Fred Wilpon's Criticism of...Himself?

The New York Mets are 23-26 after today's loss to the Cubs.  As it has for each of the past five seasons, this year's version of the Mets is disappointing.  Burdened by overpaid contracts given out to closer Francisco Rodriguez, shortstop Jose Reyes, right fielder Carlos Beltran, and starting pitcher Johan Santana, coping with lower attendance at the newer Citi Field, dealing with the franchise's $427 million debt, and trying to recover from losing money in the Bernie Madoff scandal are the problems the franchise has to deal with these days.  The franchise's poor decision making has put them in this position.  And majority owner Fred Wilpon's recent comments on his own team have sparked a wide public reaction.  Wilpon may or may not have intended for these comments to be released to the public, but either way I think they're borderline hypocritical and inappropriate for someone in his position.

Shortstop Jose Reyes, whose large contract is one the Mets have been trying to move recently, is looking to cash in on an even bigger contract this offseason when he hits the free agent market.  Wilpon said, "He thinks he's going to get Carl Crawford money," talking about Crawford's 7-year, $142 million contract with the Red Sox.  "He's had everything wrong with him.  He won't get it."  Carlos Beltran's huge postseason for the Astros in 2004, not even including his terrific stretch run that included going 28-for-28 in steals after being traded over from the Royals, was the main reason the Mets overpaid for him, says Wilpon.  "We had some schmuck in New York who paid him based on that one series.  He's 65 to 70 percent of what he was."  The only player Wilpon wasn't overly critical of was third baseman David Wright.  "Really good kid.  A very good player.  Not a superstar."

Wilpon's comments are pathetic.  The message that this sends to the fans of the Mets, who are stuck watching this bad team shrouded in negativity for the third year in a row, is that they shouldn't care about the players.  If even the owner is this negative about his team, then why should the fans hold out hope for anything?  The Mets are in debt right now and it's only getting worse because of the Madoff scandal and the continued patterns of bad contracts.  And another thing; Wilpon has no right to criticize "some schmuck" that gave Beltran his contract, because Wilpon is the owner and he needs to be overseeing these contract offers.  The fact is, Beltran couldn't have finished that season better in a contract year.  It should have been expected that the winning bidder would have to severely overpay.  The same thing happened this past offseason with Jayson Werth and the Nationals.

I think it's hard to be an intense fan of baseball and not be a fan of Jose Reyes.  Unless you have some weird vendetta against the Mets, Reyes deserves to be a fan favorite throughout the entire league because from around 2005 to 2008 he was one of the most electrifying and exciting players to watch in the game.  He was one filling the highlights reels and being a distraction every time he got on base.  But he has had injury complications both of the last two seasons and played less than a full season combined.  Reyes, who has 17 steals right now, putting him on pace for around 50, appears to be returning to form.  But then Wilpon has to go out and say that he wants Crawford money.  Neither Reyes nor his agent have ever said this before, publicly at least.

The focus for Wilpon is that if he were to say anything it should have been to pump up his team and encourage a playoff push. Now the Mets players are angry at their own owner, which can't help the team at all.  For Wilpon to sharply criticize the players that are on his payroll is ridiculous.  If you don't like them, why did you agree to pay them?  Former GM Omar Minaya, who offered the Beltran and Reyes contracts, didn't just make those decisions on his own.  There's hardly anything positive heard about the Mets these days, and even the team owner has joined the negativity parade.

Road Trip Analysis: Cincinnati, Florida, Boston

Record: 3-4
Final Record: 20-25

The Cubs made their first trip to Cincinnati this season when they headed there last week for the first of the two scheduled two-game series on the Cubs schedule this season.  I'm not going to sugar coat it; the results of the trip to Cincinnati were catastrophic.  Two winnable games, which had we had won we would now be mere percentage points below .500, were thrown away by lack of effort and the worst defense you will see in the Major Leagues.

