Cubs Bunting Tourney Update and Other Notes

Interesting example (I thought) of a manager's words seeming to change according to their context. In this case the different contexts are provided by Patrick Mooney and Carrie Muskat.

Apparently Sveum said something recently about Soriano's tendency to stand at the plate after hitting a warning-track fly. Here is an account in CSNChicago.com:

The diehards at the Cubs Convention loved it when Sveum answered one fan question by saying that you might have to bench guys who embarrass the organization.

Sveum seems to have a more realistic view of Soriano. Sveum remembers Bill Hall watching a few balls that didn’t go out with the Milwaukee Brewers.

“It wasn’t that (Hall) didn’t play hard,” Sveum said. “They feel bad (afterward). That’s a natural major-league habit. It’s very hard to hit fly balls that are almost home runs, or you think might be a home run, and sprint to first base.

“Sure, you want that to happen, but some of those things (are) actually hard to break in the heat of a battle. It’s the other things: We want to be able to run balls out to the left side of the field. We want to be able to stretch singles into doubles, take hard turns (and) run the bases really hard.

“I know the fans don’t like that, but sometimes they have to understand that’s a habit.”

Today, Muskat gives the same answer (with modifications) as a response to a different question, why Soriano sometimes doesn't chase down fly balls.

Another criticism is Soriano's defensive play. He has a tendency to watch balls as they go past him in the outfield.

"I've seen people do it before," Sveum said. "Billy Hall had a habit of doing it, too, in Milwaukee. It wasn't that he didn't play hard, but it was almost a habit. Then they feel bad after they do it, but unfortunately it's a weird habit some people have. Deep fly balls, as hitters, you're like, 'Oh, man, I think I got it, I think I got it,' so you didn't run as hard as you should have."

Bad habits are hard to break.

"You talk about it, and hopefully in that spur of the moment, he thinks about something I said," Sveum said. "A lot of things are tougher than just talking about."

if anyone wants a major buzzkill check out the videos of this "bunting contest."

they're lobbing balls barely strong enough to get proper BP out of it with many seconds for the batter to find the ball.

in a way, that may be harder for some since a lot of the balls are arching in from lack of velocity.

it seems more like a "fun" team building exercise rather than a skills exercise.