Dempster Finally Traded

My guess is that Dempster is going to be pretty sorry he didn't take the Braves deal and that the Cubs were unable to work out a deal with the Dodgers who were unwilling to offer anything of value in exchange.  The main reason, I think, is that he is likely to get lit up big time in that awful little stadium where the Rangers play baseball.  Lets face it, the wind howls out to left center there and the average temperature is like 100 and it is the American League.  So good luck, guy, you are going to need it.

I've got nothing personal against Dempster, but I do think he overplayed his hand.  He's had a good season thus far, but, on the whole, he is a middle of the order rotation pitcher on a good or even half-decent team.  Given the fan reaction, justified or not, the Cubs more or less had to trade him for what they could get and Dempster had to approve any reasonable deal.

The initial reaction to all the deadline trades the Cubs have made is somewhat underwhelming, but, lets face it, they didn't have much to sell, and that includes Garza who, should the Cubs be determined to deal in the off-season, is going to be worth much more then if he rescues an up and down year.

I've become more and more convinced there are three kinds of trades that are made.  One type is the exchange of players of similar perceived talent and experience.  You can think of these as trading seasons or years.  A good example from the last off-season was the Cashner/Rizzo trade.  In these trades, both sides are often better off.  At bottom, they are a good test of front office judgment of talent and assessment of need.

Then there are the uneven trades where years or seasons are traded for accomplished talents.  Teams nowadays, probably because of salaries and contracts at stake seem to overvalue their veteran assets as well as their prospects.  Most of the deadline trades involve dealing veterans for players who are likely to equal or approach the value of the veteran exchanged in one or more years.  Obviously, the fewer years you give up, the better off you are and the less risk you take.

So far Epstein and co., at least until the trade deadline, have concentrated on obtaining equivalent or short term risks in exchange for the players they have dealt.  I'm thinking here of the Marshall/Wood and Colvin/Stewart deals.  I'm rather convinced they deviated from this plan out of necessity at the deadline, simply because they couldn't do any better, especially with the rules and the personalities involved.  Here I have in mind the aborted Dempster/Delgado trade which would have been something of a coup.

Just to follow up on this line of thought, Maholm, the best player they traded, is still a soft-tossing lefty who is a back of the rotation starter.  Johnson is a useful but aging role player.  Soto has been a flop since his rookie season.  Dempster is a rental and getting a little long in the tooth.

In return, the Cubs got a potentially very good pitcher in Vizcaino who is admittedly a project because he is hurt.  They got two other pitchers who throw hard.  They have major league potential but do not project out as impact players.

Actually, the players they got from Texas look like more legitimate higher ceiling prospects.  Christian Villanueva is a third baseman with some pop and Kyle Hendricks is a pitcher who has pretty good numbers in A ball.  Unfortunately, all these guys are a little further off than one would like them to be and anything can happen.

The return for Dempster, though, is better than they would have got had they let him finish the season and they did not have to risk making a qualifying offer he might have taken.

One disappointment, however, was the failure to move Soriano.  Maybe they can do it as a waiver deal, though, as his contract is likely to scare any potential claims.

A Belated Tribute to Ron Santo

The Cubs held another belated Ron Santo Day Friday after his enshrinement in the Hall of Fame last Sunday.  I wasn't at the stadium, but from the replays, it looked like standard issue tributes that featured Ron's family and some of his former teammates.  Which is OK I guess.

I always liked Santo as a player, although he was not the superstar that his teammates and now fellow Hall-of-Famers Banks, Williams, and Jenkins were.  His stats compare favorably and even more than favorably with the best third basemen of that era.

Santo was apparently not the funny, nutty uncle persona he affected in the radio booth during his playing days, and this somehow seriously affected his election chances during the period immediately after his retirement.  That and the fact he took a long hiatus from the game, something like fifteen years until he returned as the radio color man.

I was living overseas for many of Santo's best seasons, from 1966 to 1971, so I wasn't able to closely follow the Cubs then, when, arguably, they had their best teams.  Still, I never have been able to figure out why, with a roster full of really great players like the aforementioned Hall-of-Famers as well as other stars like Ken Holtzman and Randy Hundley and Don Kessinger, the Cubs were never able to win a Division title.  That might have had something to do with the difficulty of electing him to the Hall as well.

Santo fought a courageous battle with diabetes and its complications throughout his life and never seems to have lost his courage or his sense of humor.  Most fans now know Ron from his days as the somewhat demented press box companion to Pat Hughes.  This act was no doubt amusing, but, in a sad way, its current exploitation shortchanges Santo's achievements and personality and genuine knowledge and appreciation of the game.

His posthumous election adds yet another note of sadness to his life and career.  Too bad he was unable to enjoy these days.  Rightly or wrongly, I think it meant more to Ron to be recognized for his abilities as a player than as a person or a personality.

