About 10 days ago we looked at what the Cubs have in terms of guaranteed contracts and we also signed Ryan Dempster and Matt Garza to long-term extensions. Since it's been 10 days I'll post the most relevant information here and we can move forward.
Our roster
We already have $54.3 million committed, but only the following players under contract in this experiment: Carlos Marmol, David DeJesus, Alfonso Soriano, Matt Garza, Starlin Castro and Ryan Dempster. We could later decide to bring back the likes of Volstad, Wells and Stewart, but for now, just those 6.
Value
Let's estimate their value. We don't have to be precise. This isn't about being precise. Teams aren't going to decide if they're a contender by calculating the WAR as best as possible and going from there. I'm coming up with about 12 WAR from those 6 players (Garza 3.5, Dempster 2, Castro 3.5, DeJesus 2, Soriano 1, Marmol 0).
I pointed out we'd need to add 25 wins while keeping the payroll at $120 million. Let's add in some of the cost-controlled players the Cubs have and see where were at.
Using rWAR, fWAR and gWAR Darwin Barney averaged 1.8 WAR last season. So far this year his average WAR is 1.5 already. Barney isn't a great play by any means, but he does provide value. And he provides it cheaply. He'll be earning league minimum next season and I see no reason why we can't pencil him in for 2 WAR next year. Maybe a bit higher, but again, we don't need to be perfect.
The rest of season ZiPS for Bryan LaHair is a .350 wOBA and 1.4 WAR. We could count on him for 2 WAR also, but we do have Anthony Rizzo. I feel comfortable enough or at least optimistic enough to say we should look for about 3 WAR for Rizzo so he's playing 1B. We'll move LaHair to the outfield.
That means the end of Alfonso Soriano's career as a Cub. The Cubs won't get anything in return and probably won't be able to even get the slightest salary relief either. Soriano's gone, his $18 million stays. LF improves from 1 WAR to 2.
We've added only $1.3 million in salary and already improved the team by 6 wins. We still hvae a lot of money to spend and we need 19 more wins.
We're still in need of a catcher, 3B and a centerfielder. The Cubs have options in-house for both positions and due to Soto's decline and the money he'll get in arbitation we're going to non-tender him. If he turns thing around when he returns from injury things may change, but for now he's just not worth what he'll be paid. Especially not when the Cubs have two capable catchers in Steve Clevenger and Welington Castillo. Currently the two players have rest of season ZiPS that add up to 1.5 WAR over about 500 plate appearances. If you platoon the two I see no reason you can't expect league average (2 WAR) from behind the plate next season for under $1 million.
We may look to the free agent market to fill the hole in CF and at 3B. The Cubs do have Tony Campana and Brett Jackson who could play the position, but Jackson is struggling in AAA (still better than league average though) and Campana is just Tony Campana. The Cubs have no one to play 3rd.
With the exception of 3B and CF, we've filled out our everyday players: Clevenger, Castillo behind the plate, Rizzo at 1st, Barney at 2nd, Castro at SS, LaHair in LF and DeJesus in RF. Along with the pitchers under contract in our experiment here the 2013 Cubs payroll is $56.7 million and they provide 20 WAR. We have roughly $65 million to spend and we need 17 more wins.
Let's sign Josh Hamilton. I know some people don't like the idea, but I'm a huge fan. The Cubs need a super star and Hamilton is just that. Aisle 424 made a very good point about how disastrous it could turn out for Hamilton considering the media and fans expectations, but I think it's fair to expect that the Cubs management establish a support system for Hamilton to better ensure he doesn't suffer a relapse.
At the same time it's more than fair to expect Hamilton to remain sober. Speaking of sobriety, I was wondering if we could calculate the probability that someone uses drugs or alcohol again. I'm sure we could and I wouldn't be surprised if someone has written about this before, but I do know the longer you've been sober the less likely it is that you relapse. Hamilton has had at least one relapse that we know of, but to the best of our knowledge he never sunk back into the bad habits that he had before.
If I was to make a wild-ass guess I'd say that within the first month of sobriety there's a 95% chance that a person relapses. The probabilities would be different based on drugs and especially for alcohol since it's legal and socially acceptable, but let's stick with crack cocaine and similar drugs. It's got to be 95% relapse rate within the first month of sobriety. After 2 months it's probably somewhere around 75% and by the end of the first year it's probably down to 50%.