The first game was winnable by all means.  The Cubs had a 4-0 lead until the 6th, when Carlos Zambrano began his regularly scheduled blowup inning.  But he remained out there, and the Reds continued to hammer him while the bullpen struggled to get warm.  Zambrano had been carrying a three-hit shutout through five innings.  A walk, five hits, four earned runs with more to come on the bases with just one out later, Zambrano was relieved by Marcos Mateo.  But the damage was already done, as threw a wild pitch to score the go-ahead run and then a two-run homer to Jonny Gomes.  It wasn't just the ill-timed decision making that cost the Cubs this game; it was the lack of effort and the sense that they had given up.  Too many times I see this team sulking and just going down without a fight.  This is exactly what happened here, as if the Reds coming back was inevitable.

Just when it looked like it couldn't get any worse, of course, it did.  The Cubs came out the next night and the pitching staff, led by the starter that night Matt Garza, shut out the Reds.  In earned runs, at least.  The futile Cubs defense allowed the Reds to literally tie and win the game with seven runs, all of which were preventable by not throwing the ball away!  An error in the 4th by Carlos Pena was magnified after Garza hurriedly whipped the ball into the dugout throwing it home to get a runner.  That scored all three runs to tie the game.  Then in the 8th, the Cubs held a 5-3 lead, which Kerry Wood blew when he threw Ryan Hanigan's sacrifice bunt down the left field line trying to aggressively get the force at third.

I've only seen one other play like this one before, and it was in Game 5 of the 2006 World Series when Justin Verlander threw David Eckstein's bunt into left field trying to do the same thing.  But unlike that play, the ball this time got all the way down the line and to the wall.  Two more runs scored and the game was tied again.  Watching this play live, it's hard to describe the frustration that a Cubs fan feels when watching this stuff.  Dominique Wilkins of the Atlanta Hawks was known as 'The Human Highlight Reel' for his stunning ability to light up a highlight reel.  The Cubs as a team basically create the Human Incompetence Reel.

These two games should have been won.  They were key division games early in the season and the weather nullified much of the home field advantage.  This is a series the Cubs needed to win if they are going to get back into the NL Central mix.  They put together wins here and there this season, but they aren't going to win anything if they ever have another game like this (photo, left) or allow seven unearned runs.

After all of this, the Cubs headed to South Beach for their last series ever at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens.  Surprisingly, the Cubs won both games there in efficient fashion.  Not so surprisingly, it was their first sweep of the season, albeit a two-game series.  The Cubs did not commit an error in either game.

This led to the Cubs' first trip to Fenway Park in Boston since the 1918 World Series.  News of this World Series came up recently, when a report stemming from a document released by the Chicago History Museum suggested that the Cubs blew the Series for money, much like the White Sox did a year later.  I don't know the truth to this document, and it very well could just be the Sox player hassling the Cubs indirectly about something else.
 
Marlon Byrd was interviewed by Comcast SportsNet on Thursday night after the win against Florida and, when asked on his outlook for the Boston series, he replied, "Sweep Caroline."  I agree that the whole Sweet Caroline tradition at Fenway is really annoying, but hearing this stuff out of him gets tiring to be honest.  Last season, Byrd guaranteed the playoffs in May when the team was falling out of contention.  Well, you saw how that turned out.

The Cubs seemed overwhelmed by an American League offense in the first round on Friday night.  All three games were on national television, with WGN, FOX, and ESPN handling the games, respectively. After an uneventful 15-5 loss Friday, the Cubs bats woke up in the 8th inning of the game Saturday night, and the Red Sox collapsed which was reminiscent of the Cubs' defense collapses.  In a stunning change of momentum, the Cubs put up eight in the 8th and won 9-3.  As the Cubs closed out the bottom of the 9th, the huge contingent of Cubs fans that had traveled to Boston were chanting 'Let's Go Cubbies' at Fenway Park, an action pretty much unprecedented.  Every game at Fenway Park since April 2003 has been a sellout, so it's always full of Red Sox fans.  But Cubs fans took over Fenway late on Saturday.  Although that was nice, it was the only win in the series loss.

The Cubs were quietly shut down by knuckleballer Tim Wakefield on Sunday night.  Such a loss can be expected from the Cubs, as this is one of those games I notice where they just give up at a certain point.  The indifference of the group makes them less interesting to watch for sure, and this is the primary factor in the Cubs attendance struggles of this season.  But either way, this road trip was very up and down.  Mostly down, though, and the Red Sox-Cubs series generated nothing more than publicity for historical content, not a key turning point like it could have been.

