Googling the Cubs Latest Rookie Pitcher

Gordon Wittenmyer tweeted that the Cubs called up the 10th Cubs rookie to make his major league debut in the 2010 season.  Most Cub fans responded with an overjoyed and boisterous declaration of, "Who the hell is Scott Maine?"

Cubs fans are so stupid.  He is obviously a rookie who will be playing for the Cubs at some point in the near future. 

Luckily, my trusty research assistant, Googly McGooglequist was on the job and was also able to determine that Scott Maine is left-handed, has pitched in both Tennessee and Iowa this year and apparently has no middle name.  I need a new research assistant.

In digging deeper into the dark recesses of Scott Maine's mysterious background (clicking the next link in the Google machine's results), I found he also went to Miami (of Florida) University, so I am automatically pre-disposed to not like him.  However, their site provided a bit more filler to his background:

Named to the 2007 Roger Clemens Award Preseason Watch List ... ended the 2006 season as UM's leader in wins and innings pitched despite missing the first 10 games due to injury ... went 12-3 with a 4.57 ERA and one complete game ... will compete for the No. 1 spot in the rotation in 2007... has command of four pitches ... live arm who is expected to go very high in the 2007 draft ... a lot of movement on his fastball ... fields his position well and is tough to run on because he is so quick to the plate ... wore a protective mask while pitching for most of the 2006 season ... selected to the Cape Cod League Eastern All-Star Team in 2006 after going 3-1 with a 1.80 ERA in 25.0 innings ... selected in the 23rd round of the 2006 MLB Draft by the Colorado Rockies but elected to return to school ... was not enrolled in school in the fall 2005 semester while recovering from a head injury suffered in automobile accident during the summer ... steadily improved throughout his seven appearances in 2005 ... had a great 2005 summer in the Clark Griffith League in Maryland, going 1-1 with a 1.65 ERA and 39 strikeouts in 27.1 innings for the Herndon Braves ... missed the 2004 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in January ... considered by the Miami coaching staff to be one of the best prospects to come to school during head coach Jim Morris' time in Coral Gables ... Baseball America's No. 7 prospect coming out of high school in 2003 ... he elected to come to school after being selected in the 15th round of the 2003 MLB Draft by the Seattle Mariners.

So right there is proof that Miami runs a dirty program.  They have a Roger Clemens Award.  It also lists him at 6' 4" while Baseball-Reference.com has him at 6' 3".  Case closed.

So how did the Cubs end up with Mr. Maine (if that is his real name)?  Remember that guy in the bullpen last year who sucked?  No, not that one.  No, not that one either.  No, try again.  No... No...

OK, maybe I should just tell you that the sucky reliever I speak of is Aaron Heilman.  When the Cubs traded away his pyrotechnic wonder to the Arizona Diamondbacks, one of the non-descript players they received back was none other than Scott Maine.  Suddenly, I have a fondness in my heart for him.

Upon his acquisition by the Cubs, Matt Swain at Wrigley Bound had the following to say:

The 24-year-old was converted to a relief pitcher by the D-Backs and rose fairly rapidly through the system, reaching AAA Reno in 2009. Along the way, Maine threw 120.1 innings with a 3.30 ERA, 134 Ks and 55 BBs, including a 2.90 with 61 Ks and 22 BBs this year.



I haven't been able to dig up much scouting information on him, but R.J. Anderson at Fangraphs tells us "Maine throws from a low arm slot and has a fastball that breaks into the low-90s as well as a slurve."

Whatever he does at the major league level, he doesn't have a very high bar to clear to be better than Justin Berg, whom he replaces on the roster...or Aaron Heilman now that I think about it.

Cubs Enter Homestretch of Race to the Top (of the 2011 Draft)

Mike Quade begins his major league managerial career tonight in Washington as he takes over the reins from Lou Piniella.  While some may have forgotten that Quade actually was considered a managerial candidate the last time around, our friend at @CubsInsider reminds us:

#Cubs manager Mike Quade has 2,378 games of experience as a manager at the minor league level, compiling a career 1,213-1,165 mark (.510).

That included almost four years with the AAA Iowa Cubs from 2003 to 2006.  He came up to the major league roster briefly to replace Chris Speier as the third base coach after Speier got caught driving home after a night of drinking off the pain of the 2006 Cubs.

So it is Quade's team now and there isn't much left to play for and we hope he doesn't follow Speier's example, but since Aisle 424 is a happy place where we always look on the bright side...



...we have decided to put a positive spin on the last six weeks or so.

