As I've noted before, Xavier Nady is a good ballplayer when he is healthy, so the Cubs pickup is a pretty good move. I can't help but feel they have got to be projecting Nady for a little bit more than being the right-handed part of a platoon with Fukudome. For one thing - and this is even more the case with the Cubs being so top-heavy with RH hitters - the right-handed part of a platoon is going to get 150 ABs or so. If he is healthy, Nady is too good a player to limit in this way. He can only play LF or RF, so I wonder if he isn't also a kind of back-door insurance on Soriano's return from injury. Most of the Cubs off-season moves seem to be predicated on Soriano coming back full-strength, at least as an offensive force, but maybe this indicates a little uncertainty on this score.
Signing Chad Tracy, who had some good years with Arizona before he seemingly fell apart because of persistent injuries, is a weird selection, but it is only a minor league deal. He can back up at 1B or 3B, and would give you an ineffective bat off the bench, I suppose, but maybe he is just a shot in the dark, or just a return to bottom feeding for Hendry.
The Cubs were reported to be in negotiations with Kiko Calero recently, but so far nothing much seems to have come of it. MLB Trade Rumors reports they have an interest in Chan Ho Park, who is getting a little long in the tooth, but still throws hard. He doesn't seem to be a contender to start anywhere, and actually his numbers as a starter last year were really bad, but his numbers in relief were better. On paper, this looks like a harmless acquisition, but why do I have the persistent thought that Lou will use this guy up before the ivy turns green?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Outfield Rumors
The thought is that the Cubs are looking at Jermaine Dye or Xavier Nady as possible fourth outfielders/RF platoons. I've already commented on how much I dislike the Dye choice. Actually, the Nady option has some upside, especially if you have some doubts about how durable Soriano will be coming off surgery. Nady is a pretty good player when he is healthy, and he is only 31. Of course, he is coming off a second surgery on his elbow, his first having been done early in the decade when his career was just starting. It's a big chance, but he ought to be obtainable at a fairly cheap price, cheaper I think than Dye and with a better upside.
Actually, I have never been able to figure out why the Cubs think they need a platoon with Fukudome. Granted he was awful last year against lefties, but he only had fifty at-bats or so. In 2008, he had a better average and a better OBA against lefties than he did against righties, though his power numbers were weak. Still, if he is going to lead off anyway, what difference does that make? Also, since almost everyone in the lineup bats right-handed right now, I'm not sure teams are going to be throwing a lot of lefties at the Cubs in any case. You would think the Cubs would be looking instead for a left-handed bat off the bench instead, especially as they do not seem to have confidence in Hoffpauir in this regard.
Actually, I have never been able to figure out why the Cubs think they need a platoon with Fukudome. Granted he was awful last year against lefties, but he only had fifty at-bats or so. In 2008, he had a better average and a better OBA against lefties than he did against righties, though his power numbers were weak. Still, if he is going to lead off anyway, what difference does that make? Also, since almost everyone in the lineup bats right-handed right now, I'm not sure teams are going to be throwing a lot of lefties at the Cubs in any case. You would think the Cubs would be looking instead for a left-handed bat off the bench instead, especially as they do not seem to have confidence in Hoffpauir in this regard.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Cubs Convention
I notice on Chicago Breaking Sports News that Lou Piniella seemed to get a little testy when someone grilled him about why it took two and one-half years to figure out that Alfonso Soriano was a lousy leadoff hitter. Well, I guess he finally did it, although he still seems to be under some sort of misconception about what leadoff hitters do. Leadoff hitters take pitches and get on base. Number two hitters hit and run and move runners. They don't necessarily steal bases, which seemed to be the primary reason for keeping Soriano there, i.e., he used to steal bases.
One of the best leadoff men in recent memory was Wade Boggs, who was as slow as molasses, as I recall. Anyway, Kosuke Fukudome has the best OBA on the Cubs, and he should bat first. Ryan Theriot does not take enough pitches, so he doesn't walk often enough. Batting him first subtracts from his natural talent, which is hitting to right field, and actually reduces his effectiveness as an offensive player. Lou proudly announced, of course, that he would bat Theriot first and Fukudome second, demonstrating once again why the Cubs eternal search for a leadoff man is so frustrating.
On a lighter note, A League of Her Own has a funny bit on Geovanny Soto. What is with the eyebrows, dude?
One of the best leadoff men in recent memory was Wade Boggs, who was as slow as molasses, as I recall. Anyway, Kosuke Fukudome has the best OBA on the Cubs, and he should bat first. Ryan Theriot does not take enough pitches, so he doesn't walk often enough. Batting him first subtracts from his natural talent, which is hitting to right field, and actually reduces his effectiveness as an offensive player. Lou proudly announced, of course, that he would bat Theriot first and Fukudome second, demonstrating once again why the Cubs eternal search for a leadoff man is so frustrating.
