Offseason finally here: Coaching staff retained

The Cubs are probably feeling the way my headline posts. After what was a disappointing year for them, the Cubs players can finally put this year behind them and hopefully forget about most of it.

Yesterday the Cubs brought back their entire coaching staff. I am not very pleased about this because besides my hatred of Dusty Baker being manager, I don't think many of the other coaches did a good job either. They did nothing to teach the team fundamentals, i.e. base-running, cut-off man, rundowns, covering first, moving player over, etc. or try to help the players during the season when it was very obvious the players needed it. Dusty might not be the best coach at managing the pen, but Rothschild doesn't do much to help him. The Cubs pitchers walk way too many pitchers (and while that is mostly the pitchers fault), it wasn't apparent that Larry did much to try to help improve them. So hopefully this off-season the Cubs coaching staff realizes what they did the last two years has not worked well and come up with a new strategy.

Now I just want to add a little bit about the Cubs players lacking in fundamentals. I understand that the coaching staff should only be partially blamed for the lack of fundamentals, the majority of the blame falls on the players. It is the staff's job to stress the importance of fundamentals and do many drills practicing fundamentals in spring training and help fine tune players during season. My problem with the players is they have been playing baseball for between 14-31 years of their live right? Are you telling me in this time they never learned fundamentals? The Cubs looked awful fundamentally last season, getting thrown out when they shouldn't be running, the pitcher not covering first, letting players from opposing team to get out of run-downs safely, not able to lay down bunt, missing cut-off man, missing signs, and many more I am not typing up. I understand a few times a year no matter how good the team is they will break down fundamentally a few times a year, but I don't think the Cubs went through a period this season where for 1 week they were fundamentally sound.

Well now it is time to watch the playoffs and then the real fun begins again for the Cubs and their fans with Free Agency and it looks as if the Cubs should have some money to spend this year.