Cubs owner Tom Ricketts is back after his trip to Zamunda. Hopefully, now he can focus his attention on his piss poor baseball team.
After following the NBA’s free agent madness the past couple of weeks, it’s time to focus on my abysmal baseball team. I’ve had no motivation to watch the Cubs so far this season until now. Why? Because ,there is nothing else to watch sports-wise until NFL training camps open at the end of this month. So, for the next two weeks, it’s time for me to continue to do my part in trying to get the Cubs GM fired and sent off to a much better profession. What profession is that, you ask? The Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. I can’t think of a better guy to challenge Joey Chestnut than ‘Ol Jimmy boy. Lord knows he can’t do worse than he has “building” this Cubs team. The “dead ass” team that Bob Brenly referred to sits at 30-59 at the all-star break. That’s good for 4th in the NL central. Oh yea, I forgot to mention Hendry’s squad also has the National League’s highest payroll at $146 million dollars. No, that’s not a misprint.
Cubs owner, Tom Ricketts, fresh off his African safari gave Hendry the dreaded vote of confidence. “The fact is right now Jim is our general manager,” he said. “I support him. I think he does a great job, and we’ll just take it one day at a time.”
Translation: “This guy is under contract for two more years so I couldn’t fire him if I wanted to. Even if I ate the money and sent him to Coney Island, I’m tied into all of the horse shit contracts he locked us into the past 3 years. Whether he beats Joey Chestnut or not, his mismanagement of this team will have residual effects until Alfonso Soriano’s contract(4 more years after this one) is up.”
Hendry can try like hell to deal Kosuke Fukudome and his remaining 2 years and $20 million left on his deal, but unless he plans on holding a gun to another GM’s head, the light hitting stiff will still be here. Kosuke is bound to slide as the season goes on, so his .252 average, .347 OBP, and .414 SLG will dip quicker than Lindsay Lohan and Mel Gibson’s careers combined. Good luck undoing that mistake, Jimbo. I’m sure there are a lot of teams willing to give up assets for a $48 million dollar part-time bum(insert sarcasm). Ditto for Aramis Ramirez despite his recent “surge” of 12-28 on the recent road trip. Nobody will go near that injury prone lazy ass even if you put Marisa Miller and Vida Guerra in the trade proposal.
Has anyone seen the biggest nut job in baseball? The Cubs only hope of trading this wack job is to showcase him and hope some team is dumb enough to trade for him this off-season.
The Cubs could try and give away Carlos Zambrano if they eat the majority of his back loaded deal($17.8 million this year and next. $18 million in 2012, and a vesting option for 2013 at $19.25 million). What team would take the petulant child at that money?– nobody that’s watched him pitch the last 2 years. There is also no chance that Ricketts will be willing to eat the majority of Hendry’s work just to ship the loon elsewhere. The best bet? Bring him back at some point, make him a starter again, hope he’s motivated, pray he doesn’t act like an asshole(good luck with that), try and move him this winter when more teams have more money available.
The guys the Cubs can move will be rag arm Ted Lilly and Derrick Lee. Both are in the last year of their deals so teams will be interested even though Lilly throws pillows to home plate and 6-4-Lee is hitting .233. The Cubs just took a 6′ pitcher who was the 190th ranked prospect in the amateur draft and followed up with a light hitting shortstop from Creighton(Hendry’s old stomping grounds) that can’t hit his weight. Do you have any confidence that Hendry will know what prospects to pluck from teams? Neither do I.
Side Note: You’re probably asking how I know about a 15th round pick from Creighton. Well, my brother played against him this past season and said he’s a slick fielder who can’t hit. So there.
Ricketts also touched on Lou Piniella’s standing with the team. I found that ironic because Lou can’t stand up half the time anyway, but I digress. “Lou is a great manager, one of the best mangers of all time, for God’s sake,” he said. “Obviously, the year hasn’t gone as we’d all hoped, but I don’t think the turning point is any one person.”
Translation: “Lou was a great manager. He’s been sleeping ever since the James Loney grand slam in game 1 of the ‘08 NLDS. We are cash strapped because my GM signs anyone with a pulse. I wasn’t about to fire Lou, pay him his $4 million dollars, and hire a new manager in the same year. Instead, I’m going to focus on putting a giant noodle along Clark Street and a giant Toyota sign about the left field bleachers. ” Is this season over yet?
The good news for the Cubs is that Tom Ricketts is back from Zamunda and has given Hendry the classic pre-firing vote of confidence. Also, Tyler Colvin and Starlin Castro look like they are keepers. Why didn’t Lou play Colvin more in the 1st half? That’s right, he takes his pre-game nap during the games. The bad news? There’s still the rest of July, and all of August and September to watch this “dead ass” team putz there way to another playoff-less finish.
