Over on Cubs Den (a really good blog), John talks about how the Cubs have quietly built depth to give them trade flexibility. I want to look at his bullets one by one because I just don't agree with the conclusion that John is reaching. John is attributing this depth to Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer too, which is another thing I mostly disagree with. I know some people find the count/counterpoint kind of dickish, but I hope it doesn't come off that way. It's not my intention. I like John's work. I just disagree with him here. And I felt I need to do it this way to stress where I disagreed.
Marlon Byrd: The Cubs have Brett Jackson to take his place in the very near future, although they could start with Joe Mather and/or Reed Johnson in CF if they feel they want to give Jackson a few more swings in Iowa, where he hasn't played a full season.
Jackson was drafted by the Cubs in the 1st round in 2009. It was the most excited I'd been at any Cubs first round pick since Mark Prior. It was a fantastic selection by a team that had become known for being old school. He developed even better than expected and has become a top 50 prospect. Credit Jim Hendry and staff for this one; not Thoyer.
Joe Mather is the type of player that every team signs leading up to spring training. These are guys that no team wants so I have a very difficult time considering Mather depth. Perhaps he'll perform better than people expect, but until we see that he's nothing more than a below replacement level back-up who wouldn't make two-thirds of the rosters in baseball. The Cubs brought Reed Johnson back last year and the team re-signed him after Reed's excellent season at the plate. This was a no-brainer. The only question was whether Reed would want to play for a team that had a chance to contend. He can play on an every day basis if needed, but you'll get replacement level production from him once he starts facing right handers in nearly 70% of his plate appearances.
The Cubs haven't added any real depth at this position that they didn't already have. Other than Brett Jackson who was in the system before the new regime came along, the Cubs depth has mostly been nothing more than replacement level players. Most here are familiar with the concept, but for those who aren't, a replacement level player is someone is readily available for league minimum. This includes the career AAAA labeled players and players found on the waiver wire.
These players have no real value and every team has them. Every team has easy access to more of them. If Reed Johnson plays everyday, he's basically a replacement level player. Mather? He's probably not even that good. I have a hard time accepting replacement level talent as depth because every team already has those guys and they can add more of them for league minimum if they want.
If replacement level talent counts as depth, we have to consider the depth that a team like the Pirates. If you take away the pitchers batting, few players were below replacement for them last year. Most of the innings pitched were by guys better than replacement level. We could look back over several years and we'll find the same thing. They've been bad, but better than replacement level as a team. Replacement level for a team is 48 to 49 wins.
Randy Wells: The Cubs made building starting rotation depth a priority from day one. Assuming Chris Volstad and Jeff Samardzija have won the last two spots, Wells is starting pitching depth along with Travis Wood, Casey Coleman, and Rodrigo Lopez.
The Cubs did add some depth here, but is it quality depth? Take a look at the starters any team runs out there in years they have injuries and I'm not sure this group is in any way better than what you'll see from the typical team. I'm not even sure this group is better than the guys the Cubs ran out there last year when players were out with injury. They'll likely perform better than that group, but you could take the same group from last year and that would be equally true.
Let's consider the depth the Cubs had at this position entering last season. They had Ryan Dempster, Matt Garza, Carlos Zambrano, Randy Wells and Andrew Cashner in the opening day rotation. That's significantly better than this year's rotation. They also had Casey Coleman and James Russell. The Cubs top pitching prospect had skyrocketed through the system and already played half a season in AA. He wasn't far from the big leagues and was part of the depth the Cubs had last year. Had he not suffered through blisters early in the season he'd more than likely have made his big league debut no later than the end of May.
The Cubs depth at pitching this year is actually worse. Prior to last season there was a chance Russell could have been a decent starter. I don't mean decent in a way that you'd like someone like that in your rotation, but at the very least he was a replacement level starter. Coleman had some solid numbers in the minors. McNutt was coming off of an excellent season. Jay Jackson was still young enough. The Rorigo Lopez's of the world will fall into your lap this year just as they did a year ago.
