In his desire to retain some semblance of control over the Chicago Cubs’ clubhouse, increasingly apathetic manager Lou Piniella is taking it straight to the players. For ideas. On how to manage.
He had a team meeting this weekend, and sought the players’ input on what he should be doing, other than throwing up his hands and furrowing his brow.
“Part of [the meeting] was to get their input,” Piniella said. “I told them if they wanted to criticize me as a manager, so be it and that’s the truth. I want what’s best for the organization.”
The only suggestion Piniella revealed was that the players would like to have the lineups posted a little earlier.
“It’s just to see who’s playing the next day,” Piniella said. “That’s basically the crux of it and I told them we could work on that and do that. The whole thing here is to stick together and play hard and be aggressive and take it to the other team.” cubs.com.
I’m all for seeking input and not assuming that you know it all. But on the other hand, this is a guy who’s been a professional manager for decades (maybe too many decades, but that’s another issue). Doesn’t it seem weird that he’d be having team meetings to ask for thoughts on what he could be doing differently?
The truth is, there’s plenty Lou could be doing differently – more consistent use of Tyler Colvin, less reliance on Ryan Theriot, burying Aramis Ramirez in the batting order, etc. – but with this crew, none of it likely to make an appreciable difference.