It Seems the Big Apple Has Worms

 Amidst the darkness of another Cubs' season gone sour, I am grateful for the chuckle provided by a former Cub.

It's been a rough couple of years for Javier Baez. After contending for the Most Valuable Player award in 2018, he battled injuries in 2019 which put a dent in his playing time as well as the Cubs' ability to contend.

The up-is-down-and-down-is-up nature of the post-COVID outbreak world has not been kind to him. Baez struggled mightily in 2020, claiming the lack of a proper spring training and access to video hurt his preparation.

But he has continued to struggle this year as well.

Always a free-swinger, Baez somehow made it work. But his strikeout percentage has become alarming. Alarming to the point where it leads the major leagues. Which isn't a good look for a player expectinging to cash in on a ginormous free-agent contract this winter.

Traded to the New York Mets at the now-infamous 2021 trade deadline, Baez landed on a team whose season has mirrored that of the Cubs. The Mets looked like world-beaters in May and have regressed ever since. To the point where their 8 and 19 record this August rivals that of the Cubs' 6 and 20.

Ugh.

Pair a frustrated ballplayer known for speaking his mind with an equally-frustrated fan base which expected its team to contend for a division title and things become flammable, as we witnessed over the weekend in New York City.

To be fair, the Mets have been hit by injuries and hit hard. Off-season acquisition Francisco Lindor under-performed, got injured and continues to under-perform. The Mets' traditional strength—pitching—hasn't quite been that, led by Jacob deGrom's recurring arm problems.

The un-hittable pitcher remains un-hittable, but only because he's on the sixty-day IL. As are so many Mets pitchers.

So. Met fans are pissed. In a world wracked by chaos and upheaval, watching your guys contend would be a very welcome distraction. But when they don't, sport becomes just another irritant. Fans boo.

Whatever the reason, several players on the Mets (including Baez) felt entitled to rate their fans performance as well, responding during recent home games with a thumbs-down gesture after getting on base.

Baez admitted it's a way for he and his teammates to boo the fans back.

Pitcher Marcus Stroman even went so far as to blame the media for the controversy.

Hmmm.

Because they saw it, Marcus?

At any rate, I take a not-insubstantial amount of glee at this tempest in a teacup, if only because I'm an old Cubs' fan who can't quite put 1969 behind him.

It was bad-enough the Cubs tanked after such a promising start. But having a team from New York—New York!—sweep in and grab the glory only added insult to injury for this Second City native.

I've disliked the Mets ever since. And for that matter, all New York teams, basically. (Yep. It's a Chicago thing.)

Finally, one of the big disadvantages to being a professional athlete is that when you do your job poorly, you do it poorly in front of tens of thousands of people. The smart thing to do is admit that yes, you sucked today. You screwed up.

That takes the wind out of hypercritical fan's sails.

The stupid thing to do is deflect the blame and the criticism. Like blame the media for that misplayed fly ball. Or in the case of Mr. Stroman, something your teammates did entirely of their own free will.

And yet, this being New York and the Mets, I can only smile at Baez's insouciance.

Rock the boat, baby.

The Sound of a Window Closing

Not quite six months ago, I wrote that insofar as the Chicago Cubs were concerned, they couldn't possibly repeat last season's head-scratching fiasco. This year would assume an air of normalcy, defined as the Cubs resting comfortably atop the National League Central Division at the conclusion of the season.

I was wrong. Interminably and utterly wrong.

I have been watching major league baseball for half a century, and I have never seen such a confounding display of it. 

There are but a select few who see this team behind closed doors. In the locker room. At meetings. On team flights. I am not one of those people.

And yet, I don't need to be to know something is amiss.

Yes, there have been injuries to critical personnel: Willson Contreras, Javier Baez, Craig Kimbrel and most recently, Anthony Rizzo. Ben Zobrist spent the brunt of the season on leave collecting the pieces of a shattered marriage. And Kris Bryant, Cole Hamels and Brandon Kintzler battled recurring maladies.

