I’m not sure what the guys over at Bleacher Nation were getting at with this goofy movie poster, but it made me laugh so here you go.  Go Cubbies!

Spring training is coming to a close, and although we haven’t been covering it in detail this year, suffice it to say that I’m excited as hell for the season to begin.  A new year, new hopes, and new delusions of grandeur.  March is historically a great month to be a Cubs fan.  Until Derrek Lee’s freak accident outshines the famous Sosa sneeze, that is:

Derrek Lee was receiving treatment for a back injury incurred in a freak accident in the clubhouse before Wednesday’s game against Texas in Surprise.

“He was eating before the game and the chair just collapsed on him,” manager Lou Piniella said. “That’s why we got him out of there after three innings.”

Piniella said Lee was fine and would be back in the starting lineup Friday. Piniella’s back is also ailing, and he decided to skip the two-hour trip to Tucson for the Cubs’ game at Arizona. Alan Trammell will manage the team instead.

Obviously this isn’t a huge injury, but it sure isn’t a good sign when your star first basemen has the same back strength as his 66 year old manager.  Other Cubs notable injuries this spring?  Here’s the list:

Angel Guzman – Shoulder surgery
Ted Lilly – Shoulder surgery
Aramis Ramirez – Sore arm
Alfonso Soriano – Vagina
Xavier Nady – Elbow
Jeff Gray – Groin

I don’t even know what to say about this, I guess I just felt the need to share the sad sad state of affairs.  As the Cubs try to go 7-3 down the stretch to avoid a sub-.500 decade (h/t: @NearlyNextYear), things just continue to unravel.  Derrek Lee scored the game-tying run ahead of Jeff Baker in the top of 9th last night, but when he got back to the dugout reminders of a certain back-injuring Sosa sneeze came to mind:

As Lee and Baker were mobbed by teammates in the dugout, relief pitcher Angel Guzman slapped the side of Lee’s helmet, causing Lee to experience neck spasms that forced him to come out of the game for defense in the bottom of the ninth.

That’s a joke right?  I mean come on now.  I guess its not that big a deal considering we are out of it and Lee has 6 months to rest his neck, but still.  This is why I can’t watch anymore Cubs games this season.

All things considered, the Cubs are lucky to have the record they do going into the All-Star break, but how have individual players and parts on this team rate so far?  Here’s a take on their performance thus far by position.

1st Base (Derrek Lee, Micah Hoffpauir): Derrek Lee started slow but has come on extremely strong since the middle of May.  Hoffpauir has been superb in a back up role.  Personally I think the Cubs need to get this guy more at-bats, but he has filled in admirably for Lee during stretches and mashes the ball when he gets the chance.

Grade: A-

2nd Base (Aaron Miles, Bobby Scales, Mike Fontenot, Jeff Baker, Andres Blanco): What a ragtag bunch at 2nd base.  You know its bad when this many guys have played the position, and no major injuries were a factor.  Fontenot was supposed to be the guy this year.  And by “the guy” I don’t mean Ted Williams, I think most people were just hoping for say .250/.333/.430 instead of .230/.307/.358.  Just terrible.  The other guys are all marginal major leaguers at best.

Grade: D

Shortstop (Ryan Theriot): Okay here is someone having a better season then he was expected to have.  In fact, the little power surge of his in early May makes his season arguably better than expected.  He is hitting about .300 and has mostly returned to his non-walking ways, but he has committed slightly less TOOTBLANs.

Grade: B+

3rd Base (Aramis Ramirez, Mike Fontenot, Jake Fox): Jake Fox! He has started a few games at 3rd and the guy can just rake the ball.  Unfortunately for our 3rd basemen grade, most of the at-bats went to Fontenot, who we discussedis having a terrible season.  With Ramirez on the pine, this position was a black hole at the plate for the most part.

Grade: C-

Catcher (Geovany Soto, Koyie Hill): Soto had a sloooow start, got high, then got injured.  Hill has been just so-so.  Soto needs to come back after the break and show us something, because he looked nothing like the all-star catcher he was last year.  I would say he needs to find his power stroke, but that would neglect to take into consideration his inability to make contact with the ball at all.  At least he’s walking I guess.

