Calling Dr. Kevorkian Part I

The Cubs last night put it all together in their most complete game of the season and pulled off a stunning 9-0 defeat at the hands of the Florida Marlins to fall to 22-29 on the season. After a half hour players only meeting in the clubhouse Wednesday afternoon, the Cubs quickly came out and showed what they had talked about behind closed doors. Ted Lilly came out of the gate with guns blazing as he gave up a home run to deep left to the second batter of the game, the almighty Dan Uggla. After breaking down and getting Hanley Ramirez out some shlub named Miguel Cabrera hit, as Ron Santo would say, a magentic home run to the exact same place that Uggla hit his. Lilly then retired the next batter to get out of the inning at which point the game should have been called. With Sergio Mitre going to the mound for the Marlins it was clearly evident that the two runs would hold up for Florida, and they did.

The team’s braintrust held a two hour closed door meeting in manager Lou Piniella’s office before the game and we can only tremble in fear at what conclusions Piniella, Jim Hendry, Randy Bush, John McDonnough, and some other suit from the Tribune came to. Needless to say they will be seeking the wrong solutions.

After this weekend’s series against Atlanta exactly one third of the season will have been played, and what should be most evident is that this is just not a very good team. Of course the braintrust won’t see it that way. They’ll see that this team plays in a godawful division. They’ll see what this team could do if every player plays at his absolute best instead of what each player could be reasonably expected to do. They’ll see the empty seats from last September when the team was 30 games under .500. They’ll see that the team will probably have a new owner by this time next year. They’ll see that with a new owner everyone above Piniella will be out of a job. They’ll see that what happens the next four months will determine their ability to eventually get a job with another team in the future. They’ll see that they have to win this year. What we’ll see is a team that will take years to recover from the neglect and incompetence of the last few. How bad is this team? Let’s see.

For some stupid reason people thought that the bullpen would be a strength going into the season. It hasn’t been. Ryan Dempster has been their best reliever and that’s really all that needs to be said. Bullpens are very fickle as are the pitchers who make up a bullpen. As such signing just about any reliever for more than a year or two is a fool’s gambit. Of course we all know who’s undertaken this gambit for the last few years.

Despite having a good April, the starting rotation is starting to show it’s true colors. Expect to see a lot of the Ted Lilly we saw last night for the rest of the season. With the weather heating up and the Summer wind changing direction Lilly’s extreme fly ball tendencies will be providing a lot of souvenirs for the ball hawks on Waveland and Sheffield. Jason Marquis has gotten off to fast starts before and it’s translated into exactly one season with an ERA below 4.00. Marquis has reverted to form his last 4 or 5 starts generally giving up 4 or 5 runs in 5 or 6 innings with the random good start thrown in just to give the illusion of mediocrity. Rich Hill epitomizes what’s wrong with the Cubs. Picking up from where he left off the last couple of months of 2006 he got off to a great start in 2007. Then the braintrust decided that he was just too easy to run against the few times that he actually allowed someone to reach base. Fearing that someone would steal 2nd and 3rd on the same pitch the team had Hill alter his delivery with runners on base. This led to a series of bad starts where once someone did get on base he’d lose his command and start walking people and giving up hits, many of the 4 base variety. Hill seems to have found a comfort level with his new runners on base approach and looks to have evened out as a solid number 2 or a good number 3 starter. Of course the Cubs risked losing that production by their repeated emphasis on the little things rather than the big things. Which brings us to Carlos Zambrano.

After a worse than normal April Big Z has been much better in May. His good starts aren’t as good as his good starts were in the past, his normal starts aren’t quite as good as his normal starts in the past, and his bad starts are worse than they have been in the past, but he’s still likely to be be a good starting pitcher for the next few years as long as there is no major structural injury, which I don’t think there is. I’ve been saying for a few years now that Zambrano will have a similar career arc to Livan Hernandez. Overwork early in Hernandez’s career led to an early decline taking him from an above average pitcher to an average pitcher. Hernandez has mostly leveled off at the average pitcher level for the last few years and figures to stay there for the next few. Zambrano started at a higher level than Hernandez so he doesn’t figure to drop to the level that Hernandez is currently. Zambrano started as a very good pitcher and now seems to have fallen to being an above average pitcher and should stay right around there for the foreseeable future, giving Zambrano a career the same shape as Hernandez’s but a different size. The Cubs had a chance to sign Zambrano long term at a reasonale price this past off season, but Hendry fiddled and the contract burned. Knowing that the team was about to be put on the auction block Hendry should have known that the cash flow that he was given this past off season wasn’t going to last. Instead he figured he could take care of Zambrano during the season. With the team’s ownership in a state of flux the cash won’t be there to sign him and Zambrano will walk after this season with the Cubs only get a draft pick as compensation. Since they can’t sign him and the team is horrible, they should be looking to trade him this season to help stock a nearly barren farm system. They won’t because Hendry and crew have to try to win as many as possible now thus damning the Cubs future to try to save their own.

To be continued…….