Is The Pressure Too Much To Bear? An Examination Of Why The Cubs Haven't Won In 102 Years

because after reading yesterday and this morning, this does not sound like you. As you would say, it’s only May 10.

I wish I had a crystal ball. You might be right, maybe the managerial change would be a good thing. Maybe this team comes home and gets it together this week. I’m not calling for Lou’s head yet because I think this team is DLee and Aram away from starting a wild card race. That seems to be the missing pieces right now to me.

They cannot play long periods of good baseball, every decision Lou makes seems to be wrong, our best hitters aren’t hitting, we have a high BA and SLG. as a team, but when it comes to hitting with RISP, forget it.

I love the Cubs, and always will, but this is tough to watch. Maybe you are right that a change is needed in the form of Lou going, but is Greg Maddux or Ryne Sandburg going to get this team to hit with RISP? I doubt it and that is what makes this season most frustrating of all.

I believe that most of this bunch DOES succumb to the pressure. They always seem so tight, even in regular season games. Once they have guys in scoring position, they seem to feel it, and once they get a late lead, the personality of the team also changes to “tense”. I have never seen any team like the 2008 playoff team, which literally looked scared to be in the playoffs. Guys like Byrd have come in and he seems to play with abandon, and does take it less seriously, but it has not rubbed off on the veterans of the two playoff failures, as they still seem to go about their jobs in a grim way. Only times I’ve seen these guys joking around is when they have a big lead. Also, they keep adding on in these blow outs, as they seem to relax and focus better. I know most would say they should not joke around when LOSING a game, but I’ve seen teams having fun in the dugout when a game is close and can go either way. The Cubs are not one of them.

is such a negative outlet. It seems all they do is inspire fans who continually doubt and question their favorite Chicago teams. We express this at games, conventions, post-game interviews… i think the players and managers pick up on this. It can’t help but get in your head after a while.

In addition, i think Maddux or Sandberg is an awful idea. Such a “Cub fan” thing to do! Just cause he was a likeable former Cub, does not make him a good manager. Talk about placing even more pressure on a team…

Get a real manager. Put Sandberg as yur bench coach if you must but get a proven manager.

But this is one of those things that I do think becomes a factor. Every telecast mentions the 100 years thing. Every month there’s a handful of articles mentioning the 100 years thing. These guys probably know more about their history than they really want to because the 100 years thing is such a big deal.

I think Al also touched on it too. Can you imagine what it would be like if you were on the Cubs when they finally win it all? I’m not a Bears fan, but let’s face it: the 1985 Bears are absolutely worshipped in this town. There are players are on that team that never even saw the field and they can go to the occasional sports show in the area and make a nice chunk of change. All of that because the Bears hadn’t won a Super Bowl before and hadn’t won a NFL championship since 1963. Now imagine the Cubs, after all these years, winning it all. The Cubs players, knowing the history and play virtual home games in a lot of the ballparks around the country, are carrying the hopes and dreams of millions. That’s pressure if I’ve ever heard of it.

immune to, and thrive under, pressure situations. That’s an intangible quality which is hard to scout, but perhaps these are the sort of players which have to filter through to form the nucleus of the Cubs team.

found a manager somewhere along the lines of a Joe Maddon or a Mike Scoscia. Someone willing to manage a little outside the lines at times? The idiot thing with the Red Sox was a way to get away from making baseball a profession, and sometimes I feel like the Cubs are a little too professional and that makes them tight.

is, and has been an ongoing issue with the Cubs’ teams of the past few years. There isn’t enough speed to generate any offense when the team can’t string hits together. This team is as station to station as any team I have ever watched. I have brought this up in other threads. I don’t understand why Lou doesn’t put runners in motion more often. We don’t have the speed to straight steal, but with the numbers of guys hitting above .300, there has been enough contact to move runners. Team speed puts pressure on opposing pitchers and defenders, and atones for the need to generate 3 hits per inning. Put together a faster team, and I predict we see far better consistency out of our offense.

I think Lou has to go also. I wanted Girardi all along. I want youth on the bench, something fresh.
 I think more than half the team doesn’t read, or listen to the media, so if they are playing tight it is the pressure they put on themselves.
 Who knows maybe Ramy and Lee need to move on. The key is replacing these hitters with good players.
 I think by the trade deadline and the Cubs are staring at a 10+ GB in the wild card and division moves will be made.

…but at what point do we just accept this is the team, and maybe this is just a down year? I think we’ve come to expect so much from this team since 2003 that a lot of us are unwilling to watch the team lose for a season to get better the next year. I know this post will probably polarize everyone, and some people will call me a ledge jumper or whatever, but I don’t care. If we’re a losing team, then we’re a losing team. If something can be done, then do it… either way, we should all probably be ready to accept this team for what is might be this year, and that’s one that isn’t very good.

