Okay, Let It All Out
Yeah, this team blows like all the other ones before it. Go ahead. Let ‘er rip in the comments. Who should be cut? Who should be traded? Who should be fired? Who should be skinned alive and rubbed with seasoned salt?
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BigFlax
PenFoe
StPatrick
CT
CactusMcHarris
Hey Kermit, I am a long time reader, first time poster. I love this site, it gives me the light relief i so desperately need as a fan of the Cubbies :-)
I was at the game tonight (May 29 vs Marlins) with my friends and I must say, this bullpen is f@#$ing ridiculous. Now, I remember ’03, when we had some of the best starting pitching in baseball, and yet the bullpen, had people like Alfonseca, Dave Veres, Mark Guthrie, and a bunch of other wet noodles who practically made me wet my pants whenever they came in. It was because of the shitty bullpen that we lost so many close games, and that so many games that could have been close ended up being embarrassing, vomitrocious blow outs.
This year’s bullpen reminds me of that. A lot. First of all, you have Cotts, who was so stupid the White Sox didnt even want his ass. And so what did we do? Send him to Iowa, so he can learn to be a STARTER? That’s so brilliant, it’s not. Then, there’s Dempster. Look, I don’t care if he had so-many saves the year before last, the guy is a liability. A fat, Canadian liability. He only has such good numbers because he comes THIS close to blowing 90% of the saves he gets, and the other 10% is just luck, versus teams that couldnt hit water if they fell off of a boat. He’s bad as a starter and mediocre/terrible as a reliever and closer, the numbers just dont show that. Reminds me of another ’03 Cub, Joe Borowski. He had 33 saves in that season, but then what happened? Yeah exactly he sucked, which he did a lot of the time in 2003 except then he somehow managed not to blow the save. I remember a game I was at in June of that year, vs the Brewers, where Prior was unhittable, and Borowski lost the game in the 9th. Dempster is similarly sucky. He’s the last person i want coming in in a “save” situation. He might get the save, he might throw marshmallows three feet off the plate, and walk in 3 runs. Who knows? Just the kinda guy you want in a pressure, critical situation.
Then there’s Howry. Dont even get me started on that f#$%ing slob. The guy is so bad, Coach Lou didn’t even PITCH him for like a month. Then he puts him in like 2 games, and the f$%^er proves exactly why he shouldnt be in games. Ever, at all. Ever ever. Howry is about as intimidating as a paraplegic King Charles Spaniel. He blows games, and then sits in the dugout looking all pensive, like gee, what went wrong? YOU SUCK is what went wrong, muffin head!
Ugh, this bullpen needs to GO! We have a good team, one of the best, and the offense has waken up lately. The starting pitching, though troubled, is certainly not Bad by any stretch of the imagination. It’s the bullpen that is costing us too many close games. And as the season goes on, and the Cubbies are into August and September, where they will need to win close games, and hold other teams down in the late innings, this mother truckin bullpen is going to hurt them. If it is not taken apart and totally re-done, it will be our Achilles Heel.
With that said, it is early still and we do have a GOOD team. All they need is our support and a little inspiration. And the bullpen to be deported to Nigeria. That’s all they need :-)
Dan
Oh and Rotchchild is a tool
Cut: The Bullpen, Izturis, Floyd, Jones, Blanco, Barrett, Marquis and Lilly.
Kept: Zambrano, Hill, Marshall, Theriot, Ramirez, Lee, Murton, Ward (for that sweet rack of his).
Promoted: Fontenot, Pie.
Do you keep your brain in a nutsack? Because if you do that would explain why you would want to cut Hank, Theodore, Floyd, and Marquis. Say what you want about Donuts, but those guys (maybe not Hank yet) have earned their contracts so far. And just for good measure that ginger Murton should be traded in order to best serve this team.
And we all know the Z is a better pitcher, but if you’re going by numbers he goes before Lilly and Marquis.