Believe it or not, I have faith in the Cubs coming up in the next few weeks.  A nice, long homestand against three bad teams in the Mets, Pirates, and Astros is the perfect time to get into a groove, especially as the ivy will be grown, the weather will be nice, and the fans will be there.  And they'll need to get into a groove, because they then play 20 straight games against teams who had winning records last year.  But I have faith they will, because this team has hung in there despite slow starts from Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Pena, who are both hitting very well now.  Randy Wells and Andrew Cashner will be huge to this team, as the Cubs will no longer have to deal with immediate five-run deficits by way of James Russell every fifth day.  Hopefully, the Cubs will get lucky for once.
 
  

Steve Bartman: Painfully Innocent

Before you read this post, make sure to check out this amazing story written by ESPN detective/writer Wayne Drehs in 2005.  This is one highly informative piece of writing and pretty much the closest anyone has gotten to having a full interview with Steve Bartman.  This baseball comedy news website posted an interview with Bartman in 2008; this is fake, but interesting nonetheless.  There is some truth in that story, like the fact that Bartman was at Game 3 of the 2007 NLDS in Arizona.  Although not proven, it is believed by many that he was there.  ESPN will document the game in their 30 for 30 series; the episode comes out sometime this summer or fall. 

Steve Bartman is an innocent man.  And when I mean innocent, I mean just like any other guy at ballpark.  And here's why: if you were sitting where Bartman was during Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS against Florida and Luis Castillo's foul ball came flying to within three feet of you, what would have done?  You would have done the exact same thing that Bartman did; reach out for the ball.  Therefore, the fact that Bartman himself is an enemy at all is a matter of coincidence.  Bartman was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.  It's unfortunate that this had to happen to someone like Bartman, because as Drehs mentions in his article, Bartman is a diehard and devoted Cubs fan, even now while living in societally-imposed exile.  There's nothing you can do but feel bad for him, but then again we must remember; it was us, Cubs fans, who put him there in the first place.

I present to you the three reasons why the Cubs lost Game 6, none of which blame Steve Bartman:

3. Bernie Mac's Singing of the 7th Inning Stretch
It is an honor to sing the 7th Inning Stretch at Wrigley Field.  It is more of a honor there than any other ballpark in the Major Leagues because there is a celebrity conductor every single game.  Typically, the guest conductors keep it simple with 'Let's get some runs' after the singing.  But Bernie Mac had to go and take it to another level.  He had to go and change the words in the song to 'Root, root root for the Champs' and jeopardize the entire thing.

You would think that given the enormously pressured circumstances, Mac would have just not have tried something crazy like that.  But I guess not, and it couldn't have done anything to help the Cubs at all whatsoever.  With a 2-0 lead in the 7th inning, it wasn't even that sure of a thing that the Cubs didn't blow it anyway.  Overall, Bernie Mac screwed with the baseball gods, and as they always will if not treated with respect, they'll make you pay. 

2. Moises Alou's Reaction to Bartman
Any Cubs fan can probably replay the video again and again in their head.  There's Luis Castillo slicing the ball to the opposite field and tiptoeing out of the batter's box, followed by the Alou failing to catch the ball because of Bartman, and then there's Alou coming back down to the ground and slamming his glove on his knees and having a fit over not catching the ball.  As painful as a memory that is, it's important to remember whose blame it actually was instead of just scapegoating Bartman.

Not only did Alou's reaction contribute to the collapse that ensued for the rest of the Cubs, it effectively ended the public life of Steve Bartman.  And here we are, eight years later, and Alou has never apologized to Bartman.  If Alou had just walked away like a regular outfielder, Bartman's name would be unknown to the rest of the world.  But Alou reacted terribly, like some six year old throwing a fit because he lost.  Fans and the sports community have never blamed Alou nearly enough for what he did in that situation, but Bartman is the man who he is today solely because of Moises Alou.  Alou originally blamed Bartman for the incident, but took back his words in 2008, saying "You know what the funny thing is?  I wouldn't have caught it, anyways."  Alou's nonchalant attitude clearly shows he has no understanding of what he did.  This is because he either doesn't care or is too stupid to figure it out.  Most likely it's the latter, considering how dumb that reaction was in the first place.  Moises Alou, you owe that man an apology.  Man up and do it.

