Saturday, August 28, 2010

Thanks to Bears, Quarterback Controversy Continues

Now that the starters are off the field in tonight's Bears-Cardinals game, let's look at the box score to see how the Cardinals' two struggling quarterbacks did:

Derek Anderson - 7 for 12, 94 yards, 1 TD, 111.1 QB rating
Matt Leinart - 9 for 10, 84 yards, 1 TD, 135.0 QB rating

Yes, that's right. Matt Leinart has a 135 rating in this game. The Cardinals had a quarterback controversy coming into this game, and they still do, but now it's because the Bears defense made each quarterback look equally good.

And as I'm writing this, Bears sideline reporter Lou Canellis asked Julius Peppers if he's happy with the Bears' first-team defensive performance*, since they held the Cardinals to 14 points. Um, Lou, if you checked out the blogosphere, you might have read that during the first two preseason games, the two QBs whom the Bears "held" to 14 points led their offense to a combined total of 3 points against first-teamers.

*To Peppers's credit, he said he was not happy with their performance.

I'm not saying the Cardinals' performance tonight makes the Bears defense look really bad, but...I can't think of another way to finish this sentence.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Great Timing!

Just one day after I say that Matt Leinart will provide a test for the Bears first-team defense on Saturday, Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt pulls the rug out from under my prediction, naming Derek Anderson as his starter instead of Leinart. Poor Whisenhunt - after enjoying Kurt Warner's production the last two years, choosing between these two QBs must be like choosing between a case of jock itch and a case of hemorrhoids (note - it's an analogy only. I'm not saying Whisenhunt has either malady, or that either QB is either malady).

In any event, the Bears should be familiar with Anderson - last November, he helped gift-wrap a 30-6 Bears victory over the Browns. Anderson was 6-17 passing for 76 yards, with 2 interceptions and a nifty QB rating of 10.5 before spending the end of the game on the bench. Anderson has been marginally better than Leinart this preseason (24-41 for 193 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs). However, the touchdown came in the 4th quarter of the first preseason game (against the Texans' backups), and last week he made 2 poor throws into the end zone, forcing his team to settle for a field goal when they should have had an easy TD. Consequently, even with the change in starting QBs, it looks like the point of my original post still stands. If the Bears can't stop Anderson, we're in for a long season.

Testing, Testing...

I haven't said too much about the specifics of any Bears preseason games, and for good reason - preseason football results are mostly meaningless ("my borderline NFL players are better than your borderline NFL players"). If you don't believe me, ask the NFL owners, who are trying to extend the regular season to 18 games while eliminating 2 preseason games (yes, I know it's about increasing revenue, but there's more revenue to be had because they'd be exchanging two meaningless games for two games that count).

Nevertheless, this Saturday's preseason game against the Arizona Cardinals offers an intriguing test for the Bears' defense, but not in the way you'd think. This is not the same Cardinals team that came to Chicago last November and steamrolled the Bears 41-21 (after jumping out to a 31-7 halftime lead). Without the retired Kurt Warner and the injured Larry Fitzgerald, the Cardinals offense has struggled in their two preseason games. Matt Leinart (Warner's replacement) has completed 10 of 13 passes but only for 77 yards in the two games, and the Cardinals' first-team offense has thus far generated only 4 first downs and no points.

Therefore, the Bears defense is in a no-win situation this week. If they perform well, it doesn't say much, because everyone's first-team defense has stopped the Cardinals. But if the Cardinals offense plays well this week after looking so bad for the last two weeks, it will be a sign that the defense is in trouble and that Bears fans are in for a difficult season.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Remember the Maine?

Apparently I was so happy the Cubs traded Aaron Heilman last year that I didn't notice that they actually received players in return. But they did, and one of those players, Scott Maine, is now on the major league roster. He was called up to replace Justin Berg...no, Jeff Gray...no, Brian Schlitter...no, Mitch Atkins...ah, some hard-throwing, generic, young right-handed middle reliever. I can't tell those guys apart - for all I know they're all the same pitcher.

And it's always great when two of my favorite things - Cubs baseball and Spanish-American War slogans - intersect.

Bears Sign Veteran Backup QB; Earth Continues Spinning on its Axis

At least one of the five sacks Jay Cutler absorbed during Saturday's Bears pre-season game was such a hard hit, it even knocked some sense into the Bears' front office. Faced with the prospect of a Cutler injury leaving the offense in the hands of Caleb "Mister" Hanie, Dan "Pac-Man" LeFevour, or the recently signed "With this offensive line, defenders will be stepping all over me like I'm a welcome" Matt Gutierrez (combined total - 9 NFL passes), the Bears relented from their hard-line stance last week by signing Todd Collins as a backup. Collins isn't an all-pro, but at least he has experience running an NFL offense, along with a career passer rating of 76.0 (for comparison's sake, Kyle Orton's career rating is 76.9).

Kudos to the front office for waking up and prying open their wallet to address one of the team's many glaring weaknesses.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

The Widowmaker Strikes Again

During the 1949 season, just four years after managing the Cubs to the NL pennant, Charlie Grimm resigned as manager to become general manager. Since then, 21 different men have started a season as Cubs manager. Some arrived with a fabulous track record (Leo Durocher, Dusty Baker). For others, it was their first shot at managing (Lee Elia, Whitey Lockman). All had one thing in common - they couldn't get the team back into the World Series (let alone win it).

Lou Piniella clearly belongs in the "fabulous track record" group. Piniella managed the Reds to a World Championship and led the Mariners to four postseason appearances (the only ones in franchise history). In his two first years, he did a fantastic job with the Cubs, becoming the first manager to lead the team to back-to-back postseason appearances since Frank Chance. Piniella's managing played a big part in this; unlike Dusty Baker, who loved his "proven veterans", Lou played the guys who deserved to play - he benched Cesar Izturis for Ryan Theriot, and put rookie Geovany Soto on the playoff roster (and even started him in game 2 of the NLDS). But both years, the team was swept out of the postseason, holding a lead for a total of 4 innings in the the 6 losses.

In 2009, the Cubs made several major changes to their roster - at Piniella's request, they "got more left-handed", signing Milton Bradley and trading fan favorite Mark DeRosa to open up second base for Mike Fontenot. Despite a rash of injuries to key players (Ramirez, Lilly, Zambrano, Dempster), season-long slumps (Soto, Soriano), and the constant distractions brought on by Bradley, the Cubs held first place as late as August 4 and finished with a winning record. While Piniella should be given some credit for keeping the Cubs afloat, his managing was part of the problem - playing Koyie Hill literally every day while Soto was hurt; playing Aaron Miles at all; his constant refrain of "look, what do you want me to do?" in response to reporters' questions (answer: "your job"). However, the Cubs certainly seemed poised to at least compete for the division title again in 2010 and didn't look like one of the worst teams in baseball (on paper, anyway). But obviously, that didn't work out, and now Piniella is left with this mess as the final impression of his tenure as manager of the Cubs, and the job has claimed another victim who came in with great credentials.

Even all-time greats can go out on a sad note: Willie Mays flopping in the outfield in the 1973 World Series; Bob Gibson serving up a game-losing grand slam to Pete LaCock in his final inning in the major leagues; Carlton Fisk being released by the White Sox less than a week after setting the record for most games caught. And so it goes for Piniella - his 1835 wins are 14th all-time, and of the managers ahead of him, only four (Torre, Cox, LaRussa, and Mauch) aren't in the Hall of Fame (Torre, Cox, and LaRussa will be eventually). In spite of the 2010 season, the fact that he's seemingly been detached and uninterested for most of the season, and the way his managerial career ended with a 16-5 loss, I'd still say he's still one of the all-time greats (I'm not the only one, either), and (even if it's faint praise), the best and most successful Cubs manager since World War II.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Pathetic, Parts 1 Through 3

Pathetic, Part 1

If you haven't seen this play...wow! I'd call it a little league play, but I don't think even a little leaguer would let this happen, let alone a catcher who's supposed to be a defensive specialist. At least I think he's supposed to be a defensive specialist - his OPS is barely over .500, so he must be good on defense, right?

Pathetic, Part 2

If you wonder why Cubs players suffer from brain-lock, maybe they're just following the cue of Cubs management, as seen by this note at the end of today's game recap.
The Cubs called up OF Sam Fuld from Triple A Iowa to take the roster spot of 1b Derrek Lee, who was traded to Atlanta for prospects on Wednesday. The Cubs had told 1b Micah Hoffpauir he was being promoted, but because they just sent him down Monday he isn't eligible to come back up until next week.
I guess it's not too much of a stretch to go from not knowing that John Grabow shouldn't get a multi-year, $7.5 million contract to not knowing how the rules for calling players up from the minor leagues work, leaving Xavier Nady as the only true 1b on the roster. Way to go, front office!

Pathetic, Part 3

The 2006 Cubs, who lost 96 games despite the 3rd highest payroll in the NL (7th highest in MLB), were 53-69 after 122 games.

The 2010 Cubs, who have the highest payroll in the NL (3rd highest in MLB), are 50-72 after 122 games. Yes - this team has a chance to be worse than the team that completely quit on Dusty Baker in his final season as Cubs manager.

And not so pathetic

Everyone says people will come to Wrigley Field to sit in the sun and drink beer, regardless of how bad the product on the field is. Well, apparently there are limits to how many of those people there really are. Check out this "highlight" from Wednesday's game, and how many empty seats there are in the bleachers (on a gorgeous Wednesday afternoon, with school not yet back in session). Today's game had a paid attendance of 30,687 - that's about 10,000 less than capacity. And those attendance numbers don't figure to improve as the team continues to lose and the kids go back to school. The last time there were this many empty seats was the end of the aforementioned 2006 season, which led to Jim Hendry's offseason free agent spending spree (Soriano, Lilly, Marquis, DeRosa). This year, he won't be able to "fix" the team's problems by throwing money around, so I'm going to look at the silver lining at say that the next couple of years I'll have plenty of material to blog about.

DLee Dparts

That Derrek Lee is one smart guy. Three weeks ago, he rejected a trade to the Angels, who at the time were 8 games out of first place. His reward? A get-out-of-jail-free card in the form of a trade to the first-place Atlanta Braves. Good for Derrek. In the last three weeks, he's gone on a bit of a hitting tear (especially against the Cardinals - 4 HR in 3 games), so he's no longer last among NL first basemen in OPS; in fact, he's a slight upgrade over the guy he's replacing, Troy Glaus.

A cynic might say that Lee's hot streak has come with his team completely out of the running and is just a salary drive in what's probably Lee's last shot at a big free agency payday. However, I'm stuffing a sock in that cynic's mouth and duct-taping over it. Instead, I'll choose to remember Lee for his fantastic 2005 season in which he led the NL in hits, doubles, batting average, slugging, OPS, OPS+, and total bases. I still think Lee should have won the MVP award that year (he finished 3rd) and would have had a better chance if his pinhead manager hadn't put two OBP sinkholes in the two spots in front of Lee in the lineup every day.

As for the trade, the Cubs received salary relief for the last 6 weeks of Lee's contract plus three pitching prospects from the Braves. The last time the Cubs received three pitching prospects in a trade with the Braves was in 1999 when they traded Terry Mulholland and Jose Hernandez for Ruben Quevedo, Joey Nation, and Micah Bowie. Yikes - that didn't work out too well for the Cubs. But that was Ed Lynch's trade. I'll just check Hendry's trade record on Braves' pitching prospects...hmmm, let's see...here we go. Juan Cruz for Andy Pratt. Umm, uhhh...maybe the third time's the charm?

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

NOOOOOOOO!

