Chicago Cubs: Counsell may still be too conservative in dealing with losing streak

The Chicago Cubs, to put it bluntly, stink right now.

They’ve lost ten of their last twelve and have fallen to third place in the NL Central Division amid a six-game losing streak.

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And the sad reality is that there’s not a single player to blame—because just about everybody is struggling at the moment.

Well, there might be someone singularly to blame, if you think about it.

Manager Craig Counsell is, beyond question, a savvy baseball guy with a strong track record of success. It’s hard to argue that he isn’t the right man for the Cubs manager gig. But it seems that every season the offense collapses under his watch, almost all at once, and it takes an excruciatingly long amount of time to get things back on track.

Is Counsell too conservative?

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Could Counsell be too much of an analytics guy, unwilling to move from what SHOULD work, even after it becomes clear that it ISN’T working? That certainly would explain some of the frustrating non-movement as certain players languish in extended slumps and/or the team, as a whole, flatlines.

Putting Pete Crow-Armstrong in the leadoff spot for Saturday’s game against the Astros is bold by Counsell standards, but it’s still a “safe” bold as Houston Starter Kai-Wei Teng is markedly less effective against lefties.

Giving Ian Happ a day off is also a right move. But replacement Michael Conforto is, again, a “safe” bold because of the lefty-righty matchup.

Meanwhile, as Counsell’s lineup “shake-up” is being touted, recently streaking call-ups Kevin Alcantara and Pedro Ramirez have been left on the bench—presumably because of analytics.

Evan Altman of Cubs Insider recently touched on the same general issue when it comes to the Cubs’ manager:

“I’m a fan of Counsell and I think there are some things he does really well, particularly when it comes to knowing his players as people. At the same time, however, he seems to provide far too long a leash to veterans while at the same time giving too little leeway to young players. Moisés Ballesteros was quickly banished to the bench in favor of Michael Conforto, yet Ian Happ has remained in the cleanup spot despite batting .122 with a 43 wRC+ over his last 59 plate appearances.”

Counsell needs to throw analytics out the window

Happ, of course, is out for today. But it’s a guarantee that he’ll be back before anyone else really gets much of a shot to see what they can do in left field.

At some point, people are just who they are. Counsell’s not changing and there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that, maybe, he has every reason to stay “as is.”

But this Cubs team clearly needs a big, bold, and analytics-defiant shakeup that puts the focus on hard-to-qualify intangibles like fire and hunger. It definitely wouldn’t hurt to throw the stats sheets into the trash bin for a few days and do things the old school way. At this point, there’s nothing to lose.

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Source: https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-cubs-craig-counsell-too-conservative-losing-streak/