The Cubs lost Sunday to the Mets when Carlos Marmol blew a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the ninth inning. Alfonso Soriano knocked over a garbage can after eating dinner and opined that Marmol used to be a good pitcher. So it goes. I remember two years ago when Zambrano made similar remarks and Soriano leaped to Marmol's defense.
Anyway, I didn't catch most of the game, though I gather Garza gave one of his better efforts. After the game, fans started calling in with bitter feelings, especially concerning Marmol. The radio "experts" urged them to stay the course. So it goes.
The fans have a point, though, and I do not know why it is so hard for this message to get through to the experts and the front office. The Cubs have blown fourteen saves this year, and the bullpen has lost enumerable other games, Marmol and Camp accounting for the most spectacular meltdowns. So just assuming they might have won half of them, the team would now be three games over .500 and no one would be talking about another July fire sale.
Actually, this is one thing I don't get with respect to the so-called expert opinion and how this is the only way to build a competitive team, from the ground up, keep exchanging assets for younger assets, etc. Isn't this just what Pittsburgh and Kansas City and Seattle and Cleveland have been doing for the last ten or twenty years?
Cincinnati and St. Louis and Tampa have been successful at renewing themselves from within their farm systems, but even they have to occasionally dip into the free agent market to fill holes. Also, especially respecting the Cards and the Rays, they have a certain style of play and a rigorous developmental program the Cubs in general lack.
Now the Cubs brass pays lip service to the idea of player development and nurturing both defensive and offensive discipline, but so far there is little evidence of results. It is probably too early to assess the player development aspect of things, but so far as instilling any idea of fundamental, disciplined, smart baseball habits, a quick look at the minor league stats doesn't seem to show much progress.
Granted these hot shots like Baez and Almora are down in A ball, but year to year they are not taking walks and they are striking out a lot. I think Almora has walked like five or six times in his professional career. Looking at the stats, some of the lesser hyped prospects in AA ball strike me as more likely candidates for successful major league careers, maybe not as superstars, but potentially worthwhile players. I'm thinking here of the outfielders Matt Szczur and Jae-Hoon Ha and the shortstop Arismendy Alcantara.
But anyway, the real problem I have with the so-called plan is that it is basically a business plan, not a baseball plan. The first assumption is that you are going to stink for two or three years. Not only is this an insult to the fans who pay good money to see a dreadful product, but it has an adverse effect on the development of the team as a whole. If you are Starlin Castro and you land a fat, multi-year contract, what's the incentive to continue to improve and become the player people think you are capable of being? So you hit into a double play with the game on the line after reaching out for a pitch ten inches outside. You were going to lose anyway, and, if not that game, then the next. This attitude starts to rub off on everyone around, especially the rentals and stop-gap players who are just waiting around to be traded anyway. These seasons have become an exercise in learning to lose.
The second assumption is that a way to build a team is to arbitrage assets, mostly by trading them to contenders at the trade deadline. I'm not saying the Cubs should not trade players of ability if they can get a fair return. However, if one thing is certain, it is that teams rarely get a fair return at the trade deadline. What they really get to do is to dump salary.
Think about it, sellers at the deadline invariably engage in trades with buyers or renters, good teams that are contenders and so are not going to give up players who are likely to help them right now or next year. These are the players the Cubs need.
So the Cubs wind up trading genuine major league players like Dempster and Maholm and Johnson for kids who may or may not ever develop or players who are iffy in some other way, like being disabled and subject to a chancy rehab regime (Vizcaino).
The real deals of veteran talent for near-term prospects happens in the off-season. So the best trades made by Epstein/Hoyer have been Marshall for Wood and Cashner for Rizzo. If you look at the deals the masters of this kind of team building make, Beane and Friedman, they are almost always off-season deals. That's when teams are willing to take near-term chances, and that's when you can deal with anyone, not just the contenders.
It is, incidentally, why I cannot figure out the zeal with which people speculate on the positive worth of trading Matt Garza, a pretty good pitcher who will reach free agency status only at the end of the season. The time to deal Garza was two years ago when Epstein and Hoyer were hired. He was worth something then. Now he is worth nothing. The Cubs would be better served by extending him or making him a qualifying offer at season's end, which would at least bring them a good draft choice in return.
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