The negative mood that Alou left after the play definitely stuck around for the rest of the inning.  Because the player got upset, his teammates and the fans got upset.  Making his teammates upset and distracted probably also affected the next reason for the collapse.

1. Alex Gonzalez's Fielding Error
If not for Bartman, this play would be the play known for the collapse of the 2003 Cubs.  It would have been the 'error heard 'round the world'.  But Bartman had already taken all the attention by the time Gonzalez added to the Cubs' problems and his play has been all but forgotten.

The situation for the error was only a short while after Bartman entered the spotlight.  With one out and Juan Pierre on second, Luis Castillo fouled off the Bartman ball.  After the at-bat resumed, he walked on a wild pitch which sent Pierre to third.  Ivan Rodríguez followed with a single, scoring Pierre, bringing up a young Miguel Cabrera.  Now leading 3-1 and Marlins on first and second, it would be a perfect spot for a double play ball.  Sure enough, Prior got one.  The chopper reached Gonzalez, who could have turned it for an easy 6-4-3 double play, but Gonzalez angled his glove awkwardly and bobbled the ball.  He wasn't even able to get a single out and this left runners on every base with one out.  Derrek Lee would then tie it with a two-RBI double, and the rest is history.

Just try to imagine what getting this double play would have meant.  The 8th inning would have been over, sending the Cubs into the 9th with a 3-1 lead and Joe Borowski, who had blown only four saves all year, to close it out.  The Cubs would have gone to the World Series if Gonzalez had made this play.  There, I said it.  If Bartman hadn't gotten in the way of Alou, there's no way of knowing for sure if Alou would have even made the play.  I think the chances of Alou catching that ball were 50-50.  Gonzalez, on the other hand, made only 10 errors all season in 2003.  His defensive WAR was 0.8.  The error he committed right at that time is the most inexplicable thing I have ever seen in the game of baseball.  I guess the only answer is the baseball gods abhor the Cubs.  They gave us 2003 to toy with us, and now leave us with a frustrating franchise with little hope of getting back to where we were soon.  Any way you look at it, the 2003 Cubs infamously collapsed.  And it had nothing to do with the warranted villain of that collapse, Steve Bartman. 

South Side Crisis

Sox Offense Shut Down Again: Harbinger or Rock Bottom?

Well, there goes all that talk of the Sox getting off to a hot start.  Sitting at 11-20, the White Sox are MLB's worst team.  Over their last 20 games, of which they have lost 15, they've scored a combined total of 50 runs, or 2.5 runs per game.  It's hard to think that this streak could get any worse, but that's the same thing that was said a week ago when the Sox finally returned home after a long road trip.  The offense has been terrible, especially from their newest member in designated hitter Adam Dunn.  After a solid start, Dunn has slumped to .157 with only three homers.  Of the regulars in the lineup, the only ones that aren't underachieving are first baseman Paul Konerko and right fielder Carlos Quentin.

In the bullpen, while Sergio Santos and Jesse Crain have been very solid, all four other regulars in Chris Sale, Will Ohman, Matt Thornton, and Tony Peña have ERAs over seven.  I also don't think I've ever seen any closer as ineffective as Thornton, ever.  Thornton is now 0-4 in save opportunities and has been rightfully yanked from the closer's role.  The Sox haven't needed much closing in the last three weeks, though, as it has usually been the opponent's closer closing them out.

All of this negativity was the story leading up to the game last night on the South Side at US Cellular Field.  Famous Sox broadcaster 'Hawk' Harrelson was sick for the game, so color analyst Steve Stone took over the play-by-play duties for the night.  'Stoney' had a rough night as well, as his voice barely made the nine innings.  But the Hawk probably wouldn't have cared too much to be at this game, as it was all Francisco Liriano  While the Sox only trailed by one for much of the game and had baserunners on all the time, Liriano kept the damage to just the walks and finished off the Sox for his first career complete game, a no-hitter.  As the Twins play-by-play man put it on FSN North, Adam Dunn's liner to shortstop to end the game was the hardest ball hit the entire night but thankfully for Liriano, it went right into the shortstop's glove.  This marks the third no-hitter the Sox have been involved in in the last five seasons.  In 2007 and 2009, Mark Buehrle threw a no-hitter and perfect game, respectively, against the Rangers and Rays, respectively.  But this time it was the Sox on the wrong end.  Ozzie Guillen has yet to Tweet on the performance.


