Get out and stay out. The Cubs have an opportunity to purge themselves of their second largest embarrassment this decade and start fresh.
In looking over the history of the Cubs, they’ve always had a penchant for grabbing petulant, semi-talented ballplayers (Kingman, Prior, Hawkins) but never have they been embarrassed this long by one guy. Oh sure, they had the problems with Bradley last year, but Hendry was able to turn that around in one year.
We as Cub fans and the organization have been burdened with Zambrano’s crap since the Baker administration. When he and Barrett went at it, we all thought it was Barrett’s fault since he (Barrett) sucker punched Pierzinski. But now we see a lot of it had to do with Zambrano’s attitude and personality.
Here is an opportunity for the New Cubs Regime to make a statement and get rid of Zambrano. Since they were able to find a taker for Bradley, I’m sure there’s a team out there that’s dumb enough to take on this headache. But even if there isn’t, Ricketts should send Zambrano off.
Perhaps the most disgusting thing in sports is the guaranteed contract. Every major sport has the massively overpaid “star” who ends up tanking his performance because he’s too comfortable. So the part of my proposal that I hate is that I’m willing to have Zambrano never pitch another game in his life and still collect the remainder of his $95 million dollar contract. But as a wise relative of mine that you know once said “What do I care how they spend the money? It’s not my money.”
Additionally there has to be a “Respectability Clause” in every contract issued from here one out. Anyone (player, coach, manager) not performing in a respectable manner on or off the field will have their contract voided and will be shown the door. Now of course the player’s union would never approve of such of thing, but this is my article not theirs.
The Cubs could be known from here on out as a Class and Respectable Organization much like the ‘70’s A’s were know for facial hair and the Cardinals of the ‘80s were known for Astroturf extrabases.
As we went to press the Cubs were planning to put Zambrano on the Restricted List. The plan is that Zambrano won’t be back until at least after the All-Star Break. Well that’s a start so let’s finish it. While he’s Restricted and supposedly learning how to act, not even like a ballplayer, but like a human adult, let’s find a taker and if none are out there, let’s book a ticket for July 20th on a non-stop flight to Venezuela and move on.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Numerically Speaking
In baseball, and other sports, the number on one’s uniform is handled in certain ways. Some numbers, after stellar careers, are retired. Most are reused. Depending on the career and the circumstances surrounding the player leaving the team, a number will either be reused immediately or after a while. But there should be a third category. Eliminated due to embarrassment or bad feelings. Sometimes you just want to forget a player was ever on your favorite team.
The Cubs have honored a few of their All-Time Greats by retiring the numbers of Santo, Williams, Sandberg, Banks, Maddux and Jenkins. Reusing number 17 is probably right, but it still feels awkward to see Mike Fontenot wearing it. As great as Mark Grace was for the Cubs, he probably doesn’t warrant it being retired.
But this season it’s a little disconcerting to see Cub phee-nom Tyler Colvin running around in number 21 and Xavier Nady wearing number 22. When I see the number 21, part of me thinks of Sosa and would rather that Colvin not be burdened with that. When I see 22 I think of stirrups pulled to the kneecaps and towel drills for the petulant Mark Prior. Nady should have a different number.
So here’s what I propose in handling uniform numbers. There should be a four tier system.
1) Retire the number for the franchise Hall of Famer (Ripken, Gwynn, Puckett)
2) Put the number in mothballs for a little while out of respect for an awesome player or fan favorite not quite worthy of retiring (Mark Grace, Rick Sutcliffe, Shawon Dunston)
3) Reuse the number immediately when needed (Mark Bellhorn, Henry Blanco)
4) Destroy the number never to be used again due to shame (Sosa, Bradley)
Or possibly a team could designate a certain number to be assigned to the player they want to forget. Unwittingly the Cubs did that by having both Sosa and Bradley wear 21. Although I guess if you knew in advance that player was getting the “Embarrassment Number” you wouldn’t sign him to begin with. Scratch that idea.
