Patrick Mooney was first with the news, and the usual suspects seem to be in agreement, though we at Obstructed View reserve the right to retract any and all free agent signing stories up until opening day. The deal is 4 years, $52 million and does not include a no-trade clause, per Heyman.
Brief thoughts on the deal, in the context of the entire offseason:
- The Cubs seem determined to avoid a repeat appearance of the overwhelming stream of awful starters that were trotted out at the end of last season. The future just got a little dimmer for Chris Rusin, Jason Berken, Justin Germano, Aaron Miles and literally thousands of others of an approximately equal talent level at throwing a baseball.
- The Cubs seem to be keen on avoiding acquiring this desperately-needed pitching depth via trade. There are some reasonably interesting names out there: Rick Porcello has been floated in a number of deals, John Ely (who inexplicably tore up the PCL last year) was acquired by the Astros for very little… Minor league mavens will undoubtedly be pleased by this stance.
- Edwin Jackson didn't like the offers he received last offseason, turning down 3 years, $27 million from the Pirates in favor of a 1 year, $11 million dollar deal from the Nationals. This type of "I'll try my luck next year" gambit almost never seems to pay off, but, wow, did it ever for Jackson. For me, the take home message is that smart baseball analysts won't hesitate to put a considerable amount of stock in a single season's worth of pitching stats. Jackson put up a career year with the Nationals, and the league believed in his numbers.
- This may be just a personal hangup, but I'm having trouble getting past the statements made by Jed Hoyer after Scott Feldman signed (via Brett):
[Feldman] did sort of have one foot in, one foot out [of the rotation]. I think he felt like he was looking over his shoulder a lot. If he made a bad start, he might not necessarily make another one or might be in the bullpen. We certainly gave him the reassurance here: ‘You’re going to be a starting pitcher. You’re going to be in the rotation.’ [That] means a lot. It’s hard to perform when you’re always constantly worried about [your] job.
In my opinion, one does not simply tell Scott Feldman: "You're going to be in the rotation" unless Feldman has previously made it clear that Des Moines is, in fact, his favorite city in the world, and, yes, he wishes he had the chance to spend some more time there. This leads me to believe that some combination of the following things is true:
- Jed has the conscience of used car salesmen.
- The prices on Villanueva and Jackson/Anibal were lower than the Cubs expected them to be at the time of the Feldman signing.
- Both of Scott Baker and Matt Garza are not doing so hot in the injury recovery department.
- Other trades are coming. (Aisley speculated that Jeff Samardzija may be being shopped last night, and a shady supposed insider reported this to be the case, but no one in the mainstream media is saying this afaik.)
- The Cubs' merry band of magical scouts really loves Scott Feldman.
I for one, will be really interested to hear whether the Cubs have given similar assurances to Villanueva.
Dmick has promised futher coverage later this evening, so don't touch that navigation toolbar!
Comments
GW, I’m curious why you’re referring to it as a career year. I’ve not looked too closely for a couple weeks, but I seem to remember that all WARs (fWAR, rWAR and WARP) had 2012 as his 4th or 5th best year in his career.
dmick89Quote Reply
I think you’re list is about what I’m thinking. Something has to be up because you don’t promise someone like Feldman that role and then seemingly put him in a situation in which he’s got an uphill climb to stay in the rotation.
I’m working on a piece about the rotation. Should have it ready after dinner, but I probably won’t post it until later tonight.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
He’s correct – it was a year in his career.
WenningtonsGorillaCockQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
Ah, yes, i should have made that clear. (k-bb)% in combination with IP is basically strictly what I look at in evaluating pitchers. I’m skeptical of the value added from anything else.
GWQuote Reply
I don’t think Baker is expected to start the season ready to go, so that logjam would probably happen a little farther down the road.
BerseliusQuote Reply
Oh yeah, that did happen…though probably not for the Cubs, right?
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ GW:
I guess that’s not completely true. I also put a lot of stock in GB%.
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
Me too, it’s probably why I seem to like Garza more than most people. His improved GB rate has been great to see.
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ GW:
That’s fair, but I think there are a lot of other value stats (that include FIP, RA or ERA) that teams will be looking at. Maybe not.
I’m wondering if the value of the win is just significantly higher than I’ve been expecting because this is about the only contract I don’t think the Cubs have overpaid on so far this offseason. That tells me that I’m making a mistake.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
yes, I do think that’s true. If fits well in Jackson’s case, but I wouldn’t want to overstate it’s reach.
