The Cubs Chronicle

The AP reports that “Sammy Sosa was humiliated by being dropped to sixth in the Chicago Cubs lineup, and claims he was mistreated by the club.” Sosa told the Hoy newspaper in Santo Domingo, D.R., “I’m a cleanup hitter or third because I’ve earned that right with almost 600 career home runs.” (more…)

The Cubs exercised their option on Ryan Dempster today. The Cubs will pay $2M to Dempster in 2005.

The price tag is a bit steep for a middle reliever with a lifetime ERA 14% below adjusted league average (mostly as a starter) and 1.5 K/BB ratio. The Cubs, however, may make Dempster their closer, something that was reportedly considered this summer. The Chicago Tribune’s Dave van Dyck opines that if Dempster is made the closer, “he would be one of baseball’s best bargains” next year. I guess. Though there is not much in Dempster’s history—outside of his one good year as a starter in 2000—that suggests he will be a shutdown reliever. As I said in July, though, if Dempster were made the closer, it would free LaTroy Hawkins up to pitch in the often more crucial setup innings.

Dempster would be a better bargain if he won the 5th starter’s job and pitched effectively out of that role. That is also a possibility for 2005.

Randy McRoberts lays out the evidence of how atrocious FOX’s coverage of the World Series was.

Regarding the third item—"we want to see the game"—The constant closeups of players (and fans) drives me nuts. We lose perspective. How is the defense aligned? How big of a lead does the runner have? How far in the hole did the shortstop have to range? You can’t tell, because everything’s a closeup, and when we’re in between pitches, FOX has to show closeups of fans and interview actors.

Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus has made a repeated point about this. Baseball needs a broadcast partner who will promote the game, not itself.

The Big Red C reports, and the Chicago Tribune confirms, that Steve Stone has resigned as broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs. This truly is disappointing, following a letdown of a season. Thanks, though, Steve, for the many years of excellence. God bless.

UPDATE I (9:15pm): It seems from the outside that Cubs management, including Dusty Baker, has to shoulder some—and perhaps much—of the blame for Stone’s leaving.

UPDATE II (9:20pm): Here is Steve Stone’s resignation letter.

UPDATE III (11:45pm): Stone told the AP “that WGN wanted to bring him back next season. But after much deliberation, he said he reached a decision that was ‘probably best for all parties.’” Stone also said, “I am not retired. I am going to spend the rest of my life in baseball. I just don’t exactly know where that will be.”

It seems clear that it got to a point where this was not a happy situation for him.

UPDATE IV (10/29/2004 12:35am): More info from the Chicago Tribune’s Ed Sherman:

Steve Stone decided to walk away from the Cubs on Thursday because he thought he couldn’t walk back into what had become a severely strained relationship with the team’s hierarchy.
. . . .
[A]ccording to Cubs and broadcast sources, Stone thought the climate had become too tense for him to operate comfortably within the organization.
. . . .
The final straw for Stone might have come on the Tuesday after the season. Hendry and Baker had teleconferences with reporters to give their side of an issue the analyst thought had been resolved. At that point, Stone reportedly began to realize there was no going back.
. . . .
According to sources, Stone also was upset the team allowed Chip Caray to leave . . . .

Sherman quotes a source saying if the Cubs had matched Chip’s offer from Atlanta, Stone definitely would have returned.

From Phil Rogers’s Sunday column (“Despite fat wallet, no trophy again,” Chicago Tribune, 10/24/2004):

Mark Grace is out of the running for the managerial job in Arizona. Some think Steve Stone will wind up leaving the Cubs to replace Grace as a Diamondbacks broadcaster, which would make Grace a candidate to return to the Cubs, provided he and club President Andy MacPhail can repair their relationship

It’d sure be nice if he told us who these “some” are. For all we know, it could be himself and his dog.

Big Red C has an indepth look at Derreck Lee’s 2004 performance, which was good but not quite what was expected, almost completely due to a drop in his walk rate (and which may be attributable to the current field manager).

Above are the pictures of the five players who had to leave the Cubs to play in another (or their first) World Series this year.

From the Red Sox: Mark Bellhorn and Bill Mueller. From the Cardinals: Tony Womack, Julian Tavarez, and Ray King.

Bellhorn and Tavarez had, of course, a pivotal matchup in Game 1 tonight, as Bellhorn hit a two-run homer off Tavarez in the bottom of the 8th to put the Red Sox up 11-9, a lead Keith Foulke held on to. Bellhorn rediscovered his power this year—57 extra base hits in 138 games. After outslugging the league average by 100 points in 2002 for the Cubs, Bellhorn slugged just .317 for the Cubs in 2003 before being traded to Colorado for Jose Hernandez, which was after Dusty Baker had gotten all Lenny Harris happy.