On a lighter note, A League of Her Own has a funny bit on Geovanny Soto. What is with the eyebrows, dude?
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Ugly Rumors
I honestly don't know who comes up with these rumors that are trumpeted in the daily press. Maybe these guys just make them up. Or could it be that Hendry and Piniella are even less competent than we thought?
The latest ones are the Cubs are pursuing Jose Contreras and Jermaine Dye. Contreras admits to being 38, hasn't had a decent year since 2006, nor a complete year since 2007. Even the White Sox gave up on him. The White Sox also gave up on Dye, who has had a nice career, but at 35 looks to be on the down side. Although he can no longer play the outfield and never was a gold-glove candidate to begin with, he is projected to platoon with Fukudome in RF and also DH even though the NL only uses a DH in road inter-league games. Duh?
OK, just sign Reed Johnson already. He is a legitimate platoon player, and he can actually catch the ball. That would give you solid defensive outfield backups with him and Fuld.
On the subject of Piniella, he does make, in his own labored way, an interesting point. The Cubs managed to win 83 games last year despite having Ramirez and Soriano on the DL for significant periods, the injury to Ramirez actually mattering a lot, and all kinds of distractions with the addition of Bradley. So maybe the core of the team isn't all that bad, especially the pitching, or the division isn't all that hard to win.
The latest ones are the Cubs are pursuing Jose Contreras and Jermaine Dye. Contreras admits to being 38, hasn't had a decent year since 2006, nor a complete year since 2007. Even the White Sox gave up on him. The White Sox also gave up on Dye, who has had a nice career, but at 35 looks to be on the down side. Although he can no longer play the outfield and never was a gold-glove candidate to begin with, he is projected to platoon with Fukudome in RF and also DH even though the NL only uses a DH in road inter-league games. Duh?
OK, just sign Reed Johnson already. He is a legitimate platoon player, and he can actually catch the ball. That would give you solid defensive outfield backups with him and Fuld.
On the subject of Piniella, he does make, in his own labored way, an interesting point. The Cubs managed to win 83 games last year despite having Ramirez and Soriano on the DL for significant periods, the injury to Ramirez actually mattering a lot, and all kinds of distractions with the addition of Bradley. So maybe the core of the team isn't all that bad, especially the pitching, or the division isn't all that hard to win.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Ben Sheets
Some of the Chicago journalists are reporting that the Cubs are interested in Ben Sheets. MLB Trade Rumors reports the rumor and then has a semi-denial attributed to Cubs brass to the effect that his contract demands do not fit in with the Cubs' budget. That's putting it mildly. Sheets apparently wants two years guaranteed at $10-12 M. Quite a deal for a guy who didn't pitch at all last year and is coming off elbow surgery.
Perhaps the Cubs really want to replace the injury-prone Harden with someone who can equal or exceed the latter's stays on the DL. Because here is the real record. Sheets has won 86 games in eight seasons against 83 losses. Admittedly the Brewers were not exactly a powerhouse team through any of that stretch, but he was arguably the ace of a really bad staff. His best year statistically was 2004 when, although he had a losing record, he pitched over 200 innings and had a great ERA, WHIP, and SO/BB ratio. The next three years, Sheets missed a lot of starts with a variety of injuries that seemed to be tied to a back muscle injury in 2005 before he recovered in 2008 with a 13 win season. But he broke down with elbow problems in September of that year and hasn't pitched since.
So I know that the usual suspects among the press have penciled him into the rotation, but if I were Hendry, I would think twice about rolling the dice on this guy. He is only acceptable if you get him cheap on an incentive-laden deal, but it's no good if the guy doesn't pitch, is it? He still takes up a roster spot and bumps someone out of the rotation while he is on the active roster. Assuming the Cubs go with Gorzelanny as the fifth starter, what you get at worst is probably a .500 pitcher who eats up 180 innings or so and wins 10 or 12 games. What do you want from a fifth starter?
What Hendry and Piniella get is an excuse. They evidently have no confidence in their evaluation process, so, in their minds, Lilly is a risk, Wells might not pitch as well as he did last season, Zambrano is inconsistent, etc., etc., etc. That's the nature of professional sport. But, hey, if you go out and spend money on a guy with a big reputation and he fails, well, there it is. You tried. Just like you tried with Bradley last year. Heck, he might have made a difference.