Some of this is subjective. I think most of Chicago would agree that Bradley was horrible in many, many ways. But there are still those people out there that think Sosa was great for the Cubs. “Look at the number he put up,” they’ll say. Don’t get me started on the fact that the reason he put up those big numbers is . . . HE TOOK DRUGS!!!!
Since some of the cases are more opinion than fact, each team could have an Official Uniform Number Handler (ok, the title is a little cumbersome, we’ll need to work on that). This person would make the determination whether a number gets reused right away, stored in moth balls or burned. We also have to be careful not to retire too many numbers. There are only so many to work with so retiring numbers can’t be done on a whim. Decisions would have to be immediate lest you have the Billy Williams Issue. Williams is a Hall of Famer and his number should have been retired before he landed in Oakland in the trade that brought us Manny Trillo. But his number was reissued. So the number 26 will always be attributed to Williams and, to a lesser extent, the comedy of losing a baseball in a baseball cap (Larry Biittner).
Many clubs are now following the trend of building a statue for special players. I think this is a great idea. Only the true “Hall of Fame” franchise players could have their numbers retired. The other big contributors (Grace, Hundley, Pafko) could be immortalized in bronze around the ballpark. I think most fans would enjoy walking among three-dimensional figures to relive the glory days of the players. And perhaps you have a Tier of Importance where a true Cub All-Star and Fan Favorite like Grace gets a full statue and someone of lesser stature gets a bust or a “facial plaque” like they have in Cooperstown.
The Cincinnati Reds have a couple of statues in front of the Great American Ballpark. Since both are in “action” poses it gives you a sense of the game.
It’s up to us fans to try and purge certain occurrences from our memories like Alou and Bartman or the 2004 September Collapse. But teams could help us purge the memories of Sosa, Bradley and the ilk by getting rid of the numbers and not having that memory trigger fire when we’re trying to watch our new batch of saviors take the field.
Which numbers would you have purged in baseball if this system were in place?
The Cubs have honored a few of their All-Time Greats by retiring the numbers of Santo, Williams, Sandberg, Banks, Maddux and Jenkins. Reusing number 17 is probably right, but it still feels awkward to see Mike Fontenot wearing it. As great as Mark Grace was for the Cubs, he probably doesn’t warrant it being retired.
But this season it’s a little disconcerting to see Cub phee-nom Tyler Colvin running around in number 21 and Xavier Nady wearing number 22. When I see the number 21, part of me thinks of Sosa and would rather that Colvin not be burdened with that. When I see 22 I think of stirrups pulled to the kneecaps and towel drills for the petulant Mark Prior. Nady should have a different number.
So here’s what I propose in handling uniform numbers. There should be a four tier system.
1) Retire the number for the franchise Hall of Famer (Ripken, Gwynn, Puckett)
2) Put the number in mothballs for a little while out of respect for an awesome player or fan favorite not quite worthy of retiring (Mark Grace, Rick Sutcliffe, Shawon Dunston)
3) Reuse the number immediately when needed (Mark Bellhorn, Henry Blanco)
4) Destroy the number never to be used again due to shame (Sosa, Bradley)
Or possibly a team could designate a certain number to be assigned to the player they want to forget. Unwittingly the Cubs did that by having both Sosa and Bradley wear 21. Although I guess if you knew in advance that player was getting the “Embarrassment Number” you wouldn’t sign him to begin with. Scratch that idea.
Some of this is subjective. I think most of Chicago would agree that Bradley was horrible in many, many ways. But there are still those people out there that think Sosa was great for the Cubs. “Look at the number he put up,” they’ll say. Don’t get me started on the fact that the reason he put up those big numbers is . . . HE TOOK DRUGS!!!!
