Two teams headed in different directions

I lived in Arizona for nearly all of my life and when they finally got a baseball team I was so happy that I would finally get to go to major league baseball games without having to travel to my cousins house out in LA. Spring training is nice if you want to see your favorites play for a few innings but its nothing compared to an actual game.

The happiest thing about the Diamondbacks forming was that Jerry Colangelo would head up the team. As owner of the Suns he always demanded the best out of his players. If you weren’t getting the job done, there wasn’t a place for you on his team. He may go to extremes, like the Jason Kidd trade after he was arrested for domestic violence. But in the end he always has a plan, he always has a vision.

He said in 5 years he would put the D-backs in the WS. And he delivered on that promise; he did it in 4 years. Andy MacPhail promised us a World Series in 5 years also and we are still in the building mode. Though things look brighter for the Cubs than previous years, but this recent series between Arizona and Chicago is actually two franchises headed in different directions.

Arizona was in a big bind earlier this year with their injuries and quickly falling out of the race. They could of went out and got some older players to fill in till they got their veterans back and tried to make a run. But they didn’t. They decided to rely on their farm system and let the chips fall where they may. Now Arizona's farm system isn’t anywhere near the top the last time I checked, but the point is they made a decision and went with it. They cut ties with Matt Williams, trade Kim to Boston for a 1b/3b named Hillenbrand and traded Womack.
By embracing a youth movement and really sticking by it they have now found players who probably would have never seen the major leagues. Guys like Matt Kata, Jose Valvarde, Stephen Randolph, Brandon Webb, Andrew Good, Robby Hammock, Oscar Villarreal, Lyle Overbay. This goes along with players that have been brought up in the past 2 years to the team that include Alex Cintron, Danny Bautista, Junior Spivey, Brett Prinz, and Mike Koplove.

The Cubs who have supposedly the better prospects have been much less reliant on their farm system. In the same time period only Patterson, Prior, Zambrano have brought significant contributions to the team. The only other players beyond those 3 that got a little bit of playing time were Choi, Hill, Cruz, and Wellemyer. But still in terms of going young and youth movement it dwarfs anything the Cubs are doing.

The problem is the vision is lost within the Cubs organization. After the 1999 season when the Cubs went 67-95 the talk was "going young." Somewhere between the end of the 99 season and the start of the 2000 season that vision was lost again. Yeah they got younger. Benito Santiago age 34 was replaced by Joe Girardi age 35. Gary Gaetti age 40 was replace by Willie Harris age 28. Lance Johnson age 35 was replaced by Damon Buford age 30. Mickey Morandini age 33 was replace by Eric Young age 33. Jose Hernandez age 29 by Ricky Gutiuerrez age 30. The result? 65-97 the next year.

In 2001 things needed to change again so Willie Harris age 28 was replaced by Ron Coomer age 34. Mark Grace age 36 replaced by Matt Stairs age 33, which led to Fred McGriff age 37. Henry Rodriguez age 32 was replaced by Rondell White age 29. And Gary Matthews age 26 for the most part replaced Damon Buford age 30. The Cubs got marginally younger but again no youth movement or going young. The result? 88-74. Better, but the team still had serious offensive problems. This was the year Sosa drove in 160 RBI. The next closest was Ricky Gutiuerrez at 66. Almost a 100 RBI difference.

In 2002 we thought we were that next player from being a contender. Girardi, McGriff, Deshields, Mueller, and Todd Hundley were all brought back and got another year older. Darren Lewis, Moises Alou, Chris Stynes were brought in to shore up our offense. You can say 2002 was a watershed in Cubs history as Patterson(?), Hill, Choi, Cruz, Zambrano, and Prior made their major league debuts. The result? 67-95. The offense was still a major disappointment.

So now we look upon 2003 the names change but the end product of the level of talent we get especially on the offensive side is horrible. Lenny Harris/Troy O'Leary/Doug Glanville/Tony Womack/Randall Simon/Mark Grudz (a bright spot, but had to have a career year just to be an average 2nd)/Eric Karros.
Year in and year out it’s the revolving door of talent on this team. One lousy player is replace by another lousy player. To the Cubs credit they have played much less of this kind of talent this year than previous years. The only constant thru all of this has been the rotation. Since 1998 the Cubs have slowly been trying to build that solid rotation, thinking that will carry them to a championship. The only problem is they think they can surround them with sub par talent on the offensive side. Virtually ignoring that part of the team.

The question remains. Are we the 1998 team thinking we are a few players away and just switch around the pieces and not get any better? Are we going to be like the 1999 team, switch around the pieces and not get any better? Or how about the 2001 team, and switch around the pieces and not get any better? A lot of players’ contracts are up at the end of this season. A few have had pretty good seasons, but its clear their better years are behind them. What pieces are going to just get switched around after this season and not make the team any better?

This is why I say the Cubs and D-backs are headed in two different directions. While we will probably be trying to squeeze the last bit of juice from old and washed up players the D-backs will be in the midst of a full on "youth movement" and well on the way to completely remaking their roster. While also remaining competitive. Because they are willing as a franchise to know when its time to depend on their farm. They don’t have the best talent or the best prospects but they are giving a lot of them a chance to see what they got. Injuries sprung up or players weren’t performing they went to the farm. If injuries spring up or player wasn’t performing on the Cubs it was someone off the bench with no upside who didn’t do much better.

The Cubs can sign veterans in the off-season, I am not just saying going full out with our prospects. But if that veteran isn’t going to be an impact player don’t try and cover up that position by playing over the hill, never has been or never will bee’s. Go with your farm full out.
But the Chicago Cubs this off-season have to make a choice though. Are we going to go looking for Lenny Harris, Joe Girardi, Willie Harris, and Damon Buford type players? Or are we going to go after the Pudge, Castillo, Vidro, maybe even Vlad type players? Or are we just going to finally depend on our farm to do it for once? In the Cubs case they need to do the last 2. Signing the "has been" and trading for them is doing nothing to improve the Cubs. They have to sign some impact FA's while also doing some development at some positions. A good mix of youth and veterans. Kind of like what the D'backs are doing.

So this off-season the Cubs should say goodbye to Grudz, Karros, Bako, Goodwin, Glanville, Lofton, Simon, Alfonseca, Estes, and O'Leary. And then not replace them with comparable veterans with different names. If your going to sign a veteran it better be an impact player. Nothing less than an impact player. The rest of the team you can fill out thru the minors especially the #5 starting spot and the bullpen. Since our minor leagues are stocked full of arms this shouldn’t be much of a problem to find replacements for Veres, Guthrie, and Remlinger if we don’t want them back or they are traded. We are not a WS caliber team so lets stop playing the we just need an extra role player to put us over the top game. You have to raise the overall talent on the ball club and again there are only two ways you do that. Go to your farm and/or sign the big time players. Your not going to get any better with the guys we have trotted out since 1998.