Cases in point:

1 – Lou should be fired
2 – NBF is quoted on the front page
3 – Pressue is cited as a reason why we haven’t won

I bet he’d take the job. He’s gotta be frustrated watching the last two has-beens sleepwalk through games and constantly mishandle the bullpen. Sure, he may ruffle a few feathers but it’s better than what we got now. If he says no, then turn to Sandberg.

….that only gets more cushy the longer a player stays with the team. What player wouldn’t want to be on a team that is revered from coast to coast regardless of the city they’re playing in? Sure, the Marlins have won two World Series and it will be so evident tonight at Wrigley when their three fans show up wearing team swag.

Ricketts has to have the stones to fire Rothchild. Then bring in Greg Maddux as the pitching coach. Maddux won’t take any crap from Piniella and won’t have to do a job he may not be ready for. And you don’t set up Sandberg for the ultimate fail.

…,e.g., a Manager or a particular player, but I don’t see how it’s too much for an organization/team.

Yesterday’s game doesn’t necessarily boil down to one AB, but I wouldn’t give the Manager a vote of confidence for that decision to leave the SP in. Now Lou seems to be suggesting that the starting pitcher should take his own damn self out of the game. What’s next? Tell the hitters to quit clogging the bases if they aren’t going to bother driving anyone in.

It’s disappointing to me that the Manager seems to be panicking and making some poor choices. Maybe he is tired of it all? If so, then it’s time for a change.

Talented players, a smart manager, and some good luck can win a championship anywhere, including Wrigley Field.

I never thought a bullpen mattered all that much. Wasted roster space for 4 or 6 guys that play maybe once every other day. What the hell did we do back in the early 1900s when starters threw 8+ innings every outing?

Well, anyway, 2009 and 2010 have proved me wrong. Bullpens matter, as much asinine micro-managing TLR likes to inject into the game of baseball, they matter.

Like all Cubs I think Greg Maddux is awesome. Al you made a note above about great players having differing results across various sports.
My cautionary tale about making a revered icon your manager/coach. I grew up in Chicago in the 60’s but one of my relatives lived across the street from Bart Starr. I would go up to Green Bay a few times a year during the Packer glory days and sit in Bart Starr’s house and visit with his family the night before games. To say he was my idol is an understatement. However his tenure as coach of the Packers was forgettable and although my support for him never wavered I watched and listened to people rant and rave against him. This was the 70’s and would only be worse in this hostile sports talk era and anonymous blog environment.
I’m not arguing against the move but whether it is Sandberg or Maddux it is painful to see a fallen idol.
The good news is Bart Starr is still loved by Packer fans. He did not let the criticism overshadow his legacy. I would hope Cub fans could show the same restraint with either of these men….especially as first time managers at any level.

Hire Maddux to manage (when the reality is that he’s given zero indication he’d even WANT to manage)? Pressure being the reason for a century of failure? Two completely absurd thoughts.

There are so many things wrong with this team. The personnel is one problem. I’ve NEVER been a fan of Justin Berg, or most of this bullpen. I have been impressed of Russell, however. Sad thing is — the team is afraid to make moves in the bullpen. Why not see if you can fill the problem within, why are we staying status quo? How about giving Thomas Diamond, Blake Parker or John Gaub a chance? Or all of them? Send down Justin Berg, DL John Grabow, send down Caridad — if your that afraid of using your damn bullpen make changes!

The offense still struggled, and Lee and Ramirez need to get it together. Ramirez is getting alittle better, I guess, but he isn’t pulling the weight his salary dictates. If they don’t pick it up, and some of these guys don’t start pulling their weight, alot of them should be traded this season.

but, Terry Francona is getting alot of heat in Boston, and if they continue to slide, even with his status there, maybe he becomes available. He broke the “curse” there, could you imagine if he did it here. He would go down in history.

Maybe we could trade Lou for Terry! /sarcasm

would be sick of talking about why it’s been 102 years. Sorry, but ugh.

Uh…Yeah, I’ve brought this all up before about Lou, and I suppose it bears repeating, but his time as a manager ended with a week or two to go in the 2008 season. Everything after that is a guy who would rather have pureed mashed potatoes and meat loaf spoon fed to him, have his afternoon pill shoved down his throat, and take a nice nap before dinner. He isn’t quick enough, creative enough, or passionate enough. It showed all last year, it shows this year, and it pisses me off that this team still does dumb shit stuff and I know they are without even watching (because I’m changing diapers or whatever). Just f’n change it up or something because the status quo is broken. I don’t even care if they finish first, or get the wild card, I just want them to do something and when I actually get a chance to watch baseball again, I’d like to see my team out on the field playing competent baseball, whether if they’re winning or losing, then whatever crap they’re doing out there now. It was awesome to see all the young players, or guys from the minors, play in games last year because it was apparent they were happy to be out there doing their thing, instead of playing and trying to be whatever the fans want them to be. I’d like more of dudes just playing decent baseball instead of dudes trying to be all-stars or world series winners.