Reaction to Latest Trades

The Cubs traded reserve outfielder Reed Johnson and starting pitcher Paul Maholm to Atlanta for two minor league pitchers, one of whom is on the DL recovering from elbow surgery.  I wasn't surprised to see Johnson go.  He is a solid enough platoon player who can help a contender.  He seems to play well only for the Cubs these days, but, although he was an important cog in the Cubs outfield platoons and a good pinch hitter, his value to a team like the Cubs was pretty limited.  Maholm was a little more of a surprise, as he has settled in to become, arguably, their most consistent pitcher of late and he is a pretty cheap middle of the rotation kind of guy.

In return the Cubs got a AAA reliever in Jaye Chapman who throws pretty hard but walks a lot of people and a guy who was one of the Braves top pitching prospects until he had Tommy John surgery this spring.  This is Arodys Vizcaino, who is the key to the deal.  He is said to be rehabbing well and is expected to be on schedule to be healthy by spring training next year.

All in all, a risky business, but the Cubs brass must be pretty high on him to pull the trigger for this sort of deal.

The Cubs also dealt their everyday catcher Geovanny Soto to Texas for a fringe minor league relief pitcher, Jacob Brigham.  I'd have expected to get more in return for Soto, but he is having another bad year, so this just looks like a salary dump.  Actually, all three players will take $9 or $10 million off the books for next year and maybe a third of that for the remainder of the season.  Perhaps the front office is considering plowing this cash back into a subsidy to anyone who will take Soriano or Dempster.  Soriano reportedly nixed a deal to the Giants.

More later.

I'm sure this is not the last deal that is in the works.

Further Adventures of Little Ryan

Who evidently had a bad day what with all the attention he was getting because he wouldn't consent to a trade to Atlanta and then that mean old Dale Sveum took him out of a game in which he pitched OK but not well enough to win so he had to attack a drink dispenser and throw a juvenile tantrum and then go off and give a news conference where, if you look carefully, he did not apologize to the fans or his teammates or the manager, but instead asserted a blanket right to get pissed off about things in general.

I can't figure this out, but how is it the Cubs always seem to get brats like this and sign them to awful contracts.  Was it just Hendry, or do other teams have the same issues but just less attention?  In any case, this whole affair has turned into quite a mess.

All this puts Epstein and co. in a bit of a pickle.  They had worked out a pretty good trade for a middle of the rotation rental starter who is more likely in the long run to give you the kind of game he pitched yesterday.  If the Braves are indeed out of the running for Demp's somewhat overvalued services, the Cubs are left with a choice of taking lesser value from the Dodgers or letting the peevish star finish out his contract, receiving nothing in return at the end of the season unless they risk offering Dempster about $12MM to get a supplemental draft choice should he opt out.

That's a real risk because he might just take them up on the offer and they are stuck with him for another season.  Actually, I don't expect much out of him for the remainder of the year just because of all the controversy surrounding his supposed departure.  Cubs fans, as Dempster has somewhat belatedly discovered, are not that good at weighing all the ins and outs of this kind of dispute.  They are simply Cubs fans, not fans of particular athletes unless you get down to players of the caliber of Ernie Banks or something.  So fans now perceive that the Cubs could have taken a step toward the golden future by acquiring the highly valued Randall Delgado.

Everything now hinges upon the future for the true loyalist.  Thus Dempster will more than likely discover his true destiny as a pariah.  This incident will dog his every step while he remains in a Cubs uniform.  Few players can handle that sort of stress.  Judging by his post-game performance yesterday, Dempster is not one of them.  So look for a steady deterioration of skills through the rest of the year and a steady diminution of his value on the free agent market.  The Cubs would be well-advised to get what they can now and put this episode behing them.

Dempster Not Traded?

I have to confess that unlike most Cubs fans, I have never venerated Dempster as a pitcher or a person.  I'm also a little surprised that Dempster has had such a good season thus far even though he has been disabled twice.  I had pretty much written him off.

This latest display of petulance, however, certainly gives the lie to all the team player propaganda that is usually disseminated by the media with regard to what a great guy Demp is.  Dempster surely must realize that he is not a part of the Cubs future plans.  They reluctantly accepted his exercise of the player option Hendry gave him for 2012 and they have made no secret of the fact they have no intention of signing him in 2013 and every intention of wanting to trade him now at the height of the market.

I know that Dempster prefers to pitch for LA, but he has apparently listed Atlanta as his #2 choice.  I'm not sure why the Cubs are even talking to LA about anyone.  The Dodgers have a weak and depleted farm system not much better than the Cubs.  Their prize prospect, Zack Lee, is well regarded, but he has only recently been promoted to AA and he hasn't pitched very well there.  Lots of things can happen in the two years or so it will take him to reach the majors.  The Braves, on the other hand, have got a lot of talent in the minors that is on the verge of promotion.