We'll be tracking the race for the top pick in the 2011 draft here at Aisle 424.  We know that looking at the Cubs on the bottom of the standings gets depressing, so we have modified the standings a bit:

As you can see, the losses are the positive part of these standings, so we have reversed the loss column and the win column to put a more positive spin on it.  Also, instead of recording the win percentage, which is quite depressing, we get the higher numbers of a loss percentage.

This is shaping up to be quite a race!  The Cubs are within two games of the #3 pick and can easily move up at least that high.  After that, they have some work to do to catch Baltimore, but Buck Showalter seems unable to keep his team focused on the prize since the Orioles keep not losing games with increasing regularity.

Also, the Cubs really have the Pirates number this year and have pulled many defeats out of the jaws of victory against Pittsburgh this year.  The Cubs have six more games against Pittsburgh, so if they can continue to lose like we know they are capable, there will be a sizable dent put in the Pirates 9.5 game lead on the Cubs.

This series against Washington is crucial as the Cubs are only 2.5 games ahead of the Nationals.  A Cubs sweep would really damage their chances in the race, so I like some of the Cubs moves heading into the series.  First, Micah Hoffpauir is back on the roster.  That in and of itself has to be worth a couple more losses.  Then, they sent Wellington Castillo back to AAA to play with a good team so that Koyie Hill can continue to look at third strikes for the Cubs.

Things are looking up!

Hopefully, Quade can keep his team focused on what is important.

Bye, Lou

This morning, Carrie Muskat and Gordon Wittenmyer tweeted out announcements almost simultaneously that Lou Piniella is stepping down as the Cubs manager after today's game.  Mike Quade will be the interim manager to finish the year.

The party that BCB will throw upon hearing this news is going to make me ill.

Hello Again, Derrek

Derrek Lee will return to Wrigley today as a member of the Atlanta Braves.  It will be interesting to see how the crowd reacts.  I'm sure his first at-bat will result in a nice ovation, but then his next at-bats will surely tell us a little bit more about the Cubs fan base.

Remember, Mark DeRosa got an ovation during practically every at-bat when he returned to Wrigley as a member of the Cardinals.  Lee is twice the player DeRosa is (almost literally - DeRosa has averaged .87 WAR over his career while Derrek has averaged 2.1 WAR in his) and played for the Cubs over three times as long.  It should follow that Lee would get at least the same reception that DeRosa received.

But DeRosa was traded at the height of his value and his popularity, whereas Lee was traded during his worst season since 1999 (yes, he was technically more valuable in 2006 with the broken wrist and all).  I know I'll applaud him when he bats on Saturday for the first time.

Plenty of other Cubs blogs have weighed in on Derrek's departure in the past couple of days:

• Another Cubs Blog - MB21 looks at Derrek's place in Cubs history (spoiler: he was really good).
• Desipio - Dolan will kind of miss Derrek and his bad back.
• Waxpaperbeercup - ccd waxes nostalgic on Lee with a little help from gaius marius.
• A League of Her Own - Julie's son bids his hero farewell.
• And Counting - Adam is eloquent as usual in his take on Lee's time with the Cubs.
• Goat Riders of the Apocalypse - Kurt is pretty happy to have Lee and his double plays out of here.

I have personally been very depressed about the trade of Lee, and that comes as a bit of a surprise to me.  I like to think I have tried to view the team rationally and understood that the trade of Lee was necessary to not only save a bit of cash from his remaining salary, but to also maybe get lucky with one of the prospects that came back in return.  There is nothing left to play for this season for the Cubs, so if he wanted to go and try to win another World Series with the Braves, it is the best for all parties.

Yet, I'm still sad.  Someone said on Twitter that it is the end of an era.  I kind of laughed at first since his era included a two week collapse at the end of 2004, death march seasons in 2005, 2006 and now 2010, and zero playoff victories.  In a way, however, it is the end of an era.

Upon Lee's arrival after the near-miss in 2003, the expectations of the Cubs were to be contenders.  Sure they usually weren't, but even 2005 and 2006 seasons were greeted with hopes that Wood and Prior would be healthy enough to power the Cubs to victory.  After the 2006 disgrace of a season, the Cubs were clearly not contenders, but then Hendry opened up the wallet and bought Piniella, Soriano, Lilly and Marquis and expectations rose again. In 2008, they were national favorites to win the national League Central and compete for the World Series, and then again in 2009.  Even though the team was starting to crumble, people felt that the 2010 team could compete if certain players like Soto and Soriano could even get close to where they should be.