The Cubs traded Cashner. McNutt had a season filled with non-pitching related injuries and when he did pitch he was less than impressive. Jay Jackson is older and still hasn't put it together in AAA. Coleman will probably not get another chance to start and neither will Russell. So the Cubs added Volstad, Wood, and Sonnanstine. Sonnanstine is already gone. Wood is ticketed for the minors after a disastrous spring. Rodrigo Lopez hangs around and nobody is sure why.
The depth the Cubs had a year ago has been decimated with injuries and ineffectiveness. In their place the Cubs have added replacement level pitchers.
Jeff Baker: The obvious replacement is Joe Mather. He is another RH batter who can play the 4 corners, just as Baker does. Baker has the advantage that he can also play 2B while Mather can play CF. Baker is the better hitter but Mather may have more pop and speed.
At the big league level over the last two years, Mather has a 53 OPS+ in 147 PA. While that's not a large sample, we have many years of minor league data to look at. He was nothing more than a league average hitter in the friendly PCL each of the last 2 years and below average in 2009. He's been in AAA for several years now. He's had less than 50 plate appearances in spring training. Mather hasn't been better than average in the minors since 2008. Since then he's done nothing but remain in AAA and been unimpressive. At the age of 29 or 30 he's not likely to be anyone's replacement at the big league level.
Sample size and quality of opponents is important to consider here. Mather has only 52 plate appearances this spring. Lorenzo Cain leads the way with an OPS over 1.300. Cain turns 26 in a couple weeks and boasts a minor league OPS under .800. His MLB OPS is under .750. Alex Liddi is above Mather and has a minor league OPS of just over .800. 26 year old Zack Cozart and his career minor league OPS of .753 has a spring OPS of 1.101. Dexter Fowler, an established MLB player, has the worst spring OPS of .330.
The reason these numbers are so considerably different than usual is sample size. Take Joe Mather's .442 OBP. Over 52 plate appearances 1 standard deviation is .074. If the only information we had on Mather was this .442 OBP and the 52 PA, we could use that to calculate a range of true talent. There's a 95% chance it's between .292 and .592. So Mather and his pretty OBP doesn't mean anything over 52 PA. Especially when you have over 3400 professional plate appearances during the regular season (almost all of them in the minor leagues).
Blake DeWitt: The Cubs have a carbon copy, though younger and cheaper version in Adrian Cardenas. Both offensively oriented LH hitters whose primary role would be as a complement to the defensively oriented, RH hitting Darwin Barney. I also find it curious that Alfredo Amazega's playing time seems to be increasing lately. He's the one Cubs utility IF'er who can play a respectable SS. I think he's a lock for Iowa and perhaps more if the Cubs make a couple of deals.
I would point out here that every team in baseball had a chance to pick DeWitt up after the Cubs took him off their 40-man roster. No team did and Blake was more than happy to just accept a minor league contract and invite to spring training. I have no idea what he's done this month, but if teams didn't want anything to do with him a month ago when they could have had him for nothing, they'll want nothing to do with him now. Spring training stats just aren't as valuable as many people think.
Furthermore, every team had a chance to pick up Cardenas and Amezaga. Every team passed because they already had their own version of them.
Geovanny Soto: The Cubs have two major league ready catchers in Welington Castillo and Steve Clevenger. Neither is as good as Soto, but they are cheaper and capable of putting up decent numbers between the two of them.
Both players were signed/drafted and developed when Hendry ran this team. There is depth at this position. Castillo and Clevenger both figure to be at least slightly better than replacement, but neither has much of a chance of being a starting catcher for very long.
Of the players listed here, perhaps only the back-up catchers offer real value other than the prospects in CF and 1B. It's possible Volstad improves. The same could be said for Wood, but the rest of these guys are what they are and most of them were in the organization before Thoyer took over.
Regardless of who is responsible, the Cubs lack depth at all postions except catcher, center field and first base. Hendry was responsible for the depth at the first two and this group traded former top prospect Andrew Cashner to acquire depth at 1st base.
