Lou Piniella is a winner. He was during the peak of his career with the Yankee dynasty teams of the last 70’s and he has been throughout his managerial career. He is keen judge of talent and understands baseball X’s and O’s way more than any of his sabermagician critics would dare give him credit for. He also understands chemistry, a concept that the sabermagicians scoff at.

Ryan Theriot is a shining example of why Lou knows what the heck he is doing and is an exceptional manager. Theriot has his limitations. But what Lou saw in Theriot was a player with surprisingly decent talent, outstanding baseball instincts and overachiever mentality. All Theriot has done is become a vital sparkplug to the Cubs despite all his limitations. The same way a well traveled and limited Bucky Dent became a huge cog to the Yankees in the mid and late 70’s.

It’s a privilege to have Lou be manager of the Cubs.

...it leaves little room to disagree with your arguements.

I agree—-I hope at the end of his terms I still like what he has done. I suspect I will.

Ryan Theriot has outstanding baseball instincts? interesting…................

I don’t know how anybody can quibble with Lou’s evaluative skills. All I keep reading on this site is how Lou is a misguided idiot for not giving Ronny Cedeno, Felix Pie and Matt Murton more of a chance. But I’ll tell you what, rarely has Lou been wrong about a player in his years managing in New York, Cincinnati, Seattle and Chicago. I can’t really comment on his three years in Tampa Bay.

Cubs aren’t where they are today as a ballclub without Ryan Theriot.

but you can’t argue w/ his results. I am (overall) very happy w/ the job he’s done w/ the team.

“If you play well, you play. If you don’t play well, you sit or get sent down.”

Let’s examine this statement.

From March 31 to April 27, Mike Fontenot was hitting .200/.220/.325. He was given 42 PAs.
From March 31 to April 27, Ronny Cedeno was hitting .364/.417/.545. He was given 49 PAs.
From March 31 to April 27, Ryan Theriot was hitting .326/400/.449. He was given 101 PAs.

Theriot’s line looks good and definitely playable, (although he had .100 pts less SLG than Cedeno and much worse SS defense), but Theriot didn’t start hitting until April 13, when his line sat at .216/.310/.243. For two weeks, Theriot looked pathetic and Cedeno was a world-beater.

If Lou just played the guys who hit immediately, Theriot would have been benched and Cedeno would have taken over the SS job. Cedeno continued to outhit, out-defend, and out-run Theriot until June 3. For TWO MONTHS, Ronny Cedeno was performing better than Ryan Theriot. During that time, there was a week in which he got 1 PA and another week in which he got 2 PAs.

Now you can say, “Lou knew Cedeno would collapse and Theriot wouldn’t.” You can say, “Theriot has Gumption and his Scrapitude raises the level of all the other players.” But what you cannot say is that “Lou plays the people who perform.” He doesn’t. He plays his guys.

If you want to doubt this, we can examine the times alternatively Felix Pie or Matt Murton was outhitting Reed Johnson v. RHP, but Reed Johnson got the starts.

We can look at Micah Hoffpauir’s raw stats and see that he still got sent down.

We can look at Mike Fontenot currently having better rate stats then Mark DeRosa, but DeRosa is still the starting 2B.

I’m not saying Lou is wrong about all those choices. Lou has been clearly right about Mike Fontenot. I think he’s absolutely right not to trust Swingnmiss Micah. But. Lou does not play the hot hand. Lou does not play those who are hitting the best. Lou plays his guys.

yes it was genius to get four great quality starts and great hitting in every game.
Lou had virtually nothing TO manage in this series. When he does , he messes up
the bullpen ( Marmol 5 run meltdown, Howry to blow leads) and the bench. Oh my bad
he did have one big decision in the series who to put in to protect a one run lead in the first game and of course he brought in the very overused and of late ineffective Howry.

You have great players, you look like a great manager but I think Lou has made horrible in game management and line up decisions. I could probably get 10 games the Cubs should have won if he had done that. Probably par for the course but far from great managing.

Remember I am NOT a cliff jumping pessimist as I have said repeatedly the Cubs win
despite Lou not because of him . Great team just try to mess it up as little as possible
Lou

evaluations of Lou vs. Dusty as managers, you must admit that there was a bit of a disparity in talent with the two situations. The big question is could Lou have taken the team that Dusty had the last two years that Dusty was here and won with it? When Dusty had the talent his first year, they came pretty close to the WS. Was last year’s team as talented as the ‘03 squad? Let’s compare apples to apples when we evaluste the performance of the two men.