The Cubs finally landed a genuine free agent starter in Edwin Jackson, as well as another potential starter in Carlos Villanueva.
Jackson throws hard and had a decent year with the Nationals last season. He is not dominating, but he does eat innings. He projects as probably the #3 starter for the Cubs, behind Garza and Samardzija. Anyway, he signed for four years and has a no-trade clause, so this figures to be his longest stay with a single team since his early years with the Tigers.
The only quibble I have with this kind of signing is that it is more a striving for competence rather than excellence. The Nationals, who are genuine contenders and have an excellent team, passed on Jackson, presumably because they had better options and actually wanted to win the pennant.
Villanueva is another competent pitcher who had a decent year with the Blue Jays, who similarly passed on bringing him back. His best years were in a long relief role and I would have projected him there with the Cubs were it not for the story he has been promised a shot at 30 starts in Chicago.
Assuming Scott Baker and Matt Garza begin the season healthy, that kind of leaves Feldman and Wood in the bullpen. The Cubs look to be making similar competent not glamorous signings to fill out the bullpen, reportedly zeroing in on J.P. Howell as a middle reliever. I'd have liked to see them acquire another lefty or give Wood a shot. The only other lefty is Jeff Russell who looks to be the left-handed setup guy.
So there are some things to be encouraged about. By and large the pitching looks better. Still going to be a long season, though, unless they do something about third base and the outfield. The Giants can win with just pitching and defense because their pitching is dominant. In the Cubs case, well, they look pretty anemic and do not project to score many runs.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Down to the Wire Again
From recent reports, it looks as if the Cubs are finalists in the quest for the services of the much-traveled Edwin Jackson, kind of a consolation prize for missing out on the Anibal Sanchez train. Hard to figure out what happened with that deal, other than that Sanchez always wanted to sign with the Tigers and used the Cubs for leverage, or else the Cubs were never that close to a deal. Another theory is that the Chicago press, anxious to see some glimmer of life coming from Addison and Clark Streets, however faint, broke the news prematurely and queered yet another deal.
Who knows? Who actually cares? Neither one of these guys is an impact player, though Sanchez right now is clearly the better pitcher. If the Cubs land Jackson, it means two things. One is that you have to seriously question a person's judgment if he prefers to tie up his career for three years with the Cubs when he could spend the same time with the Rangers. The other is that the Cubs are kind of convinced they can build a representative team around pretty good pitchers like Samardzija and Garza and, in this case, Jackson.
Good luck with that if you are saddled with a team that doesn't score runs. They kind of followed that strategy during the Hendry years and came close in 2007 and 2008, the difference then being they scored runs then and they had an ace in Carlos Zambrano who at least some of time lived up to his billing.
Who knows? Who actually cares? Neither one of these guys is an impact player, though Sanchez right now is clearly the better pitcher. If the Cubs land Jackson, it means two things. One is that you have to seriously question a person's judgment if he prefers to tie up his career for three years with the Cubs when he could spend the same time with the Rangers. The other is that the Cubs are kind of convinced they can build a representative team around pretty good pitchers like Samardzija and Garza and, in this case, Jackson.
Good luck with that if you are saddled with a team that doesn't score runs. They kind of followed that strategy during the Hendry years and came close in 2007 and 2008, the difference then being they scored runs then and they had an ace in Carlos Zambrano who at least some of time lived up to his billing.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Meh
So far this off-season the Cubs needed to address so many problems you can only begin to list them. First off, starting pitching. Then the bullpen. Then you kind of realize you have no third baseman and one of the worst offensive and defensive outfields in all of baseball. Finally the bench.
How have they done thus far? Meh.
Right now the starting rotation consists in one guy coming off his first full season in the rotation (Samardzija), two decent starters coming off injuries (Garza and Baker), and two proven mediocrities (Feldman and Wood), of whom only one seems to have a significant potential upside (Wood).
To bolster the bullpen, the Cubs re-signed the free agent Camp (meh) and added the Japanese free agent Fujikawa, a genuine plus. Marmol now becomes somewhat superfluous. Russell is the only other guy in the pen who adds anything.
As far as the outfield and the bench goes, pretty much nothing. The Cubs picked up Nate Schierholtz on a one-year deal. This guy has been a reserve all his career, so he can hardly qualify as a game-changer. Plus his performance so far leads one to categorize him as a left-handed platoon player pure and simple who doesn't get on base. This probably leads to the less than thrilling conclusion he will platoon with Dave Sappelt in right until the Cubs conclude someone is ready to come up from the minors.
Soriano is still on the team in left field. DeJesus, I suppose, will start the year in center with Jackson back at AAA. Jackson has supposedly reconfigured his swing in an effort to bring his strikeout rate below 50%.
Navarro was a good pick up to back up Castillo at catcher, but, beyond that, there isn't much depth. Looks like they will go into the year with Luis Valbuena at third even if they sign the non-tendered Ian Stewart.
To be honest, this team looks a little worse on paper than last year's going into the season. Hard to be optimistic, isn't it?
How have they done thus far? Meh.
Right now the starting rotation consists in one guy coming off his first full season in the rotation (Samardzija), two decent starters coming off injuries (Garza and Baker), and two proven mediocrities (Feldman and Wood), of whom only one seems to have a significant potential upside (Wood).
To bolster the bullpen, the Cubs re-signed the free agent Camp (meh) and added the Japanese free agent Fujikawa, a genuine plus. Marmol now becomes somewhat superfluous. Russell is the only other guy in the pen who adds anything.
As far as the outfield and the bench goes, pretty much nothing. The Cubs picked up Nate Schierholtz on a one-year deal. This guy has been a reserve all his career, so he can hardly qualify as a game-changer. Plus his performance so far leads one to categorize him as a left-handed platoon player pure and simple who doesn't get on base. This probably leads to the less than thrilling conclusion he will platoon with Dave Sappelt in right until the Cubs conclude someone is ready to come up from the minors.
Soriano is still on the team in left field. DeJesus, I suppose, will start the year in center with Jackson back at AAA. Jackson has supposedly reconfigured his swing in an effort to bring his strikeout rate below 50%.
Navarro was a good pick up to back up Castillo at catcher, but, beyond that, there isn't much depth. Looks like they will go into the year with Luis Valbuena at third even if they sign the non-tendered Ian Stewart.
To be honest, this team looks a little worse on paper than last year's going into the season. Hard to be optimistic, isn't it?
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