Since some of the cases are more opinion than fact, each team could have an Official Uniform Number Handler (ok, the title is a little cumbersome, we’ll need to work on that). This person would make the determination whether a number gets reused right away, stored in moth balls or burned. We also have to be careful not to retire too many numbers. There are only so many to work with so retiring numbers can’t be done on a whim. Decisions would have to be immediate lest you have the Billy Williams Issue. Williams is a Hall of Famer and his number should have been retired before he landed in Oakland in the trade that brought us Manny Trillo. But his number was reissued. So the number 26 will always be attributed to Williams and, to a lesser extent, the comedy of losing a baseball in a baseball cap (Larry Biittner).
Many clubs are now following the trend of building a statue for special players. I think this is a great idea. Only the true “Hall of Fame” franchise players could have their numbers retired. The other big contributors (Grace, Hundley, Pafko) could be immortalized in bronze around the ballpark. I think most fans would enjoy walking among three-dimensional figures to relive the glory days of the players. And perhaps you have a Tier of Importance where a true Cub All-Star and Fan Favorite like Grace gets a full statue and someone of lesser stature gets a bust or a “facial plaque” like they have in Cooperstown.
The Cincinnati Reds have a couple of statues in front of the Great American Ballpark. Since both are in “action” poses it gives you a sense of the game.
It’s up to us fans to try and purge certain occurrences from our memories like Alou and Bartman or the 2004 September Collapse. But teams could help us purge the memories of Sosa, Bradley and the ilk by getting rid of the numbers and not having that memory trigger fire when we’re trying to watch our new batch of saviors take the field.
Which numbers would you have purged in baseball if this system were in place?
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
We're Getting No Where
Randy Johnson won his 300th game last year. Was it legit?
From Sports Illustrated – “Johnson says in those years [the Mitchell Report] he hired a professor from Canada to educate him on nutrition and training. He says that he used a hyperbaric chamber to improve recovery time and ‘dabbled in all kinds of powders and tried to put weight on.’ When asked what would have stopped him from using steroids at a time when baseball did not specifically ban them, Johnson pauses, then says, ‘Because I wasn’t searching for anything other than to have the ability to throw the ball over the plate. You can do your homework. I’ve always thrown as hard as anybody in the game. There’s no deying that. I’ve [also] always been skinny. I’m not denying that I went to GNC and all that stuff. I took a lot of different things that, you know, maybe at that time, maybe early enough, if I would have been tested, who knows? I could have been taking stuff had they tested me back then. Maybe I would have tested [positive for a banned supplement]. I don’t know.
Johnson is asked if he could assure his fans that his achievements have been legitimate, because even clean players can be wrongly suspected. ‘You’ve got to [ask] what you’ve got to [ask], I guess,’ Johnson says, before adding, ‘How long have we been doing drug tests now?’
Told testing began with anonymous survey tests in 2003, he replies, ‘Okay, what’s that? Six years now? I’m 45 . . . 39 to the present and I’ve passed every test and I’ve still had some pretty good years.’”
Boy this sounds like a complete non-denial denial. Typically offensive players have been eyed more often than pitchers when it comes to HGH or steroids. Sure Clemens is at the top of the list and you had your JC Romero suspended for 50 games. But pitchers usually get a pass when the talk of PEDs comes up.
When the article was published in SI last year I didn’t hear one sportscaster locally, on ESPN, MLB Channel or anywhere talk about it. But if you read the words, Johnson is talking his way around the truth.
We haven’t come any further than 1998. Other than high profile players being shunned (Clemens, Sosa, McGwire, Bonds) no one is looking for problems currently.
This season (at least in the NL) a lot of a-typical batters are leading categories. Corey Hart, Scott Rolen and Troy Glaus are among the leaders in home runs. Kelly Johnson had nine homeruns in April. Perhaps there was a joking “What’s he taking?” but otherwise it’s the dewy “My goodness he’s off to a good start” or “good to see (Glaus, Rolen) is having a rebound year.” Announcers and reporters alike seem to have fallen back into that blind-eyed mode of assuming an abnormal year or an incredible rebound year is just one of those things.