Word is that this matter will be resolved this afternoon one way or the other.  Perhaps it is time for Epstein or Hoyer to sit down with Dempster and explain some things like, hey, how can you be surprised about a trade rumor when that's all anyone in the Chicago press has talked about for a month and we didn't leak the thing, but we're talking about two months here, not the rest of your life, and you are going to a playoff contender.

Plus, of course, the Cubs could get nasty and petulant as well.  If he remains with the team, they are in a position to influence his value as a free agent in a big way and if they have no interest in this value, they could certainly diminish it greatly.

Dempster Traded

News has hit the wires that Ryan Dempster has been traded to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for the young Braves pitcher Randall Delgado and possibly other prospects.  If this is so, it rather confirms the thesis propounded on this blog, that Epstein and co. are looking for players with potential who are at or near major league level of play and that he is not engaged in a total rebuild from the ground up, as some have contended.

Delgado is a legitimate major league ready prospect who has pitched reasonably well in his brief trials with the Braves this season.  He is 22 years old, which is a big plus for the Cubs in terms of his potential development.  He was considered the #3 prospect in the the highly regarded Braves organization.  All in all a pretty good deal for the Cubs.  More analysis later when the terms of the deal are confirmed.

The Marlin Series

The Cubs continued to play well this week, taking two of three from the Marlins.  Maholm pitched a terrific game on Thursday.  I wonder if the Cubs are thinking of trading him as well.  He is and has been a journeyman pitcher, not exactly an impact player, but he could be useful to a contender down the stretch and he is pretty cheap as pitchers go, with a team option for 2013 as well.

We went out to the game Wednesday night.  Quite a good game, very tight until the Cubs blew it open in the seventh by putting together a nice series of at-bats.  Samardzija turned in what can only be described as a gutty performance.  He had nothing, or at least nothing he could command, but he did hang in there and keep the game close, 1-1 when he left.

The lead picture was taken sometime during the Cubs seventh inning rally.  The picture above when the rains came.  Needless to say we were soaked on the way home.

The Home Stand

I've been a little tardy in keeping up with the Cubs on their recent stretch of baseball which, by and large, has shown belated signs of life.  The Cubs are 12-4 since they brought up Anthony Rizzo, or at least since they said they were bringing him up.

Which is probably a strong argument in favor of the influence an impact player can have on a team both in terms of his contribution and the psychological effect of confidence he brings.  I think Rizzo has had this kind of influence, but we should note that the Cubs still don't score enough runs and that the real reason for this is they just don't get on base enough.  DeJesus is an acceptable lead-off hitter (.354 OBP), but Castro, although he hits for a high average, just doesn't get on base enough and doesn't make productive outs.  So the three, four, and five hitters get fewer chances to put up so-called crooked numbers than they should.

Still, at least the team is providing entertainment.  Mostly this streak is the result of solid, really good pitching.  The Cubs have scored sixty runs in the twelve victories, but the most revealing stat in the string of wins is that they gave up only eighteen runs in their wins.

With respect to the improvement of their pitching, the impact player here seems to be Travis Wood, who has established himself as a pretty solid starting pitcher over the course of the last month or so.  That and the stabilization of the bullpen with Corpas, Camp, Russell, and Marmol turning in pretty effective work.

It is kind of ironic then that all the trade talk seems to center around trading two very good pitchers, Matt Garza and Ryan Dempster.  Don't misunderstand me here.  The Cubs will and should trade Ryan Dempster.  Dempster is 36 years old and despite his having his best season since 2008, he is a free agent the Cubs have no intention of extending who has been on the DL twice already this year.

Garza is another story, however, and the Cubs would do well to think this one over very carefully.  Good rich teams like the Cubs are extending guys like Garza, not trading them for uncertain prospects.  In my mind, the replacement cost is pretty high.  For two reasons really.  Teams are not giving up their best AAA and AA can't miss pitchers.  Secondly, if the guys you get don't pan out right away, you are back on the free agent market looking at the Paul Maholms of the world or signing guys just like the guy you traded for more money.

Fun Diversion

This isn't about the Cubs, but it is an amusing baseball science speculation.  What if a pitcher threw a pitch at nearly the speed of light?

http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

Let’s set aside the question of how we got the baseball moving that fast. We'll suppose it's a normal pitch, except in the instant the pitcher releases the ball, it magically accelerates to 0.9c. From that point onward, everything proceeds according to normal physics.:
The answer turns out to be “a lot of things”, and they all happen very quickly, and it doesn’t end well for the batter (or the pitcher). I sat down with some physics books, a Nolan Ryan action figure, and a bunch of videotapes of nuclear tests and tried to sort it all out. What follows is my best guess at a nanosecond-by-nanosecond portrait: