[Jazzmosis]

Chapter 46: Winds Started Blowing

The Cubs slowed down in June, but still put a respectable record of 16-11 on the board. And truthfully, 6 of those 11 losses came before the 10th. After that day, they went 14-5, which looks a whole lot better. I was just starting to get comfortable with the team, especially after the Hollen/Smith incident. I chose to be very open with the team, and it seemed that the lineup I had set up was working wonders - or, at least the top four were playing very well off of each other. Hickman lead it off; Harshaw hit him into scoring position; Guasch knocked them in; Dechant hit him home. When those four played well, the team was virtually unbeatable. The team ERA was a league-best 3.87, so it didn’t put a lot of pressure on the offense to score runs. It resulted in the team scoring 5.5 runs per game up to the all-star break. At that point, Chicago was 58-30 and 4.5 games up on St. Louis.

It was strange how the public was reacting to this, however. Sure, the fans were excited, and attendance was increasing quickly (they had almost matched their attendance from 2007 by the all-star break, and would end up posting 1.5 times more in 2008) - but as excited as people were, everyone was seemingly expecting the crash to happen - after all, this was an extremely raw team. As of July 11th, 14 members on the active roster were making the league minimum salary, and six were classified as rookies or had less than two years of experience in the game. The newspapers printed articles with cautious optimism. I remember reading headlines like "Is this Chicago’s year? They have to make October First” and "On Top, But For How Long?" There seemed to be a lot of focus on the threat of St. Louis, which boasted a serious veteran team, complete with young superstars. Nobody doubted if they would make it to the postseason, even though Milwaukee was in a virtual tie with them for the wildcard. And those two were still picked as the favourites to win the division and take the wildcard. In the rankings, Chicago was projected to finish a distant third ‘when they inevitably collapse,’ as one newspaper article put it.


Despite all this, the Cubs had three All-Stars - all starting pitchers. Although our offense was good, it wasn’t the best in the league by any means. Instead, this team really rode the strength of pitching to stay on top up to this point in the season. Although Koaney was the no-brainer selection, the other two were surprises: Benjamin Lamar, who was 10-3 with a 3.88 ERA - he’d already eclipsed his career high for wins, and during his 4 years in the majors, he’d never thrown enough innings to qualify for the ERA title (and he’d spent two previous years as a full-time starter), but his previous low was 4.66 in 156 IP. Of all the success he’d had, everyone, including myself, expected him to slow down and end up with an ERA near 4.50. However, it was his first All-Star appearance, so he was relishing in heading to Seattle.

The third Cub was rookie starter Jose Morales. He was relatively quiet during the usual rowdiness of the clubhouse, so many people overlooked him. But the truth of the matter was, he was the most consistent starter I’d have all year. It was strange how I’d overlooked him when he was only a month younger than me - during those earlier years it was far easier to identify with the younger players, and I generally made more of an attempt to associate myself with them (except in the case of Look and Dewberry). Perhaps it was the common ground they shared with myself - their jobs weren’t guaranteed, and they couldn’t approach the game with the attitude that they were always going to be around because they had always been around. They had to prove their worth, just like I did. Morales at the break had done just that, going 9-3 with a 3.35 ERA. When I told him he was going to the All-Star game he merely smiled and shook my hand, saying a polite ‘thank you.’

I was surprised that Harshaw didn’t make it, but he finished a close second in the balloting to LA’s Edwin Edlington, who was an absolute monster prospect. He was only 23, and would end up leading the NL in RBIs.


The All-Star game would pass without much note. Edlington won the home run derby with 12 home runs, and the NL won the game 4-2.


During this break, however, trade winds started blowing. Oberg had talked to me about what I thought of the team and how would I feel if he mixed it up, because there were offers coming in for many players.

“Do whatever makes this team keep winning.” I told him.

“I’m not sure I can do that - this team is in great shape as of now, and it’s great to be winning on such low money, but without adding salary, I really can’t build a contending team for now.”

“What are you getting at?” I asked.

“I said earlier that I was building for the future, which means that my best trading chips are at the major league level right now. Despite the success we’re having, I can’t abandon that plan for a shot at the title.” He took a drink of his coffee.

“That’s understandable,” I replied, “but don’t dismantle the team up here unless you can get the absolute best value.”

“Undeniably!” He smiled. “I must say, I’m very impressed with the way you’ve handled the team so far. If you can find ways to keep winning with all the changes, well. . . you’ve already done a lot to secure your job for next year. It’s not finalized, of course, but it’s tough to argue with numbers.”

