The Problem with an Interim Manager Like Mike Quade: Tyler Colvin to Remain in the Outfield
Being the manager of the Chicago Cubs – even in a mere interim capacity – brings with it certain indelicacies. Most notably? The microscope. Every move you make is scrutinized by a rabid pack of irrational freaks.
Today, I am but one of those freaks.
Cubs interim manager Mike Quade took the reigns yesterday, and in his first lineup, there were more than a few surprises: Alfonso Soriano had been dropped to 7th (good move), Geovany Soto was back to 8th (bad move), and Blake DeWitt was batting leadoff (more on that in a bit). But the most surprising move was a guy that didn’t move: Tyler Colvin was back in right field, not at first base, where we’d been told for days he would be playing this series.
And it wasn’t just a one-game aberration, either. Quade says he doesn’t expect to put Colvin at first any time soon.
“Nothing imminent for me there. We’ll pick a spot,” Quade said. “Maybe see him over there in a late-inning game, where maybe it makes sense to do that. It’s something that we’ll look at, but sparingly, probably.”
Colvin, who started in right field, has been working out at first since the Cubs traded three-time Gold Glove Award winner Derrek Lee to the Braves on Wednesday. The rookie hasn’t played first since his sophomore year in college at Clemson. He had his most intense workout Sunday under the tutelage of bench and infield coach Alan Trammell.
“It’ll hold off. I guess I’m not quite ready,” Colvin said. “It’s good to work over there and I’ll do the work on the side and I’ll be ready for it. It’s fine taking fungos the whole time, but game speed, that’s different. Once I get some balls hit hard at me, I’ll see what I do with those.” cubs.com.
Here we see the clear problem with having an interim manager like Mike Quade. Do I mean that Quade is, himself, a problematic manager? Of course not. I’m sure his managerial style is just fine.
The problem is: he’s up for the Cubs full-time gig in 2011. So when it comes to making choices on a game-to-game basis, Quade is going to make the choices that help the team win today – even if the choice is at the expense of the future of the organization. Quade has himself called his interim job an “audition.” Does anyone really believe he’s going to do anything that lessens the chance he’ll win during his audition? More on the conflicting incentives the Cubs have created, after the jump.
Alfonso Soriano is Struggling, and is Kind of Blaming the Team
Alfonso Soriano is a wealthy man. The Chicago Cubs gave him an eight-year contract four years ago, which pays him $18 million per season. Without commenting on the wisdom of the deal, it’s fair to say that it came with certain expectations that Soriano has not lived up to.
After a miserable 2009 season, Soriano was on his way to a fine rebound year in 2010 – until June, that is. And he’s got some interesting theories on why he’s struggling.
However, it’s been a struggle for Soriano since May. He was 4-for-18 on the road trip. He has 1 home run in August. He hit .225 in July, .234 in June and .308 in May.
“Players, to have a good year, have to have a good team,” Soriano said. “It’s very hard to have a good year when you don’t have a good team.
“You see the Cincinnati Reds. Everybody’s doing good because they are in first place. If you see us, nobody’s doing good because we are in fifth place. St. Louis has guys who are having a very good year because they are in first place, too.
“I think that’s the key. If we have a very good team, everybody can have a good year.” Daily Herald.
I’ll go ahead and give Soriano the benefit of the doubt, and assume that he didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Because it sounded like he’s saying his numbers are down because he’s stuck on a crappy team – and boy would that be a crummy thing to say.
Without getting into a chicken-or-the-egg style debate about individual good seasons and team good seasons (though it seems pretty obvious that teams have good seasons because of player good seasons, and not the other way around), Soriano should probably rethink his position. As noted in the article, he hasn’t hit in over two months, and you’d think he’d at least be good at saying the right things by now.
But then again, Soriano’s a really rich guy these days. It’s not like he’s got much to play for this season, right?
Series Preview: Brewers v. Cubs, August 2 – August 4, 2010
It’s Series Preview time again, as the Chicago Cubs welcome the Milwaukee Brewers to Wrigley Field – still the one team, outside of Arizona, against whom the Cubs have played well this year. The Brewers didn’t conduct a sell-off, so they’ll be at full-strength.
A refresher on the series preview here at Bleacher Nation:
The idea is to hook you up with the bare minimum of what you need to know about every series this year. That way you can look like a genius, hardcore fan in front of all your friends, with minimum effort. Oh, and there will be pictures of beautiful women, too.
Check out the Brewers series preview, after the jump
Chicago Cubs Sign Second Round Pick Reggie Golden
Filed under: Chicago Cubs News, Chicago Cubs Transactions, Cubs Minor Leagues and Prospects
Some good news on the draft front – yesterday the Cubs announced that they had signed their second round pick, high school outfielder Reggie Golden.
Reggie Golden got his first peek at life in the big leagues on Saturday.
Golden, the Cubs’ second-round Draft pick, signed his contract on Friday and was able to do a little hitting in the cage with players such as Marlon Byrd, Mike Fontenot, Ryan Theriot and Kosuke Fukudome. The Cubs now have signed 24 of their first 50 selections.
“It feels good,” Golden said of being in a Major League clubhouse. “I grew up watching these guys play, especially Derrek Lee and Alfonso Soriano. I’ve got chills.”
Golden, selected out of Wetumpka High School in Wetumpka, Ala., was recommended by area scout Tom Clark, who accompanied the outfielder on Saturday.
“He’s a combination of speed and power, and that’s hard to find, especially nowadays,” Clark said. “He can run, and he has power.”
Golden finished his high school career with 36 home runs, 156 RBIs and 146 runs. He did sign with the University of Alabama, but has instead opted to get his professional career started. cubs.com.
