Reprise of Millar-Dempster comedy act coming
Oh, the things you read online. It looks like the Cubs are going to sign Jim Hendry-favorite Kevin Millar to a non-guaranteed minor-league deal later this week. There's always an equal-and-opposite-reaction theme to every Cubs winter (last year it was "get Lou his 'left-hand' bat), and this year, it appears that if all else fails, the Cubs are going to "out-chemistry" everybody in the wake of getting rid of Milton Bradley. The Millar story first appeared on ESPN.com, with Millar telling writer Jerry Crasnick the deal is done:
http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=4877453
In the story, Millar tells Crasnick: "It's been a very slow market as you've seen this off-season, but things have worked out. I'm excited to have a chance to compete for a spot with the Cubbies. I have a lot of buddies on that team."
You never know, but Millar doesn't appear to have a whole lot of baseball left in him, but boy, won't that clubhouse in Mesa be fun this spring as Millar and Ryan Dempster reprise their comedy routine and turn that sleepy little community in Arizona into the Catskills Southwest? A couple years ago, old friends Millar and Dempster had a back-and-forth (from Florida to Arizona) about Millar going to tear Dempster apart when the vaunted Baltimore Orioles came to Wrigley Field. I can't exactly remember what happened.
Anyway, Millar is a right-handed batter whose career splits are pretty even when facing righty and lefty pitching. Last year in Toronto, he had a hitting line of .223/.311/.363 for an OPS of .674 and an OPS-plus of 79. The wOBA was .302. He hit 20 homers for the O's in 2008, with an 89 OPS-plus.
Bill James projects 75 games and a line of .242/.342/.395 for an OPS of .737 and a wOBA of .321 for Millar in 2010.
Once Millar signs on the dotted line, he'll compete with non-roster men Chad Tracy and Bryan LaHair.
On to other things. The Cubs may indeed look at pitcher Noah Lowry as he throws this week, but there's little real interest on their part. They're still after a reliever, and one may not fall into their laps until the eve of spring training.
NEXT! lol
Hi Bruce - I like the signing of Millar, Tracy and LaHair. Derrick Lee's injury 3-4 years ago and Ramirez last year had a big negative effect. We need insurance guys with major league experience to back up our two most important hitters.
If Millar, Tracy and LaHair do not make the team coming out of spring training, do you know if they are willing to start in Iowa? Maybe start in Iowa with the agreement the Cubs would release them if they are not called up or they find a deal to play on another big league roster at some point during the season?
The way the roster is shaping up, us Cubs fans will need something to laugh about this summer. Sheesh!!
to the tales of clubhouse camaraderie by your fellow newspaper writers...if the Cubs can't be good, they'll be likable.
let's never forget that one of the reasons Hendry brought in Bradley was to put some fire into a clubhouse that was accused of being too friendly and missing that competitive edge after the 2007 and 2008 playoffs.
DeRosa, Wood, Johnson, Eyre and Dempster Aye.
>> if the Cubs can't be good, they'll be likable. <<
Back to the future!.....
I guess they didn't like the pressure of being serious contenders, so it's back to embracing the "Loveable Losers" thing.
In the convoluted economics of the Chicago Cubs they seem to have learned that they can save and earn more money as losers than they could in what they would need to spend in order to be winners.
So long as Cub fans continue to support losing and bad management, the Cub brass can justify it.
You get what you're willing to pay for.
There is no data to support your claim that the Cubs don't spend. You might be able to claim that, at times, they haven't spent wisely, but you can't say that this team has been assembled on the cheap.
As I posted previously.... nobody's holding a gun to your head to read my posts.
However, since turnabout is fair play, I find your pontifications to be completely sophomoric and meaningless since all you do is comment on other people's posts and lack any sort of original thought. You lack perspective and there's absolutely no indication of any depth to your what you write. Not trying to be hurtful, but you are either slow or lack the ability to recognize anything beyond the obvious.
I normally don't even read your posts when I see the name "elliot" because I'm convinced that it's coming from some kid in high school and I'm wasting my time.
