Rogers claims that the Cubs should re-sign Baker for 2 more years. I'll assume after reading that you'll be off to the link to read the rest of the story.
Welcome back. The odd thing is that a few weeks back Rogers wrote an article about Sox AAA manager Razor Shines and how he would be a great pick for the Cubs to replace Dusty. Now he's not sure. Rogers writes of Baker, "Baker offers you one thing you're not going to get anywhere else—stability." Hmm. That's like saying having an abusive spouse is better than no spouse at all. What exactly is stability? Stability of the nature Baker offers leaves me longing to be greatly unstable.
Rogers runs down a list of potential candidates and says he can't find a better alternative than Baker. Just wondering, but how does he know? The truth is no one does. The truth also is that almost anyone could come in and immediately improve discipline and fundamentals. That is the stability I'm looking for.
Other nuggets from Rogers include:
- Trading Michael Barrett and going with Henry Blanco as your full time catcher. "Barrett can hit, but not well enough to offset his subpar skills behind the plate." And Blanco vice-versa. On a team that is last in almost every meaningful offesnive category, trading a catcher that can hit--quite a commodity--is asinine. Barrett is hitting .332/.397/.531. That's great for any player in the league and just amazing from a catcher. Trading Barrett is about the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
- Get Prior healthy and re-sign Wood to an incentive laden contract. Oh. My. Goodness. Has he been watching the last few years? He writes of Baker and stability and then recommends re-upping with Wood and counting on Prior?
- Felix Pie is going to be a force but might not be ready until next July. Actually, Pie doesn't even look like he'll ever be ready for the bigs. He's currently hitting .261/.321/.394 wirth 87 Ks in 368 ABs. He's walked only 29 times and has stolen 10 bases while being caught 9 times.
I can't see the logic in many of the things he advocates. Maybe it's because there is none.
2 comments:
What really gets me is--well, the whole thing is ridiculous--but the glaring thing to me is that overall the plan he proposes is the usual Cub plan of short-term, middle-of-the-road, patchwork solutions.
The pitching comments were the dumbest. He says to invest in a top-line starter, "maybe not Barry Zito, but someone very solid" and then sign "bargain arms" to fill out the rotation. So don't shoot for the top free agent, and then sign a couple other guys and pray--which sounds a lot like Jerome Williams and Glendon Rush. Haven't we been here before? Again and again?And "get Prior healthy" but then "don't count on" Marmol? Huh?
Yeah, he got a total deserved beatdown on our Local Sports Radio yesterday--I suspect The Zoner and I heard the same show--and they mostly focused on how he was dismissing manager candidates in one sentence.
The worst part is, if you ask me what's more likely, signing the right manager and making the right moves to turn this around quickly, or what Rogers proposes, I would have to say that history indicates that Rogers' world will be closer to what we really get.
Sigh. That's depressing.
Steve Stone said Marmol could be a great closer. He has potential be it out of the pen or as a starter. You need to start counting on your farm system sooner rather than later.
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