I smiled, despite the irony. Argue with numbers?, I thought to myself. My whole career had been judged on numbers, and at the All-Star break I had just passed .500 in my managerial record, which would normally be important to me, but I was so wrapped up in the cynicism of the season that I just expected it to fall back again. I tried my best not to think about my job security either, because I had learned that people could be incredibly two-faced in this business. Given my experience in Arizona with Daniel Eastwood, who was busy turning Kansas City around after a 74-win ‘07 campaign, and how that inevitably resulted when Concordian took over and fired me, it was hard to really believe I’d have job security. I approached 2008 as if I was not going to have my contract renewed, and that my performance here would hopefully open up other doors. Bouncing around cities wasn’t ideal; but this was baseball, and like the players, managers had to relocate from time to time.


It didn’t take long for Oberg to start making changes. In fact, as soon as the all-star game finished, rumours started flying around everywhere about the potential deals - and Chicago was littered in many potential deals. It showed, as we lost the first two games after the break before winning the next four. However, during that time, Oberg started wheeling and dealing. I was informed of a deal on July 18th - a deal which stripped me of one of my bullpen arms in Byron Evangelista, who I hadn’t been using that much, but it also took away starter Jeff Anderson - which put me in a bind, since he had a 3.39 ERA despite his 5-4 record. He was traded to Cleveland, where at the time he immediately became the league leader in ERA. I would have to scramble to replace him in the rotation, placing callup Coy Kass - yes, the Coy Kass that absolutely was not ready for the big leagues - into the rotation. At least he’ll have a veteran catcher in Sebas Archuleta to guide him, I thought.

Later in the day, Oberg came and told me that Archuleta was heading to Tampa Bay. I had lost my starting pitcher, a bullpen arm, and my starting catcher (who was also on a hot streak, hitting .310 with 12 home runs at the time). What did I receive in return? 24 year-old catcher Lorenzo Cancio, who would immediately become the starting catcher (instead of Justin Gonser, who managed to survive all the trading without ever losing his backup catcher status), who of course, was another rookie who could work the strike zone when at the plate but called a questionable game (likely because of his rookie status; and all of this would be complicated by the fact that he would switch teams mid-season and have to learn a bunch of new pitchers). The upside to Cancio was that he was the first overall pick of 2007, and was called to the big leagues after half a season in Cleveland’s AA club. As such, he had a good bat and could take the physical grind of catching, as well as boasting power potential. He would have big shoes to fill in Archuleta’s absence, but there was definitely more upside (as well as a six-year difference).

The second player was utilityman Alexander Cuddy. He was a serious veteran at 35 with 10 years old MLB experience, but his most valuable asset was that he could play every single position of the field. With Kolodziej being sent down on the same day Cuddy was sent to Chicago, Alexander would bring the experience vital to teaching the younger players how to handle the pressure of the day-to-day. And even though his bat was slowly on the decline, he could still hit well enough to start in case of injury.

Archuleta netted Oberg two players from the Devil Rays. The first of which was another young catcher in Robert Stich, who was projected to have a high ceiling but would be sent to AAA instead of playing backup to Cancio. This was more in part to the strong backup play of Gonser, who had earned his way onto the club by hitting .360 as a backup. It wasn’t as if Gonser was old though; he was only 27 and had only spent small portions of the last three seasons in the big leagues (all with the Cubs).

The final player coming over in the orgy of team movement on the 18th was reliever Raymond Kagan. His name seemed unbelievably familiar, until I realized that Arizona had drafted him in 2006 - but his once high ceiling seemed to have been tainted by a drug scandal the year after, and his stock had fallen so much that the once projected-closer was claimed off waivers by Tampa Bay four days before being traded to Chicago. Of course, given the dearth of talent Chicago still had, he was called up to the parent club immediately. However, he wouldn’t last long, throwing in five games before he and his 13.50 ERA was sent back down - to be replaced with the 76th overall pick of the 2008 amateur draft in Jeremy Ibrahim, who was called up from AA. He too, would not last long in the majors. However, I’m getting ahead of myself.

When the team took the field on July 17th, there was 25 players playing together. When the team took the field on July 18th, there was four new faces. In total, 8 players had changed teams.

What was more surprising was how well they all blended. The team was collectively younger, but won six of the next eight games. It seemed to be some kind of voodoo magic, as Popham joked with me one night - “we win more the younger we get!”

Of course, that cautious optimism everyone was experiencing as they got more and more excited about the team’s play was sent back to square one on July 25th.

During a game against the Dodgers, with Koan on the mound, he signalled to me in the fourth inning with two outs. I walked out to see what was up, with the translator beside me.

“What’s the problem? You’ve got a shutout so far, you’re doing great!”

The translator listened to Koaney and then turned to me grimly. “Ji-Ku says that his elbow is causing him a lot of pain.”

I’d wind up losing my ace pitcher and his now 1.89 ERA for another five weeks with a ruptured elbow ligament. I couldn’t have received worse news.