Surprise - it looks like he's back again. And the worst part? Not that it means the Bears can kiss their hopes of finishing in second place good-bye. That might work out in everyone's favor, as four straight seasons of missing the playoffs would have to mean the end of the Angelo-Smith regime in Chicago.

No, the worst part is that now we're going to have to go through this drama queenery and media kvelling again next year.

Anyway, I've developed a theory - I think that he thrives on media attention, so I'm not going to write his name anymore. I'll try and pass this idea along with the hope that if everyone follows my lead, and no one pays him any attention, he'll just go away forever.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Spoiler Alert!

At the end of play Monday, the Reds hold a one-game lead over the Cardinals for the NL Central lead, and the Giants hold a half-game lead over the Cardinals for the NL Wild Card.

The Cubs' records against those three teams so far this season:

Against Cincinnati: 3-10
Against San Francisco: 1-3
Against St. Louis: 5-4

So as of right now, the Cubs are keeping the Cardinals out of the postseason - not just by beating the Cardinals more often than not, but also by curling up into the fetal position against the two teams the Cardinals are chasing. When your team is 19 games under .500, ruining your archrival's season is the best you can hope for. Keep up the good work, Cubbies!

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Pizza Pizza!

I don't know who Phil Steele is, or what kind of prediction algorithm he uses, but he projects that Ron Zook & Company are going bowling this year! Granted, it's the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl, but after appearing in only 3 bowl games in the last 15 years, any postseason game will do, even if it requires spending Boxing Day in Detroit. This would be a big deal for the Illini football program, because if you earn one bid to the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl, you get the second bid for free.

As for the Illini basketball team, actual good news may be in store. According to SI's Andy Glockner, the Illini were one of the unluckiest teams in the NCAAs last year and are one of his five teams that can expect a turnaround in that department. As he puts it:
The Illini pretty much return everyone from a team that was mildly unlucky last year, finishing about a game and a half worse than expected, which likely cost them an NCAA tournament bid....Still, if they can get a boost from former Illinois Mr. Basketball, Brandon Paul, who shot the ball terribly last year, the Illini should be a serious threat in the Big Ten.
Considering the Cubs' lousy record in one-run games, I think it's about time for one of my teams to have some good luck come their way. And if it's going to happen to one of my teams, I'd prefer it not to be a team that would just use it to get to mediocrity - I'd like it to be the one that could actually do something worthwhile with it.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

College Football - Feel the Excitement

Only three weeks away from the college football season. Scanning the national media, I don't see any mention of the Illini as having anything to do with shaping the next decade of college football, at least in SI's view. Scanning further...ah, here's ESPN's Big 10 preview. Let's scroll down...hmm, no Illini at the top...still scrolling - there's Indiana, but no...oh, crap! There's Illinois, at number 11. Great - we're projected to be worse than Indiana. I'd say that things can't get any worse than that, but next year Nebraska joins the Big 10, so actually things can get worse - we could finish 12th.

Returning to the SI article, one of the predictions is the return of the option offense. I hated the option offense when teams like Oklahoma and Nebraska used it in the 1970's and 80's, but I'm so bereft of hope for the Illini football program now that I'd be willing to stomach having my team run the option if it meant we'd no longer be a doormat. Thanks, Ron Zook and Ron Guenther!

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Eamus Gemini! Eamus Rutili!

Since the Cubs are mailing it in, I'm reduced to rooting for the Reds to finish ahead of the Cardinals in the NL Central, and for the Twins to finish ahead of the White Sox in the AL Central. This is the sports equivalent of the U.S. government's decision to back Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s - the enemy of your enemy is your friend. Unfortunately, this is how it has to be - unless the Bears can overachieve, until college basketball starts, schadenfreude is all I have to go on.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

I'm Not That Frustrated

Check this out - ESPN's Jon Greenberg suggests that Cubs fans show up at the charmless hulk of a stadium at 35th and the Dan Ryan this week to support the White Sox as they battle the Minnesota Twins for first place in the AL Central.

