If you want to summarize just how desperate the Cubs are for bullpen help right now, I can do it in two bloated words, “Danny Graves.” You may remember him from last year when Ron Santo made fun of how fat he’d gotten, which prompted legendary redass Marty Brennaman to try and pick a fight with Santo to defend Danny’s portly honor. I would have loved to have seen Santo lay out Marty and then respond with, “Just think how much worse this ass kicking would have been if I still had my legs!” Instead, Santo apologized to Graves, who showed he had a sense of humor by autographing a box of Krispy Kremes for Ron. Ron never said how many doughnuts were in the box. Judging by Danny, I’d say, none.
The Reds waived Graves yesterday after he pulled the daily double of first giving up five runs in an inning, then flipping off the one fan who was still at the game. Nice work.
On the Comcast postgame show last night, Dan Plesac laughed in Luke Stuckmeyer’s face. But who hasn’t? Oh, wait, I meant to keep going, Dan Plesac laughed in Luke Stuckmeyer’s face at the suggestion that the Cubs go after Graves.
Plesac threw out some stats, all of which could handily be summarized as, “Danny Graves sucks.” When the Reds don’t think you can pitch, well, it’s over.
In the media this morning there’s a suggestion that the Cubs could “fix” Graves, given Larry Rothschild’s talents as a pitching coach. Let’s just say those talents have taken a thrashing recently. But, Larry had a comfy seat in the dugout last night as a guy he really did “fix”, Glendon Rusch, made the Astros look like…well, uh…the Astros. Eight innings of pure and utter domination from The G-Unit. He gave up a homer to Brad Ausmus (why is it that crappy catchers just torch the Cubs?), and that was about it.
Glendon worked fast, threw strikes and got outs. It looks so easy when somebody actually does it.
The Astros are so hellaciously inept on the road that the one run they scored tied their season high for runs in road games!
That’s incredible!
Yeah, I just made that up. But they are pretty lousy on the road, as their 2-20 road record indicates.
Two and twenty? Holy crap. We’re Cubs’ fans. We’ve seen some hilariously lousy teams and none of them ever went 2-20 on the road. Wow. That Phil Garner, he’s a keeper! Time to do some more greenies, Phil.
All nine of you who watched Bob Costas’ HBO show last week got that joke. Everybody else has already gone over to Ivy Chat.
Anyway, back to the Danny Graves prattle. Why would anybody, much less the Cubs, have serious interest in this guy? Let’s look at his 2005 numbers. They’re disturbing.
He has struck out eight guys in 18.1 innings. He’s walked 12. Woof.
The league is hitting .357 off of him. Somebody should take a .357 to his career.
His ERA is more than a touchdown (7.36).
His WHIP is over TWO!
He’s 10 for 12 in save chances. That’s nice. It’s also complete crap. This week he’s 1-1 in save chances, but… his ERA is 30.38 (yes, thirty point thirty-eight), the league is batting .588 off of him and his WHIP is over four. You have got to be kidding me. Chad Fox could do better than this right now. Even without an elbow ligament. Just back away slowly. Don’t make eye contact. And run!
If I were the Cubs, I’d put Graves’ stats in LaTroy’s locker just to make him feel better.
Of more interest is the fact that just two days before they launched Graves, the Red waived D’Angelo Jimenez. Sure, he’s had his problems, and he apparently told the Reds he didn’t want to come off the bench, but he’d be a serious upgrade over both Jose Macias and Enrique Wilson.
He was off to a lousy start in 2005, but you only have to turn the calendar back a few months to when he was last productive, unlike Graves who needs you to get in a time machine.
Last year, Jimenez hit .270 with a .364 on base average and hit 12 homers with 67 RBI in 152 games. In his career he’s played second, third and short. He may have bristled at the idea of coming off the bench for the Reds, but isn’t Dusty’s strength supposed to be his ability to keep his bench happy? Ben Grieve’s so happy he still refuses to swing at pitches. Jose Macias is happy because he somehow sneaks into almost every game. So give D’Angelo a shot. All you have to do is wait until he clears waivers, cut whichever bum is left on the bench (Macias or Enrique, or most likely both) and see what happens.
D’Angelo’s been through this before. The White Sox tried to sneak him back to AAA in 2003 when he was out of options and the Reds grabbed him. What have you got to lose? Other than more games, of course.
