Cubs Lay an Egg with Matt Bailie

August 9, 2005 by Charles Rector

In what has become a recurring pattern, the Cubs sat by as another MLB team picked up a proven professional pitcher from a Chicagoland independent league baseball team. Specifically, RHP Matt Bailie of the Northern League team Schaumburg Flyers was
picked up by the Baltimore Orioles .

As the following info from the Flyers website makes clear, Bailie was a pitcher with a solid record of accomplishment:

Bailie, 29, went 8-1 with a league best 2.16 ERA in 13 starts for the 2005 Flyers. Beginning on June 5, the ace right-hander pitched seven innings or more in ten consecutive starts through his most recent Flyers appearance on August 3. Bailie pitched a seven-inning shutout at Calgary on June 29 in Game 1 of a doubleheader and started the Northern League All-Star Game on July 19 at Gary, tossing one scoreless inning for the South Division. He went 3-0 in both June and July and won NL Pitcher of the Week honors for June 27-July 3.

A loss last week was Bailie’s first since August 27, 2004 after a 3-0 run in last September’s Northern League Playoffs. He leaves Schaumburg as one of the best pitchers in franchise history with a 17-6 record over the past two seasons and a 3.64 career ERA in Schaumburg.

This is part of an overall pattern in which players in independent league teams in Chicagoland do well for their teams, but the Chicago Cubs organization just completely ignores them. The result is that other MLB teams including the Chicago White Sox as well as others are able to pick up promising prospects for their farm systems even those players would look really good in a uniform of a Cubs farm team.

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