Turn, turn, turn again
After all the off-season talk about the Cubs' offensive and bullpen woes, it's all pretty much moot if their starting rotation isn't healthy and effective the entire year. Yes, the Cubs would have made the playoffs last year with a more effective closer. But they would have competed for the division crown had Prior and Wood been healthy the entire year.
And now both are question marks again. Wood is out with a sore shoulder and Prior's out with a sore elbow. The Cubs are, once again, agonizingly trying to downplay the injuries, but until I see Wood and Prior out there on the mound pitching 30 starts in a row without trouble, I'll assume they're damaged goods.
The Cubs' success this season -- and, frankly -- for several seasons to come, depends on their young starters. And no matter how talented they may be, it doesn't matter if they're on the disabled list. I sure hope that the young farm-club studs the Cubs have so zealously guarded from the trading block in recent years turn out to be all they're cracked up to be. Otherwise, this latest Renaissance may quickly revert to another epoch -- the Dark Ages.
Am I being alarmist? Probably. But this news is cause for alarm.
Quotable: "If he was a horse, they would have shot him already." -- Al O'Reilly, on the oft-injured Kerry Wood.
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Hard to get excited about Cubs pitching prospects
I sure hope that the young farm-club studs the Cubs have so zealously guarded from the trading block in recent years turn out to be all they're cracked up to be.
Is it too late for that? Of the pitchers so highly regarded just in 2003, most have been traded or been injured. Juan Cruz and Justin Jones have been traded. Andy Sisco and Luke Hagerty have been lost in the Rule V draft. Nobody's thought the same of Jae-Kuk Ryu since he killed that osprey (and he had a sore elbow last year). Ben Christensen is gone. Chadd Blasko, Bobby Brownlie, Angel Guzman, and Matt Clanton have all been injured (Clanton appears to have been drafted injured in 2002). There's still Wellemeyer, and Guzman is coming back, and Leicester has shown promise in the pen. But it's clearly hard to put too much faith in the Cubs' pitching prospects.
Exactly. Who's left?
Angel Guzman is the only supposed stud and he's coming off a major injury. The plan was to have relatively cheap, young starting pitching as the core that would make the team competitive no matter what and spend the money to fill out the the rest and make it a perennial champ. The only fly in the ointment is that the young pitching has to (1) actually develop and (2) stay healthy once it does.
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Kevin B. O'Reilly
http://kevin.oreilly.net/howl/
Just 2 in a row
I'll settle for 2 starts in a row at 5+ innings each. I realize this has been brought up before, but it's amazing that a whole off-season seems to be wasted, when after a week or two of ST you have pitchers that are put back on the shelf. What is (or not) going on?
These guys are paid too much money to not consider playing through some pain. I still have to wonder if they overextended themselves in October of 2003 and got poor treatment afterwards. Was the Bartman ball as close as we'll get in the forseeable future? Ugggh.
RE: just 2 in a row
These guys are paid too much money to not consider playing through some pain.
With pitchers, you don't want them pitching through too much pain. It could lead to more serious problems. Kerry Wood pitched through pain in the '98 playoffs, and then missed more than a year.
You do have to wonder why pitchers in the Cubs' system appear to develop injuries at a higher rate than pitchers in other systems.