Grade: D

Outfield (Alfonso Soriano, Kosuke Fukudome, Reed Johnson, Milton Bradley, Jake Fox, Micah Hoffpauir): The only things saving the outfield from an F is Fukudome’s C- season and Soriano’s ridiculously hot April.  Bradley sucks, Fonzy sucks, and Reed, Fox and Hoffpauir aren’t getting enough at-bats to save the position.

Grade: D-

Starting Pitchers (Zambrano, Dempster, Lilly, Harden, Wells, Marshall): The Cubs one huge strength has been their starting rotation.  Wells, Lilly, Zambrano and Dempster are sporting 2.70, 3.18, 3.53, and 4.09 ERAs respectively.  Marshall did fine in his starts earlier in the year as well.  The only real major concern has been Rich Harden, who has given up 16 home runs in just 74 innings.  His strikeout numbers have been there, but his weakness to the long ball is a problem that needs to be corrected.  Randy Wells has been phenomenal and made most Cubs fans forget about Jake Peavy trade rumors.  If this staff can stay strong, the Cubs have a shot at the Division and maybe more.

Grade: A-

Bullpen (Marmol, Gregg, Heilman, Guzman, Cotts, Patton, Hart, etc.): Angel Guzman has been a pleasant surprise.  Also, Kevin Gregg is doing very well.  He is performing far better than Kerry Wood by pretty much any measure you use, and his 16/19 in saves is better than expected.  That’s it for the positives.  Marmol has been inconsistent at best and whether he can’t hit the strike zone, or just won’t hit it, his ability to turn it around will be key to the Cubs second half.  Oh, quick random fact I bet you didn’t know: Aaron Heilman is 0/5 in save opportunities.  Yeah, Aaron Heilman.  I didn’t even know he had any opportunities, and it looks like he really took advantage of those.

Grade: D+

Coaching (Lou Piniella, Larry Rothschild, Alan Trammell, Von Joshua/Gerald Perry): I hate to do this to you Lou, but things have been terrible.  Reluctant to move Soriano down in the order until too late, unable to help Bradley feel comfortable with the team, refusal to use Hoffpauir, Fox, and other young guys when overpaid players are slumping, mismanagement of the bullpen, and a misplaced belief in “being aggressive on the basepaths” even though the individual players on the team are terrible base stealers (32/51 on stolen bases and countless other TOOTBLANs).  I love Lou and it’s easy to judge him from here in the peanut gallery, but I think he would agree that he hasn’t been at his best this season.

Grade: D+

Cubs Overall Grade: C-

I remember a guy named Derrek Lee.  From 2001-2003, he averaged about 26 home runs, 35 doubles and 80 walks a season, while winning a Gold Glove at first base in 2003.  He was just on the cusp of being a perennial all-star.  The Cubs at the time had a young Korean with a lot of potential named Hee Seop Choi.  Choi was good, but not great, and the Cubs felt that they themselves were on the cusp of something great, coming off an NLCS appearance that ended in heartbreak (no need to re-hash that one).  So the Cubs went out and traded Choi for Lee.  It turned out to be an amazing move.

In his first season with the Cubbies, Derrek Lee hit 39 doubles, 32 home runs, and drew 68 walks en route to a great season.  Then something amazing happened in 2005.  Lee, a career .270s hitter, hit .335 with 45 home runs, 50 doubles and 85 walks.  He finished 3rd in MVP voting and won the Silver Slugger and another Gold Glove.  He made his first all-star game as well.  Was this crazy 2005 season the start of something special?  Or just a fluke season and he would return to the norm?

Cubs fans never got to find out the answer to that question, because in 2006, only 2 weeks after signing a huge contract extension, Derrek Lee broke his wrist and missed most of the season.  Would he ever be the same?  He was 30 years old, and most ballplayers never come back quite the same after a serious hand injury like that.  In general it takes at least a full season to rebuild hand strength and get your bat speed back up to normal.

In 2007-2008, he continued to see the ball well, hitting an average of .304 with 71 walks per season.  This would seem to indicate that 2005 Derrek Lee, the one who had hit the ball more than 60 points higher than his career average, may have been the Derrek Lee that Cubs fans were going to get going forward.  The wrist injury clearly showed its impact, however.  In 2007-2008, he hit only 22 and 20 home runs respectively.  He also blasted a huge 43 and 41 doubles in those two seasons.  This would seem to point to the fact that the tiny loss in his power resulting from the injury was enough to turn many of what were previously home run blasts into hard hit doubles.

