Jackson & Villanueva

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.