Posts filed under 'Aramis Ramirez'
September 6th, 2008
There’s worse things than hitting ground balls with guys on base; I’m a Twins fan, and the Twins lost a one-run game the other day when they hit a leadoff triple and the next two guys struck out. Derrek Lee is going through an unlucky stretch this year, but he’s never hit into more than 18 double plays in a season before, and that was with Florida. His previous tops as a Cub was 15.
If Cubs fans hate double plays so much, maybe Chicago should trade the left side of its infield. Aramis Ramirez has hit into more double plays (81) than Derrek Lee (77) the last five years with the Cubs. And fan darling Ryan Theriot is also among the NL leaders, grounding into 16 double plays this year. So, in Theriot’s second full year with the Cubs, he has hit into more double plays than Lee hit into in any of the seven previous seasons. And Theriot never hit 46 homers in a season (and never will).
By the way, it’s going to be tough for Lee to set a double-play record; he doesn’t even lead the league. Houston’s Miguel Tejada has grounded into 27. In fewer at-bats. Three others have at least 22, all in fewer at-bats, making Lee only the fifth most-likely NL player to ground into a double play this year.
I guess Wally and all you others who are so down on D Lee would have traded Cal Ripken if you were the GM of the Orioles in the 1980s. He holds the all-time record of grounding into 350 double plays. He passed some slouch named Hank Aaron, who had set that record before he ever set the homer run and RBI records.
September 4th, 2008
Cubs fans have flip-flopped harder than any Presidential candidate. They used to love Derrek Lee and denigrate Aramis Ramirez. They said Ramirez didn’t hustle (OK, he didn’t) or hit in the clutch. They dismissed his career-high 119 RBIs in 2006 by saying he disappeared the first month after Lee was injured for the season.
Now, Cub fans call Ramirez (.276, 24 HRs, 100 RBIs) the man they want up in the clutch. And say Lee (.291, 18, 77) is a sure double-play about to happen. Truth is, Lee has been better than the Cubs could have expected. He was a career .270 hitter who had topped 90 RBIs and 30 homers once in six seasons with Florida. He’s averaged .304 with 30 HRs in his four healthy seasons in Chicago.
Lee is also a class act and a Gold Glove first basemen. His problem isn’t hitting into a league-leading 25 double plays, it was hitting .335 with 46 HRs in 2005 and making Cub fans think he was Albert Pujols.
June 25th, 2008
A co-worker here says he hates the Cubs because they can buy anyone they want. He names Alfonso Soriano, Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez as examples. That’s weak. Very weak. (At it must sound like blasphemy to all those Cub fans who for more than a decade screamed at Tribune Co. to stop squeezing nickels.)
The truth is, the Cubs rank only seventh in the Majors in payroll, two spots behind the White Sox. The White Sox have ranked in the top five for three consecutive years. The Cubs, as far as I can tell, have never been in the top five, at least not recently.
And, while the Cubs have only two regular position players who came up through their farm system (shortstop Ryan Theriot and catcher Geovanny Soto), the White Sox have just one (third baseman Joe Crede). And they tried to trade Crede all spring. Of the White Sox’ top 16 players (nine starters, five starting pitchers, closer and setup man), they’ve got exactly two home-grown players in Crede and Mark Buehrle. The Cubs have five, including Carlos Zambrano, Carlos Marmol and their revolving door at No. 5 starter.
 I would argue the Cubs have lost more in free agency (Greg Maddux, who went on to win three consecutive Cy Young Awards as soon as he left the Cubs) than they’ve ever gained. And long-time nemesis St. Louis has signed, or traded for, more star players than the Cubs ever have, adding Mark McGwire, Jim Edmonds, Mark Mulder and Scott Rolen, among others, in their prime.
 Most of the Cubs free agents have been mid-level players such as Mark DeRosa and Ted Lilly. What has made the Cubs so good is they made a couple of players better than they traded for in salary purges by other teams. Usually, those type of players are on the down side of their careers (Jim Thome with the White Sox, Scott Rolen now in Toronto). But Derrek Lee had never batted over .282 in parts of seven seasons with Florida. As a Cub, we’re hugely disappointed if he’s not hitting well over .300. Aramis Ramirez hit .234 his last full year in Pittsburgh. Ramirez had one big year with the Pirates, batting .300 with 34 HRs and 112 RBIs his fourth season. But he hit .235, .179 and .256 in abbreviated action the previous three seasons. This wasn’t the Yankees outbidding everyone for A-Rod. The Cubs got Aramis Ramirez for a song because they were the only ones who really wanted him. They should be applauded for that foresight, not criticized. In four years as a Cub, Ramirez has averaged more than 30 homers and 100 RBIs and batted over .300. The Cubs didn’t import a star. They made one. No, make that two. Both Lee and Ramirez are far greater as Cubs than they ever were as Pirates or Marlins.
