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Chicago Cubs
Scouting Report
By the Numbers | Players To Watch | Projected Roster
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Batter
up Mark Grace's team-best .319 average last year would have
been higher if he could have hit against the Cubs'
staff.
(John Iacono)
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Discussions of
the
Cubs' chances of winning their division tend to resemble
the Kipling poem in their shared reliance on the word
if. The 1998 version of this spring tradition comes courtesy
of Chicago manager Jim
Riggleman: "If we're hitting on all cylinders, we're a contender
in the National
League Central."
Of course, this is basically the same opinion that was
expressed a year ago, just before the Cubs opened the
season with a National League-record 14 consecutive losses,
putting them well on the way to a 68-94 finish. For such an
awful team, however, it
drew quite well—more than 2.1 million, down only a little
more than 100,000 from its average over the last 10
non-strike-shortened
seasons.
Chicago's irrepressible fan support is the basis for the
most persistent criticism of the franchise since the
Tribune Company bought it in 1981: The Cubs do well
financially even when the team on the field is lousy, but
it hasn't spent nearly enough—or
wisely enough—to create a
winner.
Not surprisingly, Cubs CEO Andy MacPhail disagrees.
"The Tribune Company has been a terrific owner,"
he says. "We've tried to put in place what we feel we
needed, and they've given us the time to do
that."
The primary focus of MacPhail, Riggleman and general
manager Ed Lynch since they arrived in the fall of 1994 has
been to rebuild a farm system that
wasn't producing quality major
leaguers—a plan that has yet to bear fruit. Meanwhile,
they have relied on an aging core of players in an effort
to remain competitive. "We knew that a downturn was
probably going to come," says Lynch, but no one in the
organization could have imagined that it would be as bad as
it was in
'97.
The horrors of last year prompted a shift in focus.
"This year," says
Riggleman, "we just looked the situation in the eye and
said, 'The hell with it, we've got to go outside our
organization to get some
help.'"
In an attempt to win the most uniformly mediocre division
in the majors, the Cubs added a handful of proven veterans.
This off-season they acquired four players, three of them
in their 30s, who have been All-Stars at least once during
the past three
years. The most important of those newcomers is
30-year-old leftfielder Henry Rodriguez, who arrived in a
trade with the Expos. Leftfield has been a black hole on
the North Side; it's been 11 years since a player held the
job on two consecutive Opening Days. But Rodriguez, who hit
36 home runs in 1996
and 26 last year, may finally bring some stability and
production to the position.
The Cubs desperately need that offense. Last year they were
12th in the league in runs scored, and too much of the
burden fell on rightfielder Sammy Sosa. "In the past,
once you got by Sammy in our lineup, there really wasn't a
situation where one swing
of the bat was going to get us back in a
game," says Riggleman. "Henry brings us the lefthanded power
hitter we
needed."
The other newcomers include a pair of free-agent
signees—32-year-old shortstop Jeff Blauser, who is coming
off a career year, and 29-year-old closer Rod Beck, who had
105 saves over the past three seasons—plus second baseman
Mickey Morandini, 31, who
came in a trade from the Phillies. After suffering with a bad
team in Philadelphia, Morandini (.295 at the plate, only
six errors in 610 chances in the field) is excited by his
spot on the newly revamped Cubs roster. "The key is,
we all feel that we have a
chance to win this
division," he says. "We stack up
position-by-position with anyone in the
Central."
Chicago's acquisitions have bumped its payroll to $48
million, up 14% from last year. And the Tribune Co. has
made it clear that there will be plenty of cash available
for another acquisition during the season—if the Cubs stay
in the
race.
Says MacPhail, "It's our job to get the ball club in a
position to take advantage of the economic might of the
company. We haven't done
that."
Often disaster is a catalyst for change. Perhaps last
year's failures were what the organization needed to move
to a place where the
ifs seem a bit more realistic, and the
when might finally be now.
—by Mark
McClusky
Scouting Report | By the Numbers | Players To Watch | Projected Roster
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