So Long Larry...

Larry Rothchild announced yesterday that he was leaving the Cubs to go be pitching coach for the guy who should be the manager of the Cubs right now, Joe Girardi. Thus, the latest rats jumps ship. Can't really blame him though. He'll be able to spend 6 extra days with his family - the most craptastic excuse he mentioned yesterday. Bottom line, like Lou, he's realized this team is going nowhere fast so he's jumping ship to the Yank-my-Crotches.

I have had a colored history with Larry. I hated him when every Cubs pitcher on the roster was on Medicare in the early 2000's, but since then, pitching has been one of the Cubs' strengths - you know, as long as you don't count the bullpen - so maybe he wasn't doing that bad a job.

Like just about any coach, he's entirely replaceable. I find it interesting that Musky the Cub didn't list Greg Maddux as a potential replacement. It's very possbile he simply doesn't want the job, but I'd kick a sack full of puppies if it'd get him to try.

Ryno's hissy fit

Ryno made it official recently. If the Cubs can't see how awesome he is, and if they don't think 4 long hard arduous years in the minor makes him ready to manged Superstars, well they can just go bugger off.

I suspected after initially getting passed over that Ryno was outti15000, but I suspected that after he looked around and saw the barren wasteland that was his managerial opportunities, he might realize that 4 years ain't "paying your dues". It's barely a down payment of paying your dues.

Obviously, Mike Quade has more experience managing in both the minors and in the majors. But is he a fukken
Hall of Famer? I think not.

So in the words of what Lou Piniella would say:

"Look, ahh, son. I understand that you might think people don't like you, but ahhh, it's not that at all. It's just that you need to get some time under your belt and ahhh get out there and play the...er, I mean manage the damn game, dude,"

Dusty? Where did you come from?

I am Jack's compete lack of surprise

WQow. Who could've seen this coming? Mike Quade is the new Cubs manager. I'm stifling yawns as we speak. Just goes to show ya Cubs fans - Buckle in. It's going to be a looooong couple of years. The good thing is, management seems to realize this and realize that things are bad now and they're going to have to suck a lot to get better.

Quade's a place holder for a couple of years for when this team might potentially not suck. Whether he's keeping the seat warm for Girardi, Sandberg or some other manager remains to be seen. The philosophy here is "This team is going to be full of kids, who will probably suck, so let's plug in a guy who can help these kids not suck a little and someone we can fire without drawing the ire of the idiots, er I mean fans"

Ladies and gentlemen,

Mike Quade

Fanfare!

For whom the bell rings....

So if you're like me, you've probably forgotten that there's baseball going on right now. Yes, there is. Sorta. Nobody I give a rat's butt about is playing, so I could care less, but then we'd be talking about soccer. So I heard something like this on the radio once, and I've been kicking around this random thought for a while now and I thought I'd share it with you both, er, I mean all.

A Ringer Draft.

It is exactly what it sounds like - A Ringer Draft. Each postseason, after the final game has been played, each team in the post season gets to "Draft" one player from a non-contending team to join their team as part of the roster. This can be any player - position or pitcher to be used as seen fit. There are a few rules:

1. Teams choose from best record to worst - Wild Card teams pick last. The best teams get the best players, period.
2. The team selecting the player pays that player's salary, including any missed time that may come from an injury. If Albert Pujols goes down with a torn ACL, the Yankees pay for his DL time too.
3. Drafting a ringer is optional, because...
4. The "Ringer" replaces one man on the 25 man roster. Someone's getting left out.
5. The Ringer, and the Ringer's team must both consent to the draft.
6. A portion of postseason revenues goes to the team who is lending out said player.

There are obviously more rules and regs that would follow, but it might make things a touch more interesting for fans of teams the ringers come from. I know I'd pay at elast a little attention of Marmol went to the Rangers or something similar. and I know what you're all thinking - What a STUPID idea. I mean what if one of your players got hurt while playing in a game that meant nothing to their team? It's not like this is the All-Star game or anything...

Offseason Moves - First Base

There are far, far too many options to lay out a best case/worst case scenario here, so let's just dive into it.