June 20th, 2008
Aramis Ramirez has been quietly productive this season, but he seems to come through huge at all the right times. Today’s walk-off was reminiscent off the game-winner he hit just under a year ago against Milwaukee.
Electrifying is the only way to describe it.
Not just because it’ll make every Cub fan forget (at least for now) about being swept by Tampa Bay and the recent injury report, but it’ll make the Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers think twice before dubbing Joe Crede the better Chicago third baseman. And just for the sake of spite, it outclassed the smug A.J. Pierzynski and his third inning homer. Then again, it doesn’t take much to outclass Pierzynski (even if it’s a fake story that’s still believable).
May 19th, 2008
It seems ridiculous that only two weeks ago some Cubs fans were saying Chicago would be better without Alfonso Soriano. They were angry about Soriano batting leadoff, angry about him swinging at bad pitches, angry about his defense and angry that he didn’t take more walks. Cubs fans have also vented often at Aramis Ramirez over the years whenever he’s gone into a slump. They even blamed him when he had a career-high 38 HRs and 119 RBIs in 2006 because he played poorly when Derrek Lee first went out with an injury and many fans — and media — said he didn’t step up when he was needed and padded on meaningless stats when the Cubs were out of the race. (Well, the AL MVP that year had an even worse start and so did his team, yet Justin Morneau — whose stats were no better than Ramirez’s — and the Twins recovered to win 96 games and their division, so if the Twins weren’t out of the race in June, then neither were the Cubs — if someone besides Ramirez had started to hit later on.)
Anyway, the point here is it never — or almost never — seems right to boo Soriano and Ramirez. If you don’t want a wild swinger, you don’t trade for him. Soriano has played this way for 10 years. As long as he continues to hit 35-40 homers, fans need to live with his faults. Ditto for slumps and occasional lack of hustle by Aramis Ramirez. Last year, when the Indians took a 3 games to 1 lead over the Red Sox in the ALCS, a Cleveland-area columnist wrote about how he would never want Manny Ramirez on his team and that the Indians were glad to not have a problem child like Manny and have so many boy scout-types. Well, I’d love to have Manny Ramirez on my team, even with his Manny Being Manny antics. And he showed Boston why, as the Red Sox came back to win their second World Series with Manny. Cleveland, by the way, has been to two World Series in 60 years, both with Manny, zero without. It’s like the Bulls putting up with grief from Dennis Rodman. Or even Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird over ruling their coaches in timeouts. You have slightly different rules for superstars. Their talent makes it worth it. You can boo a Felix Pie or (on the Southside) a Juan Uribe for swinging at stupid pitches. But not Alfonso Soriano. That’s not a double standard; Soriano has proven his way works. The other two have proven it doesn’t work for them. Or at least haven’t proven that it does.
I don’t believe in booing any player on my own team unless they aren’t very good and it appears they aren’t very good because of their own fault. Call it the Uribe rule. Or the Cade McNown rule. But if Rex Grossman throws an interception, I wouldn’t boo Grossman; at this point, he is what he is. You can’t expect him to be Peyton Manning or Tom Brady. If I did boo, I’d be booing Lovie Smith and Ron Turner for playing the wrong quarterback, not the quarterback for being the wrong guy.
 That said, former Cubs who deserved to be booed were players who complained about Steve Stone, Sammy Sosa during his final self-indulgent season and pouty, swing-from-his-heels Cory Patterson. But this team has no player who acts like a jerk or underperforms because of his own stubborness. Aramis Ramirez has averaged .305 with 33 HRs and 104 RBIs in his four seasons in Chicago and helped the Cubs win the division twice. Soriano set a team record for home runs in September to help the Cubs come from behind and win the NL Central last year. The Cubs have been the best team in the NL Central ever since they signed Soriano. Neither deserves to be booed, with the possible exception of after occasional defensive lapses. But even then, Soriano deserves leeway, because he’s a converted second baseman.
