Late last week, the Cubs traded speedy-yet-worthless urban legend Joey Gathright to the Baltimore Orioles for Ryan Freel, a player most Cubs fans would have loved to have seen at Wrigley Field four years ago.
Freel, who stands 5'9" and is 33 years old, is a versatile player who can play most infield and outfield positions.
Aaron Miles, whom the Cubs gave a two-year contract in January, stands 5'8", is 32 years old and is a versatile player who can play most infield and outfield positions.
Miles currently backs up Mike Fontenot at second base. Fontenot, who is only 28 years old, stands 5'8" tall and can play most infield positions.
Fontenot's college teammate at LSU and current shortstop for the Cubs, Ryan Theriot, is Yao Ming in comparison at 5'11". He's stuck at shortstop, though, so while he can hit better than the other three he doesn't provide the versatility. (And, for the record, I've met Theriot and if he's his listed height I'm the President of Russia).
It's starting to look like Gargomel, the villain who hunted the Smurfs, is the greatest potential fear for the Chicago Cubs roster.
In unloading Gathright, Cubs GM Jim Hendry has started to admit that his offseason plan to build the current Cubs roster was a joke and is imploding. He thought he could replace Daryle Ward with Speed Racer Gathright and it would even off.
The problem the Cubs found is something that even three-year-old Playstation games recognizes: Speed doesn't do a bit of good when it never leaves the batter's box.
Ask Felix Pie...well, Gathright might. They're both in Baltimore now. Or are they both on their way to Triple-A?
Hendry's offseason was laughable to me and many other B/R regulars. While Milton Bradley has started to warm up his bat to match his temper, most of the moves Hendry made this winter haven't gone very well.
Kerry Wood hasn't had a good start in Cleveland, but Kevin Gregg has been Joe Borowski in glasses with a fastball; the heart attack approach he brings to almost every ninth inning isn't good for anyone with a pace maker.
I'm not going to mention Mark DeRosa. I promise.
And the eventual three-team deal(s) that landed Aaron Heilman in the Cubs bullpen? Really? Seriously? Garrett Olsen gets ready to break into the Mariners' rotation while the Cubs still have nothing but Neal Cotts from the left side of the bullpen, and Heilman's seen the same infamous results in Chicago that got him run out of Flushing, New York.
Thank God for Angel Guzman!
Let me take a step back for a moment to a discussion I prompted on this site with a piece a little over a week ago when Carlos Zambrano got hurt. The issue I had with Hendry at that point in time was the development, or lack thereof, with Jeff Samardzija.
Samardzija was sent to Triple-A Iowa out of Spring Training to focus on becoming a starting pitcher. The idea was that he needed work developing all "four" of his pitches and to lengthen his arm out so he could throw six to eight innings.
But the minute the Cubs needed an arm in the bullpen, Samardzija's plan was tossed out the window, and he was thrown right back into the pen where he didn't (and doesn't) belong. He came into a couple of games and looked completely overmatched.
Fast forward to early last week. I attended an NHL playoff game at the United Center with a couple friends and had the displeasure of meeting Hendry at the Bud Light Bar. He was having a few cocktails with the support staff from the Cubs, and one friend and I approached him to say hello.
Ellen, my friend, asked Hendry if she could ask him a question about baseball. His first response was, "Do you want to know why I traded your boyfriend, [Mark] DeRosa?" But she pressed and he obliged her.
She pointedly asked why Hendry, and the management of the team as a whole, would mess with players' development by moving them around in the way they did with Samardzija.
Hendry's response was that, in Samardzija's case, he's younger and has more flexibility with his arm so they could move him back and forth between roles. When she pressed him regarding the purpose of his tenure in Iowa to begin the season, and why he wasn't back in Iowa developing, Hendry told Ellen that "it's none of your business" and walked away.
The postscript on that story is that Samardzija was sent down the next day, and a number of other interactions at the same Blackhawks game led to the hosts of the afternoon flagship show on ESPN 1000 in Chicago asking aloud if Ellen had led to the Cubs handling of Samardzija.
But Hendry's reaction to Ellen, and his responses to her questions, led me at that time to believe that Hendry is flying by the seat of his pants trying to stick a piece of gum in a cracked dam.
With the acquisition of Freel for Gathright, it proves I may have been too generous with that assessment.
Freel is nothing to the Cubs roster that they don't already have too many of at the Major League level. He has limited power, used to run well, has injury concerns in his past, and needs a ladder to see six feet.
With Aramis Ramirez hurting his shoulder in Milwaukee and Derrek Lee having a bulging disc in his neck and back, my fear is that 2009 Chicago Cubs are going to remind fans of 2004 or worse by the time we get to the All-Star Break. By the trade deadline, this team might be sellers with nobody wanting to buy damaged goods.
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