It probably doesn't change very quickly at that point. I know that I wasn't yet comfortable with my sobriety after 2 years and I know others have said the same thing to me. That could just be fear. It could be that they're still having a lot of urges to use. After 2 years sober I'd probably have said there's a 25% chance I relapse. After 3 years I was confident I wouldn't, but also prepared for it. It can happen after 1 week, 3 years or 15 years. But I felt good about my chances after 3 years. After 5 years I found I had to think about how long I'd been sober. At that point the probability of me relapsing was probably less than 3% and that's about where it remains today.
This varies for each person, but I'd think we could get a general estimate of a person's probability of relapsing. Hamilton has been mostly sober for several years now. He has a solid support system that he's used on more than one occasion and probably many occasions. I'd feel comfortable with the Cubs giving him a contract and him staying sober. I wouldn't be surprised by a relapse one night, but I would be surprised if he went back to the life that he once had.
I'm not sure what kind of contract it would take overall to sign Hamilton, but I'm positive the Cubs could sign him and have less than $20 million go towards 2013 payroll. We'll just go with $20 million, which increases our payroll to $76.7 million leaving us with $45 million to spend. Hamilton is projected to provide 3.4 WAR the rest of the season so expecting 5 WAR out of him next year seems more than reasonable.
$45 million to spend and we need 12 wins.
One player we haven't talked about is Jeff Samardzija. What is he actually is a good pitcher? We could be unreasonable and say he's awesome and pencil him in for 4 or 5 WAR, but based on his ZiPS rest of season I think we could expect 2 WAR from him for about $4 million. Now we're down to needing 10 wins and we still have $41 million to spend.
There are a number of free agent options this team could go after, particularly starting pitchers and we'll discuss a few of them in the next article. 10 wins is a lot to add, but we've created a situation in which they do have the money to do just that.
Comments
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
What’s funny is the timeline you gave is about how I felt about smoking. I always heard that the first 3 months were the hardest, but for me the first year was the hardest. It was like a friend had died. I would get sad and miss it. It got easier with time, but it was past two years before I stopped finding situations where I really wanted to smoke, and only recently that I stopped joking about going back to smoking, and I quit in like 2006.
joshQuote Reply
Also, don’t forget that Hamilton’s relapse came in the wake of him accidentally killing someone. Let’s face it, that would suck even if you didn’t have an abuse history.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
I’ve been thinking of this for awhile now. There are a lot of factors to consider, but I’m sure we could come up with a probability. I would guess we could come up with a formula that works well for the average addict.
mb21Quote Reply
@ josh:
Oh yeah. Completely forgot about that. I’d say he did well to not end up in a worse situation than he did.
mb21Quote Reply
Wow, the Cards sure suck at scoring this weekend.
ACTQuote Reply
$41MM for 10 wins? Piece of cake.
Greinke and Hamels can probably net you 8 wins easily. Not sure where you’d get the last two wins but maybe you can get Kelly Johnson’s bat and put him at 3B?
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
This of course presumes that everyone is available but since we’re fantasizing…
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ ACT:
They’re running out of outs to stop this streak.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
I think Brian McCann is a FA. I’d also expect them to trade Soto for at least something in this scenario.
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
@ Recalcitrant Blogger Nate:
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/04/2013-mlb-free-agents.html
McCann has an option for next season but Russell Martin MIGHT be available.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Recalcitrant Blogger Nate:
I think they’ll definitely try to trade him, and let him walk if there are no takers. Assuming he comes back from his injury this season.
joshQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Is Martin any better than the catchers they currently have? Doesn’t seem like it off the top of my head.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
He’s having a down year so far, but he’s the only other one besides McCann that I might throw money at and he’s also heading into his age 30 season. I guess his only really good seasons were his first three with LA.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
No I don’t think Martin is an upgrade.
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Cubs take a high-upside flyer on someone like Francisco Liriano for about 1-3M
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Score!
ACTQuote Reply
Napoli is a FA. Think he can catch regularly enough to be worth it? The FA list for next year sucks.
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
I think they might look at some of the mid-tier guys who won’t get those qualifying offers and thus they wouldn’t have to cough up draft picks. Looking at the Edwin Jacksons and Lirianos as Nate suggested.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
ESPN had a good article on Correa’s background. Knowing nothing about Almora’s personal situation, and if ESPN is halfway accurate about Correa, then I’d say that he is definite to sign, unless he has a real bastard of an agent. I know where he grew up, and it is a dismal place. Dismal. Even if the neighbors pulled together to help out the family, it’s only one real good storm surge from disappearing altogether. So having a few Million in the bank would be a major step up for the family. I can’t imagine he’d pass up the money for college, even with a 4.0 GPA and 1590 on the SAT.
