Despite Lou Piniella’s alleged mandate that all Cub infielders be wrapped in bubble wrap, surrounded in safety foam, and forbidden from diving for baseballs, Derrek Lee somehow managed to play his hardest, GET INJURED, and be traded to the Braves yesterday along with cash for three more young pitchers. Because the Cubs have a lot of young pitchers, see?
Jim Hendry has fleeced a few general managers in his tenure. However, acquiring Lee for Hee Seop Choi was either the best or second-best trade of his reign. Lee was a Gold Glove player at a position that- Well. A position that doesn’t really matter that you have a Gold Glove player playing. But he was really, really good there.
Lee put up a .298/.378/.524 line in seven years with the Cubs. He hit 179 home runs and drove in 574 RBIs. He was around for the Cubs’ back-to-back postseason appearances in 2007 and 2008. He was one of the few Cubs to actually hit during the 2008 playoffs, compiling a .545 batting average, .583 OBP, and .818 OPS during their brief stint.
In 2005, Lee put together arguably the best season by a Cub since Sammy Sosa’s 2001 display. It’s too bad the team was crap.
And that’s, I suppose, how I’ll remember Derrek Lee. A great player. A seemingly good human being. A guy who vetoed a trade to the Angels near his hometown of Sacramento, California a few weeks ago, but then was suddenly willing to accept a trade to the Braves on the other side of the country. A guy who avoided the microphone, except that one time when he bitched about the fans booing. A guy who tried not to be a leader, but then abruptly decided to tell Carlos Zambrano to shut the fuck up. A guy who didn’t really seem to hit a lot in the sporadic times when the Cubs were actually in contention, but who was sure fun to watch during the 2005 season.
Farewell, Derrek. I guess I’ll root for the Braves to represent the National League in the World Series. I’ll never forget that time when you completely destroyed all of my hopes and dreams during the 2003 NLCS.
Regarding Edelweiss’ information about the Lou Piniella mandate, I have to weigh in. I don’t really have any reason to doubt that Edelweiss has insider information. I honestly believe that the Jeff Baker ass-burning story was legitimate. But as I see it, there are only a few ways this alleged story can play out:
- Edelweiss is completely full of it, has no insider information, and the story is completely false.
- Edelweiss has a friend in the Cubs organization, but that friend is completely full of it, and the story is completely false.
- Edelweiss has a friend in the Cubs organization, that friend is telling the truth, and the Cub organization is the biggest pile of shit organization in the history of pile of shit organizations. To assume that story is true, you have to make so many ridiculous assumptions. You have to assume that the Cubs are willing to either intentionally or “unintentionally” throw games in order to boost the value of a player whom they had to BEG the Dodgers to take as a throw-in, anyhow. You have to assume that the front office is directly ordering Lou Piniella on how to manage the team, and that Piniella is willing to accept such orders without just quitting. You have to assume that Lou Piniella is willing to throw away the reputation he built for himself throughout his managerial career for the sake of this disaster of a team. You have to assume that the players were willing to go along with this ludicrous plan, harming both their individual statistics, the statistics of the pitchers behind whom they are playing, and the statistics of the entire team. What I’m saying is that if this story is true, the Cubs have issues so far beyond the contracts of Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Zambrano, that I’m officially embarrassed to be a fan of this joke of a ballclub.
…or that guy is just full of it.
I’m sorry to chime in with 4. – I think you’re absolutely correct in #3 because management has seemingly managed to make almost all the wrong calls for several years now – and this is a team with $$$$$. For cryin’ out loud, what other conclusion can one come to?
Officially embarrassed makes sense: the Cubs organization/ballclub has serious issues…deja vu.
I’m starting to wonder if maybe I shouldn’t move away to a new city like Tampa or Minneapolis so I can root for a team that’s not terrible.
I’d like to believe #2, but I really think it’s #1. The Baker story could’ve been gleaned from an inside source without the same being true for any of the other stuff, all of which was progressively more fanciful and none of which was borne out. The sexual harassment claim that was never filed (what baseball player would ever do this?), the player in jeans who was traded except he wasn’t, the Theriot Protection and Showcasing Plot. This is the sound of your leg being pulled, now for the sake of pointlessly and viciously tarnishing Piniella.
None of this, of course, prevents a deep and abiding belief in the principle behind #3; just don’t attribute it to this rumor.
Has it occurred to anyone that things like these happen to other teams, but are not known to us, so we just assume that the Cubs are so odd?
@EdelweiÃ? – Maybe I’m being naive, but I truly don’t believe that any organization in Major League Baseball (White Sox excluded) would ever fail to play their hardest, no matter the reason.
