Second City, First Love

I can't forgive Cubs fans for being surprised.  After spending
most of his career as a crappy starter (he only posted an ERA below
4.00 once in seven years) and a so-so one as a reliever (his best
season coming in 2005 when the Cubs weren't in position to do anything), ole Red Beard
made the improbable switch back to being a starter before the season
and has become our most dependable starting pitcher.  He's been the
anchor of the rotation, giving up more than three runs only four times
this season, with only one bad start (his June stinker against the
White Sox two months ago). 

Big Z's temper can flare up and
make him self-destruct and Rich Harden is gold but has only made a
handful of starts; this season, I feel safest when Dempster has the
ball in hand.  He's pitched excellently against our Central rivals
(3-0, 2.37 ERA vs. Milwaukee, 1-0, 2.70 ERA vs. St. Louis) and about
the only thing he hasn't done well is hit the ball.  He's the best
pitcher on the best team in the NL (and arguably, the league), and
voters love that kind of stuff.  But is discussing him as a Cy Young
candidate a valid idea or just a fanboy's pipe dream?

Well...believe
it or not, it is.  Dempster is not only a valid candidate but a
possible one, because there hasn't been any one dominant pitcher in the
NL, not one voters would overwhelmingly support anyways.  There's no
sexy closer option (like K-Rod and Rivera in the AL, no matter how
silly you might consider them) and only a handful of top pitchers in
the NL play on good teams.  So, I'm going to break each candidate down
and talk about why they should or shouldn't win the prestigious award,
and try to pick my best guess at who the voters will actually go for.

Tim Lincecum (San Francisco Giants)
Ah, the prodigal son. Like Mark Prior
in 2003, Lincecum springboarded off a successful rookie half-season to
become a strikeout machine and overall one of the best pitchers in the
game.  His stats quickly single him out as the front-runner for the Cy
Young Award - 2.60 ERA (lowest in the NL), 192 strikeouts (most in the
league), and a 13-3 record (totally respectable for having the NL's
third worst offense behind him).  He's also been durable - 169.2
innings pitched and only one brief injury scare,
when Brad Ausmus hit a pitch off his leg and forced him to leave a
start early.  Given that he just turned 24 this year, Lincecum could be
a top pitcher for years, assuming his unconventional throwing delivery doesn't eventually backfire on him. 
He's the best statistical candidate in a crowded field, but
unfortunately for Tim, stats aren't always what the voters go for. 
They usually favor winning records (See Bartolo Colon in 2005 or Roger
Clemens in 2001) and Lincecum is only tied for fifth in the NL for
wins.  They only seem to go for pure stats when a pitcher is far, far,
far, far ahead of the field...which he's not.  Furthermore,
they also like giving awards to pitchers on good teams, and the Giants
are just flat-out terrible, with one of the worst records in the
league.  But Bay Area fans shouldn't despair: In 2006, Brandon Webb won
the Cy Young on a Diamondbacks team that finished 76-86, but he was
tied the most wins in the NL.  If Lincecum can win a few more games,
he's got to be one of the front-runner.

Brandon Webb (Arizona Diamondbacks)
When did pitchers from Arizona get so good at the award game?  The
Diamondbacks have taken half of the Cy Young Awards in the last ten
years...granted, four of those came from Randy Johnson in the best
stretch of his career, but still, there must be some magical pitching
drug out in the desert.  Webb is the second best candidate next to
Lincecum - he's got great stats, but more importantly, an astounding
18-4 record, best in the league.  I don't think wins are a good way of
measuring a pitcher's worth, but that's a debate for another day; it's
impressive because the Diamondbacks, despite being leading their
division, have a crappy offense.  Webb gets less than five runs of
support in every game he pitches, and barely gets more than Lincecum,
but he's compiled a better record from it, which voters love looking
at.  With a month left, Webb could become the NL's first 20-game winner
since 2005, and if it's still good for most in the NL (a likely bet)
then it's hard to imagine the award not falling his way.  It might not
seem fair if his record puts him over the top, considering his award in
2006 was a little undeserved (by my count, both Chris Carpenter and Roy
Oswalt were better candidates).  But he certainly wouldn't be a bad
choice, and at this point I see him as the front-runner in the eyes of the voters.  

