Booooooooornitz

Wow. And I thought the Sosa deal was bad. I should probably try to avoid jumping to conclusions about this until we know for sure that it is going to happen, but jeez. Jeromy Burnitz? How in the hell could that possibly make any sense whatsoever? I just don't get it. The man has done nothing but prove repeatedly that he is simply not a good major league baseball player anymore.

From some of the stuff I've read, Burnitz is one of those guys that Hendry has liked for quite a while now. He's tried to get him before, and I guess this is just his most recent and, apparently, most successful attempt. One might argue that Barrett was one of those guys too, and he worked out all right. However, I simply don't see how one could try to compare the two. Michael Barrett was a somewhat injury prone catcher who had shown promise at an early age and who was entering his age-27 season. Burnitz is 35, and he will be 36 April 15th. The last time he was good for more than half a season outside of Colorado was 1999.

If you want to try and take something positive out of all this, it's not easy. However, I did come up with something. At least maybe now we won't have to worry about all the crazytalk about how amazing a GM Jim Hendry is. He's made some nice moves, but, looking back, almost all of them have been trades in which he held all the cards because he was able to take on payroll. When not given that upper hand, Hendry is proving himself to be not all that much superior to the mind blowingly bad Gm's of yesteryear.

Ineptitude

The GM's job is to make the team better. Jim Hendry simply hasn't done this at this point in the offseason. I suppose a big move could be on the way that would fix things, but it sure looks like guys along the lines of Huff and Kearns are going to cost too much. And you can say all you want that all the free agents were too expensive, and that the other teams wanted too much via trade, but the fact remains that the team is worse than it was before. We've added Jerry Hairston and Hank White, and lost Sammy Sosa, Moises Alou, and Matt Clement. If the team does what I suspect it will, and it signs Jeromy Burnitz and calls it an offseason, we will be worse than we were before. I realize it's a good team, and I realize that if the pitching stays healthy we'll have a shot. But why is it that we only have a shot? Why is it that we can have that pitching staff for that amount of money, and still just "have a shot?" It doesn't have to be this way. If we do indeed sign Burnitz, the offense will be worse than last year. No amount of chemistry will save it. Even if Jerry Hairston is the most fun guy in the world and makes everyone happy all the time, the simple fact that we're going to get next to nothing out of our corner outfielders is rather damning. The bullpen has an outside shot at being reasonable. The bench is is likely the same.

Moves like this make no sense. The Cubs apparently decided that Sammy Sosa's negative influence on the team was so great that it would negate the possibly 200 point difference in slugging percentage that the Cubs have elected to incur. Maybe that makes sense to them. But it sure doesn't make sense to me. Sometimes I wonder why I couldn't do a better job. If I were given the opportunity, though, I do no one thing. I wouldn't give productive major leaguers away for no reason.

Rant

Ah, I was just starting to think the Cubs would be all right in 2005. I mean, full seasons of Walker, Nomar, you know, the usual positive arguments. There are plenty of negative ones too, such as "Sammy Blah-Blah-BLAH," which is really getting annoying. Sammy isn't the problem. He'll be better this year if he stays healthy. Those injuries were weird, so they (most likely) won't happen. What REALLY gets my gator (that's one of those sayings, right?) is how most people think, "Even though we may have weaknesses, we have Jim Hendry. He's a good'un, and he'll fix us."

I used to believe in Jimmy, I really did. Wow, he drafted so-and-so, Prior! Well, who the hell wouldn't have drafted Prior. Wow, he traded for Kenny and Aramis. We needed a centerfielder because TOM GOODWIN was going to be the guy. Aramis was practically a no-brainer. The guy was 25 and undoubtedly an improvement over Lenny Harris (gahhhh) and whoever else happened to wander in from one of the local bars. Hey now, he got Nomar. Um, I still haven't figured out that trade. Don't get me wrong, I loooove Nomar! It just doesn't make sense, really. I'll give Hendry credit for a pretty cool farm system. I mean, there are positions other than pitcher, but I'm not going to nitpick there (DOPESLAP!). What gets me is how he doesn't like "stats." He said (I'm paraphrasing here), basically, that he doesn't think on-base percentage is that important. Okay. Wait, WHAT? He doesn't even like an incredibly simple statistic like OBP. He's going to take "tools" over "ability to NOT GET OUT." READ THAT AGAIN. Excuse me while I go bang my head on the wall.

