In what is becoming a recurring theme, the Cubs’ offense again failed today. Despite the verified return of the 2003 Mark Prior, who went 9 innings, gave up just 1 run on 3 hits and 1 walk, and had 16 strikeouts, the Cubs lost 2-1 to the Reds in 12 innings today.
The bottom of the 12th was particularly bungled.
With Kyle Farnsworth set to lead off, followed by the top of the order, Dusty Baker had the following pinch-hitting options: Jose Macias, Mike DiFelice, Calvin Murray, Jason Dubois, Ben Grieve, and Neifi Perez. Needing a run to stay in the game, the logical choice is to go with the guy with the best chance of getting on base. As Alex Ciepley noted in the comments section of this post at The Cub Reporter, that would be Ben Grieve, who has a lifetime OBP% of .366 and a 2004 OBP% of .360.
But Baker likes speed leading off innings. So he chose Macias, he of the lifetime .300 OBP% and .286 2004 OBP%.
Baker had already bypassed Grieve once. In the top of the 10th, he chose Tom Goodwin to pinch-hit to leadoff the inning. Lifetime: .332; 2004: .257. Goodwin struck out.
But Baker had to go with the speed. Nevermind that the rules of baseball allow you to pinch-run for a player after they reach base.
In any case, Macias singled to right, so the decision worked. Except that using Macias (and Goodwin earlier) took away another scenario: the possibility of tying the game with one swing. Grieve has 118 career home runs. Macias has 25.
Macias’s single brought up Corey Patterson, who has been swinging through pitches for a month now. So the decision to play for the tie with Patterson is defensible. Normally, I would prefer allowing a player with some pop to win the game with a homer, or at least drive the runner in with a double into the gap (after all, we’re insisting on leading off the inning with speedy players who have a greater chance to score from first). But, again, Patterson is worse right now than what his season averages tell us.
But Patterson fails to get the bunt down, and then strikes out.
OK, we’re still fine. Garciaparra–a doubles machine–and Ramirez are coming up.
But then Garciaparra tries to sacrifice, too. Against Juan Padilla. Padilla came into the game having allowed 21 earned runs in 22.2 innings this year. Scratch and crawl against Randy Johnson, not Juan Padilla.
Garciaparra does get the bunt down, but that leaves the Cubs with just one more out. Ramirez walked, and Moises Alou flew out to end the game. Let’s hope it didn’t end the season.
Gary Thorne has a column on USAToday.com in which he discusses the recent kerfuffle over Chip Caray’s and Steve Stone’s sometimes criticism of the Cubs’ play, which resulted in them receiving some heat from some of the Cubs (most notably Moises Alou and Kent Mercker), including their attempt to kick the announcers off the team plane. Thorne thinks the episode is symptomatic of a move toward removing the objectivity of team announcers:
For those who think there ought to be some substance and objectivity in the mediawhen covering sports, it has only gotten worse.
. . . .
Team broadcasters, once hired by the media outlets to be fair and impartial in their coverage, find themselves working for teams owned by the media outlets. The issue of broadcasters cheerleading in the booth for “your” team simmers.
When the players don’t like what they — or more likely what their wives — hear they complain publicly or to team officials. The broadcasters are caught in the middle with little support from the people for whom they work.
Thorne misses something in his analysis: Chip & Steve were not criticizing the Cubs’ play as “objective” journalists, but were criticizing them as biased journalists. That is, as fan-journalists. We know this because Chip & Steve have never purported to be objective observers. Instead, they cheer when things go good. They root for things to go well. There’s a disappointment in their voice and commentary when things go poorly. (They’re not exactly Ron Santo in that regard. But then again, no one is.) And that has been the circumstance under which Chip & Steve (and before that Harry & Steve) have broadcasted for a long time, not just recently.
In other words, Thorne is lamenting the attempted stifling of something that doesn’t exist anyway.