Perhaps the Cubs really want to replace the injury-prone Harden with someone who can equal or exceed the latter's stays on the DL. Because here is the real record. Sheets has won 86 games in eight seasons against 83 losses. Admittedly the Brewers were not exactly a powerhouse team through any of that stretch, but he was arguably the ace of a really bad staff. His best year statistically was 2004 when, although he had a losing record, he pitched over 200 innings and had a great ERA, WHIP, and SO/BB ratio. The next three years, Sheets missed a lot of starts with a variety of injuries that seemed to be tied to a back muscle injury in 2005 before he recovered in 2008 with a 13 win season. But he broke down with elbow problems in September of that year and hasn't pitched since.
So I know that the usual suspects among the press have penciled him into the rotation, but if I were Hendry, I would think twice about rolling the dice on this guy. He is only acceptable if you get him cheap on an incentive-laden deal, but it's no good if the guy doesn't pitch, is it? He still takes up a roster spot and bumps someone out of the rotation while he is on the active roster. Assuming the Cubs go with Gorzelanny as the fifth starter, what you get at worst is probably a .500 pitcher who eats up 180 innings or so and wins 10 or 12 games. What do you want from a fifth starter?
What Hendry and Piniella get is an excuse. They evidently have no confidence in their evaluation process, so, in their minds, Lilly is a risk, Wells might not pitch as well as he did last season, Zambrano is inconsistent, etc., etc., etc. That's the nature of professional sport. But, hey, if you go out and spend money on a guy with a big reputation and he fails, well, there it is. You tried. Just like you tried with Bradley last year. Heck, he might have made a difference.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Pitching
The Cubs are reportedly seeking another veteran arm for the bullpen. This is always a worrying thought lest they add another Gregg or Heilman to the mix, but if they are serious about this, they could do a lot worse than picking up Kiko Calero, who did a fine job for the Marlins last year, and should be pretty cheap.
There are also rumors that the Cubs have shopped Carlos Zambrano. That is a big, big mistake. In one stroke, they would go from having probably one of the best rotations in the league, and certainly the best in their division, to having one of the worst. In case nobody noticed, the only reason they finished a respectable second in the division last year was because of the quality of their starting pitching.
Moves like this, pushed by unusually ill-informed sportswriters and emotional fans, only make sense if you want to shed salary and rebuild, and then only if the highly paid pitcher happens to be coming off a series of good seasons. Now, I would argue that leaving aside his stints in the DL, Zambrano had his best season statistically in a couple of years last year, but even so, his perceived worth right now is nothing like that of a Roy Halladay, who was clearly moved by a cash poor team that was interested in a complete restructuring.
So, the Cubs now have a rotation of Zambrano, Dempster, Wells, Lilly, and one of three or four other contenders, viz., Marshall, Gorzelanny, Silva, and Samardzija. Not a bad setup. I don't expect much from Silva, and Samardzija, while he throws hard, does not know how to pitch and would benefit from a whole year at AA or AAA, but the other two would be OK. If the Cubs want a genuine starter, they could try to rehabilitate Sheets or Wang, but only on the cheap. Sheets seems to want a multi-year guaranteed contract as if he were still healthy, so the Cubs can afford to stand pat at least until the season gets going and they are in a position to assess their needs on the field.
Back to the bullpen. As I have noted, Calero is a potential pickup, but the question is where are you going to put him? Piniella usually likes to carry too many pitchers anyway, presumably because he cannot keep a good accounting of who is available and is not really good at double-switches. But right now, they have Marmol to close and Guzman and Grabow as the principal setup guys. Whoever loses the competition for the fifth starter slot, likely Marshall, Silva, and Samardzija, will wind up in long relief, although, as I said, Samardzija should go down to hone his skills.
So lets say they make this logical move, they have at best two slots left unless they carry thirteen pitchers, which makes no sense whatsoever. For some reason, they picked up Mike Parisi in the Rule 5 draft, so they are likely stuck with him unless they just release him. They also picked up Jeff Gray, who has shown signs he can actually pitch in relief, so he is likely to stay. Assuming they drop Parisi, they still have a bunch of young guys like Patton and Stevens and Berg and Caridad who might just work as the last man, especially the last two.
If the Cubs want to move salary, hey, think about Soriano, which is the really bad contract they are saddled with. But, of course, they do not even mention this because there is almost no scenario where he could be moved.
There are also rumors that the Cubs have shopped Carlos Zambrano. That is a big, big mistake. In one stroke, they would go from having probably one of the best rotations in the league, and certainly the best in their division, to having one of the worst. In case nobody noticed, the only reason they finished a respectable second in the division last year was because of the quality of their starting pitching.
Moves like this, pushed by unusually ill-informed sportswriters and emotional fans, only make sense if you want to shed salary and rebuild, and then only if the highly paid pitcher happens to be coming off a series of good seasons. Now, I would argue that leaving aside his stints in the DL, Zambrano had his best season statistically in a couple of years last year, but even so, his perceived worth right now is nothing like that of a Roy Halladay, who was clearly moved by a cash poor team that was interested in a complete restructuring.