Also: Video of Alfonso Soriano breaking the Cubs' all-time April home run record.

Don't Be Sori

Alfonso Soriano's play has been very surprising and borderline inspirational this season.  In Arizona earlier tonight, Soriano blasted home runs #8 and #9 to left-center and right-center, respectively.  While Starlin Castro and Darwin Barney have been great offensively just hitting and getting on base, Soriano has been the only one so far in the power department to show up.  Geovany Soto, Carlos Pena, and Aramis Ramirez, who were probably expected to hit around 75 homers this season combined, have so far combined for three.  Soriano, on the other hand, has been great.  Except for the fact that, as usual, he hasn't been good in the clutch.  Soriano is batting .174 with runners in scoring position so far with only one homer in that circumstance.  With the bases empty, Soriano is hitting .316.  But for Soriano, the one thing that will keep his power in respectable numbers is a simple, yet elusive, characteristic.  Swagger.

Swagger is a mood.  Swagger is a way of life, and Soriano relies on it to do well.  When on one of his famous hot streaks that haven't really come around lately until this month, Soriano shows off his swagger by showing off at the plate after a home run.  Whether it's a little hop or its just a quick walk before the slow jog, one can watch on TV as Soriano shows his swag, if he has it.  Because Soriano is a hitter that goes on hot and cold streaks so much, he is susceptible to confidence swings and questionable effort.  Often times sans swagger, like all of last year, he would just give up some at-bats and chase the slider in the dirt low and away that everyone knows is coming.  But now, standing alone in second on the NL home run leaderboard to only Ryan Braun's 10, Soriano is fighting and working every at-bat.  If we can get this Soriano for an entire year, like the Nationals did in 2006, the haters will be forced to lay off him because he could show us finally what he is still capable of.

Series Preview: vs. Los Angeles Dodgers

Season Series: 0-0 (first meeting)
2010 Season Series: Dodgers won 4-3

Matchup Analysis: So far the Dodgers 2011 season has resembled much of the Cubs 2011 season.  At 10-10, the Dodgers are in third behind the Rockies and Giants, but haven't been very good offensively or pitching-wise yet.  This will be their first road trip since MLB Commissioner Bud Selig announced that the league would appoint a trustee to observe and direct the Dodgers' day-to-day financial operations.  It's a shame that such a historic franchise with all the success it has had in American history and in popular culture has been strapped financially because of owner Frank McCourt's divorce proceedings.  From what I understand, McCourt is not a popular man in the area because of these divorcing issues that could have been avoided and are a personal problem but are affecting the team and organization's ability to invest in winning.  The Dodgers field a solid team that made the NLCS two years in a row in 2008 and 2009, but the window of opportunity will close unless they can add another big piece to assert themselves as contenders to stay.  Right now their best player is right fielder Matt Kemp, who has been on an absolute tear early on this season.  Batting .411 with eight steals, both of which lead the league, Kemp has two walk-off homers just on the last homestand.  The second of the homers came yesterday afternoon against the Braves.  Dodgers fans can't argue with a nice distraction from the situation their organization is in.  And Kemp has an easy draw in the first game as the Cubs will start Casey Coleman.  Chad Billingsley has the advantage against Coleman, but the Cubs have shown more resilience this season against bigger name pitchers.  On Saturday, it'll be current staff ace Ryan Dempster against former staff co-ace Ted Lilly, who makes his first start against the Cubs since they traded him to the Dodgers.  On Sunday, it'll be Carlos Zambrano against Hiroki Kuroda.  Dempster has looked really bad this year and needs to find control of the slider again.  Zambrano was arguably better in his last start than any other start since his no-hitter in 2008, and now he gets to return home to try and replicate success.

Key Player: Carlos Pena - The longer we keep waiting for him to produce big time as advertised, the longer the Cubs offense will be inconsistent.  The hardest homer of the season to get is the first one; I think he'll get his first this weekend and start contributing more often.

