high expectations and a higher than average payroll did in Don Baylor. While Baylor should get a good amount of the blame, I think the Cub's poor performance is really management's fault. They didn't give the Cubs what they needed for last year's post-season push and their signing of often Injured Alou has turned out to be disastrous. Further, Cubs management failed to resign some key bullpen help. The key to yesterday's events was making Jim Hendry the GM. That will likely to be Andy MacPhail's best move.
i'll give the cubs credit for signing alou. despite his many injuries, alou has always played at a high level; his early-season dropoff was very unfortunate and not according to his history. (for the months of june and july, alou is hitting .316 with an OBP of .376 in june and .350 in july. his SLG in those months have been .490 and .737 respectively. the blunders this season was trusting jeff fassero to anything other than long-relief mop-up duty and trusting mcgriff would still hit. mcgriff, in particular, was brought in to win last year and not this year, but he has been batting better lately.
according with, i should say.