First off, I wouldn't at all mind seeing what Xavier Nady can do with a full season at first base and an off season separated from shoulder surgery. Second, the only reason I would hate to see Adam Dunn playing there is because I would then have to root for him, and no longer call him a "big dumb animal". Third, Paul Konerko playing really well in a contract year is no surprise. Not ready to throw him a treasure chest just yet.

There are a lot of options available for first base this year. You will hear a lot of clamoring for Adam Dunn, whom fans either love or hate with nothing in between. Some will argue a pigeon will catch as many balls at first base as Dunn will, others will argue that while that may be so, the pigeon will not be able to fly farther then the balls leaving Dunn's bat day. after day after day. Dunn will also want a pile of money for a team that will be knocking at the door of fourth place next year - no thank you.

I would like to see Xavier Nady sign another similar contract to this years' $3.3ish and if so, then 1.5 good years of Nady for 7 million will be the best FA signing of Jim Hendry's career.

If Paul Konerko wants to be a veteran presence for a discounted price then he would be a find. If he wants to ask more than 10mil per for more than 3 years, he'll be joining his old buddy Jermaine of the gold course.

Given a choice between PK and Dunn for 10 mil, I'd have a tough time deciding, but I'd have to go with Dunn. Yikes.

All this is moot since we'll probably end up with Lyle Overbay for 16 years/227 million, but hey. That's Jimmy!

Off season moves - The Manager

Best case scenario - Joe Girardi
Worst Case Scenario - Ryne Sandberg
What'll probably happen - Mike Quade

Yes, I said it. Sandberg is the worst-case scenario, but maybe not for the reason you think. Here's the deal. Sandberg is universally loved throughout Cubdumb and managers, especially managers hired during rebuilding years, are hired to be fired. Ryno hasn't proven himself a winner in AAA yet, let alone at the big-boy table. He hasn't even coached in the show yet, and 90% of the idiots out there are ready to hand him the keys to the castle.

Joe Girardi has proven that he can win with kids - Marlins, and with seasoned professionals - New York, is a media powder keg with a merciless owner. He also is a local boy with Cubbie ties and is close enough to please the unwashed masses with his Cubbie charm. He is also not an idiot and knows that the Cubs will not contend next year, or probably the year after. Therefore leaving the Yankees and going to the Cubs would be like hopping off a cruise liner to go sailing in a dinghy - with holes in it.

Therefore, we will likely end up with Quade, who despite his ridiculous insistence on letting Bobby Scales get dressed, seems to have a handle on this team - in September. But honestly, the teams they've faced - the Cardinals, Giants, Padres - have all been serious cookies, and the Cubs have handled themselves decently - not great, and not really good either, but decently.

Should be an interesting off season -

Next up, first base.

Shish-KaColvin-Bob

So Bud,

The good news is we proved Tyler Colvin is not a vampire. The bad news is, we had to drive a maple stake into his chest to prove it. So my question, Buddy boy, is how many more players, coaches, fans and umpires will have to be skewered before we put a ban on these ridiculous injury machines?

Maybe a lawsuit or two?

Players, broadcasters, managers have all come forward to publicly condemn maple bats for their tendency to not shatter into a million pieces. Rather, they tend to shatter into just a few large sharpened stakes that fly in seemingly random directions.

Today's incident - yeah, we'll call it an "incident" - is just the latest in a long line of incidents in which people have been seriously injured by these things and they need to go.

Reflections on seasons lost...

Things we know
- Lou Piniella was not the answer
- Mike Quade isn't either
- The Cubs aren't as bad as we thought they were this year, but they're also not as good as we hoped.

Things we suspect
- Ryne Sandberg will be the Cubs manager next year
- The Cubs will still suck, even after 3 or 4 good moves.
- Jim Hendry should start typing his resume next August

The Cubs managed to fall flat once again this year - Lee and Ramirez never had their usual May turn around. And the rest of the roster amazingly failed to match their career years in 2008. Soriano managed to play a full season without leading off once, however arguably, the Theriot/Fukudome/Baker/DeWitt combo didn't do a whole lot better - just less home runs. Soto managed to put together a decent year, along with Sori and Ramirez is starting to make us all feel a bit better about him returning. Byrd is the freakin' word this year, so we hope he'll continue as such next year.

