Strop, Maddon, Loss

The Cubs continue to under-perform on the road.  Friday nights loss continued the trend, the third game blown by the bullpen in this stretch and the second blown by Pedro Strop.  There seems to be something wrong with Strop either physically or mentally or both.  In any case, he is a disaster this season as compared to his prior years of creditable service.  So, incidentally, is Carl Edwards and was  the recently traded Mike Montgomery.  These guys were lynch pins of the Cubs bullpen in former years and highlight the big gap Epstein and Hoyer and Maddon need to fill to bring this team into and through the playoffs.

Notwithstanding the aformentioned failures, I have to question Maddon's decisions in almost all these defeats.  I've always thought Maddon was a terrific clubhouse manager and a questionable and sometimes downright awful field manager.  Tonight's game is a great example.  Hendricks is pitching a two-hit shutout through five innings.  Bote hits a two-run homer to give them a lead.  Maddon pinch hits for Hendricks, the next batter, using Schwarber against a lefty.  Schwarber predictably strikes out.  Hendricks pitch count was getting up there, but you could tell even in the dugout he wanted to give them another inning and might easily have done so.

So this leaves four innings for the beleaguered bullpen to fill.  Ryan comes in and gets two outs sandwiched around a walk.  Why not let Ryan finish the inning?  Instead Cishek comes in and makes heavy weather of things before eventually getting the third out.  How much worse might it have been to let Ryan finish the inning?

So Cishek gets two outs in the seventh sandwiched around a walk.  Kintzler replaces Cishek and gives up a single to Yelich to bring the score to 2-1 before getting the final out.  The following inning, Kintzler begins an inning, like Cishek before after working out of a jam, by getting into trouble.  He leaves with two men on and is replaced by Strop who blows the game by giving up a bases loaded single  to give the Brewers the lead.

Now it is hard to predict guys who will be off or just plain bad, but continually putting pitchers who are struggling like Edwards Sunday and Strop Monday and Friday  into game situations is just dumb.  Also you have to wonder why taking out Hendricks early was smart and whether removing a pitcher who needed only a single out to escape a non-threatening situation was smart and whether sticking with pitchers who escaped trouble in stressful partial innings was smart.

I happen not to think so, but Maddon does it all the time and it does cost the Cubs victories.  I reckon the Cubs bullpen has lost at least ten winnable games this year, maybe more.  It is going to take more than Derek Holland to remedy this problem.

Another Meltdown

Were it not for the by and large complete bullpen collapses in three of their first five games, the Cubs would be 4-1.  The only unwinnable game was Monday night.  Obviously this can’t go on. The Cubs are counting on these guys righting the ship. The  whole of the offseason strategy was not to go for a big name like Kimbrel or Britton or Miller and to make minor patches in the hopes the existing core would return to form.

Make no mistake, the Cubs folded in September not just because they stopped hitting, but because their relief pitching fell apart in the aftermath of injuries to Morrow and Strop. Theoretically the remaining staff just ran out of gas or failed to perform when forced into unexpected roles down the stretch. Frankly, I bought this line too.

Now, I’m not so sure. Thus far, the only reliever whose performance so far supports this argument is Kintzler. Maybe what we are seeing is what they are, which is mediocre journeymen who are on again/off again players and nothing more.  I hope not. If so, we are likely to be disappointed once again.

The key issue with the Cubs pitching is their  failure to develop homegrown talent throughout the Epstein era, really streching back to end end of the Tribune regime. This cannot be fixed on the fly. Right now, aside from Cedeno and Barnette who are hurt, the only help on the farm would be Mills and Maples.

An Ugly Beginning

Everyone knew the Cubs bullpen would be an issue at least until their closer returned, but the performance in Texas was really pretty awful.  To score 29 runs and wind up losing two of three games to one of the worst teams in baseball has got to be of some concern.  Of course, Darvish's dreadful performance and Hamels mediocre start had something to do with it, but both those guys left with a lead.