The Cubs have made baby steps so far. Some might even question that. They're not better in any noticeable way this year than they otherwise would have been.
————————-
Correction: Brett pointed out that every team did not have a chance to acquire Cardenas. Only the AL teams and the Astros (worse record than the Cubs in the NL) had a chance.
Comments
Rodrigo Ramirez wrote:
I don’t think anyone is making any concrete judgments. It’s very early, but we can and should still look at what he’s done in the same way we would if Hendry or any other GM was still around. We can’t let 3 or 4 months cloud our judgments. it’s a very small sample in what will hopefully be a lot of information to work with down the road.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Rodrigo Ramirez:
OK, but if hypothetically Ricketts had cleaned house as soon as he arrived (mid to post 2009), at the very least we could have avoided the debacle that was the hayden simpson draft, and quite possibly had another year of big spending in the draft. The fact that he took his sweet ass time to evaluate things had consequences.
GWQuote Reply
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ GW:
Yeah, the Cubs spending $4 million in each of the 2009 and 2010 drafts. Embarrassing. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/draft/news/2011/2612233.html
mb21Quote Reply
One minor point: I don’t think it’s fair to say every team had a chance at Cardenas and passed. He was waived, so while every AL team had a chance to grab him before the Cubs (as did the Astros), no NL team better than the Cubs last year had a chance to get him.
Again, it’s a very minor point, but I can imagine a team or two being willing to grab him (if the Phillies had a sense of Utley’s problem, they certainly would have grabbed him).
BrettQuote Reply
Good piece. I don’t see much of a difference from years past.
GWQuote Reply
@ Brett:
Good point. It doesn’t change much, but it’s at least more accurate. I’ll update the post.
mb21Quote Reply
I added a correction at the bottom of the post. Thanks.
mb21Quote Reply
I think the problem here (not with you, mb) is that people are essentially conflating warm bodies with depth. Just because you have a ton of arms doesn’t mean you have depth. Sorry to use this example, but The Rays have depth. Pitchers 1-7, possibly 8, are all better than the #3/4/5 starters on this team. Looking at basketball, the Bulls are noted for their depth. It’s not because they suit 12 guys, or have 2 players at every position, but it’s because most of their roster could be a starter elswehere in the league.
The Cubs have bodies. A lot of them. That doesn’t necessarily make it depth.
MishQuote Reply
Mish wrote:
Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. Every team has depth. Some are better than others and the Cubs isn’t particularly impressive in my opinion.
mb21Quote Reply
The Cubs also had Silva for at this point last year.
ACTQuote Reply
I think it’s depth because our team sucks. You can put any warm body from the bench and put them on the field and you wouldn’t even notice
WaLiQuote Reply
Kevin has a quick wit.
What happens if Wells is claimed (hypothetically if they were to try to send him down)? Does the claiming team assume the salary? Not that they would do that because he’d probably net more than his salary in value in a trade.
I’m not sure it’s a good idea to trade away your pitching when there’s so little depth in there…I guess Randy winds up in the bullpen.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ ACT:
I completely forgot about him. Not a good pitcher, but as good or better than some of these other guys they have this year.
mb21Quote Reply
@ WaLi:
That’s probably true to some extent.
mb21Quote Reply
I’m not sure if the waiver is revocable or not, but my guess is the Cubs will trade Wells before they send him down.
mb21Quote Reply
mb21 wrote:
Yeah, I’m 99% sure the kind of waiver he’d have to be placed on is revocable.
BrettQuote Reply
@ Brett:
For some reason I thought revocable waivers were only for a couple months starting on August 1st.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
I thought that, too, until researching the possibility of Wells being sent to AAA. I can’t point to it at the moment (I’m commenting from the hip), but I left the research feeling like “oh, I guess revocable waivers happen in other situations, too.”
I think I saw it on that HUGE TCR post about transactions and rosters.
