Another Placeholder?

The Cubs have signed Scott Hairston to a two-year deal.  Not sure what that really means other than that the Cubs are trying to look like they are trying to become a competitive team while they wait for their prospects to mature.

As far as this signing projects, Hairston is a career reserve outfielder who is strictly a right-handed platoon.  Since their other outfield addition, Nate Schierholtz, is a similar caliber player who bats from the left side, it seems logical to assume they will platoon in right field.  Both of them strike out a lot and hardly ever walk.

Presumably David DeJesus will move to center field.  Lots of people think this means the Cubs have lost faith in Brett Jackson and Dave Sappelt.  I rather think the opposite is the case.  Look for the Cubs, who have made a big deal about restructuring Jackson's swing, just as they did last year with Anthony Rizzo, to start Jackson in the minors and move him full-time to the majors in June or July.

With respect to Sappelt, I notice he had a good run in winter ball and that he played a lot of center field.  Sappelt has played quite a lot of center field in the minor leagues and he has always done better against lefties, so I kind of look for him to platoon with DeJesus.  The only odd part of Sappelt's winter league performance is that he hit poorly against lefties.  This is an anomaly for him, so maybe it was just a fluke.

This leaves Soriano as the everyday left-fielder, which is, from my viewpoint anyway, bad news.  Actually, all of this is not a cause for optimism.  None of these potential regulars are championship caliber players.  The biggest problem with all of them with the exception of DeJesus is they don't get on base.

The single most important insight that Bill James and the sabremetric analysts have brought to baseball is the relationship between the number of base-runners and the number of runs scored and the relationship between scoring a lot of runs and winning games.

So far none of the additions made by Epstein in the off-season seem to contribute to this end.  Realistically, the only players on the team who work the count at all are DeJesus, Rizzo, and maybe Castillo, and then it is not like they are walk-machines like Pena or Youkilis or even Fukudome.  Good teams, really good teams, score 800 or more runs.  Last year the Cubs scored 613.  I don't see how they break 650 right now.