“This Is Obviously Getting Old” and Other Bullets

Apr 21, 2013

I love that the Chairman of the FCC came out in support of David Ortiz’s emotional speech at the Red Sox game yesterday, which included an f-bomb. Sometimes it’s OK, and you’ve just got to relax about that stuff.

Dale Sveum had to know that, after another mistake-filled loss, he was going to have to speak at length about the team’s woes. And, to his credit, he did speak at length. In addition to saying that you can’t have team meetings every day, and that the mistakes being made are the kinds you expect to see in rookie ball, Sveum seemed to throw up his hands a bit. Per Carrie Muskat: “It seems to be the story every night. It seems to be continuing that we can’t seem to catch the ball or make a play when we have to make a play. Edwin [Jackson] pitched a great game, but he was part of that, throwing the ball into center field. We’ve got to step up and somebody has to start making plays and driving runs in because this is obviously getting old …. To win in the big leagues, you have to have people who perform, and perform 162 games, not once in a while. You have to perform. It’s the big leagues. Otherwise, you lose your jobs.”

The reality of the roster, though, is that certain guys are playing because the front office wants them playing. And everyone else – the Castros, the Rizzos, the Castillos, the Barneys – is an obvious starter that you’re not going to bench. In other words, there’s only so much Sveum can do. Moreover, if the Cubs want to have the ability to shop guys like Scott Hairston, Scott Feldman, and whichever other guy you tab who isn’t currently performing, Sveum’s going to have to keep giving them the opportunity to perform. This season was never about the playoffs, so you might as well at least hope for those tradable assets.

As for the fundamental mistakes, they are, at some level, always going to be on the players. These guys have played the game for 10, 15, 20 years before they even meet their present coaching staff. In that regard, there’s only so much the Cubs’ coaches can do to correct mistakes that occur when the body just does its thing. At the same time, when mental mistakes appear again and again, at some point, you do have to question whether the coaching staff is doing an appropriately effective job of communicating with each of the individual players. We had these same disputes back during the Quade regime and it looked like the Cubs didn’t know the ball from first base.

Speaking of ranting about the fundamentals, Dave Kaplan took to Twitter last night to blast the poor play of the Cubs this year. Among his comments, he said that what we’re seeing is the result of “years of mismanagement, awful minor league system and poor fundamentals. Sveum cannot allow sloppiness to continue.” That turned into a back-and-forth with Bruce Miles, who would prefer if Kaplan – who lauded Jim Hendry when Hendry was in the front office, according to Bruce – gave Hendry a chance now to discuss whether/why his tenure was fraught with mismanagement.

Pitching Coach Chris Bosio knows the scrutiny he faces as the bullpen continues underperform, fair or unfair.

The confusing minutia of the Jean Segura baserunning adventures from the other night. There’s still some debate about the right way to apply the rules.

Starlin Castro has a 12-game hitting streak. So that’s cool.

written by

Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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