BrettQuote Reply
The way I understood it you can only pass a guy through waivers once a year and yank him back, and then you can’t do it anymore. So they could theoretically press their luck here and pull Randy (or whoever) back.
I’m not sure if the revoking ability is for the entire year, or just once per team the guy is on that season. I think it’s the former.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Brett:
AZ Phil would know.
If the Cubs did put Wells on waivers, some team would claim him. I’m pretty sure the Cubs would be on the hook for his contract minus the league minimum. Or they could pull him back.
mb21Quote Reply
@ GW:
You’re assuming he could have. How do you know he could have gotten someone at that point who would have done better? We know Theo basically wasn’t available at that time. Maybe someone else was, maybe he finds some kid who was an assistant and makes him GM and that kid is amazing. Maybe he finds someone worse that ties his hands and when Theo comes available, he has to pass. I just don’t think its fair to say at this point.
That said, I wanted him to clean house then as much as the next guy. So, there we are. It’s not like the CBA applies only to the Cubs. It’s not like every other team in the league is perfect right now, or that teams still won’t make moves to try to get better. The Cubs will still be able to take advantage of teams trying to improve at any cost. Or they’ll have to be the first team to come up with a way to exploit the new rules. Theo’s smart, he’s as likely as anybody to be the guy who can do it.
joshQuote Reply
For that matter, maybe the guy they pick a year ago completely loses his shit when the new CBA comes, or is never able to figure out the weaknesses. We won’t know how Theo handles the new rules until he has some time to actually come up with a plan and act on it. One half of an off-season is too soon to judge.
joshQuote Reply
I just think there are enough reasons to be pessimistic without having to imagine the Theo doomsday scenario.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
I don’t think anyone is doing that, Josh.
mb21Quote Reply
I think it’s good that you guys are being critical. It’s not like we are the electorate criticizing our elected officials, but I think fans still have a responsibility (for lack of a better word) to hold the sports organization they root for accountable for all their actions. I also think it’s only human for us to be a bit kneejerk about things.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
At the very least, it means you guys aren’t a bunch of homers (dying laughing)
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Aisle424Quote Reply
I appreciate the kind words about me and my blog but I have some serious problems with this whole analysis. Do you honestly think I don’t know which players Hendry picked up and which players Epstein/Hoyer picked up? Do you honestly believe I don’t understand what sample size is? Does that really have to be pointed out? I appreciate that you say nice things about my blog, but then you assume I don’t understand or didn’t take into account some of the simplest concepts. I think I deserve more credit than that. I considered what you said here, but I believe that given the bigger picture, those things are insignificant.
As for the analysis itself, there’s lot of nitpicking here but to what end? It misses the forest for the trees. The bottom line is this: Anytime you can trade players, pick up an asset or two, without a significant dropoff to the current team, that’s depth enough for me. You can analyze it to death but that part of it doesn’t change.
Does anybody really think that if the Cubs trade any of the players I listed and replaced them with the current available depth that it would make the team significantly worse in 2012?
Maybe they are just “bodies” as some of you say, but how much worse are they than the “bodies” who are on the roster now? Anything you get for Baker, Wells, or Dewitt, even if it’s a longshot A ball prospect is worth it. Those guys were …replacement level players! But they all have more value on the trade market than the guys the Cubs could potentially replace them with.
That’s all the article is about.
John ArguelloQuote Reply
For MO or whoever asked…
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/boxscore.jsp?gid=2012_03_07_chnmlb_kcamlb_1
If you click on the “gameday” you should be able to track every pitch F7 threw, but I don’t think they keep the pitch locations in the memory. I see fastball, splitter, slider, changeup, cutter.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
John Arguello wrote:
John, I didn’t mean to upset you. I really didn’t. I pointed this out specifically because the implication of quietly building depth is that it’s something new.