From Sports Illustrated – “Johnson says in those years [the Mitchell Report] he hired a professor from Canada to educate him on nutrition and training. He says that he used a hyperbaric chamber to improve recovery time and ‘dabbled in all kinds of powders and tried to put weight on.’ When asked what would have stopped him from using steroids at a time when baseball did not specifically ban them, Johnson pauses, then says, ‘Because I wasn’t searching for anything other than to have the ability to throw the ball over the plate. You can do your homework. I’ve always thrown as hard as anybody in the game. There’s no deying that. I’ve [also] always been skinny. I’m not denying that I went to GNC and all that stuff. I took a lot of different things that, you know, maybe at that time, maybe early enough, if I would have been tested, who knows? I could have been taking stuff had they tested me back then. Maybe I would have tested [positive for a banned supplement]. I don’t know.
Johnson is asked if he could assure his fans that his achievements have been legitimate, because even clean players can be wrongly suspected. ‘You’ve got to [ask] what you’ve got to [ask], I guess,’ Johnson says, before adding, ‘How long have we been doing drug tests now?’
Told testing began with anonymous survey tests in 2003, he replies, ‘Okay, what’s that? Six years now? I’m 45 . . . 39 to the present and I’ve passed every test and I’ve still had some pretty good years.’”
Boy this sounds like a complete non-denial denial. Typically offensive players have been eyed more often than pitchers when it comes to HGH or steroids. Sure Clemens is at the top of the list and you had your JC Romero suspended for 50 games. But pitchers usually get a pass when the talk of PEDs comes up.
When the article was published in SI last year I didn’t hear one sportscaster locally, on ESPN, MLB Channel or anywhere talk about it. But if you read the words, Johnson is talking his way around the truth.
We haven’t come any further than 1998. Other than high profile players being shunned (Clemens, Sosa, McGwire, Bonds) no one is looking for problems currently.
This season (at least in the NL) a lot of a-typical batters are leading categories. Corey Hart, Scott Rolen and Troy Glaus are among the leaders in home runs. Kelly Johnson had nine homeruns in April. Perhaps there was a joking “What’s he taking?” but otherwise it’s the dewy “My goodness he’s off to a good start” or “good to see (Glaus, Rolen) is having a rebound year.” Announcers and reporters alike seem to have fallen back into that blind-eyed mode of assuming an abnormal year or an incredible rebound year is just one of those things.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
What Goes Up
A few installments ago I had mentioned that there are many, many parallels between fantasy baseball and life. Here’s an example.
A number of years ago I had assembled a talented but pricey team led by Jeff Bagwell. Walking out of the draft I really felt this could be the year that a championship flag would be flying high over Confederate Park. By late May Dem Rebels were dead last in large part because the pricey stars were underperforming in a big way. Bagwell was having a horrible year batting in the low .200s with only a few home runs. Panic set in coupled with multiple phone calls from various vultures, I mean teams, asking if I was ready to play for next year. Rather than patiently realize the season still had four long months to go, I caved and traded the core stars for future potential. By the end of the year Dem Rebels were safely tucked in last place and Bagwell finished with a .336 batting average and 38 homeruns. The rest of the players jettisoned from the Rebel roster had their typical years as well.
Fast forward to 2010. Derrek Lee, long-time favorite of Dem Rebels is having a less than stellar season. Finally in frustration he was reserved from Monday-Thursday a few weeks back. Turns out those were the exact four days not to sit him. Here are the stats he’s produced for Dem Rebels (having been reserved for three games:
OBP: .3158 TB: 64 R: 24 RBI: 20 SB: 1
Here are the stats he’s produced overall:
OBP: .3417 TB: 76 R: 27 RBI: 23 SB: 1
By getting frustrated (and forgetting the lesson from the Bagwell Years) the Rebels lost .0259 in OBP, 12 Total Bases, 3 Runs and 3 RBI by sitting Lee for THREE GAMES!
