Cubs 6, Rangers 5: So Long, Carlos Silva, And Thanks For Nothing

Did the Cubs make the best choice by promoting Cashner to starter over someone like Coleman?

I have to think Coleman would be best served as a long reliever/spot starter now, but you have to think he’s going to be a full-time starter within a few years.

Great game. I think we will see many more games like this one with W flags.

Apparently, Silva had some trouble digesting the news.

I think Muskat could have picked better words than those, given the reputation Silva has for being somewhat overweight.

just sunk during the bottom of the 1st. And then… I was all aglow over how much Cashner kept his cool after the fact.

PBS had been re-airing ALL of Ken Burns’ Baseball documentary since early in the morning, and it had me pumped for a GOOD ball game. And we got it.

he did pull out and did well after the first two innings but he’s got to get better about the small things. Number 7 or 8 guy gets on base he needs to know how to put the ball in play on a sac. I mean you give yourself up for an out and you can’t even do that? I hope it was just jitters and he was excited about making the team. Thank goodness it was just a spring training game. I’m excited for him and the club.

As for Silva, after reading what was said I am very glad that he is no longer going to be on the team. With distractions in the past (Barrett, Zambrana, Rameriz) we do not need this crap for 2011. I don’t see anyone on this team that could be a distraction. I’m saying that assuming Silva will be gone.

Carlos

Thanks for making it possible for Milton to go bye bye, that alone makes you one of my favorite Cubs ever. Pretty dominate first half last year, before the health scare. Good Luck

Go Cashner!

“We’ve got to get more lefthanded.”

Hmm…. If memory serves, I believe Robert Redford is left-handed…

that never would have seen Lou do was when Cashner was done pitching for the day the camera zoomed in on Quade sitting next to Cashner and talking with him. Would have loved to hear what he was saying to him.

…then I agree with him. Be Straight with who your dealing with, yes it’s tough news to deliver but be a man about it. Glad Silva’s gone, couldn’t happen to bigger piece of crap.

Question. I know baseball is beginning on a Thursday this year (WTH is up with that?). What is the matchup this Thursday for opening night?

This cubs.com article indicates that Mike Quade thinks Jeff Samardzija, James Russell and Marcos Mateo are all going to be expected to be able to have 40-pitch, two-plus-inning outings.

God help us.

over the past few weeks…. Silva’s attitude, more than anything else, is what got him the boot. He doesn’t make friends very easily.

…I gotta take issue with this line of thinking, Al.

…but whining by Carlos Silva, who wouldn’t do what was best for the team

You really expect someone who’s been in the bigs for several years to take a minor-league assignment because it’s “best for the team”? I realize that aging/rehabbing/sucky veterans do go down to the minors on occasion, but it’s most likely because it was best for the player, not the team.

If you really think what’s best for the Cubs should be driving a player’s decision making process, then you should be lambasting Hill for not retiring, Fukudome for not going back to Japan, Soriano and Z for not giving back millions of $ every year, etc.

and for the direction the club showed today…they released a guy rather than taking him north because of his contract.

Honestly, with all the injuries and circuses around the NL Central I think the Cubs have a very legitimate shot at winning the NL Central this year.

Does anyone out there know what he projects to? Is he a TOR kinda guy or are we looking at 3 as a ceiling? I ask because ESPN was going on about how he was going to be a TOR guy and I didnt think he had that kind of a ceiling

he team mantra (whoever you want to blame for this, it really doesn’t matter now): “We’ve got to get more lefthanded.”

If you’re going to knock Lou for wanting to get more lefhanded, then knock every other manager and GM in the game. Every team aims for balance. Every team does their level best to break up their right handed hitters, especially in the middle of the line-up. The problem was that Hendry ran the club like it was a roto-league team and just added players and didn’t seem to have a team concept. So Lou wanted what every other team in the sport has, balance.

So bash Lou, but if this wish to be more left handed is a bad thing, then its endemic to the entire sport. It was such a big deal with that team a.) because Hendry had done such a poor job with the righty/lefty balance and b.) he went after a terrible person in an attempt to fix the problem.

Now they need to release Hill
name Barney the starter at 2B
name Colvin the starter in RF

The Barney one is close….Lets go 4-4 Jim and Mike!!!!

I was going to write more about why we don’t want or need him on this team, and why management confounds me with good decisions like this but makes poor ones like keeping Samardzija around to screw up, but instead, “Good riddance” sums everything up pretty nicely.

Silva was frankly our best pitcher for a large part of last year. The man knows how to throw strikes. He will on occasion get hit hard but he does not walk batters and when confident can throw a gem of a game as we saw last season and last week. Cashner has a nice upside and is the future but has major control issues – what is the problem with having him start at Iowa to learn some control and having a pitcher like Silva throwing strikes every fifth game until we can bring Cash up in a month or so when we he is ready to deal. Silva still had something to give to this club at least in the early part of the season- we just threw $7+ million down the drain.

That made decision simple

OK, Silva may not have said the right thing but if it happened as he said it did then Quade and Riggins need to learn how to give bad news. It is a tough thing for anyone in a management position but it looks like everyone including Hendry may have been dancing around the news to Silva.

All this “take it like a man” and “He should be happy” is just BS. If Silva’s story is correct, it doesn’t look like Quade and Riggins told Silva “like a man”. As for Silva, he wants to pitch in the majors, why shouldn’t he be upset?

Wont happen. It doesnt make any difference to the outcome of the game.

“As far as a person, this guy works his rear end off,” Blyleven said. “He’s a good clubhouse presence. He’s got very good chemistry with all the other players. He’s a nice addition to the Cubs as long as he’s healthy.”

The final lesson of the Milton Bradley signing and its aftermath, which gave us Silva (who at least contributed half a decent season), to GM Jim Hendry is this: don’t do anything like this ever again, something that backs the team into a corner and costs many millions of dollars for no production. This was one of Hendry’s biggest failures, and he has to know he can’t do it again. Ever.

While we all can agree that the Bradley signing was a poor decision, it strikes me that we do a disservice to the overall management of the team by suggesting that the Cubs future was doomed by that choice. Yes, Bradley did cost us 3/$30M, but our payroll was about $145M. So Bradley cost us less than 10% of our payroll over a 3 year period, even less when you factor in the positive WAR values of Bradley and Silva.

We committed huge resources in both time and salary to players after career type years. Not one of those players have replicated the stats that got them the contracts we’re suffering through these years. To me the lesson is

Stop buying high and trying to sell low.