Friday, September 17, 2010

Cubs Eliminated From Another Sadder Race

When Mike Quade took over from Lou Piniella, the Cubs seemed hellbent and determined to catch up to Pittsburgh for the worst record in the league.  At the very least, they would 100 games and probably get a top three pick.

Then Quade came in and did his best to continue the trend by giving playing time to Koyie Hill and Micah Hoffpauir.  There have been games where the infield consisted of Baker, Barney, DeWitt, and Nady.  He gave a start to Jeff Samardzija for crying out loud. 

Despite all his best efforts, the Cubs managed to win ballgames at a pace that was unthinkable on that day when the Cubs finally broke Lou and he tearfully went into retirement.

Under Quade, the Cubs have now managed to guarantee they will not lose 100 games, and more importantly, they have been eliminated from the Race to the Top of the 2011 Draft.  Pittsburgh's loss last night made it mathematically impossible for the Cubs to get the number one draft choice next year.

So they can't win the division, they can't get the best draft pick, and as you can see from the last installment of the reverse standings (because there really is no point in tracking that anymore either), they are really going to have to work to do much better than the 8th pick at this point and they could pretty easily win their way out of the top 10.


So what is left to root for?  Well, if they win one more game, they guarantee they will not be the worst Cubs team (record-wise) that I have seen as a season-ticket holder.  The 2000 edition currently has that honor by finishing 65-97.

They can also technically still keep their string of .500 seasons alive by winning the rest of their games to finish 81-81.

So they can't be best and they can't be worst, but they are still alive to be mediocre(ist).  That probably won't sell many t-shirts.

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