Oh Consistency, where art thou?

Consistency, I think that’s all most of us want. When I order a Big Mac and fries, I would like to consistently receive a Big Mac and fries. Not a Big Mac and where the hell are my cholesterol sticks?

When Jennifer and Brad get married, we’d like them to mean it and see a few round anniversaries. We want more David and Michelle, less Chesney and Zellwigger.

When a baseball team signs a player we would like to see that player stick around for a while.

First of all, I have to give credit to the DoorMatts for this idea. They brought this topic up in conversation and I just researched the specifics. Since 1978, the last 31 seasons, there have been 775 roster slots (31 years * 25 active roster slots) available on the Cubs. They have had only 23 players with at least 6 years of service (I even had to extend it to six consecutive part seasons. i.e. trade in the middle of the year, etc.) In longevity order the players are:

Sandberg – 15
Grace – 13
Sosa – 13 (sadly)
Dunston – 11
Wood – 10*
Trachsel – 9
Zambrano – 8*
J. Davis – 8
Durham – 8
L. Smith – 8
Sutcliffe – 8
Buckner – 7
W. Hernandez – 7
Maddux – 7
R. Sanchez – 7
Frank Castillo – 7
Moreland – 6
Sanderson – 6
Dawson – 6
J. Hernandez – 6
Farnsworth – 6
Patterson – 6
Ramirez – 6*
(Lee and Dempster – 5)*
*Current Cubs

This may seem like a long list, but the above players only take up 188 positions (198 if you want to include Lee and Dempster) out of the 775 possible slots. That means in 30 years, the Cubs have had 24.2% of their roster made up of players who have been around for six years or more. I was surprised that Moreland was around for six years, I basically remember him in 1984-85. Frank Castillo, Rey Sanchez and Jose Hernandez kind of fall into the category of Serviceable Player, not great but won’t kill you. It’s also surprising there was only one NL Central (or East) Title in the early/mid-80’s. There was a strong core there with Sutcliffe, Sanderson, Smith, Moreland, Sandberg, Davis, Durham and Dunston.

The hope when signing a player is that they will be around a while. It often doesn’t work out that way, as evidenced by:

H. Rodriguez – 3
Morandini – 3
E. Young – 3
DeShields – 3
R. White – 3
Alou – 3
T. Walker – 3
Juan Pierre – One Freakin’ Year!!!!!

CFCL NOTES:

Did you notice the Stones are still in 2nd place?

Kudos goes out to the DoorMatts and their son, Matt for the Cubs HUGE rally on Friday against the Rockies. Matt and Matt were at the game, stayed for the whole thing (even when the Cubs were down 9-1 following a before game rain delay). This came at even greater expense when the DoorMatts gladly watched their thirdbaseman, Garrett Atkins finish off an oh-fer-five day by striking out against Kerry Wood in the ninth.

The Candy Colored Clowns would like to give a big THANK YOU to Corey Patterson for sucking so bad that Dusty Baker just had to call up and use Jay Bruce. Since his call up, Bruce is 13 for 22 with 10 runs (!!!!), 6 ribbies, 2 stolen bases and twenty-two Total Bases. Hey did you notice the Clowns are in 7th and closing in on 6th fast?

The Rebels would like to thank Eric Byrnes for finally, officially going on the DL. On Friday they were able to activate Russell Branyan who batted .375 with three runs, three rbis and nine total bases over the weekend.