Lou piniella has to be a front runner for the coach of the year award at the end of the season. His team has been in the top three teams in the MLB for the entire second half of the season. The reason for this sucess is from the skippers briliant decsion making with the line-up. It started in the off season when he release Mark Prior from the team. The second big decision in the off season was naming Kerry Wood as the closer of the team. Kerry wood who was a great starter for the cubs but missed alot of time because of injury. Also in the off season he named Ryan Dempster as a starting pitcher.
The funny thing about this situation because of the inconsistancy of Carlos Zambrono, Dempster should be the number one pitcher for playoff match ups. Another great move by Piniella. He has established a team with big playmakers and many key team players like a Ryan Theriot, Mark Derosa, reed johnson and mike Fontenot. He does a great job managing playing time between them and having these player on the roster allows Piniella to rest his stars through out the season.
One of the best things he did was bringing up Jeff Samardzija for the second half of the season as a set up man. As the young Carlos Marmol struggled half way through the season. I thikn the most telling decision he has made all year is to sit the player they spent over $48 million dollars on in in koske fukudome. The coach that has brought the Chicago Cubs to the playoff in consecutive years, Lou Piniella should win the Coach of the Year Award.
