Like clockwork, it's happening again.
For much of the first half, it seemed like the Chicago Cubs might finally overtake the Milwaukee Brewers for NL Central supremacy, riding arguably the best offense in baseball to a division lead that stretched as wide as 6.5 games in mid-June. And then, overnight, everything flipped: The Cubs have gone just 11-11 in the second half as that offense has run dry, and the Brewers might never lose again amid a 10-game winning streak. Suddenly, Milwaukee is the one with the 6.5-game lead, while Chicago is just hoping to right the ship in time to hold on to their Wild Card spot.
All of which has Cubs media up in arms, and it appears that the Chicago Tribune has found its scapegoat: manager Craig Counsell who needs to "show us what he’s got" according to a Tuesday column by Paul Sullivan. Poaching Counsell — the thorn in Chicago's side for so many years — from Milwaukee was supposed to be the ultimate trump card, the silver bullet that finally restored the Cubs to their rightful place atop the division. Instead, the thorn has remained; once again, it's the Brewers who are playing clean, winning baseball, while the high-priced Cubs flounder.
None of which is news to the city of Milwaukee, of course. But if Chicago finally wants to realize that the Brewers were never Counsell's creation, that they're just one of baseball's model organizations and have been for years, well, welcome to the party.
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Brewers proving once and for all that they were never Craig Counsell's creation
There's more than a little hubris to the way the Cubs have approached things since Jed Hoyer stole Counsell away from the Brewers two offseasons ago. You could almost hear the chuckling from down I-94: Counsell was the wizard, the man who squeezed something extra out of clearly inferior rosters, and once he was gone it was only a matter of time before order was restored.
Two years later, though, Milwaukee is well on its way to capturing its fourth Central title in five years, and its second in a row since Counsell left town. At this point, it's abundantly clear that the Brewers under David Stearns and now Matt Arnold are simply very, very good at this. They're keen identifiers of talent, they know how to get the most out of that talent and, when said talent is about to get too expensive, they know how to flip it for assets that can start the whole cycle over.
This was never about Counsell devil magic. This was about a well-run organization that has never gotten the credit it deserves, winning on the margins in all the ways that count. Chicago is finally starting to see its farm system bear fruit, but Milwaukee has been excelling there for years now, developing homegrown stars at the plate and on the mound (and knowing exactly when and how to get aggressive when the circumstance arises). If the Cubs want to take the crown for themselves, they're going to have to learn how to beat the Brewers where it counts, and not even Counsell can make that happen.