Oh, Those Anomalies

Bears’ president—and how exactly do you get that job?—Ted Phillips drank the Kool-Aid at the team’s New Year’s Eve press conference, saying, “[Chiefs’ starting quarterback] Patrick Mahomes is an anomaly.  I mean, nobody expected that kind of performance, right?”  The mind boggles.

What Phillips terms an “anomaly” other sports’ executives know as “talent”; the trick is to find players who’ve got it.  The White Sox drafted starter Mark Buehrle in the 38^th round of the 1998 draft, and Buehrle made his big-league debut two years later.  I guess Phillips would call Buehrle an anomaly.  I wonder what then-Sox scouting director Duane Shaffer calls finding a pitcher who went on to throw two no-hitters (one of them a perfect game) on his way to amassing 214 career wins?  Doing my job, maybe.

Or consider that the Astros signed a 16-year old Jose Altuve off a tryout camp.  In baseball, at least, you go where the talent is.  With the Bears, they can’t even identify first-round talent ready for the picking.  Bear down, fans.  Right?

Asleep at the Wheel

Addressing reporters yesterday, Bears’ GM Ryan Pace claimed, “Our heads are not in the sand” as if an 8-8 record would be considered OK; reality suggests otherwise.  Team chairman George McCaskey, with reality suggesting otherwise, claimed “I’m not a patient person.  That’s where it’s really helpful to have Ryan.  He talks about not getting too high or too low, trying to keep an even keel.  That’s important for me to remember because I react like a fan.  That’s no way to run a football team.”

Yo, George:  That’s exactly the way to run a football team.  Your GM has been at it for five years, and his teams have accumulated a won-loss record of 34-46; that comes out to a .425 winning percentage, folks.  Those numbers don’t indicate patience.  They show organizational incompetence from ownership on down.

In a line of gibber that would make Rick Hahn’s blush, Pace said that with a lot of young quarterbacks, development is “never going to be a straight line, it’s never going to be linear.”  The guess is that he’s referring to Drew Brees, someone Pace saw a lot of when he worked in the Saints’ front office.  If so, the Bears’ GM got it wrong, again.

At age 25 (that being Trubisky’s age this year), Brees threw for 27 touchdown passes vs. 17 for Trubisky, who did manage more interceptions, 10 vs. 7.  The next year, 2006, Brees “slipped” to 24/15 td’s to picks, and got traded to the Saints.  The Bears were too happy with Rex Grossman to be bothered.

The Chargers trading away a 26-year old Drew Brees rates right up there with bonehead deals that sent Babe Ruth and Lou Brock to greener pastures (isn’t that right, Cub fans?).  Let me ask Pace: Do you think Mitch Trubisky is the next Drew Brees?  Really?

Ryan Pace went through eight tight ends this season.  What does that tell you?  After the news conference, Pace fired the tight ends’ coach.  Pace put together an atrocious offensive line, one that included Charles Leno Jr. and his twelve penalties.  After the news conference, Pace fired the offensive line coach.  Pace hired head coach Matt Nagy, who doesn’t like to run the ball and is afraid to throw the ball over the middle.  The Bears ranked 29^th out of 32 teams this season in points scored.  After the news conference, Pace fired the offensive coordinator.

Who fires Ryan Pace?

Some Guys Have All the Luck

 Theo Epstein and Rick Hahn must get up every morning and ask themselves what they did wrong to deserve the near-daily abuse they get as baseball general managers.  Oh, it comes with the territory, for sure.  But in Chicago there’s one general manager who doesn’t have to answer to anybody he doesn’t want to, and that’s Ryan Pace of the Bears.

According to today’s Tribune, the last time Pace addressed the Chicago media at a news conference was September 2^nd, three days BEFORE the season opened.  I mean, Bears’ fever had everyone by the ears, nose and throat back then, and Pace still couldn’t bring himself to appear before reporters.  This is arrogance, this is knowing what your bosses will tolerate.  In that if nothing else, Pace is a master.

Starting with spring training and going clear through the end of the regular season, Epstein and Hahn deal with the Chicago media on a weekly, if not a daily, basis.  You may not like what they have to say, and I can’t stand most of the passive-voice gibberish that Hahn spouts, but Chicago baseball GMs, to their everlasting credit, face the music early and often.  But what of Ryan Pace, architect of those 8-8 Bears?

The master of mediocrity addresses the media, on New Year’s Eve, when most people’s attention is split between making merry at midnight and watching college football come noon.  Here’s hoping reporters put Ryan through his paces, and a whole lot more.    

Trust Me

Your Chicago Bears pulled off an exciting victory against the Vikings’ second string—don’t want your most valuable players hurt going into the playoffs—by a score of 21-19 to finish the season at 8-8.  Head coach Matt Nagy said after the game the 2020 season has already started for him.  Here’s hoping it’s not a waste of his time, or ours.

Nagy’s afraid to run the ball or throw it downfield.  If he doesn’t address the reasons why, next year becomes a repeat of this year.  And even if he does, general manager Ryan Pace may be on a different page than Nagy, if not in a different universe.  I mean, who ultimately is responsible for this roster filled with invisible tight ends and offensive linemen?  Whoever it is, that’s the guy you want to great rid of.

