OPENING SHOT | STEVE ROSENBLOOM
This would be a great time for the Bears to win a game because of Mitch Trubisky.
More Rosenbloom,
Some general managers believe the way to demand urgency and attention from players is to trade a big name.
Send away a significant player, send a message.
Nobody’s untouchable, anyone can be traded.
Produce, or you might be next, fella. You get the idea.
It might not be right. It might not always work. But it’s a weapon GMs have unsheathed.
Will Cubs President Theo Epstein be that guy after spending much of his postseason postmortem demanding urgency from his roster in 2019 in the wake of its 2018 failure?
If Epstein wanted to underscore his words with actions, he would have fired manager Joe Maddon. But he didn’t do that. He fired the hitting coach, which stirs little when talking urgency.
So, if Epstein intends to act as urgently as he demands his roster plays, he would face dealing a Cubs hero, and it seems his name would be Kyle Schwarber.
Even if the idea of such a move is to show no player is untouchable, it seems Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, Kris Bryant and probably Willson Contreras are, in fact, untouchable. For now, anyway. So who’s left? More to the point, who’s left among position players who are from this regime and/or are beloved postseason contributors?
Schwarber, certainly. Albert Almora Jr. too. Ian Happ. I don’t see Almora and Happ bringing back much; Almora collapsed in the second half, and Happ was the poster child for inconsistency. David Bote and Tommy La Stella have moments but not good trade value.
So, we’re back to Schwarber. Trading him would seem to represent a significant message because Schwarber has been a prized draft choice of the Epstein regime. Sacrifice shows some urgency, no?
It might be that Epstein has been open to trading Schwarber but found that other teams loved him a lot less than the Cubs, even though he appears to be the perfect American League trade piece as a designated hitter.
The bad news might be that the lack of Schwarber infatuation among other teams underscored something else Epstein said at his postmortem: It’s time to judge players on production, not projections.
That’s a solid conclusion. A good barometer. An excellent motto. And one at which you would have wanted the Cubs to arrive before everybody else did.
When asked in the spring about a Cubslike World Series hangover in 2018, Astros pitcher Dallas Keuchel declared: “We’re not the Cubs. I firmly believe we have better players.” Keuchel and those better players were eliminated from the postseason Thursday in five games, same as the Cubs a year earlier.
If there were four guys blocking Khalil Mack the way Dolphins coach Adam Gase said, then where were the 10 other Bears defenders bringing down the robot formerly known as Brock Osweiler?
The pass-interference penalty on Trey Burton that cost the Bears a Tarik Cohen touchdown in Miami was a penalty, and it’s a penalty that almost never is called. NFL officials enforce infractions like they’re playing Whac-A-Mole.
Tweet from Trey Wingo: “Packers scoring margin since 2015 1st-3rd quarter (-91) 4th quarter (+105) Aaron bleeping Rodgers.’’
ESPN did not pull a “rabbit out of its head” when it gave Jason Witten a prime job with no experience. I never thought I would pine for Dennis Miller on “Monday Night Football.’’
Chiefs linebacker Breeland Speaks said he eased up tackling Tom Brady on the Patriots quarterback’s touchdown run because of the NFL’s physics-defying emphasis on taking down quarterbacks. Troy Vincent, NFL executive vice president of football operations, said, “You’ve just got to play.” Yes. Well. Clay Matthews did that twice and twice was flagged for roughing the passer. Your duplicitous NFL at work.
Among starting quarterbacks last season, Brady led the NFL with an average of 286.1 yards per game. That would rank 14th this season (in case you wondered how crazy this year is offensively).
The Bulls served champagne at their jersey patch announcement, and I’m thinking, they used to save champagne for championship celebrations.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told ESPN that college basketball is “actually pretty clean.’’ Yes, and that’s why the feds have been taking their corruption investigation of college basketball to trial, and one trial is not enough because they need three. Lucky thing for Duke that Krzyzewski coaches P.E. instead of a course that requires critical thought.
What’s up, Rosevelt Colvin?