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rogers park bryan wrote: badrogue17 wrote: Well count such noted winners as AL Soriano and Matt Garza in on the "poor Jeff Samardzija " bandwagon.
The ones who have left talk as if they’ve escaped.
As if the Cubs have become baseball’s Alcatraz, where players do time until free agency or the inevitable trade while the lucky ones get reduced sentences by virtue of one-year flip contracts.
Just listen to Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Matt Garza’s advice to Jeff Samardzija, who will be on the trading block this summer.
“All I can tell him is keep pitching; pitch your way out of it,” said Garza, who was acquired by the Cubs in 2011 to help the team win, but instead endured the worst three-year stretch in franchise history. “Keep your eyes focused, your eyes straight ahead and just pitch. There’s nothing else you can do.”
Except maybe keep track of the days by scratching marks on the cell-block wall.
Nobody could blame Samardzija for taking the advice of his friend and former teammate, not with the way he has pitched this season without a win to show for it.
The powerful right-hander is in the top six in the National League in ERA and top five in innings pitched but has lost would-be wins to blown saves (twice) and zero run support (twice).
“I told him, ‘It doesn’t matter, dude, you play in Chicago,’ ’’ Garza said. “ ‘I was there, and I lost 30 wins in three seasons. It’s not your fault. You pitch your way out of there.’ ”
Garza (traded to the Texas Rangers last July), New York Yankees outfielder Alfonso Soriano (traded to the Yankees in July) and Brewers third baseman Aramis Ramirez (free agent after 2011) all say the same thing when they look at what the Cubs have become under Theo Epstein’s stewardship.
They found relief and new life when they left for teams that were trying to win. And they’re glad they’re gone.
Especially after seeing a 2014 version of the Cubs that fell to 7-16 after its 5-3 loss to the Brewers on Saturday. There is no discernable end to the process.
“It’s huge,” Ramirez said. “We’ve all been around for a while, and the next thing for us is winning. We don’t want to be in a development situation and a rebuilding process. I don’t have 10 years left. I have to try to win now, and same thing for Garza and Sori.”
Garza, 30, and Samardzija, 29, were young enough for the Cubs to pursue long-term deals. But neither wanted to settle for mid-market prices from the big-market Cubs, especially with no assurances that winning was on the immediate horizon.
And the Cubs’ brass didn’t have the will — or perhaps the resources — to risk bigger bets on the potential frontline starters.
Now Samardzija is all but certain to go the way of Soriano, Garza, Scott Feldman, Ryan Dempster and several others the last two years: traded for prospects in July.
“I’m hoping the best for him because he’s a young kid who deserves a shot to maybe go win something,” Garza said.
Maybe in New York, said Soriano.
“I love Samardzija. I hope he comes here,” he said during the Cubs’ recent trip to New York. “If not here, somewhere he feels comfortable and gets a chance to win. Because that’s what it’s all about. At the end of the day, we play to win. We don’t play to have fun and just lose. We play to be a champion.”
Ramirez finds it hard to believe the Cubs aren’t doing more to build around Samardzija.
“You just don’t find those guys,” he said. “I’d take him, for sure. Who wouldn’t take Samardzija? He’s the perfect guy for any ballclub.”
Samardzija isn’t trying to escape. But he is hungry to win.
“Everybody’s here for the present,” he said. “Tomorrow’s not guaranteed to anybody, let alone next year or the year after that.”
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No, no you don't . You guys play for whomever pays you the most you fucking piece of shit liar. Garza is a whiny bitch and always has been. There's always an excuse (just like in Minnesota, TB, Chicago and NW Milwaukee). He's also very dumb Did the Cubs cost Matt Garza 30 wins?
By David Schoenfield | April 28, 2014 12:07:40 PM PDTOne thing about baseball players: They're good at playing baseball. They're not always so good about analyzing baseball. Case in point, this quote from Matt Garza, when advising former Cubs teammate Jeff Samardzija: "I told [Samardzija], 'It doesn't matter, dude. You play in Chicago. I was there, and I lost 30 wins in three seasons. It's not your fault. You pitch your way out of there.'"
OK, Garza's point was that if Samardzija keeps pitching well, he becomes more attractive on the trade market. Garza's other point was that he lost wins due to a bad team around him. But 30? Really? In his two-plus seasons with the Cubs (he was traded to the Rangers in his third year), Garza went 21-18 in 60 starts. Taken literally, Garza is suggesting he should have won 51 times in 60 starts. That's a ridiculous percentage,of course, but let's say Garza deserved to win every time he pitched well. In those 60 starts, he had 38 quality starts (and zero "blown" quality starts by the bullpen). If we stretch the definition of quality start to every game he allowed three runs or fewer, we get 42 such games (although in one of those he pitched just three innings). So that leaves 18 other starts, nine of which needed to be wins to get us to 51. He actually won one of those games already (he allowed five runs in six innings to beat the Brewers on June 16, 2011. We can find a few more potential wins if we're generous: --April 25, 2011: 6 IP, 5 R, 1 ER --Aug. 14, 2011: 5 IP, 4 R, 2 ER --Aug. 25, 2011: 5 IP, 6 R, 3 ER --June 13, 2012: 6 IP, 5 R, 3 ER We classify those as games where his defense let him down.
So now we're up to 46 wins. He gave up four runs in 6.1 innings against the Angels on June 5, 2013. That's not a quality start, but maybe in Garza's mind that's good enough to get a win, even though starting pitchers don't usually get wins in starts like that. (Last season, a started pitched between six and seven innings and allowed four runs 295 times; he got the win 53 times.) Again, we're giving him the benefit of the doubt here so we'll say Garza "deserved" to win that one. And, who knows, maybe the Cubs had some misplays in the field. That's 47 wins. I can't really come up with four more. He had one start where he allowed nine runs, two with seven, three others with six runs that we didn't look at yet and five more where he allowed five earned runs. You can't say he deserved to win any of those games. But you know, 47 isn't so far from 51. Maybe if Garza had Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in the lineup and Andrelton Simmons and Andruw Jones playing defense behind him, he does win 47 games.
Although even the '27 Yankees scored two runs or fewer in 28 games. If there's a bigger point here it's that in this age of declining offense, the old definition of a quality start -- six or more innings, three runs or fewer -- probably needs to be revised. Six innings with a 4.50 ERA isn't really a "quality" start these days. To be fair, Garza did pitch in some bad luck. He allowed zero runs or one run in 17 starts with the Cubs (not counting that three-inning game) and won just 10 of those games. He allowed two runs in 14 starts and went 6-2.
Garza did pitch his way out of Chicago. He's with the Brewers now. The team with the best record in baseball. He has one win in five starts.
And the writer is dead on about quality starts in the era He may be going overboard with his number, but what he's saying is basically no different than what a bunch of guys here have been arguing with me about. Garza's stance is conventional wisdom. Why wouldn't he believe that he "deserved" to win more games? He reads about "run support" just like everyone else. The game has created the weak starter of whom not much is expected. if you watch any amount of baseball you can see guys every night start looking at the dugout when they get near 100 pitches. The bar has been set so low most people have actually come to accept the crazy idea that a guy who rarely pitches as well as the other starters he faces is "good" based on some other numbers. And for those who keep insisting that W/L record is a bad predictor of future performance, go ahead and empty the bank for Garza based on his WAR. He's not on the Cubs anymore. His team has the best record in baseball and most of the losses have come in his games. What's his excuse now? He doesn't have one. He's a fucking loser. And his W/L record told you exactly that.
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