Wait...the year's not over? Well shoot. Ok.

It's over...

The White Sox losing to the Twins last night pretty much put the final nail in their coffin for this season. I'll admit, this season, I wanted the Sox to fail more than ever before. Maybe it was because they were supposed to suck like the Cubs. But more than anything, I wanted them to fail just to shut their fans up. Sue me.

Since the loss last night, I really now officially have nothing to cheer for the rest of this dismal god-awful season. Sure I can perk up when Colvin or Castro come to the plate. I'd sure love to see Castro finish the season higher than Joey Votto in the batting title race, but it doesn't matter. What does matter is developing the kids and putting together a good off-season.

A few thoughts on the off season. Jabba the Hendry's got a tough job ahead of him. He has to put together a decent team that can contend for 3rd place, and not sell the future on a loser next year. Anyone who is deluded enough to think that next year will be it, I've got news for you... The Cubs will have one more shot at a World Series before the world ends in December of 2012, and it will be in 2012. and it's a slim shot at best.

We'll talk more about off season moves/manager searching later. For now, just strap in and try to ride out the next couple of weeks. It's ok. It'll all be over soon.

Why should we care?

So the Cubs are pushing hard for a strong fifth place finish, and it makes me wonder - Why? Why do we still care? Well, if attendance is anything to look at - we don't. Attendance numbers being based on tickets sold being a ridiculous barometer, you can look at the M-T bleachers and see where the passion for this team is. It's in the bars, watching Bears preseason games. Because as bad as they are, the Bears are slightly better than the Cubs. Maybe.

But anyway. Why should we bother watching the rest of these pointless games? I'm going to lay out a few reasons for you. Some good, some bad.

Castro, Colvin, Cashner, Barney, Hoffpaiur, Berg, Russel, DeWitt, Marmol.

There's your future folks. If you're curious as to how many games you should buy tickets for next year, there's your answer. Have fun. It's almost over.

Fare thee well Lou, The "Screw you Trammel" Edition

Thanks to @TheCubsInHaiku for the picture:

Photoshop courtesy of me.

Fare thee well Lou

So Lou Piniella is retiring after today's loss to the Altanta Braves. Ok, so they haven't played yet, but it's a safe assumption. Ohh, and since my last post the Cubs also traded some guy who used to play first...

But now Lou is retiring today, citing mom's health and his own I-don't-give-a-shittedness. Don't get me wrong, I liked Lou Piniella's tenure overall. He was handed two crappy teams backto back and told "Go. Win." What drove me nuts the most was his "I don't know what else to do" and "I've done everything" excuses. First, it was his job to know what to do, and second you didn't do everything (Lee/ARam 3/4 combo du jour). But all that aside, he did find some flexibility in "letting the kids play" and for the most part, made some decent moves, suicide squeezes, sending MArshall to left, etc. so I can't complain too much. He's the best manager we've had in recent memory, I'll give him that.

So go home Lou and take care of your mom. Quade will be the manager and Trammel will be written off - though what he did to piss Jim Hendry off, I'm not sure. But that's a who;e other conversation.

PS, I'm saving my farewell to Lee psot until after he leaves town, but this kinda trumped that.

Decisions, Decisions....

So a bit of a debate has sprung up amongst my peers about the search for the next Cubs manager. Some advocate going after Joe Girardi, or Ryne Sandberg since both would have the unencumbered opportunity to slide into Lou's chair at the end of the season, and both would certainly be fan favorites.

And yet, there are some who would advocate a lesser move for a Bobby Valentine, Bob Brenly, or other "place holder" until such time as the cubs stop sucking toes - whic they will not do next season (the stoppign I mean). On the one hand, we all get to smile about our buddy Joe or Ryne, while suffering through 2-3 years of futility plugging holes with not-quite-ready prospects until we can trim some fat off the payrol and sign some decent names (undoubtedly w/ no-trade clause). On the other hand wouldn't we want our "Buddies" to, you know, actually succeed during their tenure here?