Bruce Levine reported yesterday that the Cubs were close “in the next day or two” to making a “significant” trade that he suggested would include an outfielder and a middle reliever for a Cubs outfielder, a pitcher and two prospects.
Immediate speculation was that the Cubs were going to trade for Tampa Bay’s Aubrey Huff and Danys Baez. I’m no fan of folk music, so I don’t care about Baez, but getting Huff would be nice. He’s off to a typically slow start, but he can rake.
The past three years he’s hit 41 points higher after the All-Star Break (.327 to .286) and both his on base average (.378 to .349) and slugging percentage (.566 to .480) go up as well.
With all the shuffling going on in Cincinnati there’s also speculation that Austin Kearns and Graves are targets. In Gene Wojciecowski’s very good book “Cubs Nation” Jim Hendry openly pines for Kearns in one of the final chapters. As Kearns homers off the foul pole to tie one of those hellacious 2-1 12 inning losses, Hendry says, “That’s the best player having the worst year…”
I tend to agree. Kearns is 25 years old and just oozes talent. Really, it’s kind of sticky. Sometimes he’ll have gum wrappers clinging to his jersey. I’m not sure why the Reds can’t find a spot for him to play every day (all they’d have to do is trade Sean Casey while eating part of his contract, move Adam Dunn to first and play Kearns in the outfield—oh, wait, I said “eating part of his contract—that’s why). But instead they’re going to trade Kearns. Which in the long run will be stupid, which is why I want to see the Cubs get him before the damn Braves do.
But since it was a Bruce Levine trade rumor, it’s wrong, so nothing will actually happen.
Oh, well.
I’m not saying, I’m just saying, but the Twins are considering trading either Lew Ford or Shannon Stewart, and it looks like Mike Cameron is on the outs in New York finally.
Oh, and Oakland is dangling crazy Eric Byrnes again.
All I know is this. The Cardinals are not good enough to run away with the division this year, unless nobody does anything to get better. The Cubs have the potential to make it a race if they’ll upgrade their talent on offense. It could be as little as adding one hitter, or it might take two, but if the Cubs just sit around waiting for Nomar to get healthy it’s going to be a lost season. They cannot catch St. Louis with what they have, but they’ve got the resources to go out and get themselves right back in it. It’s up to them to actually do it.
As for the Cardinals, has anybody else noticed that David Eckstein has made SEVEN errors in his last 10 games?
Who does he think he is, the Jewish Chuck Knoblauch?
Good Dose.
Does anyone else think that Denny Graves looks like a girl?
I was ripping CP yesterday, and I stand by it. But it does look like he’ll be entering his all-too-familiar “hitting” thingies. He was raking last night. Expect big things for the next month and then, well you know, bad.
He should also stop this getting WORSE thing as an outfielder. Sunday he tried catching a ball with a closed glove. Last night, he ran into Burnitz like one of those 1950’s NFL’ers who would run right into the goal line-situated goalposts. Ouch.
How many people really missed Chip last night? Come on, the Astros started a guy named Wandy and there wasn’t (as far as I heard) one Magic Wandy reference. Chippy could have beaten that thing into the ground for about an hour.
And I’d say Danny’s breasts give him a female look.
I didn’t miss Chip, but thought he was back in the booth as Len went on for 4 innings about ear candles. Wtf??
Hey, fuck you guys.
Minnesota’s bullpen is currently sporting an ERA of 2.56. That’s sick! For Jesse Crain and Lew Ford they can have whichever outfielder and reliever they want off the Cubs. They can have Angel Guzman’s elbow ligament too.
It was a decent try, Mr. Dolan, but David Eckstein is not me. Nor is another player with a Jewish-sounding name, Jon Lieber. The only player making millions of dollars that IS me…is something of an embarassment in the fence-straddling Shawn Green.
I’m not making millions yet, but I’m also Jewish.
My dad was also a sportswriter. That’s funny because Mariotti’s kid will probably grow up work in a Krispy Kreme.
I believe I was the last Jewish Cub. No, actually it was Andrew Lorraine. Eckstein isn’t. There is a rabbi in Chicago named Chuck Knoblauch, who is Jewish, but the baseball player is not, either. On the field tonight, Brad Ausmus is.
You may not know it, buddies, but I shortened my name when I came to America.
Mazel tov, buddy.
Hey, we should all be so lucky to have a son work at Krispy Kreme.