Good thing it’s a new regime, the last PR shortstop the Cubs drafted in the first round was Lou Montañez. Ugh.
SVBQuote Reply
By the way, the baseball standings at ESPN and elsewhere have a serious typo. They are listing the Pirates and the Orioles in second place. I’m pretty sure that can’t be right, because Willie McCovey and Jim Palmer have been retired for a long time, and Bonds and Ripken have been gone awhile too.
SVBQuote Reply
@ SVB:
Rice CubeQuote Reply
I think the Cubs will also try to look to obtain some decent to good players who are under contract but who may no longer be wanted/as needed by their teams, like “Juan Carlos Oviedo” or Victor Martinez
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ Recalcitrant Blogger Nate:
I agree that Carmona could be an interesting sign, a la Maholm. Nothing earth shattering, but possibly serviceable.
V-Mart–Do you think he provides more value than Clev/Castillo? We can’t hide him at DH for many games, 1B is covered by Rizzo/LaHair, and injuries…? Tigers will probably unload him.
SVBQuote Reply
HUMAN ELEMENT: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/03/wheres-waldo-tim-mcclelland/
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ SVB:
I’d be interested to see how much he could catch; probably not much I guess. I wasn;t even saying those 2 in particular, but more those kind of players.
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
When even Bob Brenly is harping every game on the need for a replay booth, you know it’s time.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
It also seems like it’s not too much to ask a person paid to officiate professional sports to at least be in the vicinity of a scoring play.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
What about David Wright? He seems to fit into this plan quite well.
shawndgoldmanQuote Reply
Ditto Kevin Youkilis.
shawndgoldmanQuote Reply
@ shawndgoldman:
I’d take Wright if we were going to try to compete. Assuming the Mets don’t extend.
joshQuote Reply
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Napoli didn’t want to play first anymore on Saturday anyway. (dying laughing)
Really close play. From the angle behind the plate, I couldn’t tell if the tag was on the leg (high) before the foot was on the plate or not. Picture in the link makes it look so though. Can’t figure how McClelland could tell from that distance.
Hey–unrelated–when I was looking at no-hitter stats the other day, I saw Joe West umpired one. To me, this is an amazing feat. His approach to balls and strikes is about as consistent as the application of TSA rules in the airport screening line.
SVBQuote Reply
@ josh:
Well that’s the idea right, that the Cubs are trying to compete in 2013?
And yes… one also has to assume the Mets 1) do NOT agree to a contract extension with Wright; and 2) are willing to deal him in the offseason.
shawndgoldmanQuote Reply
Youkilis is interesting because he will have one year left on his contract, and may not have anyplace to play in Boston with Middlebrooks emerging at 3B, Papi still at DH, and Gonzalez at 1B. They could move AGonz to the OF, but that is also full of quality (but hurt) players.
shawndgoldmanQuote Reply
@ SVB:
I wouldn’t call what Joe West does “umpiring.” HIs technique is more like an absurdist study or an elaborate Dadist sketch.
Mercurial OutfielderQuote Reply
@ shawndgoldman:
I’m interested if he actually hits the 6 WAR Fangraphs currently has him projected to do. The other problem with Wright would be that there are going to be a few other teams interested. If we’re willing to do anything to get him, maybe, but they have a $16M club option for next year. I just don’t know how likely it is he’s even available.
joshQuote Reply
@ shawndgoldman:
Theo has slightly more knowledge on Youl than most. There’s buzz that the current Sox brass have soured on him and want to trade him, and that he’s not a great clubhouse guy for what that is worth
BerseliusQuote Reply
I hadn’t heard that kind of negatI’ve stuff about Youk before, even when I was in the NE last year. Makes me wonder if he was tangled up in chickengate
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ shawndgoldman:
How about Cubs trade Garza to Bos for MIddlebrooks instead, maybe even including another piece if need be, and then sign Hamels or Grienke or Anibal Sanchez to replace Garza
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/2012/06/observations-on-javier-baez/
This guy saw Baez in person.
Recalcitrant Blogger NateQuote Reply
I fixed the link in your post, Nate. I have no idea why that happened either
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Recalcitrant Blogger Nate:
Good read. Sounds like he may be a good player, although he is still far away.
WaLiQuote Reply
big post up
dylanjQuote Reply