The Cubs lost the rubber game of their series with Milwaukee yesterday by a score of 7-4. Randy Wells looked tired, Milton Bradley reminded us why we dislike him so, and the team generally failed to rise to the occasion.
With the loss, the Cubs drop to 7.0 games behind Wildcard leading Colorado with just 18 games to play. The team travels to St. Louis to start a three game series this evening against the NL Central leading Cardinals. Ted Lilly (12-8) takes the mound versus John Smoltz (3-6).
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In yesterday’s game, Milton Bradley hit a single in the sixth inning and then pulled up lame at first base. After a short conversation with first base coach Matt Sinatro, Bradley took himself out of the game. At first, Lou Piniella seemed to be caught off-guard by the sudden departure of Bradley, and it took some time to get a pinch-runner in the game. However, Piniella explained after the game that he knew Bradley’s knee was bothering him and it just took a little while for Bobby Scales to get loose in the tunnel before he could take over for Bradley on first base.
For his part, Bradley didn’t do anything to lessen the opinion that he is a whiny, self-centered baby. This is what Carrie Muskat of MLB.com wrote about Bradley’s post-game pity party:
Bradley did not want to talk about his knee postgame.
“I have knee inflammation,” he said. “I’ve had two knee surgeries. It happens when you have knee surgery, in case you don’t know.”
It’s uncertain whether Bradley will miss Friday’s game in St. Louis. Asked if he was day to day, Bradley snapped.
“What else you got? You got anything significant?” he said. “If you have some baseball questions, I can answer. I’ve got nothing for you.”
The immature, disrespectful display didn’t sit well with Pinella. The Tribune’s Paul Sullivan wrote this:
A few minutes later, Piniella called reporters into his office. He said Bradley’s mysterious reaction to questions about his injury was uncalled for.
“All he had to say was I talked to (the trainer) in front of the manager, which he did, and he said ‘My patella is bothering me,’” Piniella said. “And when he went over to first base, I motioned to him and he said he couldn’t run, and we just took him out of the ballgame… He was in his perfect rights to come out of the ballgame, and that’s all he needed to say.
“All he’s got to say are the facts. And if he says the facts, nobody is going to dispute anything. That’s all. Just say the facts.”
You don’t have to be a psychic to know that Piniella and Bradley don’t get along. Think about it. Piniella is an old school manager who has seen just about every type of player in his career. He knows who can get the job done and who can’t. Bradley is a player with a constant massive chip on his shoulder who has created controversy just about everywhere he has gone. Piniella sees that Bradley is all about Bradley. He’s not about team and he’s not about winning. He’s all about doing what he can to increase his precious OBP numbers, often at the expense of doing what is best for the team in a given instance. Of course they’re going to butt heads.
I have no idea what goes on behind closed doors, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Piniella has told Jim Hendry, if you want me back next year, move Bradley this off-season. If I were in Piniella’s shoes, there’s no way I would want to put up with another year of Bradley and his drama.
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Bruce Levine of WMVP – AM 1000 in Chicago writes on his ESPN Chicago blog that new Cubs owner-in-waiting Tom Ricketts, team president Crane Kenney, and vice president of business operations Mark McGuire traveled to Mesa, AZ to scope out potential sites for a new Cubs Spring Training home. The mayor of Mesa, AZ and other Arizona officials met with the Cubs trio to discuss options and to beg the Cubs on bended knee not to move to Florida.
It’s just my opinion, but I think the Cubs should move to Florida. The Cubs are the biggest draw in Arizona, but they have some of the worst facilities. In the past, Mesa has been somewhat reluctant to commit funds to keep them in town while Florida has been chomping at the bit to spend money to bring the Cubs into the Grapefruit League. Florida has been losing teams to Arizona over the past several years and they would like to reverse that trend.
Of even more importance is the fact that I often travel to Florida, but rarely get to Arizona. Whatever other considerations there may be, this one should take precedence.
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I enjoy reading Murray Chass, but I rarely agree with him. This is primarily due to the fact that Chass writes about baseball, but hasn’t liked anything about the game since Ducky Medwick hung up his uniform for the last time. Of course I’m exaggerating badly, but you get the idea. He is the sterotypical curmudgeon of a writer who looks at anything that is new or different as automatically bad.
Anyway, he recently wrote an article about the Pittsburgh Pirates, a team he knows a little bit about. He doesn’t like what is happening there and makes a good case for why fans of the team shouldn’t like it either. He writes:
When the Pirates completed their roster cleansing July 30, they had a 43-58 record (.426) and were 11 ½ games from first place. Since then, through Monday’s games, they had a 12-29 record (.293) and had tumbled 28 ½ games from first.
In the interim they set a major league record by insuring their 17th successive losing season, but they were going to get that record with the players they traded away; it would just have taken them longer.
If the Pirates incur losses in their last 20 games at the same rate they have lost since July 30, they will finish with a 60-102 record (.370), their worst record in the 17-season stretch and their second worst record since the early 1950s and the days of Vic Janowicz, the O’Brien twins Johnny and Eddie and Joe Garagiola.
On the one hand, the Pirates have been a horribly run organization for the better part of two decades, so I at least applaud them for now having a plan and following it. On the other hand, trading away Nyjer Morgan, Freddie Sanchez, and maybe Jack Wilson made little sense to me. I understand that the team is in rebuild mode, but what are they building around? At their current pace, they are going to develop players over the course of three or four years who, when ready to really contrbute, will be too expensive to keep. It seems like a viscous cycle to me.
But the part I liked best about Chass’ article is when he talked about the fact that the Pirates current payroll is less than the amount the team receives in revenue sharing. He writes:
Perhaps the most striking figures are the payroll numbers. The Pirates opened the season with a $48.7 million payroll. They are closing it with a payroll (based on the Aug. 31 roster and disabled list) of $20 million. The players they traded during the season have salaries totaling $31 million.
Now for the kicker. The Pirates, one of the smallest revenue teams in the majors, received approximately $40 million in revenue sharing last year and most likely will get at least that much, despite the economy, for this year. One thing we know for sure. They aren’t spending the money to pay players.
Chass has hit on my pet peeve. I’ve advocated for a salary cap in the past partly to control spending, but also to force lower revenue teams to spend a minimum amount on player payroll. The Pirates are a perfect example of how the current system is not working. The Pirates (and Royals, and Marlins) are not the Washington Generals, the perennial foes of the Harlem Globetrotters. They are (or should be) a legitimate major league baseball team and it is a travesty that their payroll is less than 1/10th of the team with the highest payroll.
Chass continues:
Under the collective bargaining agreement, teams that receive money have to notify the commissioner’s office each April what they did with the money the previous year. “They’re going to have some explaining to do,” a baseball official said. “It’s going to be difficult for them absent some substantial moves between now and April.”
High-revenue teams don’t appreciate revenue recipients that don’t spend the money to improve themselves but pocket it instead. The commissioner’s office is supposed to monitor the spending to make sure teams use the money as they’re supposed to, but no team has ever been disciplined or even reprimanded for not using it correctly.
The Pirates might be a good place for the commissioner to start. It would be the best win for the fans all year.
Bravo, Murray! The travesty has been exposed. Now it is up to Bud Selig and the other owners to take action.
