And as much work as the offense needs, the pitching is just as big of a question mark.
Since Hendry became the full-time GM before the 2003 season he has shown one glaring deficiency. His bullpen construction is always horrible.
He has one advantage this year in that he has his closer already set. But that’s about it.
He has one lefty reliever with actual success getting lefties out. Will Ohman held lefties to a .172 average last year. But he’s also had his arm stapled back together at least three times. So there’s that concern.
Michael Wuertz was the second most reliable reliever last year, but he cannot pitch back-to-back games. When he does, he walks pretty much everybody.
And that’s it. Then you get to the seedy underbelly of the Cubs’ bullpen, where the pants wetting Roberto Novoas and Todd Wellemeyers of the world live.
In a perfect world, the Cubs 24 year old starting pitching phenoms would pitch like it next year. There are injury fears with both of them. Mark Prior has been tremendous when healthy, but the tremendousness has been too seldom. Even last year when he came back from his broken arm and threw way too many pitches game after game after game, he was pretty good.
He finished the season with far more innings pitched than hits allowed, a three to one strikeout to walk ratio and a .227 opponent’s batting average. But if you watched the games, and we did, you couldn’t help but be troubled by his inability to finish hitters off early in the count. That was what had differentiated Prior from the other good pitchers. He could strike you out if he needed to, but would just as likely saw you off after a couple pitches and watch you ground out to shortstop. At his best he’s Greg Maddux with better stuff. But his inability to stay healthy (one of Maddux’s greatest abilities in his Hall of Fame career) has cost him too many starts and he wasn’t the same guy when he came back. Still hard to hit and hard to score on, but he wasn’t the same.
Nobody knows if the difference is permanent or not. It’s likely not, but nobody can say for sure. Chances are that if you got drilled in the arm by a line drive going somewhere in the neighborhood of 130 miles per hour, and if you got hit in the appendage with which you make your money that for a while you’d be reluctant to pitch to the fat part of the plate for a while. That’s Prior’s strength. The ability to throw a pitch you think you can hit hard, but you can’t hit hard. He wasn’t pitching that way when he came back. I’m not blaming him, I’m just pointing it out. He was still good, but he wasn’t Mark Prior. And the Cubs are going to need him to be that again.
The injury concern with Carlos isn’t one he has to recover from, it’s one he hasn’t had yet. We love to talk tough about Carlos because…it’s fun…he’s fun…and he’s really good. But while his pitching buddies Marky and Kerry have cuddled up to the DL many times the last two years, Carlos manages to hurt himself and come back. He gets forearm cramps. He shakes them off. He rolls into second base like a 270 pound tumbleweed and tears the nail off his big toe and he keeps pitching. He spends seven hours a day on the Internet and develops carpal tunnel and keeps on pitching. You’d like to think he’s impervious to injury, and even with pitchers the league around falling by the wayside, somebody’s got to stay healthy. Let’s just hope it’s Carlos.
The only pitcher in baseball with power from both sides of the plate. Maybe he’s the answer in right field?
Then there’s our favorite DL resident, Kerry Lee Wood. If the world had ended the night Kerry shoved the bats up the Braves’ asses in the 2003 NLDS games one and five, we’d all have had a different memory of Kerry. He was at his best then. And had been for two straight months. There’s no question, even now, that when he’s on he’s almost impossible to hit. But he followed up a shaky game three start in the NLCS with a disaster in game seven and it’s been downhill since.
The Cubs are convinced that they finally fixed what’s been wrong with him since early 2004. His labrum was stitched back on and now he’s going to be great again. It’s certainly a defensible argument. He was fine early in games last year, and they say a symptom of the kind of injury he had is an inability to pitch more than a couple innings before the pain flares up. He was ludicrously dominant as a reliever.
The Cubs point to the fact that Matt Morris had the same surgery after the 2004 season and he was fine in 2005.
I would point out that Morris’ 2005 numbers 15-10, 4.11 ERA were only slightly better than his 2004 numbers (14-10, 4.72 ERA) and that his inability to be more than nine games over .500 over two years, pitching for a team that went 206-118 is not the world’s best sign.
I’m not saying the surgery didn’t help Morris, but he’s a mere shell of the pitcher he was in 2001 and 2002.
And, you watch…he’s going to be a Cub.
There’s a lot to be decided in the upcoming months. If we know anything about the Cubs, they’ll get almost half of the decisions right.
This team you are talking about….where do they play? I thought there was only one team in Chicago, the one that plays in the beautiful Bridgeport neighborhood.
If speed was the #1 factor for centerfielders, then why was I such a horrible one?
“You could give Nomar your rightfield job, and play an outfield of Murton in left, somebody other than Corey Patterson in center and Nomar in right.”
I think Nomar could definitely play right if there were two of him out there.
Is that the collection of housing projects between the Loop and Gary, In?
You’re a good man, Dolan. And thorough.
Matt Morris in Cubs uniform.
Just kill me now and get it over with. I don’t need any more of this shit.
Replace Neifi with Nomar. Nomar could still get 450+ at bats (assuming groin does not fall off.) Play him at 3rd, Short, 2nd, Left, maybe Right, and DH AL games. Everybody gets a rest. They could even move Walker to first and Nomar to second, to give Lee a blow (infrequent I hope.) His little league experience makes him the emergency catcher. Hmm, the last reason for keeping the Gremlin evaporates (… and there was much rejoicing.)
Besides, this is the Cubs and someone will be injured. Pick up Walkers contract, play Cedeno at short (Nomar is also good insurance here), and please oh please get Giles. This way Baker could not really screw up the use of his utility player because Nomar is good.