Transplanted Cubs Fan reads between the lines of Dusty Baker’s and Jim Hendry’s comments on the Wendell Kim dismissal.

WGN Radio had the highest ratings in the Chicagoland area this past summer, due in part to the popularity of Cubs broadcasts, reports Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Feder.

Mark Grace’s stint as a candidate for the vacant Diamondbacks managerial job has come to an end, reports the AP.

The AP reports that the Cubs hired Chris Speier to be the new 3B coach. Speier played for the Cubs in 1985 and 1986, near the end of his playing career.

Carlos Beltran, playoff hitter extraordinary, will be a free agent this offseason. The Yankees, of course, have been rumored to be interested, as they seemingly are with every high profile player. However, the New York Daily News‘ Bill Madden doesn’t think the Yankees will be serious players, for the following reasons:

But even at that, part of the problem for the Yankees (assuming you believe Steinbrenner considers a payroll of $200 million to be a problem) is two of Boras’ fading other clients, Brown ($15 mil) and Bernie Williams ($15.5 mil) are responsible for a sizeable chunk of the payroll in the final years of their contracts. Add in, with Williams, the $11 million Giambi is owed for next year and the $3.1 mil for Kenny Lofton (who will be difficult to move at that price) and that’s $39 million in center fielders and designated hitters alone, two of whom would have to be on the bench if Beltran were signed to play center field.

If this really does dissuade the Yankees, and the Cubs are interested in signing Beltran, removing the Yankees as an option could help keep the price reasonable.

(Article tip via reader Michael C.)

Via The Cub Reporter is this post by Wait ‘Til Next Year’s Bryan Smith on the Cubs’ minor leaguers and who should be protected on the 40-man roster this winter.

Scott Lange at Northside Lounge has part 1 of the Cubs Blog Army prediction contest posted. No winner yet, as the MVP has yet to be announced, but Scott notes the closest and furthest preseason guess on each question. I fear that I faired poorly in the competition. My name shows up just once in Scott’s list: I was furthest away on “How many games will LaTroy Hawkins save?” I guessed 3. Hawkins saved 25.

I think the most interesting result is that of question 14—"How many plate appearances will Moises Alou have?” Alou had 675 plate appearances this year. The closest guess to that question was 576, by Bill Kelly of Rooftop Report. In other words, out of all the Cubs bloggers who participated in the contest, not one was within 99 plate appearances, with everyone assuming Alou would be at least somewhat fragile this past year. I’d say it was reasonable for us to assume so. Alou’s 675 total this year was only the second time in his career he had amassed that many plate appearances, the other time being 1998, when he had 679 with the Astros.

After an injury-riddled seasons, the Cubs fired head athletic trainer Dave Groeschner and assistant trainer Sandy Krum. Daily Herald columnist Barry Rozner had this to say about the firings:

The blame game

Never mind the curse of the goat. If you’re a Cubs trainer, it’s the curse of the scapegoat.

It has become something of a tradition at Wrigley Field to blame the trainers when things go bad, so Wednesday’s news that the Cubs had done it again was hardly surprising.

Besides, when you’ve already blamed the announcers, the media in general, the umpires, the coaches and worldwide conspiracies, why not blame the trainers?

Worth noting

GM Jim Hendry looked less than managerial during the Sammy Sosa and Steve Stone fiascos, but in the last week he has regained some control and whacked two Dusty Baker pigeons (a trainer and a third-base coach). Is this the start of something between Hendry and Baker?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the tenor of the second item inconsistent with the first? Bad job Cubs in placing blame where it doesn’t belong; good job Hendry for starting to act like a GM and taking control of the team.

In any event, if there are problems between Hendry and Baker in terms of control of the team, this isn’t the first evidence of those problems (see here, here, and here, all from the 2003 season).

Meanwhile, Baseball Prospectus’s Will Carroll had this to say about the dismissals:

It was surprising, given that Dave Groeschner was in his first season as the Cubs trainer. The Cubs injuries can hardly be laid at Groeschner’s feet on the whole, though there are certainly reasons beyond them that the Cubs may have. The Cubs were only slightly above average in days lost to the DL. Still, one year is too short a time frame to make any judgment about Groeschner’s programs.

UPDATE (10/16/2004 1:05am): The Big Red C thinks it a good thing that Hendry appears to be taking control.