John Arguello wrote:
We clearly have a different definition of depth. I’m not saying I’m right. I don’t know if I am, but it seems to me if it a team builds something worth remarking on that they’ve done something other teams haven’t. If the Cubs depth is similar to even the poorer teams in the league, is it really depth? I mean, every organization has close to 200 professional ballplayers. Every team has the same size roster and every team has players who will fill in if someone is traded or injured. Or they acquire someone. They are required to. To me, the depth the Cubs have fulfills the bare minimum. The replacement the Cubs will have is a professional ballplayer.
John Arguello wrote:
That’s a good point, but at least to me that is more about how bad the Cubs are right now and not about their depth. In my opinion, if they had much depth they could not just easily replace the guys you mention, but replace them in a way that actually improves the team.
John Arguello wrote:
No, but you could trade any player on this team and they wouldn’t be significantly worse. It’s a terrible team. Entering a season it’s easily the least talented Cubs team I’ve seen since 2002. Even in 2002 Mark Prior was right around the corner. So was Corey Patterson, Bobby Hill, Hee Seop Choi and others.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
What I gather from reading both articles and this one and the comments is that basically the point was that the Cubs have people who can play every position, meaning they can trade off their veterans as other teams start to need them during the course of the season. So, in a sense, it doesn’t matter as much that Mather is replacement level–the point is that a team might want Byrd and be willing to give up something relatively significant if they are in a race, in which case, even if BJax isn’t MLB ready at that point, they can still field a team (a shittier team, sure, but oh well).
joshQuote Reply
That’s really what it was. i didn’t consider it deep analysis when I wrote it, just a simple observation. Perhaps the word depth and build weren’t the right words in retrospect. I certainly didn’t intend to make too much of the guys the Cubs have as depth, nor did I intend to say Theo is a genius and has picked up great players that can step right in and make the team better.
There was some depth already there and Theo added what he could given he didn’t have much to work with. The Cubs are in a position to acquire talent without hurting their team significantly in the short term and not at all in the long term.
It certainly is a product of the team being as bad as it is, but being bad puts you in a unique position. You might as well use it to your advantage. You can take these guys off the scrap heap, move the guys who have some value on the trade market, get some assets for the future and barely skip a beat in the present. That’s exactly what I think these guys intend to do.
John ArguelloQuote Reply
The Cubs have several established players they might trade at the trade deadline (Byrd, DeJesus, Soto, Marmol, Dempster, Garza, Maholm, Wells, Johnson, Baker). I interpret “depth” as meaning they have replacement players available, so they can trade any or all of them to a contending team if the price is right.
The Cubs are very unlikely to make the playoffs in 2012, but these chips might make the 2013 and 2014 Cubs much stronger contenders.
CubsinQuote Reply
For the record, I never said people were “reading stats wrong” I only said that there is some statistical evidence that he possibly figured out how to throw strikes last year, and if so, might actually be a pretty decent pitcher. That he changed something. It’s not like I think there’s some 90% chance F7 is gonna be a ballin’ starting pitcher.
Doug etetectdsaagaQuote Reply
Earl Scruggs ——————> Foggy Mountain gone
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ Doug etetectdsaaga:
I’m kind of excited about F7. It’s a longshot, but longshots are the most exciting stories. If the best thing the Cubs do this year is have a season of good performances from a guy that used to look like one of the biggest busts in baseball, that’ll be this teams equivalent to a World Series.
joshQuote Reply
Go F7!
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
F7
Samardzija
Spelly
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
Boozing it up a little early this morning, eh?
WaLiQuote Reply
John Arguello wrote:
This is I agree. Especially with veterans who have a year left on their contract like Dempster and Byrd. I’m not in favor of trading Wells as I think he’s the team’s 3rd or 4th best starter.
mb21Quote Reply
@ WaLi:
Seeing Josh’s comment, reasonable as it was, just pushed me over the F7 limit. It’s all there’s been to talk about, and now it will be all there is to talk about as the season starts.
F7
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ Doug etetectdsaaga:
I’m not sure I’d use a sample of 40 or so innings as evidence. Maybe it’s an encouraging sign, but over 40 innings variance in one’s production is pretty large.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
Yeah the Samardizja talk is getting old (dying laughing)
“Small Sample size! Look at his past performance! He will fail!”
