Am I the only one starting to worry a little bit about the mental health of Chicago Cubs manager Dale Sveum? I mean, I don’t blame the guy. Working in this organization could break anyone under regular circumstances. Imagine what it must be like to manage this team and to know that you’re just a pawn in Theo’s game?
All that said, Dale is starting to alarm me:
“When you feel your team is out of it, (you unload) to start building and getting a healthier organization,” he said. “That’s part of the business. … Hopefully we’re buying people.”
(snip)
Sveum said the Cubs went into last season thinking “if these guys don’t do something, we’re going to struggle offensively, and obviously that happened.”
This year, he insisted, it’s a different story.
“Now it’s just more (believing) if guys just live up to their capabilities, then it’s a pretty functional offense,” Sveum said.
No, it’s not.
When I was in college, one of my friends went to work in a “rest home.” But in another, more accurate way, she went to work at an insane asylum. I’m not sure what the politically correct term here is. Mental health facility? Hospital? She and I referred to it as “the nut house” or “the rubber room.” At any rate, she once told me of a conversation she had with one of the residents there. He seemed like a very nice, normal, non-needing-to-be-in-a-mental-health-facility kind of guy. They chatted frequently, they ate lunch together, they played board games. She was completely convinced that this guy’s family had committed him due to some personal vendetta or family feud over money or some other such nefarious plot. He was just too normal, too cool, too much fun to be in need of residential treatment.
She came to that conclusion the day before he warned her about the 700-foot silver spiders.
This is how I feel about Dale Sveum. He talks about this team in a completely non-insane way. Tells us all how much better they are this season, how improved the pitching staff is, how much more depth this team has than last year. And, of course, he has to say this stuff. He’s the manager. He can’t give up on the team when we give up on the team. He has to wait until at least May before he can start admitting how sucky they are. I get it.
Then, out of nowhere, he says something like “if we’re not contenders,” or “hopefully, we’ll be buyers.” Boom. Silver spiders.
I really really hope Dale is just fucking with us. Just says this kind of stuff to see how we all react, fire up the team, yada yada yada. Because, you know, if he really believes this team is going to contend for anything other than 4th place or that the Cubs are buying for anything sooner than 2015, I know a great rest home he should probably tour.
By the way, the Cubs and their functional offense won yesterday:
Score: Cubs 5, A’s 3.
Spring record: 4-2.
At the plate: Darnell McDonald and Junior Lake both had a pair of hits and an RBI.
On the mound: Starter Scott Feldman and Travis Wood each allowed one run on two hits over two innings. Kyuji Fujikawa has a scoreless inning.
In the field: Right-fielder Jorge Soler threw out Josh Reddick trying to go from first to third on a single.
Thanks to Twitter, this throw Soler made from right field is already legendary. People are still talking about it this morning.
This afternoon, the Cubs welcome the Diamondbacks to Ho Ho Kam. Jeff Samardzija will be on the hill, presumably with a nice fruit basket for Kevin Towers for giving us two upright, non-broken, honest-to-God pitchers for Tony Campana.
The only upgrade the Cubs have made offensively, based on preseason projections in 2012 and 2013 would be at 1st base.
Castro is Castro
Barney is Barney
Our right fielder is now playing center field.
Soriano is a year older.
Right field…never mind.
Catcher…ugh
And third base…excuse me while I puke.
I will admit, the pitching staff, as long as Garza is healthy and he isn’t traded, is marginally better than last year. Offensively, the only things we can really hope for that will improve this team is that Brett Jackson’s strikeout rate drops to the point where he isn’t the butt of pretty much every baseball related joke and that Josh Vitters miraculously turns into a young, reincarnated Ron Santo.
And if you think about it…if the Cubs are able to get the same production out of Anthony Rizzo as they did out of Bryan LaHair in the first half of the season, 1st base isn’t going to be much of an improvement either. The Cubs has a good hitting first baseman before the trade deadline last year and they still sucked.
So I’ve got nothing. This offense sucks.
But our back-up catcher has hit two home runs in spring training! (counting the intrasquad one)
Ok…I have to agree we have a better backup catcher this year…but I would argue, projections-wise, Soto was expected to be better last year than Castillo is projected this year.
Mark Prior has volunteered to toil for Dusty Baker once more. He just signed a minor league contract with the Reds.
Alas, the lad is braindead.
just came over here to post that. I did NOT see that one coming.
That’s like Rihanna getting back together with Chris Brown.
Or like Sauron palling around with Frodo. *nerd laugh*
I feel like I need to say something stupidly offensive to get some good discussion going on here.
How is that different from any other day for you?
Today I’ve run out of stupidly offensive things today say.
Any video of “the Throw?”
I haven’t seen any.
Ah, well, then the stuff of legends it remains. Probably best that way.
Julie – your care and sensitivity regarding the issue of mental illness knows no bounds.
Oh. My. God.
http://bit.ly/13tzzpL
Crawford’s will be the greatest baseball career that NEVER happened. Can that get you into a special wing in the HOF or anything?
Well, maybe not quite to the level of Grady Sizemore. He had a few good years.
Bo Jackson?
I’m still laughing at all the Red Sox fans who laughed at me for comparing that contract to Soriano’s.
Sorry guys, I had a sick day today.
We missed you! Nothing serious, I hope.
Watching Angels/cubs, and the announcers are murdering the Cubs names.
Come the middle of this season, many fans are going to go beyond just murdering the Cubs names.
Marmol’s name keeps being pronounced as “Marmole”, and “marmoo”…
I just call him Migraine.
Rizzo is the first baseman for team Italy?
Yes! Forza Azzurri!
Most of the Italian team is made up of guys named Rocco and Paoli…and they are on the team mostly as a favor to some mafia big shot.
That’s inappropriate. Especially from some Kraut up in Cheeseland.
Cubs won, 4-2. Hopefully the Angels announcers learn to pronounce names better…
A year ago, if someone had told me that Jeff Samardzija would be the opening day starter for a major league team in one year, I would have recommended that the person be committed.