But it wasn't a hopeless, I'm disgusted, can't watch this anymore, lack of caring.  Instead, I just sat down and enjoyed watching some baseball without worrying about the score.  

I think I've gone through the classic stages regarding the death of the Cubs season.  Anger - what are they doing out there?  They're a better team than this....  Denial - they still have a shot, at least mathematically....  Sadness - I just can't bear watching this sad excuse for a club anymore....  And finally, Acceptance - the season doesn't have long left, so I might as well enjoy it, and oh yeah, there's always Next Year!

Anger - Never cccured here.

Bargaining - Jim Hendry will trade for more players at the deadline.

Depression - The last week around here.

Acceptance - today.

A Joe Sheehan article that puts most of what we knew into numbers.

Over the weekend, the Cubs acknowledged that they would not be making a charge into the wild-card chase by swapping Matt Lawton to the Yankees for an A-ball pitcher. The Cubs may make another deal or two before Wednesday's trade deadline, and will be making other moves, like shutting down Kerry Wood, shortly.

This has been another disappointing season on the north side of Chicago. The Cubs, expected to contend for a division title and a World Series crown, will be fortunate to finish over .500. For the second straight year, both Wood and Mark Prior missed substantial parts of the season, the former with shoulder problems, the latter with a fluke broken arm. With the team's greatest strength sapped, the flawed roster--mediocre relief pitching, terrible corner outfielders, major OBP issues--sunk the Cubs' ship, even as Derrek Lee was putting together a career year and chasing a Triple Crown.

A peek at the old format EqA Report shows that the Cubs are actually fourth in the NL in Equivalent Average, an indication that the offense hasn't been the problem. Peeking to the rightward columns, though, and you see one major problem: the Cubs have scored 40 runs fewer than Clay's formulae predict, the biggest shortfall in the NL. That's a reflection of the offensive dysfunction the Cubs have played with all year long, thanks to Dusty Baker's inability to assemble a lineup.

Baker wasted strong seasons from Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Michael Barrett by stubbornly batting OBP sinks Corey Patterson and Neifi Perez in the top two lineup spot for much of the season. The Cubs have gotten a .306 OBP from their leadoff hitters this year, despite Jerry Hairston Jr. leading the team with more than 250 leadoff PAs and a .360 OBP. Patterson had a .268 OBP batting #1, and Perez a .253 mark. Most of their ABs came during May and June, when Lee was at his hottest, putting up huge rate stats and so-so RBI totals because he batted so often with the bases empty. Cubs' #2 hitters have a .310 OBP, with Todd Walker's good work (.340) being cancelled by Perez's typical work (.318) and Patterson's nightmare (.220)

It's dangerous to oversimplify this, but so much of the Cubs' deficit in the wild-card race can be traced directly to their shortfall in runs, and that deficit to poor lineup construction, that it's hard not to just level a finger at Baker. Watching what he's done with his left fielders doesn't help his case. Here are the Cubs' left fielders in 2005, by overall OPS for the team:

Matt Murton           880
Jason Dubois          761
Todd Hollandsworth    697
Matt Lawton           597
Jody Gerut            330

That same group, by plate appearances for the Cubs:

Todd Hollandsworth    287
Jason Dubois          152
Matt Lawton            83
Matt Murton            66
Jody Gerut             16

Baker was given a good young option at the start of the season in Jason Dubois. He platooned him, then not even that, even as he was the most productive left fielder on the team. Given Matt Murton, he played the prospect sporadically, even as he hit .441/.524/.599 in July. Once Matt Lawton was acquired, Murton's playing time--then his roster spot--vanished. Baker gave his two best left fielders less time combined than he did his third-best, in part because Baker values Hollandsworth's defense. The decision was one of many that kept the Cubs' offense from being a force.

