Sorry, We're Closed

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Fire them both

Five reasons to fire Dusty Baker
1. Matt Murton batting sixth, seventh, or eighth when he's one of the only productive hitters on the team.
2. Using Neifi Perez at the top of the order, regardless of his endless fascination with hacking at any pitch he sees.
3. An unexplainable fascination with speed, resulting in players like Jose Macias and Perez getting far more playing time than they deserve.
4. His decision to rely on "proven veterans" who produce at a low, but predictable level, rather than unproven, but promising, players indicates a manager afraid to lose, rather than one who believes he can win.
5. Bunting with a man on second and Derrek Lee coming up next, which only leads to Lee being intentionally walked.

Five reasons to fire Jim Hendry
1. Overaggressive promotion of Corey Patterson, who came to the majors without strike zone judgement, has destroyed his career.
2. Hendry has never put together anything resembling a decent bullpen; this year's (reasonable) decision to dump Mike Remlinger without coming up with another lefthanded reliever meant that Will Ohman was overused, exposing his weaknesses.
3. Hendry has shown a glaring lack of regard for on-base skills.
4. Hendry has no organizational philosophy, resulting in a consistent inability to identify good prospects, sign them, and develop them.
5. Hendry signed Dusty Baker to guide a veteran team, then socked him with a bunch of reclamation projects (Dempster, Hairston, Ohman, Williamson).

5 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Baker's a genius b/c he had Barry Bonds playing for him, and later with the Cubs, Alou and Sosa and Wood. Now he's been given a team with only Lee and Ramirez as offensive threats. So while I don't think he's great shakes as a manager, most if not all the blame falls on Hendry.

What the hell ever happened to the farm system, anyway?

9:59 AM, September 21, 2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Only five reasons???

7:21 AM, September 22, 2005

 
Blogger Stuart Shea said...

Five isn't enough? Perhaps I should have come up with "20 reasons to can Andy MacPhail," too. That wouldn't be so hard.

The farm system? Haven't had a good one for years, have they? I'm talking about since the early 60s.

7:43 AM, September 22, 2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I never thought I'd say this, but Larry Bowa would be a good hire for the Cubs -- he fits the fans mood. Closest you can come to bringing back the Dallas Green era...

2:39 PM, September 22, 2005

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Is Walter Alston available?

7:47 PM, September 22, 2005

 

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