A Little Redemption

I am still in my deep depression of the way the Cubs season ended but it's nice to see people getting fired that should be fired on this team. Wendell Kim as we all know by now has hit the road. A long over due firing but he is gone none the less.

The thing that peeked my interested was the firing of two cubs trainers. During the year I questioned the competence of Dave Groeschner's ability to properly treat this team and its injuries.

I even got to the point of saying that if our training staff said a guy would miss a few games you might as well tack on three or four more games, and for each week a player is expected to be out add an additional week for each week that he is diagnosed to miss. So if training staff said a guy would miss 2 weeks, that was code for him being out an entire month. Hendry was clearly upset with that.

Cubs injuries became a sore spot with Hendry, who clashed with reporters over team prognostications about how long injured players would be sidelined. Almost all recoveries took much longer than first expected, Hollandsworth's in particular, putting Hendry's credibility in question.

Another question was answered in the same article which was hard to find out. I remember looking through the Cubs.com site to see what happened to our previous trainer and I couldn't find out if he was fired or quit.

Groeschner becomes the second trainer fired in two years, following Dave Tumbas in 2003. Tumbas lasted six years but was dropped because of numerous injuries to the pitching staff.

First of all I would like to ask the question what pitching staff over the years Tumbas was the trainer? And Tumbas at least had his players quickly recover and back on the field with virtually no lingering effects.

A poster on the Cub reporter found out Groeschner's qualifications to be a trainer and they were seriously lacking in the experience department. He was a trainer, however he had qualifications that would barely make him an assistant much less a head trainer.

The only reason why Groeschner got the job was because Dusty Baker wanted him instead of Tumbas. Sometimes change is good, but sometimes you can end up with something much worse. This is a Dusty Baker decision that hurt this team a lot and Hendry is taking back control of this team.

When the coaching and medical staffs are completed, they will clearly be Hendry hires.

In other words, its a big f*** you to Baker that Hendry is sending. You hired all these bums who are incompetent, that cost us games, and dragged down team moral. I am stepping in and hiring the most qualified for the position, no more of your good buddies being hired. And I applaud that. The next step in that process is saying the same thing to Baker on team construction. No more getting Baker the greatest collection of .250 hitting infielders and OFer's. No more stocking the team full of power hitters that cant get on base. Hendry needs to build a balanced everyday roster, and the only way he can do that is giving the big fat middle finger to Baker's suggestions. Stock the team with the best talent available and then tell Baker it's your job to make them win. End of story, no more excuses.

One final thought...Dave Tumbas was fired in my opinion because he was not a Baker boy. I think he did a pretty good job last year keeping our team healthy through a lot of pesky little injuries and not allowing them to get out of hand. I can only sit and wonder what Dave Tumbas could have done to ensure Mark Prior was healthy coming into this year. I have cried and moaned about how Prior was injured in Sept of last year and how Baker increased his workload. But Prior's pitching in that month was stellar. Whatever Tumbas was doing it was working. Then Tumbas was fired and it seems like any treatment of previous injuries to Prior were forgotten about. Again just personal opinion but I believe if Tumbas had remained as our trainer Prior would of started most of the year, and many injuries this team suffered would of been quickly treated and had them back out on the field.

So yeah I am kind of happy that Groeschner got fired. I saw that he was a poor trainer months ago, and I am glad Hendry saw that as well.