Ahh, yes. Best let me play 2b a little longer, Dusty. I’m such a defensive upgrade, after all.
If there is still a team that will take on my rotting corpse and send me out there every now and again, surely someone will pay Danny Graves to do the same. So what if I’m lefthanded, I’m still not good.
Considering that every major league team — and most minor league teams — are being asked about their interest in Graves, shouldn’t that tell you everything you need to know about the state of relief pitching today?
Excuse me, I have to return a call from a Mr. Gambino.
I don’t care if Graves becomes a Cub, just keep him away from my stuffed French toast.
Hey, lay off my son. Besides a bad case of v.d., he was the best thing that I brought back to the staes.
Hope you had me in the dead pool. I’m now dirt-napping
Dave B e-mailed me about Ernest T. and I was remiss in the Dose. He was a comedy genius, and every time there’s an Andy Griffith Show with him in it, I have to stop flipping channels and watch it.
But holy crap, did anybody know he was still alive?
They had better have an Ernest T marathon on TV Land in the near future.
Mmmmm … pancakes.
Pick me up, Hendry! I gotta feed my brood.
Who is Bob Costas?
And why does Ivy Chat have 300,000 hits today?
Hard to believe that this has turned into the Daily Schmear and I haven’t contributed. I was stuck listening to Bill Ransic wax rapsodic while 150 professional women in v-necks tried to flirt with him.
Do I have 2 wives? Or is one of my daughters 23?
Yup, I get more ass than Frank Sinatra. There’s something inherently wrong with that, though. Oh well, I’ll be sleeping on a pile of professional, socialite types tonight…again. Take that Gracie.
Yeah that would be just like the Cubs to go after a loser like Graves. This is definitely a good time for a trade, but make it a quality trade.
The guys that I think we should trade are Hawkins and Hollandsworth. If they want minor leaguers I would throw in Kelton and Guzman too. They need to pick up Jimenez and get rid of Wilson and probably Macias also.
It’s dead weight time and this is the time to throw your waste away.
Baker Basher
That’s CLOSER Baker Basher, not loser…don’t make me come after you with my totally rockin’ tatoos.
W.G.M.A.T.A.T.S.
D’Angelo Jimenez looks like a useful player, sure…. but that’s because he kills the Cubs. What value would he have if he never got to play against the Cubs?
About as much use as I had, Kovac.
Bill.
You geet more tail than I do because I’m dead, shit-for-brains.
Anyone else think Danny Graves is the all grown up version of the kid in The Never Ending Story? Not the weenie book reading one, the one with the dead horse.
From BP: The Cubs will activate Todd Walker on Wednesday, slotting back into a pseudo-platoon at second base, though sources tell me that Jerry Hairston isn’t helping himself in the clubhouse …
Go figure….A guy from Naperville is stuck on himself.
Baker Basher,
Whom do you want for Holly, Latoya, the perpetually injured Angel Guzman and AAAA player Kelton? Think I can dangle that package to the Phillies for Pat Burrell, Billy Wagner, Jimmy Rollins and Placido Polanco?
Then maybe Hairston and Macias could be sent to the Astrolls for Roger Clemens.
You’re a genius Basher!
No shit you faggot, it’s an exspression.
I thought I spelled my name this way.
Dusty pretty much said in today’s papers that Walker was going to get the bulk of the playing time when he returns. Even Dusty can see that Hairston is not an everday player. He was even hesitant to put Hairston in went Walker went down, and he didn’t want any part of playing him the OF much. I would bet that if Nomar was still healthy, Neifi would be playing 2B 80-90% of the time.
Don’t I come back to him in the end, though? I forgot, it’s been a while.
We don’t care how you spell your name. Just let us shake your hand. Or some other part of you.
“though sources tell me that Jerry Hairston isn’t helping himself in the clubhouse …”
Ooh, who did I piss off?
Hey stop ripping on me! I am a kick ass place with really cool people. Now stop, or I’ll tell my daddy and he’ll get his lawyer, who represents some of the White Sox, to sue you. Naperville is a tough town to come up in, ask Jerry the Lesser.
It’s true. Thanks to that silly Donald Trump show, everywhere I go I’m runnin’ bitches!
I’m the second apprentice, but Trump has farmed me out to sell water. That’s right, fucking H20. And I can’t even get a smile from the housekeeping staff in Trump Tower.
Shoot me now.