But we’re talking the McCaskeys here, and they’re enamored with Pace.  In other words, Pace gets to clean up the mess he’s made, or frustrate us all in the attempt.  Pace thought he’d assembled a really great offensive line to protect quarterback Mitch Trubisky.  Oops.  According to The Athletic, Trubisky was sacked 38 times, ninth most in the NFL.  I think it’s safe to say that Pace knows offensive linemen about as well as he does tight ends.  See Trey Burton, Adam Shaheen, Jesper Horsted….

Pace believes in Trubisky, which is to say he never believed in Jimmy Garoppolo, at least not enough to trade for in 2016 or ’17.  The 49ers did, which is a major reason they just won the NFC West.  Garoppolo threw for 27 touchdowns in the regular season vs. 17 for Trubisky, with 13 interceptions to Trubisky’s 10.  But, hey, maybe Pace figures it out and Trubisky gets better next year.  We can always hope.

Just don’t expect much of anything.   

Christmastime

The past can be a dangerous place to spend time in.  Stay too long, and you’re liable to start talking about how great things used to be.  For you, maybe, for anyone who was lynched, not so much.  But this is the time of year the past is the most appealing to me, the most tempting.

We didn’t have extravagant Christmases when I was growing up, but they were nice, and my parents always made sure that I got a couple of good toys to make up for the disappointment that came from receiving clothes.  (EBay has allowed me to start reacquiring the contents of my toy chest, by the way.)  My father grew up in a one-parent household, except for those years with his stepfather, who wanted my grandmother to get rid of the two kids she had by her first husband.  Good times.

So, when I think of Christmases past, the memories tend to be bittersweet because of what my dad went through.  God knows what they’re like for Clare; she’ll tell you how I was a real tree-Nazi every December.  Everything had to be just right, and God forbid she drop an ornament.  We had a number of ornaments from my parents, and if one of those broke, it would’ve been like taking something precious away from my dad.

The autographed picture of Walt Williams I bought recently is both Christmas gift and New Year’s resolution.  Williams is taking a swing along the third base side of Comiskey Park, those glorious arches that circled the park in the background.  He’s wearing the red pinstriped uniform of the early 1970s, and, for a publicity shot, he sure looks serious.  Walt is also sporting some serious sideburns.

Williams had a life not unlike my dad’s, in its trials and disappointments.  The one was a ballplayer who never quite established himself as a regular, this despite a ten-year big-league career, and the other was a man who had to navigate life with a seventh-grade education.  Sometimes, we’re lucky with the heroes we choose.

Now, I have to find a good spot to hang that picture, so that’ll feel like Christmas year-round.  

Silly Season

I opened up the Tribune sports’ section this morning and nearly fell off my chair—the Bears’ got the same amount of space usually reserved for the White Sox and Bulls on the road.  How the mighty have fallen.

If only people would stop writing silly stuff about the White Sox.  Really, all it takes is a twitter account to turn someone into a reputable source, that and the imprimatur that goes with being part of MLB.com.  Read Baseball Pravda, and you come away thinking the White Sox are hot for free-agent outfielder Yasiel Puig.  But never once is it explained why that would be.

At the age of 29, why would Puig want to sign a likely one-year contract to platoon in right field?  The only reason I can see is he owes money big time and needs to get his hands on some, pronto, before the bone breakers track him down.  Unless Puig is being advised by Mickey Mouse, it would make more sense for him to start for the Marlins than platoon with the Sox.  If he puts up big numbers in Miami, he’d most likely get moved to a contender.  Sign with the Sox, the odds are against him getting the at-bats to put up big numbers that could translate into a nice contract the next season.  Oh, and one other thing.

Why would the Sox want Puig in the first place?  Puig and Jose Abreu would mix about as well as oil and water.  Outside of the alliteration, the idea of a Puig platoon just doesn’t make sense, unless you go for solutions in search of a problem.  Say what you will about Sox GM Rick Hahn (and I usually do), he doesn’t strike me as the type.  The Sox already have themselves Nomar Mazara for right field, with Leury Garcia and Adam Engel as platoon candidates.

Signing Puig would be downright silly.

A Long List

The wannabe GMs out there are cheering over reports the White Sox have signed soon-to-be 37-year old Edwin Encarnacion to a one-year, $12 million deal, with team option for a second year.  Allow me to add some perspective.

Consider the following: Walt Dropo; Larry Doby (first go-around); Ted Kluszewski; Minnie Minoso (second go-around); Roy Sievers; Bill “Moose” Skowron; Jim King; Rocky Colavito; Ken Boyer; Deron Johnson; Bobby Bonds; Carlton Fisk; Greg Luzinski; George Foster; Oscar Gamble (second go-around); Ron Kittle (second go-around); George Bell; Harold Baines (second and third go-arounds); Jose Canseco; Jim Thome; Ken Griffey Jr.; Andruw Jones; Manny Ramirez; Adam Dunn; and Adam LaRoche.  Every one of them a slugger and every one of them acquired by the Sox after they turned 30. 

Some put up nice numbers, some hardly any numbers at all.  If Encarnacion can do what  Minoso, Fisk, Luzinski or Baines did in their good years, next season should be interesting.  If not, Encarnacion joins a long list of players who came too late to the party at 35^th and Shields.