Keys to Win:
-Score early.  The Cubs need to get out to a nice comfortable lead in at least two of the three games to establish their position in the series.  With the Cubs' good mix of righties and lefties in the bullpen, it shouldn't be too hard to contain their big hitters, whether it be the righty Kemp or lefty Andre Ethier.
-Work the count.  In 2008 when the Cubs led the NL in runs, there was an article in Sporting News that I read on why that was.  The article was correct, saying that it was because the Cubs were drawing walks.  The Cubs haven't come close to scoring like they did that year since, and they've been nowhere near as patient.  They aren't on pace to walk that much this year either.

Series Prediction: Cubs win 2-1.  I think the Dodgers will jump on Coleman today, but Dempster will have his first good start of the season following and Zambrano will be decent enough on Sunday.  But with Starlin Castro hitting, the Cubs should put up enough runs to support even mediocre starts on Lilly and Kuroda.

Treading Water

After the first two and a half weeks of baseball, the Cubs seem to be putting forth about the amount of success as last year's group.  With today's loss to the Rockies, the Cubs fall back under .500 again to 7-8, but now return home for a nice nine-game homestand.  Pitching has not been a great strength of the Cubs, and the rotation especially has underperformed quite a bit.  Carlos Zambrano, Matt Garza, and Ryan Dempster have all not pitched well really at all this season.  The injuries to Randy Wells and Andrew Cashner have hurt as well as James Russell was slammed his first start and Casey Coleman has had mixed results.

The bullpen, not including today's performance by Marcos Mateo, has been very good in general.  Carlos Marmol thankfully hasn't thrown out his shoulder yet (knock on wood), which is a concern I have for him just about every time he throws the baseball.  But the rotation has the Cubs playing more high-scoring games than usual.  The Cubs offense has scored 4.5 runs per game this season, and that should be enough to win with the rotation we have.  But Dempster, Zambrano, and Garza have ERAs of 6.30, 6.11, and 6.27, respectively.  Come on now guys, that's no way to run a railroad.

But the offense cannot go unnoticed.  Although they are averaging 4.5 runs a game which is near league average and only a bit above the 4.2 from last year, the Cubs are fourth in MLB in batting average, and fifth in hits.  We can owe plenty of those hits to a certain Starlin Castro, who as of Sunday night led baseball in hits with 28.  In my wanna-be highly-educated fan opinion, Castro is unbelievable.  Watching him out there is like watching a 12-year-old in park district game.  He just comes to play the game and nothing else, just trying to have fun.  It almost seems like he doesn't even feel the pressures and expectations of playing in the bigs, not to mention with all of the hype around him and the Cubs as a franchise and Chicago as a city.  Today watching the Cubs-Rockies game, I watched him bend over the plate to go get a ball well off the plate and ground it to Todd Helton at first base.  Len Kasper picked up on his anger with himself over becoming overanxious on the broadcast.  And after the inning ended and the camera was on him right before commercial, he swung up his helmet as if he was about to slam it in frustration.  This from a guy with a .418 batting average, four hits just the night before, and Chicago status as a fan favorite.

Although fielding has been an issue with this team so far as well, there's been an improvement over last year's performance and Castro has gotten much better so far, making better plays quicker despite two errors.  Basically, this team is waiting on the starting pitching.  It's not time to sound the alarm on the Garza trade yet, but he should know that that is exactly what will happen unless he starts putting up numbers and soon.  The poor performances from Zambrano and Dempster are surprising, to be honest, despite all the Zambrano haters who may have correctly pegged his successful comeback last season as a fluke.  Dempster's success seemed too easy last season, and it's finally catching up to him.  So far I've seen a whole bunch of - to use a Bob Brenly term here meaning a slider that spins but doesn't move hardly at all - cement mixers in the low 80s left high in the zone, right where hitters can get at them.  Hopefully he'll improve, because we need it.

NOTE: There's been some confusion on the results of the quiz giveaway from a few weeks ago.  I apologize for not making this clearer, but if you did win the free app then they would have replied in an email with the code to get the app free.  If you did not get this email, unfortunately you didn't win.  Thanks to all participants, I have deemed this partnership a success.  There may be future similar opportunities, so stay tuned.