBA Draft, both begging John Paxson to draft Adam Morrison.
I hit CTRL-F, typed in “Luol,” then “Deng,” then “Nocioni,” and none of the names came up. That was all I needed to know, and went back to surfing for porn.
Well Dusty, maybe you’ll have more time to work on your blog soon.