Long term, Lilly and Marquis do nothing for you that cheaper and younger versions of them can. Why would you keep the statue that is Floyd when Scott Moore and Micah Hauffpair can be called up and can play better defense and muster a .270/.315/.360 line?
Why keep Hank? Just because he’s doing the job Americans just won’t do? No.
You ever speak ill of Thunder Matt again and he will lay his adorable red-headed vengance upon thee.
I’ll say it again: no White Sox or Cardinals fan hates the Cubs more than I do. Guaranteed.
Honest to God, how much do you think the Mets or the Yankees would give up for Zambrano + either Lilly or Marquis right now? The Cubs will never do it, but I would LOVE it if they blew this f@#$er up this early in the season. How many games of “same old shit, different year” do they need to see? Even if they manage to hang around and win the awful NL Central, does management honestly believe a shitty team from the shittiest division in base is going to win the W.S. two years in a row? Hendry doesn’t put this team together like he wants to win the whole thing. He puts it together so they should be just barely better than the other scrub teams in the Central. Simply making it to the playoffs should NOT be the f@#$ing goal, and I feel like it is for the management of this team.
Slak, I completely agree with you. Cubs fans hate the Cubs WAY more than anyone else possibly could.
Dan, great rant. Sorry you had to watch that shit. I disagree with three points, though.
1. Borowski had a sweet two-seamer as an out pitch, which made him infinitely less sucky than Dempster, whose “out pitch” is to shit his pants and look over his shoulder at the bullpen.
2. I don’t think we can still say it’s “early.” Moves need to be made, and they need to be made now. If Hendry waits until the trade deadline to fix this team, they’re f@#$ed.
3. I honestly don’t think this TEAM is “good.” I think there are several good players on the roster, but most of the good ones have horrible flaws in their game, and their collective baseball IQ is legally retarded.
That’s what I mean Kermit…I would kill to see them overhaul the lineup. Keep Aramis, Lee and Zambrano and a select few youngsters like Hill since he doesn’t cost much and just play ball with young, cheap talent until they can get better through the draft and trades.
Of course, that would require a new GM altogether.
I hope the new owner is a Saskatchewanese (???) billionaire who buys the team and moves them to Regina, erasing the Cubs name and logo so that it’s never used again.
I wouldn’t mind them trading Zambrano, either, Slak. Selling high has consistently worked for the A’s, so why not trade Z now? Even after his shitty start to this season, the Yankees and Mets would be falling all over themselves to deal for him. The Cubs need to commit to go young and trust that their fan base is made up of either (a) fans like us who WANT to see the team torn down, fixed, and rebuilt and (b) Chads and Trixies who only go to Wrigley in the hopes of exchanging STDs and who can’t even pronounce “Theriot” and “Pie” correctly. If that’s the fanbase, the team needs to be rebuilt immediately. It won’t affect the turnstiles, McDonough, you f@#$stick. In fact, it’ll probably help.
I’m with BK. I wouldn’t mind selling Z, even though I mentioned he should be kept. It would kill me to let that crazy Venezualan go, but what would the Yankees or Mets give in return could benefit this team for years to come.
Also, Ryan Theriot is my newest man crush. Sorry, BK.
Don’t apologize to me. I think Theriot is great. Not “untouchable” great, but he’d certainly be in my group of guys I would like to keep around, but wouldn’t be devastated to trade.
I would be devestated.
Hendry needs to go– I’m repeating stuff others have said above, but the Cubs have had at least eight losses already that would have been W’s with even a mediocre bullpen. Any Cubs fan realized this was shaping up to be a huge problem by the end of April– if Hendry would have pulled the trigger on a trade even a few weeks ago, the Cubs could be sitting second in the NL Central waiting for the inevitable Brewers collapse that’s underway as we speak. I don’t hate Eyre, Cotts, Wuertz, Dempster, etc.– they’re just wankers, and they’re NEVER going to come through. It’s stupid to think that the outcome is going to change.
