Cubs manager Quade keeping his options open
Welcome to the middle of winter, Mike Quade.
Opening Day is two-and-a-half months away, but inquiring minds in the media and among the fan base want to know, among other things:
• Who will be the opening-day starter?
• Who will be the leadoff hitter?
• Who gets the spots at the back of the pitching rotation?
To all of this, Quade said, there will come a time.
The one thing he did seem certain of was being happy with the club general manager Jim Hendry and the front office have given him to date, one month before pitchers and catchers report for spring training.
Specifically, Quade said he likes the signings of first baseman Carlos Pena and reliever Kerry Wood and the trade for right-handed starter Matt Garza.
“The thing that I love is I go to the winter meetings, and I just watched these guys (Hendry and front office) work,” Quade said Wednesday at the start of the Cubs' annual winter caravan. “Then the winter meetings end, and you know there are some names on the table. I think fans and people get a little disappointed. Well, I walked away from there knowing it ain't over yet.”
The Pena deal got done at the winter meetings, and the Cubs signed Wood shortly after that. Then, last week, the Cubs traded five players for Garza and two minor-leaguers.
“Now, on top of that, I'm living in Tampa, or Sarasota, and I'm listening to radio and all the stuff down there, and everybody's worrying about Garza and this and that,” Quade said. “I got a phone call from Jim, who basically said they had an opportunity. I went fishing that day. When I got out, I heard a lot of lamenting on sports talk radio that they had lost him. So I said, ‘We must have got him.' What a great addition he is.”
Where Garza fits in the starting rotation is up for grabs right now — anywhere from 1 to 3, with Ryan Dempster and Carlos Zambrano also in that mix. When asked about his opening-day starter, Quade gave an honest answer.
“I have no idea,” he said. “What I know is I've got three great pitchers to choose from. There are too many variables to look at. There's no question that Garza's in the mix. We'll take a look at Z and Demp and Garza and see where we go with that.
“You dodge and you duck, but ultimately you take a look at the schedule and how it sets up. I've got to get more familiar with Garz and understand him a little better. It'll be one of those three, barring an injury.”
Quade also has resisted the notion to come up with lineups. Naturally, the subject of the leadoff hitter came up, and the usual suspects of Blake DeWitt and Jeff Baker were mentioned, with Quade not ruling out a two- or three-man rotation
“To form any solid opinions (now) and say, ‘Boy, I see this and I see that,' that's not me,” Quade said. “That's not for everybody, but it's definitely not for me.”
At this point, the Cubs don't have a “typical” leadoff hitter in the sense of a high-on-base-percentage or speed guy.
“You look at this club, and I do right now, and you say, ‘Who's a perennial leadoff guy?'” he asked. “Who's the prototypical leadoff guy? Do we have one? And I would say, ‘I don't think so.'
“OK, when the answer is, ‘I don't think so,' I can mix and match. Maybe somebody asserts himself as that guy, again, keeping an open mind and just making sure you weigh all the variables.”
As far as the back of the rotation goes, much will depend on the health of veteran Carlos Silva, who missed much of the final two months with heart and elbow issues. Randy Wells pitched almost 200 innings last year. After that, lefty Tom Gorzelanny and right-hander Jeff Samardzija are in the mix, as is righty Casey Coleman, who went 3-1 with a 2.81 ERA over the final month of 2010.
The Cubs also plan to give fireballer Andrew Cashner a shot at the rotation, and they're talking about allowing left-handed reliever James Russell to compete for a starting job in the spring.
“There's a competition at the bottom is the way I look at it,” Quade said. “We need to come out of there and be healthy and everything else. Silv hopefully comes back healthy, Wellsie can do a nice job, Gorz. There's 4-5 guys who are going to come to camp that I would argue are in the mix and may be in the mix for the bullpen.”