The Cubs Problems

Alot of people have discussed the Cubs inability to situational hit. Even going as far as to saying its a direct problem of Gary Matthews. Yes and no.

You need to have the players to do situational hitting in the 1st place. And the Cubs simply dont have them. Mark Grudz was probably our best contact hitter. But he also wasnt that fast. By placing Alex Gonzalez in the #2 hole the Cubs had no ability to move their runner over to 2nd either thru bunting, or walking. Hit and run also was nearly impossible. It was more likely to end in a strikem out throw em out than actually working. The Only way Mark Grudz gets to 2nd base is if Gonzalez singles. Or about a 20% chance.

Which is why it boggles my mind on why people said Alex Gonzalez should of been moved back to the #2 slot because he was doing great! I guess they dont know that Alex Gonzalez always starts off hitting well in April and then bottoms out for the year. Its just that the league adjusts and he never does.
From May thru June he never had a batting average above .240. And thats unacceptable especially for a #2 hitter. Or nearly 60% of his AB's in the #2 slot.

Sosa and Alou are the RBI crunchers. They are doing what they are supposed to. Driving in runners. Whether they are on 1st base or bases loaded.

But the major problem of the Cubs lineup was the 5-8 hitters. More often than naught they would load up the bases with Sosa, Alou, Ramirez with no outs or one out and fail to score a single run. Why? because the hitters after them have no ability to situational hit. While Karros was pretty decent all year if he hit a ball on the ground it was a double play. He ended so many rallys like that it was heart breaking. All you need is a flyball to get a run. But the options were no better after that as you usually had a combination of Gonzalez and Miller/Bako. None of those players was capable of getting a hit when it was needed.

AmRam helps extend the productivity of the order down to the #5 spot. And it will be interesting to see what his impact on the lineup will be over a full season. If you cant get an offensive force to help extend the productivity of the order beyond the #5 spot atleast fill those spots in with scrappy hitters or hitters that know how to work the count. If nothing else they will make the opposing starting pitcher throw more pitches and you can get to a teams bullpen faster. Another major problem the Cubs had. Many times the Cubs hitters would swing at the 1st pitch and fly out and ground out. And they wouldnt just do this one time around it would be inning after inning for the whole game and some scrub pitcher coming off rehab suddenly has shut us out for 7 innings on 80 pitches.

The whole idea of working the count is to see everything the pitcher is throwing, and how well he is throwing them. How are hitters getting the pitch they want when they are swinging at the 1st pitch no matter what it is?. Now i know Alou and Lofton are great 1st pitch hitters but thats usually only when they are shown a fastball as the 1st pitch. Plus they have the batting averages to pretty much do what they want, i am not so pissed to see them swinging. Its the guys hacking away with .230 averages is what really irkes me. Partly is just because they are lousy hitters and partly its because their own hitting coach isnt doing his job to try and make poor hitters atleast try and see more pitches to help the team out regardless if they are still making the same amount of outs.

This is a reason alot of Cubs fans LOVE Hee Seop Choi. We have rarely seen a player of his style. We are used to guys like Jose Hernandez. Swing and pray. Swing and Pray. Cant walk, cant hit, cant make contact. Can we try something new and fresh? Choi if he never hits above .230 can hurt other teams thru taking walks and working counts. A-gonz couldnt even dream about doing that. And thru that Choi makes the team a little less one dimensional. Because we all know this team lives and dies by the 3 run homerun basically.

I would be much happier with a Craig Counsell type player than an Adam Kennedy type player. I just dont see a scrappy, patient hitter in Kennedy. While this year was a great year for him walks wise he has never really shown great plate awareness. His OBP is solely based on his BA. Much like Simon. If they arent hitting they arent getting on base. Counsell is the type of player the Cubs should be trying to seek out if they fail to land impact free agents. Not that i am saying he is expressly the person i want them to go after but he should be the type of player the Cubs should seek out.