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The Relaxed Chicago Cubs | Print |  E-mail
Written by Justin Bridgman   
Thursday, 08 October 2009 08:57

So I've woken up this morning in a Milton Bradley defending mood. Perhaps I shouldn't use that phrase since people seem to freak out at the concept of somebody presenting a rational defense of Milton. So I'll say I'm attacking Ryan Theriot again. Last week I attacked Theriot saying that he needs to shut up and not attack Milton Bradley.

I pointed out that Theriot didn't actually hit better in the relaxed atmosphere he was so happy to have, but what about the rest of the team? In the 14 games the Cubs players got to play with a relaxed clubhouse that was Milton free they went 8-6. There was a 15th game that got rained out and the Cubs had a 86% chance of losing, but we can ignore that.

The stressed out clubhouse Cubs put up a team offensive line .256/.332/.411/.743. That produced a 75-72 record. Once Milton left and the stress was gone the Cubs put a team line of .241/.328/.366/.695. Wait? Is that a lower line across the board? Yes. The Cubs offense was worse once Milton Bradley was suspended despite being able to play in such a relaxed clubhouse.

What about on an individual level? The order is with Milton: without Milton

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Derrek Lee- .303/.386/.575/.961: .355/.500/.645/1.145
Aramis Ramirez- .321/.386/.520/.905: .276/.417/.483/.899
Kosuke Fukudome- .255/.369/.418/.787: .300/.440/.450/.890
Jeff Baker- .327/.382/.464/.846: .240/.296/.400/.696
Geovany Soto- .225/.327/.401/.737: .138/.265/.172/.437
Koyie Hill- .237/.316/.329/.645: .240/.269/.280/.549
Mike Fontenot- .237/.306/.386/.691: .227/.217/.227/.445

So what does that accomplish? Nothing the second line is small sample size ridden cherry picked BS. Still it proves my point that for the most part the numbers went down. Now I don't have a list of people who talked about a relaxed atmosphere (besides Theriot) but hopefully it wasn't Baker, Soto, Hill, or Fontenot. Those guys sucked in the stress free clubhouse era.

Next time you want to say that Milton Bradley's presence had the Cubs too stressed out to play baseball well look at the numbers and see that in fact they didn't. Bradley's only friend in the dugout (Lee) and somebody who might not even know Milton exists (Dome) were the two who played better.



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