In particular, I worry about Jed’s stated obsession with k/bb rate, which is clearly inferior, imo. I also think Jackson benefited from the high profile Nats’ pennant race, and the randomness of the yty free agent market. But, damn, that’s a huge jump!
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
It could also be as simple as him being consistently above average has made him more appealing. Like others here, I didn’t realize Jackson had turned it around until after he’d been good for a few years. Even then I didn’t buy it because I remembered how awful he was a the start of his career. It could have had to do with him being one of the better free agent pitchers this year (maybe he wasn’t last year, I don’t remember). Maybe the next best offer for Jackson was 3/33 and the Cubs offered 4/52 thinking another team offered 4/50? Wouldn’t be the first time a team far outspent the next highest bidder.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Interesting.
GWQuote Reply
I also wouldn’t put much stock in what Jed says about certain stats. K/BB is just more familiar. I still use it because I’m lazy and don’t feel like explaining K-BB% to those who wouldn’t understand why I was using it.
It’s funny because the only time I actually paid no attention to K/BB was when I was looking at college stats. I didn’t bother with run estimators or anything other than K-BB%.
K/BB is like OPS. I have no problem if people use it. If people use it and make decisions based on inferior stats, then I would, but if you’re just talking, both of them are close enough to K-BB% and wOBA.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
Well, the sequence of reports went something like this:
1) The Padres dropped out because of an unwillingness to go to four years, leaving the Cubs and the Rangers in the running.
2) The bidding was in the neighborhood of 4/50.
3) The Indians were also in on it, but couldn’t afford both he and Swisher.
I think we can assume that someone else offered four years, but whether it was actually 4/50 or something like 4/48 is unclear.
GWQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
That’s probably true. My credulity is a weakness.
GWQuote Reply
As a guy who had no reservations at signing Jackson at 5/60, getting him at 4/52 is pretty much an automatic.
MylesQuote Reply
I’m waiting for the post by Aisle 424 telling us which of the nine new SPs is Wade Miller, which is Glendon Rusch, which is Jason Marquis, and which is Ted Lilly. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a Scott Williamson in there.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ Myles:
I like the deal myself. Might be the best starter on the team. Not that says a whole lot about his talent considering the team he’s on, but still.
dmick89Quote Reply
aside: http://obstructedview.net/aside/dave-cameron-on-the-edwin-jackson-signing.html
dmick89Quote Reply
At this point I think this year’s rotation will certainly at least have more depth than last year’s. Last year the Cubs gave 46 starts to guys who had a 6.30 ERA or worse. I think the front office realizes that with pitchers, it’s basically a crap shoot and these guys just get hurt randomly, a lot, it seems.
At least with Garza/Samardzija/Jackson/Feldman/Baker/Wood/Villanueva/Vizcaino? we have some depth this year. And that’s a big upgrade over last season.
mvwhiteQuote Reply
@ mvwhite:
To be fair, the Cubs traded 2 starters last year at the deadline. Dempster and Maholm probably would have made 10 more starts between them (maybe more) so that leaves 39 starts by “non-rotation” members, which is pretty close to average. I think the average team has 26 or 28 starts made by pitchers not in their 5-man rotation. So the other difference for the Cubs was Garza’s injury and shutting Samardzija down. Really, other than that, the Cubs got exactly what they expected when you consider they traded 2 of their starters.
That said, the Cubs have better depth this year. That’s definitely true.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
That Cameron article links to a piece that he wrote in November, and wow, that is the best thing I’ve ever seen Cameron write. It’s shocking to me that it comes from the same guy who without a second thought moves teams 10-15 spots in his annual organizational rankings and routinely overweights simple things like platoon splits in relievers.
GWQuote Reply
@ GW:
It basically undermines around 50% of the articles that have ever been published at fangraphs (dying laughing)
GWQuote Reply
I think they’re about to trade F7 + for Justin Upton or Headley or Gyorko
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
Or maybe Garza to Texas for Olt
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
@ GW:
That’s a good article. Glad you pointed it out. I happened to see a tweet linking to that piece I wrote the aside for, but didn’t bother clicking through to other links. I’m definitely glad to see the Cubs spending some money. I might have done a thing or two differently, but overall I’m pretty pleased with the offseason.
If Nate ends up being right and they trade F7 or Garza for one of Upton or Olt I’m going to be very impressed with what they’ve done this offseason.
dmick89Quote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Rice CubeQuote Reply
new shit: http://obstructedview.net/commentary-and-analysis/an-updated-look-at-the-2013-rotation.html
dmick89Quote Reply