What I find of rather more concern than just two days of crappy games, though, is the apparent lack of defined roles in the game plan and the lack of confidence being demonstrated by Maddon in his staff.  Looking back on Saturday's game, for example, I know that the Cubs had some concerns mapping out the rotation with two off-days breaking up the first five games.  So the decision to bring in Quintana in the fourth inning makes some sense, especially as it pushes his first start into the Milwaukee series and Quintana owns the Brewers.  Quintana pitched pretty well under the circumstances.  He gave them four innings, left with the lead, and was unlucky to have been tagged for the two runs the Rangers scored in the 7th.

Still, the logical long men are Chatwood and Montgomery, so right there it looks like nobody believes in them in that spot.  Actually, with the exception of bringing on Quintana early on Saturday, the rest of Maddon's bullpen usage was pretty much by the book.  Of course, with the exception of Cishek and Kintzler, nobody seems to have read the same book.

I frankly don't understand why Maddon is determined to employ Edwards as his 8th inning guy despite his performance in high leverage spots like that over the past two years.  Edwards has great stuff, but he seems lost these days.  Cishek is the guy to use in those spots.  Edwards also seems to have changed his delivery from the windup to some sort of hesitation move that the umpires announced on Sunday was illegal, so it seems it is back to the drawing board for Edwards anyway.

After watching them pitch this weekend, I don't really know about Darvish and Chatwood rounding back to form that quickly.  Hamels I have no doubt will bounce back.  I'm also pretty sure the remainder of the bullpen will be adequate for now except for Edwards, who, as I have noted, seems to have lost confidence.

I mean, if you average 10 runs a game, how good does your bullpen need to be.  Not that great, I suppose, but better than they showed in Texas.

Latest Moves

I was surprised to see that the Cubs optioned Ian Happ to AAA.  Happ has had a bad spring and continues to strike out too often.  On the other hand, he does get on base.  One supposes this is a temporary measure along the lines of the Schwarber demotion earlier in his career.

People are speculating about the Cubs searching the waiver wire for a center-fielder, presumably a left-handed hitter.  Kind of strange from my viewpoint.  The team can field an all left-handed or all right-handed outfield with the players who remain in that Heyward can play a more than adequate center field to spell Almora.  Anybody available who has been cut is likely a worse alternative than Happ.  Also, Zagunis had had a terrific spring and should make the roster even if Happ were to stick.  Personally, I'd like to see them dump Heyward.  The Giants are apparently looking for outfield help.

Finally, the Cubs have finally given up on Duensing.  Picking up Collins on a major league deal is kind of odd given the number of other options they have, but anyone is better than Duensing at this point.  Now, if they finish the job and dump Kintzler as well...

Pitchers and Catchers Report

It has been a relatively dull off-season for the Cubs as well as for the headline free agents.  I was not surprised by the Cubs not making any really significant moves this winter.  They evidently believe they have the players they need to succeed.  You cannot blame them for this.  The team won 95 games despite losing its closer mid-season and its replacement closer for most of September, despite a key injury to Kris Bryant, despite the suspension of their starting shortstop, and despite losing two of their five starting pitchers for most of the year.  The only surprise might be they did not go out and get stronger bullpen pieces, especially left-handers.  However, some of the under the radar pickups are fairly intriguing.

The big surprise of the off-season has been the lack of market movement for Harper and Machado.  There is a lot of discontent on the players side about this, even suggestions of complicity among the owners to depress their market value.  Although I always support the workers point-of-view, I have my doubts this situation is not just he result of serious analysis on the part of the league's front offices.

What I mean here is that, realistically, is one guy worth a ten year commitment of something like a fourth of your payroll.  Most of the big contract position players have been long-term flops.  Did Albert Pujols or Robinson Cano bring home championships to their respective franchises?  Don't all these guys turn into dead weights as they age?  Granted, Harper and Machado are hitting the free agent market in their mid-twenties, but ten years is a big gamble on any one player.

You can argue that Machado brought the Dodgers to the World Series, but in his years with the Orioles, his role was not transformative.  This is even more the case with Harper who was not able to carry the Nationals beyond the first round despite having a pretty solid team behind him.

I rather think teams are going to shoot for shorter-term contracts for this type of player, maybe even one to three year deals at really exorbitant numbers with opt-outs thrown in as incentives.  Of course, the Cubs got the worst of both worlds in Heyward who has turned out to stink most of the time and is pulling down $20MM a season.  Should he turn it around and play back to his earlier form, he will opt out; should he continue to disappoint, the Cubs are stuck.

