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The Giants completed a four game sweep of the Cubs today. By no means is it my intention to be rubbing this in anyone's face, rather I'm wondering if your club has been playing in the same sluggish, dispirited manner all year. The last two games have featured some god awful "Yikes" moments for you.
On Sunday with the Giants leading 1-0 in the bottom of the 8th, with two out and Blanco on first for SF, Cabrera singled to leftfield. Blanco rounded second and was still ten steps from third when Soriano picked up the ball and rather lazily tossed it in to secondbase. Of course as soon as the Giants thirdbase coach saw Sorinao's brain spaz,he went into his windmill on crank act and waved Blanco home. He scored easily.
Worse, in today's game the Giants were trailing 2-1 in the bottom of the fifth. They loaded the bases with one out. Brandon Crawford bounced a routine groundball to second, it was flipped to Castro for the first out...and then instead of throwing to first to complete the double play, Castro started trotting off the field. He apparently lost track of the number of outs. A run scored to tie the game. The Giants wound up winning 3-2.
What gives with these guys? I would have thought after Soriano's screwup on Sunday they would have gotten a chewing out about getting their heads out of their behinds and back into the game.
I think those two plays are way more indicitive of the individual players than the overall teams attitude. Soriano has made a career out of poor defense, and since he has been patrolling LF for the Cubs it's only gotten worse. Castro found himself in similar situations this year where he just has total mental lapses in fairly basic moments. Last year, everyone was talking about how he has a severe case of ADHD, but nobody is mentioning that this year.
However, I do think this team is not going to be playing with any sense of urgency, at all. Theo came here to build from the ground up, and esentially said that they wouldn't be winning much in the near future. Even as a professional, I'm sure that is not very motivating to hear from your GM who is proclaimed to be the savior of the franchise.
Overall, it's just been bad baseball littered with mistakes you wouldn't see high schoolers make. Just another year in the Cubs world.
I have been a Cubs fan my whole life, but this team and organization are awfully hard to watch right now.
Soriano has been a lazy mess since he signed that rediculous contract with the Cubs. Then there is no accountability. He has been allowed to loaf across left field for years, admire is 300 foot fly-outs at the plate, and generally underperform and harm the ballclub with no accountability because nobody is going to bench the 18 million dollar man. He is a horrible outfielder, not much of a batter anymore, and harmful to the lineup. He needs to go.
Castro is a space cadet. He doesn't have the focus or determination to do anything beyond what he can with his basic skills (which are high). He is a tremendous talent too. Tons of range and fielding ability, but he is throwing it away (litterally) with throwing errors all the time and not having his head in the game (like this weekend). It is an ongoing problem, and now in his third big league season, I am no longer accepting the "he is young" argument. He may be 22, but with well over 300 MLB games played, you think he would pay attention to the game.
Then there is a general attitude starting with Theo. They are in full tear down and rebuild mode. Theo, to put a team on the field after dumping salary, has put together a roster of mostly veterans and journeymen who underperformed last year, or for a few years, and hoped they would "work out." Most aren't working out. So the club just lacks tons of talent.
Those veterans who are playing well (Dempster, Garza, DeJesus, etc) are just biding time until the trade deadline when they are moved to a team in competition. They know the Cubs are looking years down the road to field a winner, and their big contracts don't fit this rebuilding mode. They see there is no push to win now, or next year. So they are just waiting.
Then theo and Hoyer are triggershy on calling up the player who will be the face of their rebuilding project. Anthony Rizzo. This 1st base prospect is all the rage in Chicago. Hoyer, when hired by San Diego from Boston, brought this kid to San Diego. Now that Theo brought Hoyer to Chicago, he brought him to Chicago giving up a very good looking young arm. Rizzo is tearing up AAA (.362 avg, 17 hr, 47 rbi, 1.140 ops), but since he had a cup of coffee with the Padres last year that did not go too well, the Cubs are afraid of "rushing him" and calling him up.
Nothing says "we are not concerned about winning now" like leaving your top prospect in AAA as the season crashes around the big league club because there are definately not enough bats, or bats with power in the lineup.
Right now, this organization looks more like the Cleveland Indians in the movie Major League... intentionally trying to lose.
I am not a Cubs fan that demands a World Series victory or anything like that. I would just like to see them be consistent good a little more often instead of buying 1 good year with vets, then having to 95 loss seasons before they can afford a few new big money players for another good year.
Theo is supposed to change that, and I would like to see some kind of evidence that the moves they are making might pay off.
Then theo and Hoyer are triggershy on calling up the player who will be the face of their rebuilding project. Anthony Rizzo. This 1st base prospect is all the rage in Chicago. Hoyer, when hired by San Diego from Boston, brought this kid to San Diego. Now that Theo brought Hoyer to Chicago, he brought him to Chicago giving up a very good looking young arm. Rizzo is tearing up AAA (.362 avg, 17 hr, 47 rbi, 1.140 ops), but since he had a cup of coffee with the Padres last year that did not go too well, the Cubs are afraid of "rushing him" and calling him up.
Nothing says "we are not concerned about winning now" like leaving your top prospect in AAA as the season crashes around the big league club because there are definately not enough bats, or bats with power in the lineup.
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If Rizzo was called up, how would they get both he and LaHair into the lineup at the same time?
If Rizzo was called up, how would they get both he and LaHair into the lineup at the same time?
LaHair can play either corner outfield position and can be rotated through (he has in the minors). With Dejesus able to play Right and Center, LeHair could spell Soriano in left on occasion, and play right on occasion with Dejesus moving to center. Campagna would still be able to get some at bats in this rotation.
By two counts (UZR and TZ) Soriano has been a very good defensive OFer with the Cubs.
Of course, these two independent metrics must be mistaken by orders of magnitude.
Yeah, except those numbers dont account for his fear of ivy, in which he lets balls sail over his head that he could have made an effort on. Or balls that he fields on one bounce instead of going after like any other LF'er in the majors would do. Its easy to always hit the cutoff man, when you can't throw any further than him.
Im a believer in advanced metrics, but if they peg Soriano as a "very good defender," thats a collosal failure on their part.
By two counts (UZR and TZ) Soriano has been a very good defensive OFer with the Cubs.
Of course, these two independent metrics must be mistaken by orders of magnitude.
I will give Soriano this... he has a very accurate throw and will accumulate a lot of assists from left, as well as discourage runners from advancing. Last year he was 4th in OF assists with 8.
Soriano's problems with outfield play are the outfield wall as stated, and simply misplaying balls. I have seen him come in on balls, to watch them sail over his head, take the wrong lines, loaf (jog) instead of run (although I have seen more effort this year for the most part). He also tends to commit a decent number of errors for an outfielder (2010 he led the NL in errors by an OF, last year was 4th highest). They tend to be fielding, not throwing errors.
He is basically in LF because he is not a good infielder, and the NL has no DH. He certainly is no ball hawk.
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