Now that 2014 is coming to a close (for the Cubs, it came to a close roughly May 15, but bear with me), we turn to the Hot Stove League. One bonus of the Cubs’ situation right now is that there are very clear places to upgrade, and very clear places the Cubs do not need help.
Places the Cubs need no help:
Infield (besides catcher*)
Anthony Rizzo would have been down-ballot MVP consideration had he not been dinged up at the end of the season. He’s third in the league in wOBA; even at 1st (and a poor defender statistically) he’s 13th in fWAR. Javier Baez has earned the chance to get 650 PA at 2B next year. Starlin Castro is 3rd in the majors for SS in wOBA (.341), and his defense is ever-improving. His contract looks pretty damn good right now (as does Rizzo’s). Kris Bryant deserves every PA at 3B in the coming season, and even if he shows up DOA, Valbuena has earned that right too. Valbuena is probably the league’s best super-sub in 2015, and if he somehow falters, Logan Watkins should be capable enough to fill that void as well. There is no infield position I would consider upgrading at besides catcher (and we’ll soon see why a catching upgrade isn’t wholly feasible either).
Center and Right Field
Arismendy Alcantara has struggled mightily in his pro debut, but I have every confidence he will continue to improve. He isn’t plain overmatched, and if he can cut down just a little on the strikeouts and see a little positive regression in his BABIP, he should be good enough to just be average. If an incredible bargain fell into the Cubs lap, I think they’d consider it, but Alcantara is good enough to pencil in at center in most circumstances. Jorge Soler hasn’t missed a beat since his promotion, and he should be a prototypical All-Star RF for the next decade or so. Don’t screw with that.
The Entire Bullpen
If you want to add one or two cheap just-in-case guys, fine. However, Rondon/Strop/Ramirez have been one of the best trios at the end of a ballgame this year. Pitchers like Vizcaino/Rivero/Grimm/Wright can cheaply and easily form a tenacious front end of a bullpen, with several of those guys having the stuff to move into back-end roles should the need arise. Bullpens have extremely high variance, so addressing this isn’t a terrible move, per se, but the Cubs shouldn’t have to invest many resources here.
There are a few places the Cubs have a clear need:
Left Field
I’m a fan of Chris Coghlan, I really am. I think of all the 4th-OF types the Cubs have given 300-500 PAs to in the past 3 years or so, he’s the cream of the crop. I don’t want Chris Coghlan to start on the Cubs in 2015. I’d be very fine with him as the 4th OF, but we’ve been burned here before.
Options in left field are fairly numerous, with intriguing options at nearly every price point. At the high end of the scale, you have Yasmany Tomas – a $100 MM outlay for a guy who has never once played American professional baseball. At the other end of the spectrum you have a guy like Chris Denorfia, who seems tailor-made for the Cubs to offer a NRI to (who will then soak up another 300-500 PA). There are no prime-year established talents in the LF market, so the Cubs will either have to roll the dice on Tomas (and outbid 25-29 other very interested teams), or plug in an established veteran for a few years (while you wait for a prospect to come up and take his place).
Melky Cabrera might be the middle ground. He’s 30, so you’ll get his age-31 through his age-35 or 36 seasons. There is definitely some bad baseball on the end of that contract (and very possibly the beginning or middle). Leche is a switch-hitter who puts a ton of balls in play; his strikeout rate hovers around 12% for his career. At the right price, I’d be very interested in Cabrera (would you rather have him and 50 million dollars or Yasmany Tomas?), but the dearth of star-caliber hitters in this free agency might drive his price beyond what is comfortable.
Starting Pitcher
It’s time to take my lumps. Brett from Bleacher Nation kept insisting that the pitching class of 2014 would be stronger than the pitching class of 2015, and it appears he’s right. I definitely did not expect Masterson, Lester, and Scherzer to all make it to market. It appears they all will (even if Masterson is now damaged goods). In 2014, Scherzer, Lester, James Shields, Kenta Maeda (most likely), Ervin Santana (who I wouldn’t touch, but some team will), Jake Peavy, Brandon McCarthy (a Cub if ever there was one), and Jorge de la Rosa will all be on the market. It’s hard to imagine that the Cubs won’t get at least one of the those pitchers, and probably at least one of the really good ones (I consider Scherzer, Lester, and Shields to be really good). It’s my hope they grab a pair of pitchers from the next tier (Maeda, McCarthy, Peavy, de la Rosa, Santana), and I’ve arranged them in my preferred order. Maeda gets the nod solely due to his 27-year-old-ness; I think he’s probably a mid-rotation starter at best; wouldn’t you know it, the Cubs need like 3 mid-rotation starters. I believe Arrieta can be a mid-rotation starter, and Hendricks can be one as well (I don’t prescribe to the notion that we ever really need an “ace.”). No one else on the 40-man can be trusted to do that, in my opinion. Travis Wood, Edwin Jackson, Jacob Turner, Felix Doubront, James McDonald (lol), Dan Straily, Chris Rusin… if we get one league-average starter out of those 7 for next year, I’ll consider it an average outcome. I don’t think Edwards, Johnson, or Tseng will be ready to contribute meaningfully in 2015 (perhaps 30-40 innings in a bullpen somewhere), so the number of starters we get in free agency dictates the number of unsavory options we have to deal with next year.
The Catcher Riddle
Here is the full list of catchers available next year (assuming club options are exercised sanely):
John Buck
Ryan Doumit
Nick Hundley
Gerald Laird
Russell Martin
Jeff Mathis
Wil Nieves
A.J. Pierzynski
David Ross
Geovany Soto
Let’s remove everyone who couldn’t catch 41 games in 2014.
Nick Hundley
Gerald Laird
Russell Martin
Jeff Mathis
Wil Nieves
A.J. Pierzynski
David Ross
Geovany Soto
Let’s remove everyone who couldn’t out-hit Welington Castillo in 2014.
Russell Martin
Well, that escalated quickly.
If you want to spend $100 MM on Russell Martin, be my guest. I surely don’t want to do that. I’m willing to stomach the Castillo/Lopez battery until something better comes along, even if I’m not a huge Castillo fan at this point in the game. Martin is a league-average bat coming off of a career year and is turning 32. Please, please no.
Finances
The Cubs will have perhaps $40 million dollars to spend in free agency. Just as a back-of-the-envelope, quick-and-dirty analysis, you could probably land Tomas ($18 MM AAV?), McCarthy ($15 MM AAV?), and still have $5-7 MM to play “find this year’s Hammel” with. Alternatively, they could forego a LF altogether, sign some combination like Maeda ($18 MM AAV?) and Peavy ($15 MM AAV, short-term lease?), and pocket some more money for when they really need to spend it. In any case, it’ll be a very, very interesting offseason.