“But.. but… He could have changed!! And what’s to lose anyways?”
x sideways 8
WaLiQuote Reply
Yeah isn’t there something else to talk about? Like cats?
MishQuote Reply
@ Mish:
WaLiQuote Reply
@ Mish:
F7 shaved his whiskers.
Mobile RiceQuote Reply
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP4NMoJcFd4
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
I like typing Samardzija. I think it’s the ij combination ijijijijijijijijij IT’s like a little finger dance.
joshQuote Reply
I’m in the papers again
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/03/29/149597179/marylands-batman-looks-like-a-real-hero
MishQuote Reply
@ Mish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pP8FtjbhAE
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Mish:
Great costume, Mish.
Mobile RiceQuote Reply
http://obstructedview.net/forum.html?mingleforumaction=viewtopic&t=17.0#postid-124
mb21Quote Reply
Mobile Rice wrote:
MishQuote Reply
This compensation shit will never end. My fucking grandkids are going to be reporting this to me when I’m on my deathbed.
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
There was also speculation that the SD compensation might get weird due to the ownership snag there.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
Did the Red Sox say something?
mb21Quote Reply
So…this happened.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrNA7RjU91I
I guess I should make a thread for that in your new sparkly forum.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
http://www.thewrigleyblog.com/2012/03/first-look-at-new-bleacher-videoboard.html
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Clevenger wins the backup C job
dylanjQuote Reply
Wells sent to the minors!?!
Man I would be super pissed if I were him
dylanjQuote Reply
i dislike both moves.
dylanjQuote Reply
@ dylanj:
If he has to go on waivers he’s gone…I hope they know what they’re doing.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Brett from BN didn’t mention waivers or anything. Did mention the option Wells had, so I guess he’s going to be retained on the team if that protects him from being claimed, right?
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Wells has an option left. Still Rodrigo fucking Lopez over Wells? I HATE seeing teams make choices like this over Spring Training stats. I would just demand a trade if I were Wells.
dylanjQuote Reply
dylanj wrote:
Probably to keep Wells fresh and streched out in case Shark sucks or someone goes down. I’d rather have Wells as a starter at AAA than a long man up in the bigs.
jtsunamiQuote Reply
@ jtsunami:
I agree with this and I don’t think they would’ve sent him down if he had to pass through waivers, which was the thing I was most confused about.
I’d rather Wells had stayed in the big league rotation though.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ dylanj:
I like that move. Clearly shows the team is taking past statistics into account so that’s awesome.
mb21Quote Reply
@ dylanj:
He has an option, but he has to clear waivers in order to be sent down since he has 3+ years of service time.
mb21Quote Reply
@ jtsunami:
Agreed. If they’ve made the decision to not start him at the big league level bullpenning him is just stupid.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
I thought I’d seen you say that before which is why I was confused. Why would they do that and just let Wells be plucked away for literally pennies on the dollar? That part doesn’t make sense.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
its not full waivers though MD. Cubs can pull him back
dylanjQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
According to Twitter, they’re revocable waivers and the Cubs can block any team that claims him from future transactions or somesuch craziness. In other words, other teams could claim him, but probably won’t.
joshQuote Reply
Confused a little bit by today… Shawn Camp. (dying laughing)
bubblesdachimpQuote Reply
@ josh:
THIS helps a lot. Thanks.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ dylanj:
Yeah, but what do the Cubs do if that happens? They’d have to kick someone else off the 25-man roster or trade him quickly.
I agree with you. If I was Wells I’d demand a trade. Not that the Cubs will do anything about it, but I’d make it known I’m not happy.
mb21Quote Reply
Wells is disappointed. I don’t blame him.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ bubblesdachimp:
Did he make the roster? he should have.
mb21Quote Reply
new shit: http://obstructedview.net/news-and-rumors/wells-and-wood-optioned-to-minors-clevenger-over-castillo.html
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
DING!
AnnoDominiQuote Reply