So do us all a favor..... If you feel like writing and sharing your thoughts, go write for your school newspaper or write your autobiography instead of burdening the rest of us with your self-indulgence.
You ought to reread your own whiny, misconstrued bloviations before you put them out there for public consumption. Talk about a waste of time! It's clear that you lack baseball acumen, and your perspective on the modern day baseball landscape is so far from reality, that at times it makes a reasonable facsimile for comedy.
Have you read some of the replies to the junk that you post? It's obvious that many feel as I do. You do no research. You present nothing factual to support your incessant misguided tantrums. You just post your crapola and then lash out at anyone who dares to call you on your misinformation. Sorry if you can't deal with a differing opinion which is based on fact, rather than the fantasyland baseball world that you live in.
I can't wait for your response to this post. Whenever you're ready, remove your thumb from your mouth and type away!
Again, you prove my point....
More self-indulgence. No original thought. You parrot what you see on the surface without any hint whatsoever of reasoning. Polly wanna cracker?
How about this one..... Why haven't the Cubs won a WS in over 100 years? Bad luck? Bad management?.... In over 100 years??
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut and stumbles into it.
Ever read Mike McCaskey's piece on the business end of sports and how much easier and more profitable it is to not win? That the cost, challenges and expectations brought on by winning don't come close to the money to be made by ownership not to do so? Didn't think so. You probably wouldn't understand it anyway.
Why are you posting at this hour? No school today?
Your McCaskey theory has a great big hole in the middle of it. Why, if it is so much more profitable to lose than to win, do the Cubs have a payroll that has been one of the four or five highest in the league, consistently for the last few years? Wouldn't it be even more WILDLY profitable to spend only $80-90M on payroll?
You are entirely too predictable, and as I said before, you lack understanding for the business of baseball (and probably for sports in general). It's even more troubling that you would try to support your your flimsy thesis by quoting Michael McCaskey - another mope who doesn't have a decent handle on running a professional sporting franchise.
>> do the Cubs have a payroll that has been one of the four or five highest in the league, consistently for the last few years? <<
Okay genius.... I see that reading comprehension isn't your thing either.
How long has it been since The Tribune decided to sell the Cubs? Gee, I guess that had to be about 3+ years ago!
When did they decide to open up the checkbook and sign Soriano, Lilly, Marquis, Fukudome and extend Z & Ramirez? Gee, I guess that was within the same timeframe!
C'mon kid, I know that it's in you..... try to create a compelling arguement for once in your life, stay away from the baseball abstracts and learn how to understand what you read before making a fool out of yourself.
You'll thank me when you get to college.
Reading comprehension is not something with which I struggle. I'm just not buying the load of crap that you're selling.
"Ever read Mike McCaskey's piece on the business end of sports and how much easier and more profitable it is to not win?"
Just a hunch, but I don't think this piece would include an organization spending $140 million a year on payroll.
>> I don't think this piece would include an organization spending $140 million a year on payroll. <<
It may or it may not.
No doubt that management tried to win it when it was decided that The Tribune was going to sell the Cubs. A winning team is much more valuable than a losing team. That's the ONLY reason why the Cubs have a payroll as high as they do right now. Undoubtedly they felt that the increased payroll would be more than offset by their return on the sale. Additionally, most of the contracts were backloaded..... meaning that any new owner would be responsible for these contracts after the sale and the initial outlay to sign these players (Soriano, Fukudome, Z, Lilly, Ramirez, etc) would have a minimum impact on their bottom line up until the sale was completed.
So now Ricketts is on the hook for a bloated payroll of what's proven to be underperforming players.... thanks to Hendry's shortcomings in evaluating talent, yet unsurpassed ability to bid against himself and his proclivity towards 3 year guaranteed contracts.
Curious as soon as Ricketts took control he was preaching patience and his marketing gurus have been hyping all of the prospects in the organization that will be saviors in 2-3 years (Castro, Jackson, Cashner, Vitters, etc).