@Bad Kermit – I think you’re being naive. Think of how many times you see a team, and not just the Cubs, basically phone in the rest of a season once they’re out of contention. Or individually, think of players who put up big numbers in their free agent years, but then the year after they sign the big deal, get comfortable and perform much worse. Adrian Beltre, anybody? Chone Figgins? I’ve been to enough late August and September games to know the difference between a team that’s trying and a team that’s given up, and they all do it.
I don’t buy it. A couple things, if Pineilla was showcasing Fukudome he did a poor job of it. It didn’t take very long for him to abandon Fukudome when he started struggling, and stuck very long with Colvin once Colvin was struggling. Keeping in mind Pineilla has always been enamored with Theriot, I think he generally just preferred him to Fontenot. I don’t think Fontenot got benched. It makes no sense to say “no one will trade for you if you have bruises”, then not play a guy because no one will trade for Fontenot if he’s not playing.
Also this implies that Hendry has all kinds of power over Pineilla, I don’t buy that either. Pineilla and Hendry have worked closely together and Hendry has tried to get Pineilla every piece he’s asked for. Pineilla couldn’t care less about trading players. He’s gone next year, probably the only thing he didn’t want was his reputation being damaged. So I don’t see him telling his team to tank it as being remotely possible. I could see Hendry asking for such things. Maybe even asking Brenly and Casper to gush over certain players during broadcasts, but there is absolutely no reason for Pineilla to go along with this. I might buy this if Pineilla walked away mid-season and Trammell took over. But even then I’d doubt it.
Teams that are out of it should be showcasing players and playing young guys to see what they have for next year. This isn’t the same as tanking games.
The Cubs are and always will be a shit sandwich. I’m too far along in life to change but apparently I love getting kicked in the balls repeatedly. Wait ’til next year!
Personally I want the first pick next year. WATCH OUT PISSBURGH!
google me. then wiki me.
@Anne Henning Edelweiss – I’ll do no such thing, you naughty, naughty girl.
This game is so unbelievably painful to watch
Anne Henning is an imposter. She is not Edelweiß, nor do we know each other. I take no responsibitity for whatever he, she, or it says!
@Bad Kermit – I think teams lay down all the time. I don’t, however, think they do it based on front office instructions, nor do I think they would do it for the better part of the season just to raise trade values. I’m having a hard enough time paying attention to this goddamn team as it is, especially living in Tampa. If even half of this is true, I’d probably puke my fucking guts out at having spent 30 years of suffering for a team that’s no better than the Sox.
I find it real hard to believe that not a single player, coach, etc would have leaked this by now to a regular source, rather than to an anonymous blog commentor. You can’t tell me that there’s not a single person in this organization that doesn’t have at least an ounce of dignity and self respect. An ounce is all it would take to be unwilling to tolerate playing under orders to tank the season, just to make Ryan fucking Theriot more trade-worthy.
@JerBear50 –
First of all, the season had pretty much tanked, already, and the Cubs could not win no matter who played, or what spots they had in the order. No one has suggested , ( or at least I haven’t)that the Cubs purposely lost games nor that the front office called the shots, The Cubs had given up on reaching the playoffs, and decided to jettison any player who is arb eligible, or a free agent. They are still still trying to move the big contracts, but may not be able to. In the meantime, they identified Lilly, Fontenot, and Lee as tradeable because other teams had already made inquiries. They didn’t want to move Fontenot until they moved Theriot, but I don’t know quite why. Sometime around the July 4 holiday, Lou was in the clubhouse when Fontenot came out of the shower, with his little tummy black and blue, with a belt-buckle indentation. This looks worse on persons with albinism, as the skin is white as a sheet, and they bruise more easily. Lou made an example of him to the other players, and suggested they go easy on diving for balls, because when players are traded they must first pass a physical. Fontenot was benched for the rest of July, starting only one more game, after Theriot left and DeWitt hadn’t yet arrived to allow for his bruises to heal. He started no games in August for the Cubs. I have no idea if other infielders avoided diving, or if it simply isn’t their style. Castro, for example doesn’t dive because he has such good range that he gets to balls without leaping. As for stealing bases, he didn’t forbid it – he gave only Theriot the green light to steal at will, and the others had to wait for a sign. The sign was simply never given until Theriot was traded. End of story. Now, you can distort it all you want, but this is how it went down. Conspiracy theories might make juicy gossip, but only the FBI or similar organizations can pull them off.
@EdelweiÃ? – The “juicy gossip” is flowing in one direction only. Also, nobody is distorting anything. People have inferred, plausibly, that this alleged plan was a top-down organizational decision, or at least known about at all levels of management, given that it related to trades. You now seem to be attempting to refute that, although it’s hardly the only detail that’s changed over the times you’ve told this story.
