I believe it was French tragedian turned Chicago tragedian, Juan Pierre Corneille, that said…“The greater the baseball effort, the greater the baseball glory.”
Todd Hollandsworth, who played in two seasons (2004-05) with the Cubs as part of a 12-year major-league career, serves as a Cubs studio analyst for Comcast SportsNet. Despite Ramirez’s improving statistics (.287 average, 21 homers, 71 RBIs), Hollandsworth took the veteran third baseman to task Friday for failing to be a positive influence on the team.
“When you’ve got your best player—he’s your best hitter, we’ve watched it for years now—and you can’t seem to have a positive effect on the guys around you in your clubhouse, getting them to step up or play to a different level, it’s just hard for me to swallow, especially when you’re being paid to be that guy,” Hollandsworth told “The McNeil and Spiegel Show” on WSCR-AM 670.
“Then you bring into question effort and that’s one thing in the game of baseball that really is inexcusable. One hundred percent effort all the time, there’s really no reason for you not to have 100 percent effort. He’s got impressionable kids around him right now: Darwin Barney, Starlin Castro, these kids are growing up, they’re watching it and you know what, they’re not getting any better.”
...“It’s going to be another 100 years before this team wins another (World Series) if they continue to let the inmates run it,” Hollandsworth said.
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1. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Griffin (Vlad) Posted: August 12, 2011 at 09:29 PM (#3898848)Let's ask Todd about how his mentoring of Matt Murton and Jason Dubois worked out :)
(When I saw the headline, I assumed he was just piling on Hanley).
Funny, I assumed he was airing some old grievance about Manny (no idea if they actually played together). Even after reading the excerpt, I had to think for a few minutes about which Ramirez he was talking about.
So--Ramirez is being paid for Alfonso Soriano to not suck?
Speaking of which, my next-door neighbor called me all excited early one morning a couple summers ago to tell me he'd hit a triple off Todd Hollandsworth in his south side baseball league the night before. "THE Todd Hollandsworth?," I asked. "Yup," he said.
Sidenote: Hollandsworth only played 2 seasons with the Cubs? I absolutely think of him as a Cubs lifer. Weird.
The Cubs didn't pay Hollandsworth nearly enough for Jason Dubois to ever turn into anything.
So what you're saying is, you don't remember exactly where you were and what you were doing that glorious fall day in '96 when it was announced he'd won his ROY award with the Dodgers.
I even thought of Alexei before I thought of Aramis.
Or Richard. Hollandsworth says he could've been a regular Ted Bundy if he'd wanted it bad enough.
Hollandsworth's election was what finally knocked the Clinton-Dole election off the front page. That was when front pages existed.
This is clearly false; they won't win one even then.
That's the last year of Soriano's contract, so they could be good.
In fairness, that was a pretty boring campaign. The Todd Hollandsworth ROY Award of presidential campaigns, if you will.
Anyway, my takeaway from this is that the Cubs don't really want to bring Aramis back, and have been bad-mouthing him behind the scenes.
But he's already refused a trade--they should spend their usual trade-value-destroying efforts on someone who's not a lost cause!
Lost cause? You're so defeatist - there's still plenty of time to dump him for nothing in a waiver deal.
Or more relevant to this situation, Mark Grace, Diamondbacks lifer.
Against his will, of course.
Players have poor fundamentals -- fault of the players.
Too many overpaid, underperforming vets -- fault of the players.
Now if this sort of thing had been going on for only this season, you could see that. But I've been reading these articles about the Cubs for my entire life. At some point, the writers might want to try to hold the front office, manager and coaches responsible. Granted, they do so once every 3-4 years or so once they've run out of good players to blame.
And can we please get over this notion that Darwin Barney is some baseball talent. He's 25, has never hit and is about an average fielder -- nice, cheap bench fodder but nothing more.
I will note that, in a strange way, this article may represent progress. Castro currently leads the NL in hits. When I was a kid, that would have been a huge story in Chicago and nobody would be talking about how he hasn't improved -- leading the league in hits at 21? Superstar!
By the way, near as I can tell, only 2 players 21 or younger have led their league in hits -- Cobb (at 20 and 21) and Kaline (at 20). Castro is quite unlikely to catch Waner's 223. Among recent SS, AROD's 215 is probably out of reach but Templeton's 200 (1977) could easily fall.
I think you're confusing him with John Mabry. :-)
You forgot Cal McVey, but most people do.
You can't forget what you never knew.
I will now proceed to forget Cal McVey.
Did Hollandsworth also take Carlos Zambrano to task for the team's pitching woe's since he's making like a billion dollars a year and now sports an ERA nearing 5?
In defense of the voters that year, there wasn't a super-obvious alternative. Renteria probably would look a lot better in retrospect but it's not like he lit the league on fire that year. Hollandsworth put up pretty decent offensive numbers in LA, which is not unimpressive. It just happened to be the best year he'd have in the majors - no reason the voters should have seen that coming.
Highest paid player is the coach on the field. Which makes me wonder why Soriano is getting a pass here. Also, why have coaches in the first place.
We're living a reality in which Todd Hollandsworth is paid to have a camera pointed at his head for his expertise.
Todd Hollandsworth is the Mike Quade of analysts.
So I do credit Hollandsworth for that. You know, as far as it goes.
Does he lollygag the ball around the infield?
Both Kendall and Renteria were obviously better, once you got outside of the LA hype machine.
Actually WAR gives the nod easily to FP Santangelo at 3.7 WAR in just 437 PA. Renteria is second at 3. Kendall clomps home at a mere 1.8 and Hollandsworth at 1.3. WAR even likes Alex Ochoa and Marvin Benard better than Todd (and Kendall).
They probably were better, but you need to get to defensive adjustments to get there. And since basically no one thinks that single-season defensive numbers are worth the bits they're stored on, I'm not sure how "obvious" that choice really is. There's room for argument, sure, but I don't think the Hollandsworth choice is at all ridiculous. If he would have gone on to play consistently at his 1996 level no one would remember it as a poor choice.
WAR hates Hollandsworth's defense. I don't think it would be controversial to say say that he was not well regarded as a defensive player, and that the evidence generally backs up this view.
So what we have are two players who are of generally equal value at the plate. (Yeah Santangelo's OBP edge is undervalued in OPS+. It's still no biggie) One played a little more. The other played a more demanding position and played it well (and filled in well at other positions when required)
Retneria gains not so much from fielding runs as fielding runs plus positional adjustment. You've got a below average (defensively) left fielder with a small offensive (and playing time) edge over a good defensive shortstop (again, there is nothing that seems controversial in those assessments).
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