But so did the New York Yankees, who as of Friday's games are 100 and 55 and sit eight and a half games ahead of the division's next-best team. No, this isn't about injuries. It's about something less-obvious and more-insidious. These Cubs are satisfied.

Having vanquished the most cursed stretch of baseball any franchise ever endured, Rizzo, Bryant, Baez, Zobrist and Jon Lester will never have to pay for a drink in Chicago again. Which is as it should be. The Cubs' 2016 championship was a monumental event that transcended loyalties and perhaps even baseball itself.

But that title raised expectations. With a young core entering its prime, there was no good reason to believe they wouldn't contend for several more.

And they have. Kind of. After a hung-over first half, the 2017 Cubs got serious and again won the division, defeating the Washington Nationals in the divisional series before being swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS.

Emerging cracks in the pitching staff were addressed by two free-agent signings, Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood, which on paper reinforced the pitching corps for another title run.

It didn't quite work out that way as Chatwood struggled to throw strikes and Darvish seemingly couldn't shake the memories of his disastrous World Series the year before and pitched just forty innings before succumbing to injury.

Despite blowing a five-game lead in the closing weeks, the Cubs staggered to 95 victories (which seen through the lens of 2019 appears truly remarkable) before surrendering the wild-card game to the Colorado Rockies.

The on-again, off-again offense, the shakey bullpen and the general weirdness which characterized 2018 couldn't repeat itself in 2019, right?

Right?

Ha. Ha. Ha.

I don't want to say this season has been strange, but I'd swear I saw David Lynch in the dugout.

The offense still disappears without a trace and the bullpen is still shakey, but this year there is a new wrinkle: the Cubs can't win on the road. Current homestand excepted, the Cubs were giant killers at Wrigley and morphed into the Florida Marlins on the road.

Team stats don't show a marked fall-off in OPS or runs scored or in batting average, but the Cubs could not find a way to win away from home. No division contender had a road record anywhere near as awful as the Cubs'.

And in the long, slow slide that is destined to close this season, it has caught up with them. Armed with a small lead, the Cubs could not afford to mess up. And mess up is exactly what they did. The run spigot has been turned off and the Cubs are in the midst of a four-game losing streak—at home.

In homer-happy 2019, they have scored just nine runs in those four games. (That figure falls to five in three games when the series-opener against the St. Louis Cardinals is eliminated.) This after scoring forty-seven in three games against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Bi-polar? You have no idea.

This while the division-rival Cards amass the best record in baseball since the all-star break and the Milwaukee Brewers, supposedly eliminated from contention after the loss of Christian Yelich, have won eight of ten since his injury.

But these are numbers. They are only reflections of what is going on with this team. And that goes back to my contention that this club is satisfied. There is little sense of urgency. The fact that this club has never gone on a sustained surge means things like focus and purpose are in short supply. Chemistry is as rare as clutch hitting.

The Cubs aren't on a mission anymore.

They never found their groove, and have actually regressed from last season's sputtering stop-start despite the remarkable turnaround by Darvish. With the second-biggest payroll in baseball, the Cubs are punching way below their weight.

As a fan desperate to see another World Series appearance before the window inevitably closes, I'd like to see change. Even if that means waving goodbye to a personal favorite like Rizzo or Lester or Contreras.

With the Cubs' farm system running on fumes, the only way forward is a trade. It's time to be bold. It's time to ask “What would Bryant bring on the open market? Who could we get in exchange for Baez?”

Slugger Kyle Schwarber had a big year. What would he bring?

Shocking? Perhaps.

Necessary? Definitely.

For whatever reason, this team is sleepwalking. Blame it on the front office. Blame it on Maddon. Blame it on the prolonged pressure of playing for the Chicago Cubs, where the scrutiny ratchets up right along with the wins.

The bitch-slap of a big trade might shake them from their doldrums.

There's enough here to build on, but without a judicious trade or two this thing will never be turned around. They have shown us who they are.