Edinson Volquez (Cincinnati Reds)
Another
baseball newcomer, Volquez has been one of the few good points of the
somewhat botched start of the Dusty Baker era over in Ohio.  He's got
good enough stats (15-5 record, 2.73 ERA, 150 strikeouts), but he's
behind Lincecum in most areas and also plays for a crappy team.  If a
bad team standout gets the award, it isn't going to be Volquez.  The
Giants and Reds have equivalent records when each ace pitches - 17-9 -
and if it came down to picking between the two, I think voters would
mostly go for Lincecum, given that the minor difference in wins could
be even by the end of the season.  Sorry, Edinson - you're just not
winning it this year, but if it makes you feel better, you could be
pitching for the Yankees in a few years.  Of course, your arm will
probably be blown out by then, if Dusty has his way (damn, Mark Prior
could have been so good).

C.C. Sabathia (Milwaukee Brewers)
An
unlikely but possible candidate: the burly Brewers thrower is 8-0 in
nine starts in the NL (his one non-decision coming in a mediocre effort
against the Cubs, whoo!) and boasts a 1.60 ERA.  But is a dominant
half-season good enough for voters?  If you mix in his stats from the
AL, Sabathia's just in the middle of the pack, and if the Brewers miss
the playoffs (not super likely but the Cardinals are right behind them,
and the Brewers faded hard last year), Sabathia's
accomplishments might not look so good.  But if Lincecum and Webb split
the voters (one the better stats guy, one the better record guy),
Sabathia could emerge as a third candidate because he has the best of
both worlds, in the NL at least.  I think it would be kind of bogus if
he won, because he was terrible at the beginning of the season until it
looked like he was going to be traded, and plus, he won a far more
deserving award last year.  I don't think that means anything to
voters, who are blinded by veneers (See: Eric Gagne in 2003).

Johan Santana (New York Mets)
Always
a factor in Cy Young voting.  But he doesn't have a great record and
his stats aren't as flashy as they were in previous years, with less
strikeouts and a higher WHIP.  The Mets are good, but his stats are the
same as Volquez's and he's not even in the top 10 for wins in the NL. 
Johan, this is one year yo hand won't be in the running.

Carlos Zambrano (Chicago Cubs)
He
was a more likely candidate until he bombed hard against the Cardinals
and saw his ERA leap by almost a run.  If he has a string of scoreless
outings his ERA will dip again, but Z has never been great at uniform
consistency.  I'd like to see him win, for obvious reasons, but I'm
afraid this won't be the year - again.

So...does Dempster have a shot?

I
think so.  I think he'll be the third-best candidate after Lincecum and
Webb in voter eyes, and if the Diamondbacks miss the playoffs and
Dempster gets past the 15-win mark, his status as the best pitcher on
the best team with (breathe deep for a second) the best chance to make
the World Series in the NL could push Dempster over the top.  It would
be nice to see him get his shot in the spotlight after all of those
years of mediocrity and obscurity.  I guess we'll see come the end of
the season.

 Obviously influenced by me, the Bulls signed Luol Deng to a six-year deal worth up to $80 million, ending an awkward saga in which Deng threatened to leave the team next year if he didn’t have a contract in place by the start of the Olympics.  The signing is a good one: Despite his mild regression last season, Deng is tall for his position, can ice shots from anywhere inside the 3-point arc, is a pretty good defender (believe it or not, stastically he's been the Bulls’ best defender the last few years), and so forth.  

I could go on, but I won’t; all I can say is that I’m extremely pleased about the signing, since Deng still hasn’t peaked as a player. If he rebounds from last year’s disastrous season and stretches just far enough to hit the 20-10 level (it’s not that much of a stretch: he averaged a 19-7 just two years ago), then he’ll finally get some All-Star recognition. Remember, Josh Howard is an All-Star in the West (and coveted by some GMs as more valuable than recent MVP Dirk Nowitzki), and he averages a 20-7 with a worse field goal percentage than Deng (he’s also 4 years older than Deng). I can’t wait.

But now we enter the more problematic signing: the question of what to do with Ben Gordon.  After the Deng signing, the Bulls only have around $8 million left in cap space, which is probably less than Gordon wants per year. As I touched on last week, the Bulls are reportedly floating the idea of putting Kirk Hinrich at the shooting guard and getting rid of Gordon in a sign-and-trade for another player.  