So, the Cubs now have a rotation of Zambrano, Dempster, Wells, Lilly, and one of three or four other contenders, viz., Marshall, Gorzelanny, Silva, and Samardzija. Not a bad setup. I don't expect much from Silva, and Samardzija, while he throws hard, does not know how to pitch and would benefit from a whole year at AA or AAA, but the other two would be OK. If the Cubs want a genuine starter, they could try to rehabilitate Sheets or Wang, but only on the cheap. Sheets seems to want a multi-year guaranteed contract as if he were still healthy, so the Cubs can afford to stand pat at least until the season gets going and they are in a position to assess their needs on the field.
Back to the bullpen. As I have noted, Calero is a potential pickup, but the question is where are you going to put him? Piniella usually likes to carry too many pitchers anyway, presumably because he cannot keep a good accounting of who is available and is not really good at double-switches. But right now, they have Marmol to close and Guzman and Grabow as the principal setup guys. Whoever loses the competition for the fifth starter slot, likely Marshall, Silva, and Samardzija, will wind up in long relief, although, as I said, Samardzija should go down to hone his skills.
So lets say they make this logical move, they have at best two slots left unless they carry thirteen pitchers, which makes no sense whatsoever. For some reason, they picked up Mike Parisi in the Rule 5 draft, so they are likely stuck with him unless they just release him. They also picked up Jeff Gray, who has shown signs he can actually pitch in relief, so he is likely to stay. Assuming they drop Parisi, they still have a bunch of young guys like Patton and Stevens and Berg and Caridad who might just work as the last man, especially the last two.
If the Cubs want to move salary, hey, think about Soriano, which is the really bad contract they are saddled with. But, of course, they do not even mention this because there is almost no scenario where he could be moved.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Byrd
This is it? I mean, this is the final piece of the puzzle? I don't think so.
I have blogged earlier on the deficiencies of this acquisition, and I hope I am wrong, but the continued love affair between Jim Hendry and journeyman outfielders is still a bit worrisome. So, to set the record straight, Byrd is not a bad player. Nor is he a particularly good player, and therein lays the problem.
You can build a good team around role players, or with the addition of role players. But frankly, I don't see the role here. Maybe I am missing something, but Byrd seems to be a pretty ordinary bat and a pretty ordinary glove. He bats right-handed, but cannot hit lefties, so he is not a platoon player. So what is his role?
I suppose this is just another example of Hendry and the Cubs front office not having a real plan. I had to laugh when Hendry suggested that there was nothing wrong with having a predominantly right-handed lineup, since the whole point of the last post-season hunt that resulted in the addition of Milton Bradley was that the Cubs were too right-handed. Now it's not a problem, I guess. It is also a misconception on the Cubs part, because they had Edmonds and Fontenot playing against righties and they had good years, and they also had a left-handed bench.
Anyway, the problems for the Cubs offensively this off-season were obviously to get rid of Bradley and to somehow replace the production they lost in relation to 2008 in CF and at 2B. I don't think this does it. Byrd does not equal the platoon of Johnson and Edmunds. In this respect, I have to agree with the ESPN guy quoted on MLB Trade Rumors who just doesn't think Byrd is a championship caliber player.
I have blogged earlier on the deficiencies of this acquisition, and I hope I am wrong, but the continued love affair between Jim Hendry and journeyman outfielders is still a bit worrisome. So, to set the record straight, Byrd is not a bad player. Nor is he a particularly good player, and therein lays the problem.
You can build a good team around role players, or with the addition of role players. But frankly, I don't see the role here. Maybe I am missing something, but Byrd seems to be a pretty ordinary bat and a pretty ordinary glove. He bats right-handed, but cannot hit lefties, so he is not a platoon player. So what is his role?
I suppose this is just another example of Hendry and the Cubs front office not having a real plan. I had to laugh when Hendry suggested that there was nothing wrong with having a predominantly right-handed lineup, since the whole point of the last post-season hunt that resulted in the addition of Milton Bradley was that the Cubs were too right-handed. Now it's not a problem, I guess. It is also a misconception on the Cubs part, because they had Edmonds and Fontenot playing against righties and they had good years, and they also had a left-handed bench.
Anyway, the problems for the Cubs offensively this off-season were obviously to get rid of Bradley and to somehow replace the production they lost in relation to 2008 in CF and at 2B. I don't think this does it. Byrd does not equal the platoon of Johnson and Edmunds. In this respect, I have to agree with the ESPN guy quoted on MLB Trade Rumors who just doesn't think Byrd is a championship caliber player.
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