Terms of his deal weren’t disclosed quite yet, but I’d imagine that he received a little bit more than expected in order to keep him from enrolling at Alabama.
UPDATE: I was right. Golden received a $720k signing bonus, which was about $160k over the slot recommendation. Indeed the Cubs must really like him.
The Chicago Cubs Are Positive
Despite falling 10 games under .500, having lost ANOTHER series to the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Chicago Cubs’ players are still trying to stay positive about the season.
“There’s always time,” pitcher Tom Gorzelanny said. “There’s definitely a lot of baseball to be played. We need to get going, we need to win some games here. There’s definitely a lot of baseball to be played and there’s a lot of crazy things that have happened before and there’s no reason for us to panic or worry or believe that we could be some miracle team because we’re a good team and we can put what’s been going on behind us.”
Said Koyie Hill: “We believe in each other, big time.”
Said Alfonso Soriano: “There’s a lot of games left — there’s three months. I know the first three months have not been very good for us. I believe in this team because there’s a lot of great players and a lot of great teammates, also.” Muskat Ramblings.
That positivity is swell and all, but the Cubs are staring down a mere 1.2% chance of making the playoffs at this point. Play hard? Yes. Try to win? Sure. Enjoy yourselfs? I hope so.
But for the sake of the organization, I hope the front office does not share the players’ blind optimism. It’s time for difficult, but forward-thinking, decisions.
Zambranogate: Carlos Won’t Be Back Until After All Star Break
Although we aren’t yet sure when Chicago Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano will return to the team, we know that it won’t be for a while.
Zambrano, 29, moves today from the suspended list without pay to the restricted list with pay, with a mandatory order to undergo treatment to control the emotional outbursts that have come to define him more than his pitching.
General manager Jim Hendry wouldn’t estimate how long Zambrano would be inactive but said he wouldn’t be back before the All-Star break. CHICAGO SUN-TIMES.
That puts Zambrano’s return – the bullpen, mind you – no sooner than July 15. That’s also assuming the counseling helps, and Zambrano apologizes to his teammates. Both Alfonso Soriano and Ryan Dempster have stated publicly that Zambrano needs to apologize, so it isn’t just coming from Lou Piniella and Jim Hendry. Given Zambrano’s bull-headed behavior in the past, it’s hard to imagine that apology coming easily.
Zambranogate: Carlos Zambrano Says It was Derrek Lee’s Fault
As the World Turns…
Video of Zambranogate shows the pitcher storming into the dugout after giving up four runs in the first inning on Friday, shouting – at no one in particular – and gesticulating wildly. Derrek Lee can be seen shouting “shut the f*ck up” to Zambrano, who turns, and directs his anger more visibly at Lee. All reports – from writers, the players, and management – indicated that Zambrano’s initial yelling, though not directed at Derrek Lee’s face, was about Lee’s play in the first inning, as well as other Cubs.
Carlos Zambrano apparently says that’s not the way it happened.
Zambrano already is calling his actions Friday ”completely misunderstood” and blaming Derrek Lee for turning it into a big deal by confronting him during his ranting and raving after the White Sox’ four-run first inning.
”All he wanted to do was pump the team up. It was completely misunderstood,” a source close to Zambrano said, adding that Lee ”took it personal” and told Zambrano to ”shut the f— up.”
Yet team sources say Zambrano’s rant — much of which was in Spanish — included yelling, ”This team is horse s—-!”
That’s when Lee is caught on camera intervening and telling Zambrano to shut up.
They had to be separated.
So, about Zambrano’s version?
”That’s not the way we see it,” said Alfonso Soriano, who planned to call Zambrano on Saturday night. ”If he explains, maybe we can see it the way his friend sees it. But what he said wasn’t right.”
As one Cub put it, ”Anybody who believes [Zambrano's version] must be smoking something.”
Asked if teammates could forgive Zambrano, Soriano said, ”I don’t know.” CHICAGO SUN-TIMES.
Zambrano has never had a vocal group of supporters in the Cubs clubhouse, but I honestly never believed it would come to this. Teammates are going out of their way to criticize Zambrano – something that, although common for the Cubs in recent years, you just never see on other teams.
He’s not helping himself by staying out of contact with the Cubs (though Carlos saw fit to go out to dinner with Ozzie Guillen the night he was dismissed from the team), but if there is this much hostility directed toward him over an incident that appears, on first glance, to be little more than Carlos being Carlos, that suggests that he’s probably right to keep his distance.
It also suggests that there’s a lot more than meets the eye going on here. A few years ago, Zambrano lost it on teammate Michael Barrett in the dugout. Carlos chased him down in the clubhouse, and beat his ass. There was some flap over it, but nothing compared to what’s happening now. Might that be because there’s more going on behind the scenes?
When was the last time you heard a manager and GM – and teammates – being so vocally critical of a player? Ok, bad question to ask Cubs fans. But again I say, on other teams, this shit just doesn’t happen. I’m not getting into the whole the-Cubs-pick-the-wrong-players-and-take-on-unnecessary-risks thing; I’m just saying that there’s probably a whole lot more to this story than we’ve yet heard about.
And Zambrano offering his side is just the beginning.
Series Preview: Cubs v. White Sox, June 25 – June 27, 2010
The excitement of the BP Environmentally-Friendly Crosstown Cup is reaching a FEVER PITCH. Given this season’s performance of the two, er, one of the Chicago clubs, I’d say it’s a fitting that the rivalry is sponsored by a company associated, at present, with an oozing flow of oily sludge. Time for the Series Preview.
The idea is to hook you up with the bare minimum of what you need to know about every series this year. That way you can look like a genius, hardcore fan in front of all your friends, with minimum effort. Oh, and there will be pictures of hot chicks, too.