Kinda like suggests that a youth movement is planned that will slash payroll, allow Ricketts to recoup some of the profits eaten up now by payroll and attempt at his own pace & the resources he'll be willing to commit in order to provide fans the tried & true strategy of hope for a better tomorrow once the current contracts expire.
The Cubs had a core of players that won 97 games a couple years ago that's being slowly picked apart and the team is nowhere as good as it was. If this organization was serious about winning now, they would've sucked it up and ADDED the piece or two to put the team over the top instead of going in the opposite direction. The bulk of these long term contracts were already in place and budgeted for. They could have at least tried to finish the job and showed their fans that they actually want the same thing we do.
OhhhhBoy...you say that this team is terrible and going in the wrong direction but in the next breath state "If this organization was serious about winning now, they would've sucked it up and ADDED the piece or two to put the team over the top instead of going in the opposite direction." So do you believe that they were only a couple players away? they went out and got Soriano...they resigned Lee and Ramirez...they went out got Marquis and Lilly...they added Fukedome...they added Pinella...they traded for Harden...they added Bradley....they added Byrd...they added Nady. What's your bright idea?
I'll be the first to say that I am not the biggest fan of Jim Hendry but he has tried to stir the pot. Things just haven't worked out...that's not from a lack of spending. Also, remember that you can never prepare for the loss of your top 2 pitchers...Losing Prior and Wood was a huge deal. Those types of players don't grow on trees.
"and his marketing gurus have been hyping all of the prospects in the organization that will be saviors in 2-3 years (Castro, Jackson, Cashner, Vitters, etc)."
Please direct me to this Cub propaganda. Last I checked Baseball America, Fangraphs, Baseball Prospectus, MLB.com, and anyone else who rank prospects aren't owned by the Cubs organization.
"If this organization was serious about winning now, they would've sucked it up and ADDED the piece or two to put the team over the top instead of going in the opposite direction."
You just pointed out how Hendry wasted all that money with bad contracts, backloaded, sticking the high cost with the new ownerl, yet the solution to your bitterness is to add more payroll. Doesn't make sense.
Put yourself in Ricketts shoes. He just spent $800 million and he's still stuck with Soriano and numerous other bad contracts. What would you do? Spend MORE money?
Or realize that this is your team for the rest of your life, so do things right. Build from ground up. Let those bad contracts wind down so you can spend money on players that REALLY put you over the top, not spend money trying to make up for bad decisions.
As far as Ricketts is concerned, this is Year 1. He doesn't need to win it all in Year 1. He's got his whole life. And he's going to do it his way, building from the ground up.
He contradicts himself with every next sentence.
>> Please direct me to this Cub propaganda. <<
Go to: http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=chc
Read previous hypes, the need for fans to be patient, etc.
>> What would you do? Spend MORE money? <<
1st thing Ricketts should have done was to replace Hendry.... and then, yeah, I would've overspent for another year or two to get the team over the top while all these phenoms prove capable of integrating into the lineup.
>> Build from ground up. Let those bad contracts wind down so you can spend money on players that REALLY put you over the top <<
So you want the Cubs to get really, really bad while still choking on the noose of these contracts instead of fixing the problem and then handing the roster over to a bunch of unproven prospects just because the Cubs say they're the real deal?? And for this you're willing to pay top dollar for the joy of sitting in a seat at Wrigley just so you can look at the ivy?
>> He doesn't need to win it all in Year 1. He's got his whole life. <<
I wish that I could say the same. 55 years of this would tax even your patience.
Still wearing that "I Believe" bracelet?
Spending is the CAUSE of all these problems and your solution is to spend more. Just like Jim Hendry.
Okay, I guess NOT doing what's been successful for other winning franchises isn't the answer. It's okay to suck for the next 100 years.
Spending isn't the cause. The cause is what Hendry chose to spend it on.
"Spending isn't the cause. The cause is what Hendry chose to spend it on."
__________________________________________
Gee, where have I heard THAT before? Your ability to back pedal is surpassed only by your skillful plagiarism.
Hiya Bruce! Millar and Dempster didn't get to face one another as the rotation didn't work out Millar claimed that Demp was avoiding him.
Didn't have the energy to look it up!