August 5, 2020: Mistakes Happen

Everybody makes mistakes, some more costly than others. I get it; I flushed away 7 years of good credit with one of my top mistakes, but a $43 million dollar mistake? I don’t think it’s too early to declare the Craig Kimbrel signing one of the biggest missteps by the Cubs.

Playing Monday Morning QB is easy though; we know this. Hey, at the time, I loved the signing. He was the best guy out there, and we got him. I will give credit to Theo for that. They don’t hesitate to do what they think is going to help the team, no matter the cost. Of course, within reason, but I thought the Kimbrel signing was a good one. He missed half a season, he was coming off an injury; we shouldn’t have expected that much from him last year, right? Well, he was bad. I don’t think he was as bad as the numbers indicated, meaning, he did have some good appearances; the only thing was his bad performances were REALLY bad, and there were a number of them. Coming into this year, certainly he would be better.

So far so bad for Craig. He’s been horrible, I mean horrible. The best thing about it thus far is that he has not cost us a game. He’s tried his hardest to, but thankfully, we’ve escaped each and every time. Let’s look at Tuesday night. I had already written him off, telling my brother that the only time they should bring him in the game is in a low leverage situation. Being up 5-2, facing the middle to the bottom of the order against one of the worst teams in the league seemed to be a safe play. Still, Craig succeeded in disappointing. Thankfully, Rossy pulled his ass quick, and we were able to salvage a victory… barely.

Do the Cubs need him to be successful this year? I don’t think so. Sure, it would be nice if this multi millionaire could eat up a couple innings for us, and yeah, I thought his stuff was a little better this time out, but we cannot put him in a position to screw us again. He needs to come into a game when we’re either up big, or down big. Let him try to build from there. There is no way he should be pitching any meaningful innings any time soon.

Am I too quick with the hook here? In a 60 game season, you have to be. There is no time to screw around with the bullpen blowing games. Actually, the pen hasn’t been bad lately. I like Ryan even though he had that rocky save chance a few nights ago. Rowan Wick is in the circle of trust. Even Casey Sadler, that guy who didn’t pitch too well first time out, has been good. We’re starting to see who are guys can be out of the pen; Kimbrel is not part of that group.

It is what it is; we need to win games, period. If the guy can’t help us do that, he shouldn’t be out there. Bad thing is, we’re paying this guy $16M this year, and next year… to be a non-contributor. Mistakes happen? Yes they do. Let’s not compound the mistake by keep shoving him in there. If he gets his act together, great; if he doesn’t, then he doesn’t. He should not make or break this team. At 9-2, the Cubs are off to the best start in baseball; let’s keep focusing on getting those Ws. Go Cubs!