Mike Quade Is Already Screwing Up As Cubs Manager
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Every manager to put on the Chicago Cubs uniform and post up at the top step has his brain cramps.
For Mike Quade, we didn’t have to wait long.
Sure, the untrained eye will tell you Mike Quade Era got off to a good start Monday with a 9-1 win against the Washington Nationals. However, the curse of having an interim manager reared its ugly head in the nation’s capital.
Quade said Monday he would treat the season’s remaining games as an audition for the full-time gig that will come when this 162-game kick to the nuts comes to an end in early October. And he’s already done that to an extent. In what might have been a hat tip to Lou Piniella, who shuffled his line-ups countless times this season in search of a a combination that was able to scratch across hits and push home some runs but to minimal success, Quade drew up a revamped line-up in his debut as Cubs manager.
Some of the shifting was met with praise, such as Blake DeWitt’s insertion into the lead-off spot, Tyler Colvin’s removal from the top of the order and into a run-producing slot and the dropping of Alfonso Soriano to the seventh slot.
DeWitt has posted an on-base percentage of .400 in 80 plate appearances since joining the Cubs, making him the optimal choice to be placed in the top spot. The move paid dividends immediately as he went 3-for-5 with a run scored and two driven in. If DeWitt keeps it up, it won’t be long until Cubs fans forget about Ryan Theriot’s .320 OBP as a Cub in 2010.
As for Soriano, he went 2-for-5 in the seventh spot with a triple that could have possibly been an inside-the-park home run had he hustled out of the box for a change. Soriano drove in a pair of runs as his solid, yet unspectacular, season continued.
On the downside, I wasn’t a fan of moving Geovany Soto back to the eighth slot. It makes me wonder if Soto whizzed in Quade’s cereal because there might not be a tougher spot in the order to hit than in front of the pitcher and Soto’s numbers tell me he should be in a better spot in the order. Soto (.286/.404/.515/.919) should be featured in the middle of the order, preferably swapped with first baseman Xavier Nady despite his recent turnaround at the plate.
Speaking of first base, that’s where Colvin wasn’t on Monday — even though that’s where everyone expected him to be starting with the series against the Washington Nationals. If Quade really wanted to audition for 2011, it would behoove him to see whether or not a young, cost-controlled player such as Colvin can handle the full-time responsibility of playing first base.
Even if Colvin was a disastrous failure at first, what else is there to lose if you’re managing the Cubs. The team hasn’t been in playoff contention in a calendar year. The Cubs are also closer to the cellar-dwelling Pirates than the front-running Reds. Hell, even respectability seems to be out of reach at this point. We already know Nady can handle first, what’s the worst thing that can happen upon letting Colvin get an opportunity?
This is the same team that trotted out Kevin Gregg as a closer time and time again. The same organization that kept Ed Lynch on the payroll for years after being axed as general manager. The same franchise that traded Dickie Noles for a player to be named later — who happened to be Dickie Noles.
Free Tyler Colvin, already.
For all his flaws as we reached the tail end of his career, Piniella knew what he was doing in his final season. Sweet Lou kept Colvin in the No. 1 spot not because saw Colvin and his .310 OBP transcending the lead-off spot, but because he wanted to get Colvin as many at-bats as possible. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know Colvin’s future will likely be at a middle-of-the-order hitter, and Lou knew that. So, why not try to get as many ABs for a kid still in the developmental stages?
It’s only the first of many potential conflicts between yours truly and the Quade regime.
Will he find spot starts for youngsters to give a guy like Ryan Dempster an extra day between starts? Can he solidify Carlos Zambrano’s role in the rotation? Should he rest his two best bullpen arms (Carlos Marmol and Sean Marshall) in order to see if anyone else can handle high-drama, late-inning situations? How many different line-ups can one man draw up?
Nothing should be interesting about a team that currently is slated to pick sixth in the 2011 MLB Amateur Draft, but then again, it’s the Cubs.
I couldn’t agree more (in fact, I wrote a nearly identical article this morning). Quade’s got all the wrong incentives right now – namely, to win in 2010 at the expense of 2011 and beyond.
Well, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one thinking, “Wait, wasn’t Tyler Colvin supposed to be playing first?” last night.
I’m really confused by his use of this as an audition for him, but not for the players who he would be coaching next year.
Mark my words, moving Tyler to first will crush him. You just don’t do that to rookies. It may be a good thing for the organization, but it is not good for him. Rookies need confidence and consistency. If he goes to first, just watch what happens to his batting…mark my words.