Most of the hopes of all of those years centered around having Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez in the middle of the Cubs lineup.  The infield defense was not considered a horrible monstrosity because Lee was anchoring first and keeping throwing errors to a minimum.

Now all that is gone.  In reality, the era was slowly dying throughout the year after it became apparent that Lee just hasn't been right all along, but the trade to the Braves was the final pillow over the face.

So as much as I knew the day was coming and that the end was probably a good thing, the final reality still gets me a bit down.  Thanks again, Derrek.

Bye, Derrek

The area behind the visitors' dugout is now designated as a hard hat area.

The Ricketts Ignore My Advice and Go the Other Way

Yesterday, I had a brainstorm that I felt could really help the Ricketts family out in the public perception arena.  I don't have any vested interest in helping them out, but I'm a nice guy and if nothing else, the Ricketts seem like nice people, so what the hell.

Shockingly, the Ricketts chose not to take the advice of a random blogger to nominate a member of their family to sound like a typical sports-radio caller.  I get it.  I'm not offended.  I know it's a radical idea, but I'm convinced it would work.

Instead, the Ricketts kind of went the other way.  Their plan involved welcoming home a team that has gone 5-15 in their last twenty games, committed 94 errors on the season, allowed 77 unearned runs, and lost 29 one run games by serving them caviar in the clubhouse.

Needless to say, this has not played real well with Cubs fans.

One of my podcast partners, Julie DiCaro wrote a letter to the Ricketts on her site:

"Dear Tom Ricketts,



I understand your desire to make things "first class" up here on the North Side. However, what Cubs fans want is a FIRST-CLASS BALL CLUB. Not a first-class clubhouse, or first-class, bathrooms with first-class troughs, or even first-class food. We want a winning ballclub. Period. And frankly, rewarding a pathetic performance over the course of the season with a delicacy that most Chicagoans would never buy for themselves, especially in a recession, is not going to endear you or this team to anyone.


Stop with the gimmicks and focus on baseball, for crying out loud."

That sentiment pretty much summed up most of what I heard from the guys sitting behind me last night in Aisle 424 as news of the caviar spread in the stadium.  It also mirrored a lot of what I saw on Twitter.

But it isn't just us crazy bloggers and social media geeks that didn't like the caviar shtick. It also gave easy fodder to Paul Sullivan to poke fun at the organization in the Tribune:

"No one was blaming the caviar for the Cubs' 9-5 loss to the first-place Padres on Monday, but the mere idea of serving caviar to a fifth-place team that began the day 17 games out of first place was akin to the chairman of BP going yachting during the height of the Gulf Coast oil spill disaster."


And Gordon Wittenmyer also got in a couple of shots in the Sun-Times:

"With no champagne in sight this year, the Cubs were treated to a taste of caviar in the clubhouse kitchen Monday after their first series win of the month over the weekend...

... Then again, they might be looking at Spam and Cheese Whiz today after another collectively poor effort from the young pitchers the Cubs are hanging some of next year's hopes on."


But aside from the small minority of fans who get their information about the Cubs from major newspapers, sports talk radio, and blogs, I think it played really well.

Bravo.

Ricketts Family Needs a Loose Cannon

Last week, I wrote about how the Cubs will sell us on the concept of hope in the offseason and how I think it will actually work if they do it right. One commenter known as DB chimed in:

"I'm not buying hope. I'm fed up. If any Cubs marketing gurus are reading this (fat chance), note well, I've considerably lowered my expectations of the Ricketts. I.e., they'll suck just as much as the Tribune and we'll never win. At least not if Tom continues the way he has been, doing a big fat nothing and continuing to rely on has-been Hendry."

DB is not alone in her discontent over the Ricketts' handling of the Cubs so far, especially now after the news that the Rangers' new owners have reduced food, beverage, and parking prices.

A fellow blogger known as @talkchibaseball on Twitter posted this sentiment:

"Meanwhile in Chicago, Tom ricketts probably will bump ticket prices this offseason."

That comment was retweeted several times and seems to be reflecting the belief that Tom Ricketts is, at best, a distant cousin of Satan.  This growing discontent over the Ricketts family and their desire to make profits over winning baseball games could put a real damper on the whole selling of hope thing they have going.