And maybe that’s where the story would have ended.  Most Cubs fans (myself included), were resigned to the fact that maybe D-Lee was going to be a Gold Glove first basemen that hit about .300, got on base well, and hit a lot of doubles.  With the power gone, it wasn’t like D-Lee had been rendered useless, his contributions were just going to be lower than we had all hoped.

Bumbling through another rough Cubs start this year, most of us didn’t think twice about Derrek Lee.  No worries about his slow start, we thought.  He is a consistent guy.  He’ll hit about .300 and get us a lot of doubles.  No one expected he would find his power stroke though.  It’s not like he wasn’t hitting the ball hard the last couple years, its just that it wasn’t quite getting over the fence.  Well all that seems to have changed.  A wrist injury is a serious thing and usually takes about a year to fully recover from, so we all just assumed that he never would completely recover after two years of lacking 30 home run power.  Looks like we were wrong.  Maybe at 31, it took him 2 years to regain that power.  To date, Derrek Lee is hitting .288 with 16 home runs and his slugging percentage is .519, the highest of his career outside the 2005 season.  Those doubles that used to be home runs?  Yeah they are home runs again.  He is on pace to hit well over 30 dingers and is carrying an anemic Cubs offense to a 41-40 record at the midway point.

Is this just a hot streak?  Or is Derrek Lee back, the way it was supposed to be before the tragic wrist injury?  There’s no way to know for sure, but there’s no reason to think he won’t keep stroking the ball like he did before 2006.

I have been busy as hell with studying for the Bar lately, so I haven’t had a whole lot of time to comment on the Cubs current situation.  It’s not that the 8-game losing streak isn’t a big deal, but how they’ve lost has been painful to watch.  Here are a few thoughts regarding the North Side Shitheads that have been on my mind:

• Where are Hoffpauir and Koyie Hill?  They got the start last night and it paid off, but Lou needs to go with the hot (or even lukewarm) bat at this point.  I know Soto and Lee are team leaders, but if they aren’t hitting and the team isn’t scoring runs, its time to make a change.
• Hey Milton Bradley: Shut up.  I’m not saying you’re wrong, in fact you are totally right.  Everyone knows the umps are calling a bigger strike zone for you.  They do it because they don’t like you.  You know what won’t make them like you?  Publicly bitching about the strike zone they are calling for you.
• Is it really time to hit the panic button?  Because if it is, the Cubs should consider two guys that are raking down in the minors.  Jake Fox and Josh Vitters are crushing the ball down on the farm, so why not bring one or both of them up?  I know that would mean we would have to send someone down, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
• If you didn’t see the Harden DL thing coming, you are blind or retarded.
• Someone take Neal Cotts out behind a shed and put a bullet in him.  That guy is just terrible.  I don’t care if we don’t have any lefties, I’m sure there are righties in the pen with better ERAs against lefties than Cotts.  Well I’m not completely sure, but Cotts sucks.  Send his ass down.  I wish we had another starter so we could move Marshall to the bullpen.  Jake Peavy anyone?
• Ok this is a little out there, but did anyone consider moving Soriano to 2nd base and giving Reed Johnson and Micah Hoffpauir some more ABs in the outfield?  I know Fonzy is sub-par defensively, but runs are hard to come by these days.
• Lou Piniella is a great manager.  I mean I love the guy.  I don’t agree with every decision he makes, but he is usually good at managing and motivating his players and he seems to have a pretty good understanding of the game.  That being said, this recent quote from him has got to be a joke:

Modern technology is a wonderful thing for 21st Century baseball managers, who have computerized scouting reports and stats at their fingertips at all times. But sometimes older is better, and after watching his players go back to the video room one too many times to replay poor at-bats, manager Lou Piniella is ready to put his foot down.

“We’ve talked about closing down the video [room],” Piniella said. “But what happens invariably is the pitching coach will go down there from time to time, and so will the hitting coach.