Sure we wold, but what's to say that our "buddies" will be available 3-4 years down the line when we're ready to put them on their pedestals? Nadda. So I guess get while the gettin' is good?

I'm not sure, but I hope Ryne or Joe or Bob, or whoever owns stock in Excedrin...

Hey OMC, where ya been?

Well, loyal reader, a couple of things have contributed to my lack of content.

A. The Cubs suck - to be honest, how many different way do I need to say it. This team has become so irrelevant, it's been frankly hard to write about. Kudos to Carrie Muskat (Muskie the Cub), Gordon Whittenmeyer (Gordo), Paul Sullivan (Sully, known to other bloggers as "I hate you"), and Bruce Levine (Haven't come up with a nickname for him yet) fro writing about the crappy team, day after day.

B. Life has gotten in the way - work, family health, and all manner of What the Fuck-edness has been just ripping my life to shreds and sucking down my free time like Tony LaRussa on a bender.

C. Tacos. They're yummy. And kinda irrelevant to this conversation.

So there you have it. I'll write, but in the meantime, you can follow me of twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/oneminutecubs or if you're geekily inclined my official Palm fanboy/Geenral technology twitter account:
http://www.twitter.com/DeadTechnology

Meantime, just take a valium and a few muscle relaxants, and try to muscle through this crappy season with your head attached.

The 2010 Season in Dramtic form

It occurred to me that this Cubs season has been very much like this intro to the Naked Gun 33 1/3. Just one disaster after another. So I attempted to kinda put it all together. Feel free to comment/criticize. I can take it. Besides I freakin' rule, so there...

So long Ted. And thanks for all the fish.

So Ted Lilly and Ryan Theriot are off to the land of swimming pools and movie stars. In return we get....wait for it....a middle infielder. Oh for the love of crap. And an underachieving middle infielder, only his name's not Theriot.

Still, Blake DeWitt could be interesting. By all accounts he has a decent swing, just not the ability to actually make contact. Maybe Rudy can help out? God willing. Baker turned out to not suck too bad last year. To be perfectly honest, DeWitt will be hard rpessed to be worse than Shitty-ot.

This isn't quite Hundley for Karros/Grudz, but I'll take it. So long Ted. It's been fun watching you. I'll hate to hate you, but I already do you f*cking Dodger. Theriot - don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Actually, scratch that. Let it hit you. Hard. Preferably to left field.

We might suck today, but...

So, after last night's "What the hell just happened" moment (which I fortunately slept through) in which we learned that nothing good happens when you bring in Sean Marshall any more often than is necessary (because his arm is going to fall off), I decided to throw out there two fun facts that I've picked up listening to Pat and, reluctantly Ron, over the last couple of years. Neither of these is verified with anything that any reasonable person would call a "source" because frnakly, I'm not sure where to goto verify these, but for what it's worth, here you go -

The Cubs have the longest active streak of years without being no hit since Sandy Koufax's perfect game on 9/9/65 (45 years, this September). The longest streak of years w/o being no hit is held by the Phillies at 57 years.

The Cubs won their very first two games ever, and have not been under .500 ever since. They are the only team to be able to claim that. They are currently 10211-9658 (.514).

So there ya go Cubs fans. Feel free to toss that in Sox fans or Cardinals fans' faces. Just be sure to walk away before they mention 2005 or 2006.

This is why I cannot be a GM

So the economics of baseball confuse me. Two teams have arguably left the "Contender" building this year - The Cubs and the Astros. So what do we do? We dump. get rid of whatever we have to rebuild. Save some bucks. But then I see these tweets -

@mlbtraderumors: RT @Ken_Rosenthal: Source: Deal is 3-for-1. Happ in. Astros would pay "very significant" part of Oswalt's remaining salary.

and

@mlbtraderumors: Stark: Cubs willing to take on some of Lilly's remaining $4.43MM.

to which I responded with:

@oneminutecubs: Why the hell would we do that? RT @mlbtraderumors: Stark: Cubs willing to take on some of Lilly's remaining $4.43MM.