Thanks for the tip Jon - so if (hypothetically) I'm unhappy with Barack Obama's performance as President, would you suggest that I move to Iran?

New Faces

The 2010 Cubs are leading the major leagues in one-run losses by a wide margin. So the best thing that could happen to this team is to have its OPS leader go on the DL - especially when the only other catching option on the major league roster has a sub .500 OPS. To remedy this, the Cubs called up Welington Castillo, who was so excited to replace Geovany Soto that he left one of his "L's" in Iowa. Castillo has an .823 OPS (albeit in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League), but he's only 23, so maybe he'll be somewhat useful. Unless the manager does what he did last year when Soto went on the DL and plays Koyie Hill almost every inning of every game until Soto returns, that is.

Also, Derrek Lee, who is still dead last among NL first baseman in OPS, will be out on bereavement leave. Micah Hoffpauir has been brought up to replace him. Last year, the Hoff hit .239/.300/.427, which is actually better than Lee's .246/.332/.383 line this year. That's right - Lee has been less productive than a guy who couldn't even find a spot on the Cubs' major-league roster this year. We'll see if the manager insists on putting the Hoff in the 3 or 4 spot in the order, as he has done with Lee in every single game he has started this year.

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Second Place, Here We Come!

If the reports and rumors floating around are correct, congratulations to the Green Bay Packers, the 2010 NFC North champions. And congratulations to the Chicago Bears, too - that 7 or 8 win season now might be good enough for second place in the division! Heady times, indeed.

As a requiem for Brett Fav-ruh, if he truly stays retired, here are three facts:

1. His last pass as a Green Bay Packer was an interception which led to his team losing the NFC Championship game.

2. His last pass as a Minnesota Viking was an interception which led to his team losing the NFC Championship game.

3. Chris Chandler has quarterbacked a team to the Super Bowl more recently than Brett Fav-ruh has.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

A College Football Post!

If anyone is reading this blog, they'll notice that I haven't said much about college football yet. It's hard to believe there's not much buzz around the Illini football program and the soon-to-be unemployed Ron Zook with only a month to go before the season kicks off, but that's what happens when a team has only two winning seasons in a decade (and three in the last 15 years), I guess.

Well, college football fans, today's your lucky day, because I came across this article, entitled "Ron Zook Looks to Stimulate Fan Support." Talk about a misleading headline - there was nothing in the article saying that Zook was about to resign! But after all the blather about staying positive and working harder came this quote, from the author:
All teams need fan support to play their best. If Illini fans want their team to be successful, they will forget last year and focus on helping the team win this year.

Even if they think a change in the head coach is the only solution, they cannot rule out their own contribution to failure if they refuse to support the team. Illini players and coaches will give everything they have to the effort, so the fans need to do likewise to know without doubt they aren't part of the problem.
Yes, because that's the biggest problem with this team. It's not the players, or the coaches who recruited them, or the Athletic Director who hired the coaches who recruited the players. It's the fans who have endured the second-worst Big Ten football program of the last 15 years (only Indiana is worse, and I'm not even sure they have a football team) - yes, it's our fault that the team stinks (hmm, I think I may have heard that before).

Look, guys, I'm more than happy to forget last year (and most of the last decade, frankly) and give "everything I have" to help the Illini win in whatever way that I can - you know, support the team. But if it's a Saturday afternoon in October and Illinois falls behind 28-3 in the second quarter, I'm probably going to be doing something else besides supporting the team. My leaves aren't going to rake themselves, you know.

The Ultimate Pick-Me-Up

The Colorado Rockies had lost eight of their previous nine games prior to a visit from the Cubs this past weekend. The Rockies swept the series and now have are on a four-game winning streak. The Milwaukee Brewers had lost five straight games before tonight's game at Wrigley Field in which the visitors scored 18 runs on 26 hits, dropping the team with the highest payroll in the National League into fifth place.

For the rest of the season, teams will be looking at the Cubs the same way a sleepy truck driver looks at a can of Red Bull.