This creates more opportunities to punch holes in it, like so: you previously claimed that “players were told not to steal bases as it was Theriot’s specialty.” Now it’s been modified to Theriot being the only one with the “green light,” and other players permitted to steal if the sign were given, but it wasn’t. That sure has a funny way of showing up in the game logs, which show that prior to Theriot’s trade on 7/31, he had one SB in July (7/7 at Ari). All other SBs that month were by Castro (4, including stealing home on 7/15 vs. Phi), Colvin (2), and Baker (1).
As for Fontenot’s condition, I could see how albinism would make bruises appear worse. I still can only assume that the people conducting MLB physicals can tell the difference between bruises and serious injuries or conditions, and that they wouldn’t fail a player (and void a trade) over a non-serious injury. Meanwhile I don’t know what the deal is with trying to expose Fontenot’s condition, which you’ve taken pains to do coyly in this thread, and which one other HJE commenter did directly in another thread. I don’t know why anybody would do that to the poor guy if he doesn’t want it exposed, but I guess that’s your business.
@Pell Mell
Dear Pell Mell……..As a former teacher, I would have to say that you are reading at the third grade level – you take a few words you see, and make them say something completely different. I am a RETIRED teacher, so I am not going to point out any of your errors. If you really care, try to go over what you read and your replies, and you will see.
When a player trade is almost done, it is common for the manager to make sure that he is not injured immediately prior to the trade, but Lou chose to do it in a way that sent the wrong message to the team. Now that he has left the team, it occurs to me that he may have stuck around long enough to see his four most tradeable guys landed in good spots. It wasn’t so easy to trade Theriot, and Lou may have figured that since the team was already in a free-fall, the way he chose to showcase Theriot couldn’t make things any worse. Apparently it didn’t because the team continues to lose no matter who plays where.
As for Fontenot, yes, light skin does make bruises appear more ghastly. I am very fair, and bruise easily. Sometimes I don’t even know how I got the bruises, but if I get them on un-tanned skin, they scare my friends. Fontenot cannot tan. Albinism is NOT something to be ashamed of. It is not a social disease nor a character trait. In fact he should be very proud of what he has accomplished. I have taught visually impaired children. Just about all people with albinism have some degree of visual impairment, and I would never have expected any of those children to be able to hit or field a baseball. I would never have said anything about it, were it not known to just about everyone in MLB. It is the fans who make some of the stupidest comments about his hair, or other aspects of his appearance. They think of Albinos as that character in “Powder”, who looks hideous thanks to the makeup artist and his chalk-white face paint.. They need to know that the cute little guy who hustled his way into the hearts of Cub fans has overcome seemingly insurmountable odds, and that people with albinism are not evil or sinister like the way they are portrayed in movies.
Ah, the empty defensiveness of someone who has been caught out. What would the Internet be without it? The Cubs did not use Theriot and Fontenot in the way you claim they did. Your claims about Piniella’s reasoning therefore make even less sense than they did before you started trying to support them. Level any personal attacks you wish, but they don’t help your argument.
The one story I don’t have any reason to doubt is the one about Fontenot having albinism. I hope you’re not thinking that I have made any derogatory remarks of the kind you describe, because I haven’t and won’t.
@Pell Mell –
I certainly hope not. The little guy is a class act, and has not been treated right by the Cubs. Maybe it is Hendry’s fault – hard to say. There are things that went on that I won’t comment upun, because they are pure hearsay, but let’s just say that money talks. Anyway I am glad to see that Fontenot is with a contender, and a club that wants him; he hasn’t been given a fair shake since he was first traded to the Cubs, in 2005, and with the way the organization is structured, it is hard to determine just who calls the shots. I’ll admit that, since Piniella was in the clubhouse, what he did or said got reported, but the bruise incident did happen. I have no idea if this was Hendry’s idea or not. I do know that because Theriot made certain comments, went to arbitration, and chose to put himself in front of so many reporters, he was hard to trade, and Piniella had to make him look good.
See, this is how you know this story is BS: there is only one way to make Theriot look good, and that is to play Ronny Cedeno right next to him. Q.E.D., and I’m all done.
@Edelweiss – You won’t comment upon pure hearsay? Everything you write is pure hearsay!
@psychoch –
Some things are better left unsaid, hearsay or otherwise. If I hear something from my source that I don’t believe, and is damaging, I would rather not say it. My source gets most of his information from players, not from Manager or Hendry. No player has ever told him anything bad about a team-mate, but he is in the clubhouse, and observes a lot of the shenanigans that go on there.