I got one response:

@harrypav: @oneminutecubs to upgrade the prospects that come back #orsoihope

Ok, I kinda get that. If you can't draft 'em, buy 'em. But still this to me seems stupid. The Ricketts have made no secret of the fact that payroll is staying the same or going down next year. And until Tyler Colvin, Rookie of the Year, Starlin Castro, or Geo Soto show up, they're still just prospects. You know who else were prospects? Felix Pie, Corey Patterson, Eric Patterson, Bobby Hill, blah blah blah blah. They're just prospects. Maybe they'll pan out, but in the meantime, it just seems like teams on the sellers list are accepting of the fact that they're going to get screwed like a Vegas weekend and pay for the privilege.

Butt what do I know?

Sweet Lou going ni-ni.

So I guess I'm a Cubs blogger, so I better write aobut this. It's just that. I just don't care. Talk about records and legends and yadda yadda, he's just another guy that didn't get the job done. Was it his fault? Not entirely, but I won't say his hands were completely tied either. I'm not going to spend this post going over his mistakes (left handed bat), just like I won't go over his career accomplishments (1990), just like I won't speculate who is next in line (Girardi). What I will say is, Lou was entertaining at times, frustrating at others, and pretty much was as ineffecive a manager as you can get.

Did Lou win back-to-back pennants? Sure. But the 140+ million dollar payroll helped too. Soto having a ROY season, Soriano not being hurt, and Lee having a career year helped too. So, whatever. Happy retirement Lou. I won't miss you. I won't cry over your departure. I probably will cry if they hire Ryne Sandberg in your stead, but that's another story...

Could it happen?

Many Cubs fans look to our southside neighbors and their ridiculous record of 26-5 over their last 31 games as inspiration that our guys can do it too. Well, let's take a look. Bear in mind, I'm not TOO familiar with the Sox so much.

Starting rotation
With a solid rotation on both sides of town including a reliable lefty (Lilly/Buehrle), a very good, but not quite Ace (Danks/Dempster), a retread exceeding expectations (Silva/Garcia), a FNG (Wells/Hudson) and well, another lefty (Gorzelanny/Floyd). Add in the other two would be aces - Zambrano and Peavy - both of which have an equal chance of being a starter for the respective teams again this year - and honestly the rotatinos are a push. Advantage none.

Infield
Lee beats Konerko in terms of defense, youth and speed/base running, however Konerko dominates with his bat. If Derrek can have a monster second half to make up for his average, watch out. - Advantage Konerko for now, but stay tuned.

Rookies - Beckham vs Castro - Beckham has been slow all year, but is picking it up recently. Castro is a hot shot with slick fielding, but not much power. He is, however, hitting the ball, so advantage Castro

Ramirez vs. Theriot. Umm..yeah. Advantage Ramirez.

Ramirez vs. Vizquel. Assuming Ramirez is back, and many indications say he is, advantage Ramirez.

Soto vs. Pierzynski - Depends - which Soto are we talking about? Both are adequate on defense, and when he's on Soto blows away AJ. But when he's off, not so much. Still going to go with Advantage Cubs.

Outfield
Soriano is on a hot stretch for another week or so, and Marlon Byrd has been a great bat all year, but Rios and Quentin far out power and speed them. Colvin and Pierre are meh compared to their outfield mates. Advantage White Sox.

Bench/Bullpen - With Bob Howry and Kosuke Fukudome (et al) going up against JJ Putz and Andruw Jones. No contest - Advantage White Sox, except when it comes to closer. Marmol rules.

So, what does this all mean? Do the Cubs have it in them to put together a run? If we were in Houston 7 years ago, I'd say sure. For now there's been no evidence that they can with any consistency. I think they'll play better in the second half, but the NL Central will come down to a 2 horse race, with the Cubs being the nag left behind.