Left Behind?

So far not much action from the Cubs this winter, much to the consternation of many fans who expected big moves toward Harper or Machado or both.  I've got to say that I am not of that number for reasons already explained in earlier posts.

I'm pretty certain the Cubs thinking goes along these lines, viz., we were good enough to win 95 games last year despite injuries to Darvish, Chatwood's complete meltdown, Morrow's and Bryant's injuries, Contreras's second half slump and Russell's suspension.  Just assuming Bryant is back, Contreras gets some regular time off and Darvish is able to join the rotation, the team is in pretty good shape.  Two out of three of these things happening wins five more games for sure.

Balanced against this is the fact the Cardinals and Reds have made big moves in the off-season.  Probably not enough for the Reds to make a run, but the Cards are going to be serious contenders.  Oddly enough, the Brewers have not made much of a splash.  Personally, I always thought the Brewers were not as good a team as they proved last season and that they will likely regress.

Epstein and Hoyer have said they need to shed salary in order to make a big play.  I take them at their word.  The question is who gets shed to break some logjams.  They have fourteen pitchers on the 40-man roster who are virtual locks to make the team including Morrow who will open the season on the DL.  It doesn't include any prospects.  It does include at least three pieces of deadwood, viz., Chatwood, Duensing, and Kintzler.  My guess is they will retain Chatwood largely because nobody wants him and they need to rebuild some of his value.  Also, he gives them some insurance against injury to any of the starters and he might come back.  So Duensing and Kintzler are sure to be marketed.  I would expect for low-level minor leaguers.  Still, that doesn't save you much.

Most of the rest of the roster is set in stone right now with the exception of Russell who is suspended and not counted on the 40-man tally.  The Cubs might decide to move players like Schwarber or Almora or Happ or Bote, but the real question is what they need and what they get in return that is better than their current holdings.  I expect the answer to that is negative.  Plus it doesn't save much money.

The one guy who would save substantial cash is Heyward.  Heyward is ultimately completely expendable despite his relative youth and defensive prowess.  The problem is his contract, which, aside from overpaying him, is full of loopholes and opt-outs so that any team taking him on is likely to be saddled with him for a long time if he flops or lose him almost immediately if he succeeds.  The Cubs would need to subsidize any deal or take a similarly bad contract or virtually nothing in return.

Personally, I think the Cubs need a dominant left-handed reliever more than a Harper or Machado who will burden them with a ten year commitment that will entirely skew their salary structure and limit their flexibility for a long time to come.  I was disappointed they were unable to reel in Miller, though, in the long run, he might be a big risk especially in a three-year deal.  I'd like to see them make a run at Britton.

Not Much Activity

I still hold to the opinion the Cubs are going to stand pat through this off-season without any blockbuster moves.

So far, the team has not made a major roster move.  They tendered pretty much everyone who was expected to be retained.  One surprise was trading LaStella, but, again, LaStella was basically a pinch-hitter who occasionally played second or third base.

The Cubs did tender Addison Russell.  It now appears they are more or less committed to his rehabilitation.  This is pretty much confirmed by the various manipulations in picking up Torreyes, dumping him, then picking up Descalso.  They are obviously looking for a utility infielder who can back up at shortstop until Russell comes off suspension.  I suppose Descalso is as good an option as any.  One guy I thought they might go after is Marwin Gonzalez, who is a kind of poor man's Ben Zobrist and has a history as a Cubs farmhand.  I expect there it would involve too much of a commitment or too much money.

The last piece to fall is likely to be the acquisition of a solid left-handed reliever.  I thought that might be Andrew Miller.  Maybe it still is him.

All through the off-season, there have been rumblings about payroll and having to dump salary in order to make a big move or even a series of smaller moves that increase payroll.  My own suspicion is the salary dump is Heyward and they just cannot get takers.  Think about it.  The Cubs have got virtually nothing in the way of consistent production from Heyward other than his defense and they are paying him big bucks.  I'd sure like to see him traded.  It opens up a lot of possibilities.