Whatever though, after I change this diaper, I’m hopping in my time machine to go back and force the Cubs to sign Girardi instead of Lou.

That’s the reason. There is absolutely no way that a team with the history the Cubs has can go into the season as favorites. 2008 taught me that. 2004 taught me that. (And MAJOR kudos to elgato for his comparisons of 2004 and 2009.

The Cubs team that wins it all will do something like the Red Sox did — coming back from a 3-0 series — or back from 15 games out on Aug. 1 or something or down 8-3 in the 8th inning.

As for Maddux, no. You don’t hand the reins over to a guy who has never even been a bench coach (and for that matter, someone who wasn’t exactly Mr. October, if we’re being brutally honest)

I just think Ryno isn’t ready. I just think that will end badly.

and the idea of the Cubs being under too much increasingly intense pressure has been something that’s been going through my mind since their collapse in Game 6 of the 2003 playoffs. You can talk all you want about Bartman, the bottom line is that, after that unfortunate moment, the entire team folded up like the proverbial house of cards. When Gonzalez made the key error on a grounder that he would usually have had in his back pocket, I turned to my friend and said “we’re done”. They’re complete inability to deal with the pressure was evident.

So w hat do we do about it? That’s the truly depressing part. It’s not like we can put the genie back into the bottle at this point. The national media is going to continue to put the Cubs under a magnifying glass anytime they get within sniffing distance of post season and who can blame them? It’s a great story (unless you’re a Cub fan that is). The Cubs are going to continue to feel the weight of expectations and there’s very little that can be done about it. Except to keep hoping for a miracle.

that eventually gets to Cub teams, then instead of the curse being some kind of mystical, supernatural thing, it’s the curse of the pressure … a real, almost tactile thing. Pressure=curse. Curse=pressure. You get rid of the curse by handling the pressure … which is what a great manager or coach, like Phi Jackson, is able to get his players to do.

In 2008 I said this loudly, which everyone mostly disagreed with, but the Cubs need a manager who is “one of the gang” and makes the players feel that the coaching staff is an extension of themselves. The Lou management philosophy is about 100 years old. He doesn’t directly address his players directly himself with the exception of during a game. He is a classic example of “theory X” management, one that has little – if any – place in today’s business and sports environments. He communicates with and through his coaches.

I got a very good sense of what this means when watching Joe Maddon and the Rays a couple of years back during their glory days. The interaction between player and manager there is completely different than what the Cubs have. Joe sits on the bench scrunched among his players, talks with them as if he was heading out onto the field himself in the top of the next inning. I really don’t know how else to describe it – but the level of interaction and involvement is just more personal than the “theory x” style.

Lou mostly only speaks to his coaches during a game, a bunch of gray-hairs huddled around each other trying to captain a ship of which nobody seemingly is on board. I just think it is not an effective management style in today’s game.

Is the pressure too much? It may very well be.

If you really believe this, then that means you believe the Cubs will never win it all. Because each passing year without winning only adds to the pressure you apparently feel is clutching at the throat of every Cub player, coach and manager…

I definitely find your lack of faith disturbing… and amusing.

…I believe Dave Martinez (now in his 4th year as bench coach for the Rays) is a worthy option.
Sure, he’s unproven and he manages in small-market/no-media Tampa. But as derv mentions, look at what Maddon’s done in Tampa. Martinez is reportedly a big part of that.

When Lou first got here I had high hopes… I remember his fire as a manager
How he would kick dirt and toss a base and I thought that is what we need…
Some to go out there and light a fire under these guys…

and we actually saw some of that fire… I remember that tirade and ejection
Then… nothing… Lou became the poster boy for Prozac…

It won’t happen though.

Maddux as a manager sounds great but how much experience does he have? None?

Sandberg, the fella above me metioned Dave Martinez (which I support), I would say there are a lot of options.

Maybe the team needs to evaluate the character of the free agents they sign these days. May be a bit crazy but I think that means a lot. The Rays should be a blueprint for the Cubs I think, except the Cubbies have more money to throw around. Watching that team play epitomizes how the game is supposed to be played, in my opinion.

Jim Riggs is winning in Washington, can we get him back?

GETITDUNNJIM

LIND

All teams have had bad choke jobs—even the Yankees (e.g., the series with the Red Sox). More recently, the Washington Capitals.

The Cubs haven’t won in a long time because they had an awful owner (P. K. Wrigley) for an awfully long time, and after that a series of bad front offices (even in the Tribune years). And yes, I don’t think that Jim Hendry has spent wisely, and I also don’t think that Dusty Baker and Lou Piniella are the world’s greatest managers.

Yes, 2003 was a heartbreaker, and the Bartman game may have been a giant choke job, but Wood could have picked up the pieces the next day and he didn’t. Yes, stuff happens….and I think the Cubs have been overcompensating for their miserable history by trying to “buy” a better team.

Here’s to a better era under the Ricketts clan….