I’m the devil.
Am I orange? Or am I just another skank with too much fake tan on?
Lies! Kelly is ugely happy working for the Trump organization. Look at that smile!
It’s simply not natural to be oompa-loompa colored, so I’m gonna say it must be fake ‘n’ bake.
I’m imitating an Oompa Loompa because I figure it’s my best chance to meet Johnny Depp.
I’m imitating an Oompa Loompa because this is the way God made me.
Shit, Bill. Plenty of women today were better looking than those skanks.
I have a .369 OBP batting leadoff. There has to be a spot for me somewhere.
They better not start you in LF over me, shrimp.
I know. but The Donald taught me to never pass on any opportunity, that’s not how you survive in this tough business world of ours. I put my time in to get where I…wait…oh yeah I won a stupid game show. Oh well, skanks for everyone!
Time for the Rally Carp to come out and intimidate the Rocket!
Goooo Meat Tray, baby!
Come on… Isn’t everyone dying to know why I was in the same room as Bill Racic?
Tell us.
A. Getting that bad dye job.
B. Quitting her day job to be an I-Cubs intern.
C. Giving Jermaine Dye a blow job.
Oh, come on now. What’s so bad about Jermaine?
Hey people, how’s the visibility?
A perfect example of the Cubs being clueless in their offensive approach: bottom of 6th, Clemens out of the game and Wheeler in, 1-2-3 due up. Hairston works it to 3-1, then takes two 90-mph meatballs right down the middle to K. Then, Neifi slaps at the first pitch and flies weakly to the left side. To top it off, Lee takes three more 90-mph meatballs down the middle without taking his bat off his shoulder. Ridiculous.
Jeff Gordon just did perhaps the worst rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in Wrigley history, which is saying something. He was nearly booed out of the stadium.
It’s time for this “tradition” to go away.
Hey Dave B,
At least I don’t throw like a woman. Actually, it’s more like a girl.
JB comes through again. Take that Lidge!
My pants have officially been pooped.
You know, if he’d actually pitched and f’ed up tonight.
I’m happy to be here in Wrigley Stadium tonight!
What are you?…the joke police? Go back to Naperville you faggot ass cub fan.
I always poop my pants you faggot.
We won again bitches. Fuck you faggot ass cub fans…ooh look at me, I’m on the net. You fucking tools don’t know good baseball. We just beat the 02′ world champs. You guys couldn’t hang if you tried. Keep talking on the net like tough guys, when you beat the Astros. Wow…go flubs. Please, you bitches are all worthless. Sox will go all the way, you heard it here first shitheads.
That Carp shit…not funny, you fuckwads. She is ugly anyway…real ugly.
“Asteroids do not concern me Admiral, I want that ship, not excuses.”
Wow!…look at my pookah shell necklace and curly college hair. I am so awesome, go cubs! I know Animal House by heart, that is how cool I am.
Hello Mitch Kupchak, how ya’ doin. big fellow? Listen,
we both had horrible off seasons, and now you got
the draft and I’ve got some June trading to do…let’s
try to hook up, ya know, we can discuss our shared
philosphies on how to dismantel franchises.
Looks like my sons broke curfew again and are up posting on the Internet. Man, they are giving my Sox fans a bad name. A little over 40 games into a season and they’ve already forgotten how much they hated me and Garland. I hope they don’t do anything to piss ’em off!
How will my #1 fan Chuck make my blown save last nite look good in his blog?
While I may not be big and beefy and have a Phil Garner-esque mustache like a typical female White Sox fan, I am quite cute in the eyes of many.
…in 2005. Congratulations. We beat the Astros. They won the NL East in 1980.
Go fill up your propane tank, troll. Trailer’s getting cold.
We also beat the 1908 World Series Champs last weekend, and we’re currently 5 games in front of the 1991 World Champs.
WE won the NL East in 1980. Astros won the West.
By the way,I wonder how the Cubs will fare against the Rockies this weekend. You know, THEY clinched a wildcard in 1995.
So what if the Cubs won their shitty division in 2003? We won the season series against them. That’s all that matters rig…er…well, I tried. We sucked, and we had more talent than this year’s team does. Watch for the Cubs to get hot and us to have either a monumental collapse, or we’ll get dominated in the playoffs once everyone in our league stops sleepwalking.
It is funny to come back a day later to see just HOW badly this thread unravelled…