The Padres and Red Sox, to name a couple of teams, have crazy deep bullpens, and they have dependable pitchers that aren’t even playing. Both of those teams, meanwhile, have a platoon of underperforming outfielders, whereas the Cubs have a glut of outfielders that look pretty decent on paper, at least. Maybe that wouldn’t work, but there is some trade bait on this team–
We shouldn’t sell any players because donuts has not shown the ability to get equal value back in return. He trades for mouthbreathers like Cesar.
Our players that we all want to get rid of have no value, unless Hendry can trade with himself.
Face it, we’re stuck watching this team. Don’t underachieving teams generally go through some kind of shakeup? I guess that means we’re not underachieving at all.
BH, to be fair, Hendry didn’t trade for Cesar. Maddux traded for Cesar.
Also, I’m hoping Hendry has at least a couple more shit-for-Aramis, Choi-for-Lee deals up his sleeve. I have ZERO confidence that he actually does, but I have to hope for SOMETHING, right?
My priorities if I’m Hendry are (1) bullpen, (2) shortstop so Theriot slides over to 2nd and DeRosa to the bench, where he is most useful, (3) call up Pie and ship whichever outfielder (other than Sori) is most valuable (probably Murton) out of town, (4) upgrade at catcher defensively (I like Barrett’s bat, and I used to be one of the first to defend him, but it’s clear now that he’s retarded).
Also– Kermit, you touched on this above– the attendance at Wrigley is almost a curse in disguise. From a pure business standpoint, you’d be stupid to do anything because the status quo is already filling up the stadium. If the Cubs are in last place in August– if they fail to achieve– then screw it, because the seats were already sold out 6 months ago. You’d have to start replacing the ushers with flesh-eating zombies in order to get people NOT to buy tickets. Aside from maybe scalping their own tickets, the Cubs wouldn’t benefit financially from an improved team.
Phlegm, I agree with you. The stands were pretty barren at the end of last year, but that doesn’t hurt them if most of the tickets were sold months in advance. I’m sure concession sales suffered some, but how much did that really hit them? Sadly, if the die-hard fans try to boycott and DON’T buy tickets, the corporate clients are more than happy to buy them up so they can woo their easily-distracted clients. It sucks that the average fan trying to make a statement by not going to a game really does nothing, but that does seem to be the case.
That said, are we still on for that game in early August?
August? Sure thing. Spending 3 hours a day reading about baseball on the web will definitely get me fired by then. I’ll have plenty of free time–
Talk all you want about a trade but what we are likely to get is Hairston for Nevin type stuff from this bunch of assclowns.
the worst thing is the feeling that all the moves look painfully obvious, i mean i know there’s more work behind it then just typing it but god damn…
BK, I was a big Barrett fan too, but even I’ve slipped off the bandwagon lately. Check this fun fact from Yahoo Sports-Cubs manager Lou Piniella told the Chicago Sun-Times that he is considering letting Henry Blanco take on the duties of Carlos Zambrano’s personal catcher.
Advice: This could be a boon for Zambrano, who is 2-1 with a 3.12 ERA in four games with fellow Venezuelan Blanco behind the plate. In six starts with everyday catcher Michael Barrett as his battery-mate, Zambrano is 3-3 with a 6.54 ERA.
Boy, that says a lot, doesn’t it? Granted, El Toro Loco has been more loco than usual this year, but I think blanco can push the big man around a little more than Barrett can. Not to mention the superior defensive skills neccessary to handle the sinker when it’s really cooking. I think a trade would do wonders for Barrett, maybe to an american league team. He’d be a helluva DH. As far as catchers go, we have a few guys in the minors, Fox and Soto, who could possibly play the position without being complete offensive black holes. More than ARod next year, maybe the Cubs should focus on getting someone like Posada or Pudge. They’re both a little long in the tooth, but they both call great games. I think having a superior catcher would dial our pitching up a notch. Look at Boston and Jason Veritek. The pitchers trust him to know what pitches they need to throw. I’m sure that wouldn’t completely fix our pitching issues, but I think it’d make it easier to weed the bad pitchers from the good.