*Sigh* It's no use getting worked up over the many glaring weaknesses of this team, though. I'll always be addicted to the Cubs. It's just in my blood, I guess. (Thanks, Mom & Dad.) However, I don't have to be mad (both crazy and angry) ALL the time. My official 2nd team is the Oakland A's. Why? They have almost everything the Cubs don't. Patient players? Numerous patient players? Yes, yes. Manager that doesn't make moronic decisions? (Don't EVEN get me started on Dusty...) Yes. Ken Macha is da coolest (he really chomps that gum). Brilliant GM that will do ANYTHING to put the team in the best position to win? Um, I'd say so. I don't think everyone should be Billy Beane (the world would explode), but when GARY HUGHES is the assistant GM, there are some serious personnel changes needed. See the Baseball America Gary Huckaby/Voros McCracken vs. Gary Hughes/That Angels Guy chat for proof. (Nowhere to be found, to me anyway.) Gary Hughes hadn't heard of DIPS. (You know, defense independent pitching statistics, Voros' great invention.) It would be one thing if Gary had heard of it and just decided he didn't like it (although dumb), but he HADN'T HEARD OF IT. EVER.

I'm not writing about Dusty. I despise him. I hate how he gets away with so much, I hate how everyone thinks his teams always do better in the second half, I hate how he sits his cute little son on his lap when the post-game questions are going to be tough, I hate how he is perceived as a great manager by so many, and, most of all, I hate that he is in charge of the Cubs. This Jenius has too much power. Make him the manager of the AAA team or something. Don't let him run the big league team. It's just awful.

I'm not always such a pessimist. I'm not usually like this. How could I hate the team for which Carlos Zambrano plays? Just thinking about him makes this whole post pointless. "That's right, Barry Bonds, I caught your weak little line drive back at me. You go sit down." There are a LOT of good players on the team, and maybe a few really rotten ones, too, but isn't it time for us to have a 2004 Cards season (minus the ending, of course)? The offense doesn't give me hope, the pitching doesn't give me hope, and the front office certainly doesn't give me hope. Carlos gives me hope. (hee hee)

I haven't figured out how to link to sites through words, but I'll get it soon.

Magglio

There's been much speculation that the Cubs are one of the teams interested in being present in the horrific knee explosion that's sure to take place in mid-May. In order to best solidify their chances of doing so, it appears as though they may want to sign Magglio Ordonez. I suppose the fear is that he signs with the Mets or someone, and then they don't happen to be in town when it happens, and we all miss out.

Magglio used to play for the White Sox. Some people say that we should sign Magglio because that would really stick it to the White Sox. Those people are morons. The only sticking that's going to take place is when the outside of his knee sticks to the ivy because the inside of it exploded. The man's a ticking time-bomb. It would not surprise me if he literally did have a time-bomb inside of his knee. Doctors in Europe work in mysterious ways.

Anyway, healthy Magglio Ordonez is really, really good. Unfortunately, he's dead. You can't have him. You can sign this guy who looks a lot like him and may very well play similarly if he doesn't get hurt. In the end, this feels like one of those things destined to hurt the Cubs. If we sign him, Darren stabs him in the knee with a crayon after the wildly unnecessary "Welcome to Chicago" press conference and he never walks again (hey if he didnt walk he could play for the cubs lol NOBODY MAKE THAT JOKE. IT'S NOT FUNNY.). If we don't sign him, all-star numbers galore.

This is probably sounding pretty negative. I guess I'm not particularly opposed to signing to a one year contract with incentives and things, I just feel like we had enough fireworks last season, and we don't need any of the variety that Magglio brings.

Hello, Hello

Well, that's a tough act to follow. Or is my newer post going to appear before his? Hmm...Well, yes, I'm the girl, but don't let that fool you. I am a jenius. Really. I love the Cubs and I promise mannnnnny profanity-strewn rants, as well as flowery poetic lyrics confessing my love for Aramis and Walker and Nomar and...I still can't believe that whole Nomar trade actually happened. Sorry, off topic. I'm not big on words, so I'll just extend Johnny boy's promise of wonderful things to come if you visit us lots and lots. More tomorrow.....

p.s. only some of those things he said about me are true. you figure it out.

Introductions and Such

Hello. My name is Johnny, and this is a Cub blog. There are a lot of Cub blogs, and now this is one of them. If you don't want to read this one, I understand. However, I really think you'd be making a mistake. For instance, did you know that one of the authors of this blog is a girl? Did you? How many Cub blogs have that going for them? Maybe if you play your cards right, you can date.

Another positive thing about this blog is the fact that the authors here are pretty darn smart. We know better than the Cubs. When the Cubs resign Neifi and give him crazy money, and then sign Henry Blanco for crazier money, we sit here and try to figure out why. When the Cubs come out and say bad things about their highest priced player and then try to pay another team to take him without bothering to get anything in return, we begin to debate why we couldn't do a better job.

This is kind of heavy thus far, and for that I apologize. There will also be many crazy funny things happening here. We'll have cRaZy nicknames for all the players (the days when you laughed at the utter originality of Korey are behind you), and should we feel the urge, lists of theme songs for players will be revealed. Plans are also underway for humorous pictorials and movies depicting random events both in the Cubs' history and future.

Hopefully I've provided enough incentive for you to at least check back every now and then to see what things look like when regular posts with content begin. If I haven't, well, that's too bad. Because the girl blogger hasn't even started yet and I'll bet she's way hot.