Matt Swartz has published a very interesting article about buidling an organization. I've said for several years now the idea that the Cubs under Hendry just handed out contracts like candy was ridiculous. Yes, there were some bad contracts. Name one GM who has been around for a decade without some bad free agent contracts. The Cubs current President gave out Soriano money to another LF a leg injury away from being next to useless.
Since 2007 only the Yankees, Cardinals had more fWAR from free agents than the Cubs. The Cubs had 24 and the Cardinals had 24.9. The Yankees had 32.2. Those wins cost money and they cost the Cubs an average of $4.4 million per win. Only the Cardinals, Padres, Braves, Rays and Rangers got more bang for their buck than the Cubs did. If you're interested, the Red Sox were 10th. They had 22.9 fWAR from free agents and they paid them $4.9 million per win.
Where the Cubs failed was at producing talent, which we already knew. Only the White Sox, Astros, Red, Padres and Royals received less fWAR from players they drafted. This is where the difference between the Cubs current front office and their past one is. The Red Sox were 2nd behind the Dodgers.
With the new CBA, signing amateur talent is a lot more difficult than before. The Red Sox were 2nd because they collected a ridiculous number of draft picks in the 1st round and the top 5 rounds overall (twice as many as the Cubs). That makes a huge difference. The ability to do that is gone. How much of the Red Sox ranking is because of their extra draft picks and how much because of superior scouting isn't known, but a betting man would be wise to bet on extra draft picks.
There are two things that are clear from this information: the Cubs were pretty damn good at getting production from the players they signed and the Red Sox were damn good at getting production from their minor league system. The CBA changes a lot of things with regards to paying amateur talent so we'll have to see how well Theo and company can do with these changes.
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I haven’t gone through the Red Sox draft picks to see how many are busts, but I’m guessing it is a combination of both. Yeah, you aren’t going to get value out of every draft pick, but when you are drafting Hayden Simpson and Tyler Colvin in the 1st round you are kind of hurting your odds of getting any value.
WaLiQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
Yeah, but one important thing to remember is budget. The Cubs didn’t spend all that much money in the draft with the exception of a couple years. The Red Sox have collected draft picks and spent a lot of money. So we really have no clue how Thoyer are going to do at drafting (or signing) amateur talent. Don’t quote me on these numbers (they’ve been published in the comments before): over the last 10 years (Theo, Hendry era for each team) the Cubs had 10 picks in the 1st round while the Red Sox had 22. The Red Sox also had many more 2nd and 3rd round picks than the Cubs. That’s a huge difference. If the Red Sox didn’t develop the talent they have it would have been a miserable failure. Looking at the Rays, Red Sox and Yankees drafts I think an argument could be made for any one of them as better than the other. The Rays had more picks than the Red Sox, but both of those teams had significantly more than the Yankees. Despite that, the Yankees still produced a lot of talent (not as much as the others, but who would expect them to?).
mb21Quote Reply
mb21 wrote:
Yankees fans
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
We do know that fans are wildly optimistic when it comes to their predictions.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
I think we can expect the Cubs to do better in the draft than in previous years though, even with the new CBA. Didn’t we create some new positions that have to do with Scouting and Player Development? We also have that Dominican facility being built. Also just look at the Superfriends pictured below, there are a lot of them! They have to be good at something (except maybe Todd)
WaLiQuote Reply
False
Suburban kidQuote Reply
WaLi wrote:
/sk’d
WaLiQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
I think the Cubs will be better at that simply because they’re going to spend more money on it. Whether or not they’re superior in finding players more likely to succeed is something I’m just not sure of. Whether they’re any better at developing talent is anybody’s guess. I expect more talent in the Cubs system because they’ll be spending more money. They’ll let free agents walk who will bring them a draft pick. They won’t give up as many draft picks by signing type A free agents (especially relievers). The Cubs tended to keep their own free agents if they were any good while the Red Sox have kept fewer and collected draft picks for others. That’s one thing the fans are going to have to accept. There’s no reason developing a strong attachment to any one player because the Cubs may not re-sign him. We knew with Hendry they’d re-sign Lee, Ramirez, Dempster and others as long as they were productive. That won’t be the case with this front office. They’ll obviously keep some, but others will only be offered arbitration.
I’ve come to the conclusion over the last several months that this front office is probably no better at spotting or developing young talent than any other front office. If you think about it long enough, it’s difficult to come to that conclusion in my opinion. When teams realized what the A’s were doing had a lot of value, they all started doing it. Some were slower to adapt than others, but they’re all doing it as Beane (and Theo) have said. The same is true from the scouting and development side of the game. There’s so much turnover from one year to the next that I think it’s safe to assume that one team’s scouting and development is nearly identical to any other.
Imagine you had 60 stats guys in baseball and every couple years some of them moved to a different team. The new team is hiring them for what they were doing for their old team so they add that same dimension. The same is true for scouting. Scouts move from one team to another quite regularly so if one team is doing something that appears to be working, it’s not long before all of them are doing it.
I think it has come down to money spent in the past and in the future it will come down to how effectively teams manage their roster. If you have a type A free agent you should probably let him walk because that extra draft pick is a lot more valuable now than it was in the past. If you have a young player you want to keep we’ll see them signed long-term.
mb21Quote Reply
I should be down at my Alma Mater tonight. Nick Offerman (aka Ron Swanson) is appearing at the Illini Union…
MishQuote Reply
Opening day face —–> palm
http://www.obstructedview.net/chicago-cubs/opening-day-facepalm-4-5-2012.html
BerseliusQuote Reply