There are a couple of perspectives on this. On one hand, Gordon is a better shooter than Hinrich in every category (FG%, 3PT%, True Shooting %, FT%, etc), he has a better offensive game in general, and he’s certainly more of a threat to have a colossal scoring game. On the other, Hinrich plays better defense (which Gordon is a career non-factor on)… and really, that’s all I can think of. Hinrich is unable to create his own offense, which most premier shooting guards can do. If you watch videos of him, he only drives to the hoop if he has an open path, or takes shots if he has open looks; otherwise, he forces shots even with defenders in his face, often without attempting to move the ball around. I watched too many games last year in which I groaned in frustration at the poor shots Hinrich would continue to take over and over again. I remember during one particularly bad effort, I texted my friend simply to say, “I will hire someone to break Hinrich’s legs the next time he bricks a three.”  

I feel bad about turning on Hinrich after years of being the team’s de-facto leader, both as a point guard and a high draft pick, but I really don’t think he’d be a good fit at shooting guard. Plus, do you think his ego could take it? After years of being the team’s point guard, he’d be shuffled aside to make room for the franchise’s new golden boy, Derrick Rose. For a team that was plagued with chemistry issues last season, it seems unlikely that the position change would create any good feelings, and even though Hinrich is a nice guy, some things bother you no matter what.

Ben Gordon has his slights against him, namely that he doesn’t play defense very well and is inconsistent with his shooting. He can score 50 points in a night or he can score 5, and there’s still the argument that he’s best as a sixth man, where his numbers have usually been better than as a starter.  He can disappear in big games as well, only putting up one decent effort against the Pistons in 2007, with his share of stinkers against the Heat and the Wizards in previous years.  

But if Rose develops into an elite point guard, who’s to say how Gordon’s numbers will be affected? Rose will throw him better passes, draw double-teams at times, and will almost certainly compensate for his lack of defense (much like Hinrich has done, but more so). Of course, the Rose argument is kind of moot because he hasn’t played a game yet (only a few months left!) but on his own merits, there’s plenty of evidence to support Gordon being a better shooting guard than Hinrich.

More problematic, though, is the question of how we’ll be able to afford Gordon, given that Jerry Reinsdorf doesn’t want to cross the luxury tax for a non-championship team. To be fair, he shouldn’t, but he should also be able to see that the Bulls won’t even sniff the championship for a year or two until Rose gets better, and when he does, that Gordon will be a key part of making a championship run. Come June, it’ll be better to have a shooting guard who can create his own shot, drive to the hoop, and make clutch free throws than whatever the hell Kirk Hinrich will do.

The Bulls can clear cap space through trading; I’m not going to waste space by talking about that. There are rumors of the Bulls trying to execute a sign-and-trade, but those could just be rumors.  One thing is for sure: Signing Gordon to a new contract is not impossible. Therefore, the Bulls should pursue that.

With how crazy the NBA off-season has been (Elton Brand to the Sixers! B-Diddy to the Clippers! Mickael Pietrus to the Magic...okay, not so much) the Bulls haven't got much national coverage considering their cluttered roster and the players they have yet to re-sign. Even after the Knicks lured away Chris Duhon, the Bulls still have a cluttered backcourt with five players vying for ample playing time that realistically, only two players should get. And who knows if Tyrus Thomas can really be a starting power forward in the league? Can he get it? Will he ever?

However, the most recent big development in the off-season has been the problem with Luol Deng, another restricted free agent. Deng's management has apparently told the Bulls that if he doesn't receive a long-term deal in the next few weeks, he will sign the team's qualifying offer for a little under $5 million, then become an unrestricted free agent next year and get the hell out of the city.

It means he'd still be on the team for the upcoming season. But we saw last year how being upset over contract negotiations can adversely impact a team, and Deng could regress even further if he continued to be a negative Ned the whole season.

Of course, Deng put himself in this situation by refusing to sign the deal the Bulls offered him last year, which was $57.5 million over five years, or almost triple what Deng would make this year if he takes the qualifying offer. As time goes on, it's getting harder to justify that decision, because they wouldn't find that on the market this year and it could be tricky next year as well, because there are a bunch of mid-level stars who will hit the market as well, such as Rasheed Wallace, Lamar Odom, and Ron Artest.

Keeping Deng for this year only might be a viable strategy if the Bulls were on the cusp of winning a championship and could afford to rebuild a year from now. But Derrick Rose is probably a year or two away from being an All-Star, Joakim Noah and Thomas haven't developed yet, and we're in the same spot we were a few years ago, except now Deng, Ben Gordon and Kirk Hinrich have moved into the Tyson Chandler and Eddy Curry spot of being "veterans" on the team.