Left field is where Jim Hendry has made his strangest contribution to the collapse. He dealt Dubois to Cleveland for Jody Gerut, who barely played before his surgically-repaired knee forced him to the disabled list. At the trade deadline, Hendry sent Gerut to the Pirates for Lawton, an older version of a comparable player, but one who could actually take the field. I defended both of these deals, especially the latter, because of the Cubs' desperate need for OBP atop the lineup. Lawton was a disaster, putting up a .244/.289/.308 month before being sent to the Yankees. While Hendry's intentions were good and his execution reasonably effective, had Baker simply used Murton, the rest of the sequence after acquiring Gerut might never have been necessary.

Baker was also largely responsible for the mishandling of the pitching staff. He can't be blamed for Prior's broken arm, of course, but his inability to identify Glendon Rusch as one of the team's best starting pitchers cost them a number of games during the year. Rusch opened the season in the bullpen, watching as Ryan Dempster made six starts with a 5.35 ERA. Allowed to start in early May, Rusch made ten starts through June 23, posting a 3.22 ERA in that time. He was the Cubs' second-best starter in that period, but was jammed back into the bullpen so that Baker could mess around with Rich Hill (8.57 ERA) and John Koronka (7.47), while misusing Rusch in a role--lefty specialist--for which he's never been equipped.

The gap between Cubdom and contention is wide, but so much of it is contained in three Baker mistakes: using Neifi Perez and Corey Patterson atop the lineup, refusing to play his better left fielders, not keeping Rusch in the rotation. He made other errors--continuing to misuse Mike Remlinger as a specialist, and subsequently discarding him; using the fragile Chad Fox on three straight days in April, essentially breaking him; burying Todd Walker in the #6 spot for a month--all of which pushed the Cubs a bit further and a bit further from success, until they were reduced to an afterthought by the end of August.

In the wake of the 2003 NL Championship Series, in which Baker made a series of bad decisions that cost the Cubs, I wrote: "The Cubs will never get this close again with Baker as their manager." I see no reason to back away from that statement. Baker continues to show little understanding of how an offense works, of how to fit his players' skills to the proper roles. Worse, he shows little desire to learn these things, making the same mistakes repeatedly while taking little criticism for his decisions, and deflecting what criticism comes in a manner that has nothing to do with baseball. Whatever his leader-of-men qualities may be, it's increasingly clear that they're not enough to make up for his decisions.

"Frankly, I was kind of hoping that the Cubs could deal Corey Patterson somewhere, but after last night, with several major league scouts likely watching, who'd want him? Patterson waved at a pitch about ten feet over his head in his first at-bat as a pinch-hitter, and then looked at strike three in the ninth."

This makes it clear that Patterson has actually regressed after his stint in the AAA. I always remember Corey swinging at pitches that were below and above the strike zone, but he seemed to lay off pitches that were either in or out. It looks like now he has no CLUE of any zone. He is swinging and missing at pitches EVERYWHERE; and he is striking out looking now, which means he is not swinging at hittable pitches! I seriously hope that the offseason brings us the end of the Corey at the CF saga.

BTW, Cedeno's AB on Sun where he fought off about 10 pitches from Beckett before getting a hit was a refreshing exapmle of a good AB from a young guy who seems to be capable. Sad that Corey was not watching closely.

I too believe he has regressed since AAA.  Single A ball might suit him better.  In fact, I'm resigned to the fact that we're going to have to release him, because we won't get anything for him.

So here's what we do: rather than list who we should get rid of, I'll list who we should keep.  Its a shorter list.

To wit:
Derrek Lee
Aramis Ramirez
Kerry Wood
Mark Prior

The end.

But that's it.

Wood should be, too, but definitely as a closer.  If Dusty Baker stays.  Because he keeps guys in too long.  You know it.  Even if you don't want to admit it, you know it.

But if Dusty goes, and he SHOULD, then Wood can be a starter again.

Under my plan, I'm assuming Maddux will retire and Burnitz and Garciaparra will be lost to free agency.  (Nomar...you want to talk injuries...)