I have no doubt that Nomar will be the Cubs’ starting LF in 2006.
With all the questions about what to do with the outfield and short stop, it still boils down to the rotation. I think all Cub fans collectively have been waiting for this pitching staff to be healthy for one complete season. I’m still scared at hell as to what will be assembled for a bullpen in 2006.
Would it be a bad idea to try and get Kenny Lofton back in CF?
With all the questions about what to do with the outfield and short stop, it still boils down to the rotation. I think all Cub fans collectively have been waiting for this pitching staff to be healthy for one complete season. I’m still scared at hell as to what will be assembled for a bullpen in 2006.
Would it be a bad idea to try and get Kenny Lofton back in CF or Jacque Jones?
Sorry about the double post.
I think everyone is missing the bigger picture here. I’ve noticed the refusal to even mention the Sox winning the world series, and thats fine I suppose this is a Cubs site, but if the Cubs continue to half ass their off season signings I dont think that Cubs fans will put up with this much longer now that the Sox beat them to the series and WON IT!!!!!! Maybe its just me, but them getting there and winning it first gave me a dose of reality that we talk about the same thing year in and year out and nothing ever changes. The Tribune Co. better do something fast or I think Wrigley will start looking like it did in the seventies (6,000 people at most games). Its the Tribune remember that started the whole lovable loser image and have marketed it to death. I dont remember hearing this prior to 1980. They market losing, Wrigley, the rooftops, have constantly added seats, make a mockery of the 7th inning stretch and lets not forget parading around the goat in the 80’s. Things have changed in Chicago, the Tribsters better wake up and put a good product on the field before we start to lose interest. I feel better!!
We sure showed a sense of urgency. It only took us 88 years to win it.
Didn’t I try to shed the Lovable Loser image with my “Building a New Tradition” slogan?
no mention of the white sox,
i love this site.
We also took the team to the postseason 4 times in 24 years, compared to once in the previous 53 years.
You do have a point, though. We don’t expect the Cubs fan to suppress their rage. That’s why–once the expansion seats are sold, and after Andy MacPhail gets publicly beaten and raped at the Cubs Convention, that we’ll have realzied that we’ve milked this baby as much as we can and sell them before Opening Day.
I think that the 2006 Cubs need a slogan:
Same bullshit, different package.
How about that one?
The Sox won the World Series? I did not realize they were playing it this year. Hmm, which Sox team won?
Uh, Tribco, a little perspective: for most of those previous 53 years, there were no NLCS or NLDS… more opportunities to get to the postseason…
A baseball team isn’t a used car, you don’t just put it on the market today and sell it tomorrow. Any sale is going to involve protracted negotiations (and likely a lot of wrangling over radio/TV rights) which means if the Cubs go up for sale, you can kiss 2006 goodbye, because there will be total paralysis in the front office until the new ownership takes over.
“If the world had ended the night Kerry shoved the bats up the Braves’ asses in the 2003 NLDS games one and five, we’d all have had a different memory of Kerry.”
Where exactly would we keep this memory?
Something just bit us on the ass. It may have been a winner. Quick, retreat to your foxholes and cower until it goes away.
Brave!
got salad?
if we traded for corey, the only one getting a bullet in the head would be me, from my own gun. is there any difference between him and our old corey? we used to call him ruben mateo. he was the best prospect in all of baseball and gammons said he would be a MVP within THREE years. how’d that work out for us? nice call pete. they even have the season ending injury after promising starts in common. anyway, i need to see ruben mateo part II like i need cancer. you self pitying cubs fans need to quit being so selfish. you aren’t the only ones that root for a miserable franchise. my rangers have won ONE playoff game EVER…think about that. at least you have prior and big Z. i hate my life. see you guys in march.
Are a nice addition to Desipio.
It’d also be nice if there was ONE White Sox fan that fit my description
Hey #25, what about me? Don Baylor compared Stinkbomb Patterson to me 3 years ago, and everyone laughed at the time.
By now, I think Cub fans would take Oddibe.
Since George Takei decided to come out today, I think I will too….
…it’s the right arm cradling papa’s neck, and the left arm holding his chest in.
I’ll see if I can get any more info about Dusty going bye-bye this weekend. I will be hanging with my “source” on Sunday. I’ll give her a good tongue-lashing if she was wrong.
Ooh, a tongue-lashing… I haven’t had one of those since I broke up with my last boyfriend.
Very interesting indeed…
The next time I’m right about a rumor will be the first time.
Someday we’ll give you guys a winner and your celebration of the TV ratings will be absolutely unprecedented. Dare to dream.
Why doesn’t anyone care about us? Why doesn’t everyone fixate on us the way we fixate on the Cubs?
Man we are popular, 2 days and already barely mentioned on the cover of ESPN.com
We didn’t even see ESPN.com. We were too busy getting the fuck out of Chicago.
We’re 3-7, does anybody still have hope for us?, no… didn’t think so.
I’m going to be hired by L.A. this week. Maybe I can trade for Corey who will insist I also pick up Dusty as his mentor/manager.
Desipio makes sense again, but alas who is listening to him. We stuck with Krusty again next year. Who the F…. gave him a four year contract?
thanks for the segue, #27. “Oddibe young again McDowell” was one of my finest nicknames….
oh the memories. I was good, backbackbackback before I became a parody of myself, wasn’t I?
play me or trade me.
Sox? The Red Sox won the World Series again?
Anybody want this Murton kid?
Bears fans be racist, ya’ll.
Can Andy ingest me soon today so he can write a witty dose?