And keep in mind, the East will be a lot tougher next year. The Celtics and Pistons will remain competitive for at least one more year, the LBJ Show over in Cleveland will continue to roll, the Sixers look a lot better after the Brand signing, and Orlando can only get better (assuming Dwight Howard continues to develop at an astonishing pace). Then you still have both the Raptors and the Wizards (both looking to rebound from down years), the still-developing Hawks, the Scott Skiles-led-and-therefore-better Bucks, and so forth. It might not even be a given that the Bulls make the playoffs next year, although that would probably leave me near-suicidal.

So the Bulls are a few years away from being contenders, which is fine. That means they need to give Deng his money, because he could be Rashard Lewis without the 3-point range, but way more accurate inside the arc; hey, that's almost what he was in the 2006-07 season.

Plus, as soon as Rose becomes the Chris Paul or Deron Williams or Jason Kidd-with-a-jumpshot that everyone expects him to be, Deng's production will probably jump a bit. And if Rose doesn't become that...well then, the Bulls took a gamble and lost, like every team who doesn't win the championship does.
If the Bulls fail to re-sign Deng (and Gordon, who is also a restricted FA) then they will be giving them up for nothing, which would be the ultimate failure. I mean, if the ultimate goal in professional sports is to win the championship, then I still think Deng and Gordon are important parts of that formula. Deng is also a big community and character guy, and to losing that would look petty on John Paxson's part.

But again, this is probably just Deng's way of regaining some leverage in contract negotiations, given how he did nothing to do so last season. Paxson could lowball Deng and Gordon because the market is so weak right now, and they might be forced into signing out of desperation. But again, who knows how they would react? Would they still play hard? Would they privately complain and disrupt the locker room? Would the Bulls be forced to trade them before the contracts ran out, like they did with Ben Wallace?

I suppose we'll see in a few weeks, when Deng's deadline for a new deal has lapsed. Personally, I want to see him in a Bulls jersey next season and beyond. He's the best player on the Bulls right now, and even though we should have traded him for Kobe Bryant last year, what are you going to do?

Photo by Nathan Dainty

Ex-Packers QB and all-time Bears scourge Brett Favre is playing way too many games with Wisconsin hearts, setting off a cavalcade of will-he-or-won’t-he rumors when he asked for his release from his contract last week, so that he could presumably return to the NFL and play for another team. Obviously, this sent shockwaves through sports media, as ESPN added a “Brett Favre” tab to their list of news feeds, dozens of Favre-for-______ trade rumors were posted on leading sports websites such as xXsportznewzXx and TruFootballDreamz, and God himself appeared on CNN and told America that Favre had his blessing to give it another go.

Some of that is true, some of it is not; in the midst of all the whirlwind speculation, Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey wrote a column about how Favre should come play for the Bears. He mentions how familiarity breeds respect, how Favre is “quintessential Chicago,” how he would be appreciated by Chicago fans, and so forth. And you know what?

Morrissey is completely wrong on this one.

Now, stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before: Favre should stay away from Chicago. Can he still play quarterback? Given his 95.7 QB rating last year (his highest since 1996, the year he won the Super Bowl), yes. Is he still hungry to play? Considering he’s talking about making a comeback less than six months removed from retirement (shattering Michael Jordan records), obviously yes. Would he be an upgrade at the quarterback position for the Bears? Sadly, given the carousel of incompetence we threw on the field last year, also yes. So then why shouldn’t the Bears try to go after one of the best players of all-time?

For starters, do you remember December 11th, 1994, when Favre tossed three touchdowns en route to a 40-3 Packers victory over the Bears? How about November 12th, 1995, when he threw five touchdowns? October 6th, 1996, when he beat us 37-6 at Soldier Field? I mean, I was still leaning my multiplication tables when those embarrassing displays of dominance occurred, but the numbers are there: for a decade, Favre had us beat. He routinely embarrassed the Bears, carving a role as Chicago’s most dreaded enemy in the ‘90s; more than Reggie Miller, more than Mark McGwire, more than anyone, because we could not stop losing to him.  He went 22-10 against the Bears over fifteen years, and half of those Bears victories didn't come until the Lovie Smith era.  It wasn't even a proper rivalry; it was a consistent lesson in humiliation.  

