AJ: Cubs Appear Off-Duty in Off-Season

If I were a diehard Cubs fan, I’d be bummed out too, Big Mike. 

The Cubs’ biggest off-season move — except for trading Milton Bradley — has been to sign Marlon Byrd to a three-year $15 million contract to play center field?  Are you kidding me? 

Now, Byrd seems half-decent, but, come on!  With the payroll the Cubs have now, they can’t make any additional moves of significance to improve the team?  Maybe they have one more move to make, but, from the little coverage I’ve seen, it seems the Cubs have been sleepy this off-season, and,  it seems they think they can get away with that.  I’m sure some fans are pissed off, but, I still sense the Cubs front office does not feel adequate HEAT to make them feel pressure to do more.

I just reviewed the  Cubs’  recent history and was reminded that the 2008 team won 97 games!  97 fucking games!  That’s too impressive a record to be followed by the decline last year, and, then, such a quiet off-season before 2010.

I’m still learning about the Cubs, but I have questions about some of the player contracts, Big Mike.  A few of the contracts seem too large and too long.  Why the hell did Carlos Zambrano make $18,750,00 in 2009?  Can you tell me that?  Zambrano may have talent, but, that’s too crazy an amount to be dishing out to any pitcher unless they’re The Best in baseball.  For example, even C.C. Sabathia, who was outstanding in 2009, earned a salary $3.5 million less than Zambrano’s $18.7 million.  It just seems the Cubs’ contracts for Zambrano and Alfonso Soriano are excessive, particularly Soriano’s eight-year, $136 million deal.

Maybe I’ll become more acquainted with the Cubs wheeling and dealing in 2010, but, it seems their expectations are too low – given they still have a base of some players from that high-quality 2008 team.

To tell you the truth, even though the Red Sox of recent years always make moves in the off-season, I think it’s unfair that so many other teams operate on such smaller budgets that they cannot do much season to season to improve.  I don’t know the full ramifications of imposing a salary cap in baseball, but, it’s hard to deny that it’d bring a hell of a lot more balance.

I feel compelled to remind you, Big Mike, that while Chicago fans seem resigned to the Cubs starting the 2010 season without much new blood, Red Sox fans are already airing discontent every day about GM Theo Epstein allowing Jason Bay to walk and his failure to add a top hitter or two to fill the void.   I am sure that if the Sox fail to hit in the first few months of 2010, that the Red Sox brass will feel sufficient fan dissatisfaction to at least influence their outlook.   In fact, I’m confident they’d make a big move by the July trading deadline.

In Boston, the current ownership group wants to win and keep the fans happy.  Can the same be said about the Chicago Cubs?

Big Mike: A Position For The Byrd

In the 42 years I’ve been a Cubs fan, the team has had a dependable centerfielder for only five of them. That was Rick Monday from 1972 through 1976. Once in a great while, though, a Cubs centerfielder might flash onto the scene only to disappear almost before we realized we had him.

Bob Dernier teamed with Ryne Sandberg in 1984 to form what Harry Caray christened the Daily Double at the top of the Cubs order. Dernier was as fast as the wind, catching everything that was hit between leftfielder Gary Mathews and rightfielder Keith Moreland, which was pretty much everything that was hot to the outfield. A fairish offensive force, Dernier put in only a single full season with the team.

A half decade later, Jerome Walton exploded on the scene, winning the rookie of the year award in 1989. Speaking of Harry, the old man by that time was mangling the language every time he opened his mouth. Once, when Walton made a nifty catch to squelch an opposition rally, Harry was so excited that when he tried to say Walton’s first name and explain what the kid had done, it all came out as some mash-up that sounded like “Geronimo!” The very next year, Walton turned into a bum.

In 1994, the Cubs installed a 25-year-old kid as leadoff man and centerfielder. In the kid’s first three at bats against Doc Gooden on opening day, he hit three home runs. I wasn’t listening to Harry that day so I can only imagine how he muddled Karl “Tuffy” Rhodes when the kid hit his third home run of the game in the fifth inning. Didn’t matter if Harry ever got the kid’s name right because Rhodes had played himself out of a job by July.

A decade later, Kenny Lofton came aboard in mid-season and sparked the Cubs to a division title. He had the effrontery to criticize Sammy Sosa for missing the cutoff man in a crucial spot during the playoffs so Lofton, naturally, was banished from the team immediately after it was eliminated.

Centerfield reverted to an empty hole in the batting order and the defense until 2008, when Hungry Jim Hendry turned in desperation to an aged Jim Edmonds, who’d just been released by the worst team in the league. A rejuvenated Edmonds hit fairly well and caught everything he could reach — which was a lot less than he could when he was under the age of 65.

So now, Hungry jim, faced with another gaping hole in the middle of the outfield, bestows a three-year, back-loaded contract on one Marlon Byrd, a fair player who nobody else even thought to offer a three-year package to.

Ho hum. The 2010 Cubs will finish with 90 losses. The party, such as it was, is over.