But this is just an intro into Thorne’s main lament, with Barry Bonds as the antagonist: Players trying to control what is written and spoken about them by limiting the media’s access to them. Thorne thinks that is downright an affront to liberty:
While the players have a right to do whatever business they wish over the Internet, all professional sports should require players be available to the press to deal with real issues and everyday stories.Athletes are public figures and the free press has a right to question them, even if the response is “no comment.”
This overstates the right of the free press. The press’s freedom doesn’t come at the expense of personal freedom. While the media has a right to ask questions (and write and speak what they want within the bounds of truth), they don’t have the right of access to people who do not want to answer—or even listen—to those questions. (Thorne, as a former lawyer, should know this.) Of course, teams could require as a condition of employment that players make themselves available to the media while in the clubhouse, within the bounds of the player’s employment contract and the collective bargaining agreement, but that is a policy matter, not a constitutional one. Thorne can argue that Bonds should make himself available to the media, but it is an illegitimate argument that Bonds must make himself available.
When the Cubs acquired Mark Grudzielanek before the 2003 season, along with Eric Karros, in exchange for Todd Hundley, I thought the Cubs had received an OK backup to Bobby Hill for one season, while getting rid of the two years left on Hundley’s contract. Then the speculation began during spring training 2003 that Hill, after getting off to a poor start in the spring, would not be the starter after all.
I wrote on March 16, 2003:
Hill wasn’t great with the Cubs last year (86+ in 59 games), but he had a .382 OBP% at Iowa last year, and a .396 OBP% at Double-A West Tennessee the year before. Plus, he’s 25 years old this year. It’s time for him to play. 37 under-performing at-bats in spring training shouldn’t change that.
Hill continued to struggle, and the talk began in earnest that Hill wouldn’t even make the team. I wrote on March 24, 2003: “The main alternative–Mark Grudzielanek–has battled sprained ankles all spring and thus only has 11 at-bats (he’s 1 for 11).” By the end of the day March 24, Bobby Hill was sick, and Grudzielanek started his third straight game of the spring.
In the March 26 morning papers, it was reported that the Cubs would send Hill to Iowa. Grudzielanek would be the starter, and also take Hill’s presumed job as leadoff hitter. I was not happy:
I really hope [Jim] Hendry is just being nice with that “Grudzielanek is a pretty good hitter career-wise” comment. Grudzielanek has had only one season in which he’s posted a league average OPS and that was four years ago. His career OPS is 6.5% below league average. Not terrible for a middle infielder, especially if you make him your back-up, but certainly not “pretty good."With Grudzielanek hitting leadoff and Alex Gonzalez hitting second, Baseball Prospectus projects the two hitters setting the table for Sosa, Alou, and Choi this year to have on-base-percentages of .292 and .304, respectively. Ouch.
I had reason to prefer the hope of Hill rather than the sureness of Grudzielanek. Grudzielanek’s EqA the previous three seasons had been .255, .251, and an unequivocally subpar .241 the previous season, 2002. He had only had an above average EqA twice in his career, the last time being in 1999 with the Dodgers. Additionally, he was not more than an average defensive player, mostly due to range issues.
As you know, Grudzielanek went on to play much of the year at second for the Cubs, and quite well. He finished with a .275 EqA, and was about the 7th best offensive second baseman in the NL in 2003. While not great, that performance was certainly more than expected.
Then during this past offseason, the Cubs had Todd Walker fall into their laps, setting up a good platoon situation (though Grudzielanek’s injury during the first-half of the season, and Dusty Baker’s lineup construction in the second half has prevented employment of the platoon). Even then, though, I openly speculated whether Brendan Harris might be the better platoon partner with Walker. Grudzielanek, however, has gone on to post another respectable EqA this year, .266, so far.
Grudzielanek was never, and will never be, a great player, or even a really good one. But he has done much more than I thought he would as a Cub. He has played respectable major league baseball.
Bobby Hill? A decent year at Iowa (.288/.365/.424) helped the Cubs turn him into Aramis Ramirez. Nice. This year, Hill – now 26 years old – has hit .267/.349/.335 for Pittsburgh in a part-time role, good for just a .237 EqA, making Cubs fans appreciate Grudzielanek that much more.