But it’s not about the losing that makes me want to spit at Favre at the same time as I shake his hand. After all, Derrek Lee was on that goddamn 2003 Marlins team, and we traded for him the next off-season, and hey, the Cubs even signed Jim-goddamn-Edmonds this year. During his decade of domination, Favre came to represent the Packers as a whole, this mythical figure who could never be betted against. When I was a kid, I didn’t understand why Favre kept beating us. It just didn’t seem fair.

Beyond all of the stat-crunching and faux-bravado that comes with being a sports fan is the belief that sports teams are the best representatives of a city, which is why my suburban friends don’t understand why it’s heresy to root hard for both the Cubs and the White Sox, and why I feel immense pride watching Michael Jordan videos on Youtube (which I do more than I should). And Favre transcended statistics as the Packers quarterback, coming to represent their state and their franchise more than any other football player during his time.

That’s why coming to play for the Bears, the sworn enemy of the Packers, would just be a shame. Look, forget winning for a moment; I don’t care if Favre led us to a Super Bowl, because I just couldn’t root for him. I suspect a lot of Bears fans, no matter how fair-weathered they are, feel the same way. It’s nothing personal against the guy; he’s undoubtedly one of the ten best quarterbacks of all-time, but I feel a dull loathing for him akin to my hatred of The Hills. It would be like if Frank Thomas came to play for the Cubs, if Sammy Sosa played for the White Sox (for a second time, I mean), or if James Posey signed a multi-year contact with the Bulls.  Some players should not play for certain teams.

Oh, sure, Bears fans don’t have to actively hate the guy, and Favre is friends with Brian Urlacher, but sending Favre out in Bears blue against the Packers next season wouldn’t feel good. It would just feel…sad. Like sports allegiances no longer mattered, that players didn’t care about their teams, and so forth.

If Favre wants to come back next year, that’s fine. He can play for the Packers, the Vikings, the Bucs, or almost any team that will start him, if he so wants to. I just hope he doesn’t come to Chicago, because I won’t be able to start cheering for him.

Photo by Jame

The Cubs were just involved in a six-player trade for Oakland’s Rich Harden, notably sending Matt Murton, Eric Patterson, and Sean Gallagher for the oft-injured ace. I can’t help but feel a rumble in my stomach; I mean, it’s super-savvy for Jim Hendry to pull this off the day after the Milwaukee Brewers snagged CC Sabathia for a bag of peanuts and an incriminating video of their infield having a gay orgy , but Harden has had a ton of injury problems the last few years. For any Cubs fan this will bring back ominous memories of once-promising Mark Prior, who had a Cy Young-worthy year in 2003 and proceeded to spend the next half-decade on the DL, squandering dozens of ready-made puns (“Cubs make resigning Prior a Prior-ity,” “Prior sharp after Prior poor outing,” etc).

 Of course, if Harden stays healthy, then the Cubs have to be NL Pennant favorites going into the playoffs, which they could be even without his help. But here is the cruel reality: Harden hasn’t pitched a full season since 2004 (where he didn’t even top 200 IP), and he hasn’t been consistently dominant since 2005 (when he pitched a half-season). And that’s going to be on the mind of every Cubs fan the moment Harden is prematurely taken out of a game for shoulder tightness, or every time we see him wince after fielding a routine grounder.

But, here’s also the good stuff: Harden has destroyed NL teams (posting a 1.81 ERA over ten games), the Cubs are planning to give him an extra day of rest every start (Harden: “I feel like I can go out there every fifth or sixth day, and if I get a day off here or there, it definitely makes a difference. Just with the history of having some injuries, that one extra day does make a difference, so I think that's something that we'd do.”), the Cubs have the cash to throw at him should he stay healthy (if they want to lock him up for a long time), and in his first start against the Giants, he struck out 10 in a little over five innings while giving up no runs.  Sure, they almost lost the game later on, and sure, it's the Giants, but it was a strong first statement.

On paper, the Cubs have the best 1-2-3 rotation of any NL contender, with the Dodgers close behind. If this was a videogame, Hendry would immediately trade Harden for a big bat and a lesser pitcher (I would furiously hammer out prospective deals for Colorado’s Matt Holliday and Aaron Cook until my fingers bled), but as soon as Alfonso Soriano comes back and strengthens our already tough lineup, then look out, the Cubs should be the best team in the NL for sure.

I know Cubs fans won’t be confident in their team until we’re actually in the playoffs and doing well. But be patient: it looks like we’re for real this year, and on the bright side, you get to look forward to plenty of horrible Harden-related puns from the Sun-Times. I’m shooting for “Hard-en times for Harden” the first game he gets shelled.