In 2004, the Cubs ranked 7th in the National League in runs scored.  This year, they have dropped one slot to 8th through games of July 4, the halfway point of the season for the Cubs.  That is not much of a difference on its face, but unlike last year, this year's Cubs are much closer to the bottom (27 runs above the Houston Astros) than the top (67 runs from the Cardinals).  Compare that to last year, when the Cubs finished 66 runs below St. Louis, but 174 runs above last place Arizona.

This year's #8 ranking comes despite having the league's 4th best team batting average and top team slugging average, aided by Derrek Lee's monster season.  The culprit, as is well know, is the team's poor ability to get on base via the walk.  But it is not just that the Cubs have a collection of players who lack a propensity to walk.  It is also that the Cubs' players have, in some instances, seen their walk rates take a dramatic hit.

In the offseason, the Cubs had coaches Gary Matthews and Gene Clines switch roles.  Clines became the hitting coach, and Matthews the first base coach with responsibility for the outfield and for baserunning.  Manager Dusty Baker said at the time, "Sometimes you need a different voice.  A lot of times guys can say the same things, but say them different ways."

Whatever Clines is saying with regard to plate patience -- whether it is something different or the same thing said in a new way -- is not working.  Here is a chart of the Cubs' current group of players with their 2004 walk rates (walks divided by plate appearances) compared to their 2005 walk rates, with the percentage change:

(Notes: Hairston's 2004 numbers are with Baltimore; Burnitz's 2004 numbers are with Colorado; Dubois's 2004 numbers are with triple-A Iowa; Perez's 2004 numbers are his combined numbers with San Francisco and Chicago; and Blanco's 2004 numbers are with Minnesota.)

The Cubs' .066 team walk rate is last in the league, and .010 behind second-to-last Houston.  Philadelphia leads the league with a .100 walk rate and the median sits at .084 (compared to .087 in 2004).

The Cubs' decline of 15.4% from their 2004 walk rate is quite drastic.  Only Lee has shown major improvement from last year and he was already good at drawing walks.  It is easy to see why he is having such an excellent season.  Other than Lee, the Cubs have had only one other player improve on his walk rate from 2004.  That is Jose Macias, whose improvement is negligible given how low he was to begin with.  Hairston and Ramirez are around last year's rates, and are having good seasons at the plate.

The real kicker is that of the Cubs' 12 position players who have been with the team for much of the year, 7 of them have seen their walk rates decrease by at least 25%.  5 of those 7 players are starters.  All 5 were with the team last year.  Neifi Perez leads the bunch with a 51% drop.

How much of this is Clines, Baker (who infamously stated in 2004 that "the guy who walks and can’t run, most of the time he’s clogging up the bases for somebody who can run,"), or the players is impossible to know from the fans' vantage point.  But you simply cannot have 5 starters -- none of whom have really hit the decline stages of their careers -- lower their walk rates from the previous year by at least 25% each and 1) expect to have a good offense or 2) work off of an assumption that the coaches are properly teaching controlling the strike zone.

Jim Hendry needs to find out whose fault this is.  If it is the players' fault, he needs new players.  If it is the coaches' fault, he needs new coaches if they will not change their philosophies.  It is likely that the answer is some combination of players' fault and coaches' fault.  But whatever the reason, whether the Cubs are able to not only stop the decline in their walk rate, but reverse the decline in the second half of the season, will play a significant role in determining whether they are able to escape the middle-of-the-pack for serious wild card contention.