“But if we have to, we’ll close it down for the players, at least during the game. Visualization is a great tool. But at the same time, boy, visualize good things. Don’t keep putting bad pictures in your mind.”

That sort of has a Dusty Baker ring to it, doesn’t it?

• This isn’t really related to the Cubs play on the field, but have you seen the new hats the Cubs are selling?  I think these goofy hats have gone a bit too far.  Apparently it is called the “Watermelon Smoothie“.  I mean the baseball gods cannot be happy about this kind of thing, can they?
• If you would have told me Kosuke Fukudome would be the only Cub hitting over .300 on May 27, I would have laughed and asked you if you drank the acid-laced punch.  Well here we are, and lost in all this horrible horrible shitty 8-game losing streak has been Kosuke’s resurgence this season.  His home run last night wasn’t bad either.
• Is Aramis Ramirez the glue in this Cubs lineup?  I mean ever since he went down it’s like no one can seem to hit.  I’m not sure what his clubhouse presence is like, but just having him in the lineup seems to make the other players around him better.  Hurry back Rammy!

• Jake Peavy says no to the White Sox.  How embarassing. [Smells Like Mascot]
• As embarassing as a 20-0 loss?  I don’t know for sure, but the Sox had a BAD day yesterday. [Deadspin]
• The Bulls have a new GM, sort of, even though Pax is still kind of running things.  Either way, the new guy wants to keep Ben Gordon. [By The Horns] + [Sun-Times]
• Lou is getting angry and D-Lee and Soto may be the first to feel his wrath.  Get ready for the benchings. [Wrigleyville23]
• Get ready for video gambling Chicagoans, because the state senate just passed a bill legalizing it.  WOO!! [Chicago Breaking News]
• Ok Ethan, don’t get too excited, but Mark DeRosa is apparently on the trading block. [Shysterball]
• So now the City is trying to tax Bears season-ticket holders under some amusement tax.  I’m not “amused”. [BlogDown]
• Robert Horry lost his 7 championship rings.  [BDL]
• Well, at least Horry didn’t sell his rings…yet. [Chicago Breaking News]
• The Fridge is out of the hospital.  Whew. [WCG]
• The Bulls are bringing in some potential draftees to work out.  Not exactly the cream of the crop, but they are prospects I guess. [Blogabull]

• Big Baby Davis pushes a little kid after his game winner.  The Celtics are such bitches. [Docksquad]
• The Cubs finally won one yesterday.  Finally something went right. [Sun-Times]
• So at first they said he would be okay, then they said 4-6 weeks, but now it looks like Ramirez is going to miss about 2 months.  Oh and an MRI for Lee.  The baseball gods are angry at the Cubs, big surprise. [Bleacher Nation]
• New technology used on old video to make the famous Bird steal into a NBA amazing happens commercial. [Truehoop]
• What a funny (and fitting) new name for the Mets new stadium.  I think they should go with it. [Zoner]

• The Cubs beat the A’s 20-5 yesterday in spring training.  Paul Bako had four hits and three RBIs even though he entered the game in the sixth inning.  Clutch! [Sun-Times]
• This is always fun.  The Wonderlic scores got leaked again this year, so we get to know who is smart and who won the Vince Young award.  [Awful Announcing]
• There seem to be reports that the Lions are leaning toward taking three different players with the #1 overall pick in the draft.  Funny thing is, they are all right.  [Deadspin]
• The NFL announced its schedule for the opening weekend and Thanksgiving Day.  The Bears and Packers will play the Sunday Night game on NBC the first week of the season.  [FanHouse]
• Bulls avoid embarrassing failure to beat the Wizards by two last night.  They’re still in the thick of the playoff race.  [Sun-Times]
• Derrek Lee was not happy with the World Baseball Classic folks for pressuring him to replace Kevin Youkilis on the US roster.  Lee was just returning for injury, so I suppose I’m mad at them too.  [Tribune]
• This is a great idea that I have somehow missed out on for years: a fantasy baseball league where the goal is to have the worst players.  My team would be called “The Pittsburgh Pirates.”  [Sharapova's Thigh]
• NQTC ran into a buzzsaw in the first round of the Blog Name Tournament in the form of Hugging Harold Reynolds.  We got whooped.  [Zoner]