As fans, we would like to see an owner spitting fire over the poor performance of the team.  We want 1970s George Steinbrenner.  We want how we imagine Mark Cuban would be if he was the owner of the team.  We want someone affiliated with the team to scream and yell and froth at the mouth over the Cubs and their crappy play.  When Paul Sullivan asks a question about how it feels to see the latest baserunning gaffe, bobbled grounder, overthrown cutoff man, bullpen implosion, or inability to hit with runners in scoring position, we want someone to grab him by the neck and scream, "HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK IT FEELS TO WATCH  THAT SHIT DAY IN AND DAY OUT?"

But Tom can't do that.  He is measured.  He is restrained.  He is a big picture kind of guy.  He can't go flying off the handle every time a Cubs pitcher walks in a run.  And so the populace begins to think that the Ricketts family only cares about profits and raising revenues.

Of course, the Tribune was always accused of exactly that sentiment and maybe there was some truth to it.  They wanted a winner (winners sell easier than losers), but they went about it as cheaply as possible.  Until the end, they didn't use their huge advantage as the only major market in the NL Central to their advantage.  Their front office was practically a skeleton crew.  As long as they had a star or two to market, they seemed content to fill in around that star with players like Leo Gomez and Damon Buford.

The problem is that the Tribune was a largely faceless organization.  The villians rotated in and out.  The GMs got the biggest name recognition, but how many casual fans even remember Ed Lynch, much less hate him?  I bet I could ask twenty random fans at the game tonight to give me their opinion of Larry Himes and I would get a blank stare in response from at least ten of them.

But if I asked about Tom Ricketts, everyone would have an opinion, and I bet most of those opinions would be unfavorable.

So what can he do?

He can't burn the roster down and start over by dumping Fukudome, Zambrano, Ramirez, or Soriano. The Cubs are going to be paying these guys to play baseball whether it is for the Cubs or for someone else, so it might as well be for the Cubs so they don't also have to to pay their replacements.

They can't trade Marmol, Marshall, or Byrd since they need some light for the fans to focus on.  If they traded any of those guys, despite how smart and savvy a baseball move that might be for the longterm, they would get hammered by the fans in the form of unsold tickets next year.

They can't really lower concession prices since hardly anyone's reasons for not showing up to games, or not walking up to buy a ticket do not involve the price of beer.  Basically, all that would happen is the Ricketts would bring in less revenue than they already are.  The Rangers are trying to build fan loyalty so that they can make bigger profits off the fanbase in the future.  If you think they are knocking a few cents off concession prices out of the goodness of their hearts, you are insane.  They can spin it however they want, but they are eyeing larger future profits by sacrificing a few dollars this year.

The Cubs don't have any more loyalty they can buy.  The season ticket waiting list is still 100,000 deep and will probably be at least 60,000 deep after this round of turnover in the season ticket holders (and declines by people currently at the top of the list).  Cubs fans are about as loyal as they are going to get, so reducing concession prices will do nothing but reduce revenue from a team that needs all the revenues it can get right now.

They may have to explore reducing ticket prices slightly for next year.  There is ample evidence that they overshot the true demand price for tickets, so a correction may be in order, but it won't be dramatic.  They'd also sell it as an apology to Cubs fans, but really, all it would be is a market correction.  My guess is they simply won't raise prices this offseason.

So what can they do?

If I were Tom, I'd have a conversation with my siblings to see which one of them wants to be the angry sibling that speaks his/her mind when it comes to the Cubs.  Give the fans what they want: a member of the Ricketts family that is as pissed off as they are.

It doesn't matter who it is as long as it isn't Tom.  Tom needs to be the sane voice of reason that holds everything together.  Tom needs to be the one who reigns in the rantings of his sibling(s).

Pete, Todd and Laura can draw straws to see who complains about Lou's crazy lineups, the fact that Cashner is in the bullpen instead of starting, that Soriano hops when he catches balls, that the bullpen sucks or any of the other seemingly unending list of problems with this team.  I'd nominate Todd since he is the youngest and can be easily painted as the impudent one, but if none of them wants to be the "crazy sibling" all the time, they can just take turns.

Fans would love whoever it is.  They would be comforted knowing that at least one member of the Ricketts family cares as much as they do.  They would identify with the anger and not feel as resentful as they handed over large sums of money to an owner they no longer trust.

Nothing at all would actually be different, but the fans would have a voice.  They would have someone that has their backs as they pay for their Cub fandom in both money and emotional scars.  That's really all Cubs fans demand to keep their dreams of unicorns and a Cubs World Series alive.  Seriously, Tom, you'll be amazed how fans' attitudes will change with a Ricketts family member dropping a few f-bombs when discussing the Cubs' season.

You're welcome.