Andy MacPhail seems to love the work put forth by one Johnny B. Baker.

Dusty seems to love the work put forth by one Johnny B. Baker.

Andy MacPhail seems to love the work put forth by one James Hendry

Dusty seems to love the work put forth by one Johnny B. Baker.

I'm confused. Are you confused? Because I'm confused. According to today's Suntimes article, MacPhail said that he was pleased with Hendry and that Hendry was pleased with Dusty and, well, contract extensions for everyone! Yes, that's right, clearly everyone is doing an fine job and nobody is underachieving!

"I can't say we underachieved, no way,'' [Dusty] said. "There's a lot of things -- the inexperience of our bullpen, and we haven't played good defense. I can't say we underachieved. That sounds like you're not playing good enough, and on many occasions, even though we haven't looked good, we played sometimes as hard as we could at that time.''

And this is the point where I get confused. If the Cubs aren't underachieving, as pointed out by Dusty, then does that mean they are playing up to par? Does it mean that they are playing at the expected level of the talent provided?

apparently. What that would mean, of course, is that Dusty has done a fine job given the players he was dealt. After all, what else can a manager do but get his player to play to their ability. No, the problem clearly is that he has subpar players. And that, of course, is the domain of our very own Jim Hendry. So Dusty has deftly shifted the blame from his shoulders over to those of Hendry. Good show, Dusty.

Does anybody really believe that these players should be sub-.500? Anybody?

Me neither.

One final quote from another Suntimes article:

"You have to be really thankful we have Neifi,'' Baker said.

Chances are, the Cubs will re-sign Perez for 2006 and not Garciaparra, whose health issues make him too big of a risk.


awesome.