In order to capture a player’s statistics, we have to struggle through the bad games to get the good games. None of us know when a player is going to have a great game or week or when they will struggle. We can look at logic and say “This pitcher is in Colorado this week so I should sit him since he’ll get hammered.” Inevitably if that pitcher is reserved, he’ll throw seven innings of three hit ball. But let him start against Pittsburgh for “that easy win” and he’ll get lit up like the 4th of July.
The parallels in real life:
The stock market (represented in this example by the S&P 500) has had an average rate of return of 5.9% from 1997-2007. That includes all the great days and all the horrible days that make the news. Now if you happened to be invested during that ten year period, but missed the best ten days (ten days out of the 2517 total trading days) your return would drop to 1.1%. And of course, just like with Lee, we don’t know when those ten best or worst days are going to occur. Emotion gets us into dangerous positions. Since having his blistering three game set, Lee has been 5 for 31 (.193). Usually with investing when things go bad, people jump for the sidelines until they see a recovery and once they see it (i.e. once the market has ALREADY gone up) they hop back in, having missed the spurt of growth. Having seen the spurt of growth, Dem Rebels activated Lee just in time to capture another correction while completely missing the spurt.
Patience is the name of the game. As long as you have good stuff (players, stocks, investments, even relationships) you will be successful in the long run. Now how do you know if you have good stuff? Oy, that’s another Monroe Doctrine.
A number of years ago I had assembled a talented but pricey team led by Jeff Bagwell. Walking out of the draft I really felt this could be the year that a championship flag would be flying high over Confederate Park. By late May Dem Rebels were dead last in large part because the pricey stars were underperforming in a big way. Bagwell was having a horrible year batting in the low .200s with only a few home runs. Panic set in coupled with multiple phone calls from various vultures, I mean teams, asking if I was ready to play for next year. Rather than patiently realize the season still had four long months to go, I caved and traded the core stars for future potential. By the end of the year Dem Rebels were safely tucked in last place and Bagwell finished with a .336 batting average and 38 homeruns. The rest of the players jettisoned from the Rebel roster had their typical years as well.
Fast forward to 2010. Derrek Lee, long-time favorite of Dem Rebels is having a less than stellar season. Finally in frustration he was reserved from Monday-Thursday a few weeks back. Turns out those were the exact four days not to sit him. Here are the stats he’s produced for Dem Rebels (having been reserved for three games:
OBP: .3158 TB: 64 R: 24 RBI: 20 SB: 1
Here are the stats he’s produced overall:
OBP: .3417 TB: 76 R: 27 RBI: 23 SB: 1
By getting frustrated (and forgetting the lesson from the Bagwell Years) the Rebels lost .0259 in OBP, 12 Total Bases, 3 Runs and 3 RBI by sitting Lee for THREE GAMES!
In order to capture a player’s statistics, we have to struggle through the bad games to get the good games. None of us know when a player is going to have a great game or week or when they will struggle. We can look at logic and say “This pitcher is in Colorado this week so I should sit him since he’ll get hammered.” Inevitably if that pitcher is reserved, he’ll throw seven innings of three hit ball. But let him start against Pittsburgh for “that easy win” and he’ll get lit up like the 4th of July.
The parallels in real life:
The stock market (represented in this example by the S&P 500) has had an average rate of return of 5.9% from 1997-2007. That includes all the great days and all the horrible days that make the news. Now if you happened to be invested during that ten year period, but missed the best ten days (ten days out of the 2517 total trading days) your return would drop to 1.1%. And of course, just like with Lee, we don’t know when those ten best or worst days are going to occur. Emotion gets us into dangerous positions. Since having his blistering three game set, Lee has been 5 for 31 (.193). Usually with investing when things go bad, people jump for the sidelines until they see a recovery and once they see it (i.e. once the market has ALREADY gone up) they hop back in, having missed the spurt of growth. Having seen the spurt of growth, Dem Rebels activated Lee just in time to capture another correction while completely missing the spurt.
Patience is the name of the game. As long as you have good stuff (players, stocks, investments, even relationships) you will be successful in the long run. Now how do you know if you have good stuff? Oy, that’s another Monroe Doctrine.
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