Dust in the wind

It's been all but assured since the middle of the season that Baker wasn't going to be back. The Andy MacPhail thing was surprising, but then, is there any reason to really be disappointed about that? MacPhail ran the Cubs for twelve years after winning two World Series in Minnesota, and the Cubs only made the playoffs twice. Meanwhile, they had five 90-loss seasons, including this year (a whopping 96), and just one 90-win season (and even then, it took 163 games to get there). For those keeping score at home, the Twins rebuilt for a few years after MacPhail's departure, but are currently in a string of six straight winning seasons, with 90 wins and a division title in four of the last five. The Cubs, of course, haven't put together that many merely winning seasons in a row since Leo Durocher was managing, and have won 90 games more than once in the same five-year span just once (1984 and 1989) since World War II broke out.

Enough depressing stats. The questions are, what needs to be done to fix the Cubs, and what to do about the players who may be on the way out?

1. Who's the next manager? Speculation has centered on Joe Girardi, as he has demonstrated the ability to get the most out of young players (though there exists the possibility that Florida's youngsters just have a crapload of talent) and appears to be on the way out in Miami even though he could win NL Manager of the Year. Girardi is an Illinois native, Northwestern grad, and longtime former Cub, so he seems like a perfect fit, but aside from the hometown hero aspect, his qualifications aren't deep, and hometown heroes rarely seem to pan out at most levels of sport. Much like US Soccer's search for a new coach, I think the Cubs need a bigger hire, and someone who has shown they can handle the hot seat (Girardi's one year having come in Florida where it doesn't matter if you win since no one shows up until the NLCS anyway). Lou Piniella is a possibility; since 1990 he has six times as many 90-win seasons under his belt as the Cubs do, and for several different teams. He's definitely only as good as the talent around him, though; he may have led the underdog Reds to the Series in 1990, but he couldn't coax more than 70 wins out of the Devil Rays in three years there. He also may not want to unretire. Neither may Jack McKeon, who has done his share of spinning straw into gold. Frank Robinson and Felipe Alou were both just let go by their teams and both have long histories in the game, but between them they have a single playoff appearance in 30 seasons (though Alou was robbed of one in 1994). Bob Brenly, currently in the Cubs' booth, has a World Series title and two 90-win seasons in four years (three and a half really) in Arizona, but that team was an assemblage of veteran talent; whether he could develop young players as the Cubs will likely need to do is questionable.

Really, the Cubs should put out a personal ad looking for the following:

(a) Must work well with young players (Baker seemed to resent playing young guys, even throwing Rich Hill under the bus despite the fact that he supports veteran players throughout the worst of slumps)

(b) Must value on-base percentage (the Cubs have been lousy on this count for years, but Baker didn't help that with his statements that walks and singles "clog up the bases." What?? If you ask me he should have been fired immediately for saying something so idiotic)

(c) Must be willing to put blame where it's due (perhaps the biggest problem of the Baker tenure was the way he walked on eggshells for veterans, even making excuses for them that they wouldn't make for themselves, as when he explained away a poor Greg Maddux outing due to cold weather, followed by Maddux saying that the weather wasn't a factor and he just hadn't pitched well. Maybe his time in San Francisco with Bonds taught Baker a lesson about the necessity of coddling big egos, but this wasn't what this Cubs team needed)

Who fits that description and is available is anyone's guess.

2. Is Hendry going to get it together? All the new managers in the world won't make a difference if there isn't some improvement in the roster. Too many of Hendry's moves lately have been cosmetic, trading minor-league talent for a flashy "impact player," only to see the move blow up in his face, the Juan Pierre deal being the biggest. I still think Hendry is a decent to good GM - his moves for Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee rank among the best the Cubs have made in their history - but his recent failings have only been magnified by the Cubs' struggles.

3. What do you do with Juan Pierre? I'm really torn on this one. On the one hand, even in what wasn't a great season for him, he was good for 200 hits. On the other hand, he failed to show up until June, doing the bulk of his damage long after it was much too late for the team to get anything useful out of it. Being a leadoff hitter, he'll command a salary disproportionate to what his actual value to the Cubs seems to have been this year, and he's even stated a desire to play on the South Side. But you can't just let this guy go - you traded three young pitchers to get him (pitchers who've been doing just fine in Florida, by the way). If you're going to mortgage your future like that, you have to have the guy for more than one year. On the other hand, if you sign him to a four-year deal and he keeps doing what he did this year (only showing up when it doesn't matter, not the 200 hits part), what good is that?

4. What do you do with Aramis Ramirez? All of the above, really. He's going to command a hefty salary in the open market, which he seems determined to test. And he was nowhere to be found this season when Lee went down and we needed his bat, like Pierre being mostly absent until June or even later, at which point the abysmal May had long since sunk the season. Sure, he's a 30-100 guy, but what good is that if he can't be counted on when necessary? That said, he fills a position that had been a real bugaboo for the Cubs for nearly three decades, and who are you going to get who's really any better?

5. Who do you go after on the free agent market? The Cubs must have tons of money, yet they rarely seem willing to spend it, except sometimes on their own players. Who's been the biggest free-agent signing of the Baker era, Michael Barrett? Not that he hasn't been good, but that's not nearly good enough. Where is a front-line pitcher (Maddux doesn't count)? Where's a big outfield bat (Jeromy Burnitz doesn't count)? The Cubs need to go after guys like Barry Zito and Carlos Lee, or maybe even Alfonso Soriano. I love Matt Murton and Jacque Jones, but do they really seem like starters on a World Series champion to you? There needs to be more talent. Also, now that I think about it, boot Pierre out and sign someone who can get on base to hit leadoff.

If all this seems like too much to ask, that's probably because it is. But one gets the feeling that there's finally some serious pressure to win on the North Side. Hendry has two years at most to win or he's out, and like MacPhail and Baker, I think he really, really wants to be the guy who brings the trophy to Wrigley. Of course, they both ended up leaving without doing so, but maybe, just maybe, he'll go out and do the right things to, if not fix the club this coming year, get the ball much more rolling than it was for this disastrous campaign.

Obviously a lack of crippling injuries would help too.