The Children Are The Future (And The Future is Coming) Cubs Minor League Watch Sponsored by WorldCom

Iowa

The alternative title for The Dark Knight Rises was Josh Vitters Lives! and the forgotten 1st round pick continues to do very well. He is hitting .450 and showing some patience at the plate. Which can only mean that the Cubs need to hire the batting instructor away from the AAA team and get him to Chicago stat. Beef Castle went 3-3 with a HR and Adrian Cardenas picked up a triple and a BB. There are days when I think our Iowa lineup could score more runs than the MLB one. 

 

Tennessee 

Trey Dog took the mound and threw 4 IP. He gave up no runs and struck out 5 but also walked three and again, only used 77 pitches in 4 innings. Considering he is the only reason to ever give a shit about what happens in Tennessee lets just end our AA recap there.

 

Daytona

The High A Cubs got crushed 7-1 but Cuban prospect Rubi Silva continues to crush the ball. He's old for the level but looked good in ST and is sporting a nice .476 BA. Matt Spellcheck Jr drew 2 walks and thats it. 

 

Peoria

A good game for the Chiefs as several prospects made some noise. It's well known around my athletic club that I fancy Zeke Devoss a great deal. I find plenty of projection in his supple thighs and powerful hamstrings and think that he could have the best plate discipline in the system. Last night he went 2-5 and didn't commit an error at 2B which is a minor miracle in itself. Perennial bag of tools Reggie Golden continues to struggle. On the pitching side my dark horse for a fast rising SP is Yao-Lin Wang. He had great numbers last year in Boise and I got to watch him pitch a few times and he looked pretty good with a low 90's fastball and a good feel for the strikezone. Wang piggybacked a good start from Michael Jensen and threw 2 scoreless innings and struck out 3. Jensen on the other hand continues to get stretched out as a starter. He struck out 5 in 6 IP. 

 

MUST SEE TV- 

Tonight Hayden Simpson will take the mound in his quest to become the right hand Jaime Moyer. I know I can't wait!

The Children, Are, Our The Future-Minor League Watch Sponsored by InBev

Iowa

Rockin' Randy Wells went 6 IP and gave up 4 ER. He also stuck out 5 and walked nobody. Guys, I don't know how to say this but Josh Vitters has more walks than strikeouts. Enjoy this moment while it lasts. Personal favorite Adrian Cardenas hit his first homer of the year as well. 

Smokies

God this team sucks. Anytime you ask yourself whats going on in AA just punch yourself in the face. Quasi prospect Nick Struck had a good start. Nothing else needs to be said.

Daytona

Austin Kirk got the start tonight. Devoted readers will remember the column I didn't write last year heralding his no-hitter in Peoria. MD and I were pretty excited because he had great numbers at the time and at that point it was basically the corpse of Trey McNutt and Kirk to root for. Sadly, that was the high point for Kirk as he was just dreadful in the 2nd half. But its a new year and Kirk did alright tonight working 5 scoreless innings and striking 3 guys out. Starlin Castro Jr continues to hit and if he can keep this up in a pitchers league like the FSL we might have a challenger to the Iron Throne of Darwin Barney. 2011 draft pick Tony Zych who I hope can rise quickly as a 99 mph throwing RP was terrible in relief.

Peoria

Boring ass game. Nobody worth a shit did anything. Move along sir.

The Children Are Our Future- Minor League Update Sponsored by the Heritage Foundation

Ok, this will be the first in 8 or so installments until I lose interest in providing updates on the farm system. Basically the plan is to give you the high and lowlights from the lands down under.

Iowa

Mr. Rizzo continues to tear up the PCL with 2 home runs both of which whipped up the Iowa announcers to Judd Sirot levels of shouting. I fully expect Rizzo to tear up a hitters league again but the big question will be can he keep his hitting mechanics stable and work on shortening his swing a bit. So the numbers won't really tell us when he is ready vs when the organization thinks he has made these adjustments. Josh Vitters continues a decent start with a pair of hits and amazingly he has 2 walks in 14 ab's as well. Spring training leper Travis Wood did a good job striking out 6 batters in 6 IP and giving up 3 ER. Wood also added a monster HR of his own.

Tennessee

Its really hard to write anything about the barren wasteland that is our AA team so let me just say that Alberto Cabrera struck out 2 batters in 1.2 IP and the Smokies won 3-2.

Daytona

Zach Cates was the 2nd player received in the Cashner trade and there is some hope he could be a breakout pitcher. Sickels ranked him # 16 in our system and noted his peripheral stats are better than his ERA would suggest. Well last night there was little those secondary stats could do to hide just how awful Cates was. I had decided to neglect my lovely family last night so I could sit in my basement and listen to the Daytona game to get a feel for this new Cub and I was able to make it through the first inning before giving up. His velocity was down, his fastball was anywhere from 88-91 with no control and his slider was not sliding. He seems to have a decent 77 mph changeup with good movement but that's little consolation for having an ERA of 54. On the other hand with those kind of numbers you could argue Cates is ready for a setup role with the big league club. Outside of that clown shoes performance last night marked the triumphant return of AJ MORRIS– K-State grad and RP prospect who the Cubs got in the Gorzo trade. Morris was out last year recovering for TJ and pitched 1 inning with 2 unearned runs scoring and struck out a batter.

Peoria

After the Cates debacle I decided to continue to ignore my 2 year old who only wanted to play dinosaurs and focus on what matters most- following Peoria Chiefs prospect Ben Wells as he made his 2012 debut. Wells is another cross your fingers and hope to Allah they breakout SP prospect. He is ranked # 17 by Sickels and has a good sinking fastball that gets a ton of groundouts. Wells also has the size you would want out of a SP and is only 19. Last night the sinker was working as he was able to induce many grounders but the defense behind him was pretty shitty. Although his line wasn't that great there were more than a few hits that could have been outs with more competent play behind him. I tweeted the Peoria announcers to get a report on the velocity but was told that the gun was not on last night.. Oneri Fleita was in attendance and hopefully he enjoyed the two TOOTBLAN's that occurred in the 3 innings I was listening. It's the Cubs way people. In other news Kyle(r) Burke struck out 3 in IP as he continues his never ending journey to become a LOOGY for the Iowa Cubs. 

 

That's all for now. Enjoy this wonderful piece of art that I created. 

Minor League Update 4-7-12

I'm really liking that the minor league season has begun at the same time as the MLB season this year. It's usually a week after MLB starts.

Iowa Cubs

Josh Vitters was 1-3 again. He also walked again. I'm not holding my breath, but if Vitters could learn to become more patient he'd suddenly have quite a bit of value. It doesn't look like he's ever going to be the hitter that you'd expect from the best high school bat in his draft. There are questions about whether he can stick at 3rd base too. Still, it's always nice to see someone working on a huge weakness like Vitters' plate discipline. Anthony Rizzo added another 2 hits in 4 plate appearances. Brett Jackson was 1-3 with a triple and a walk. Casey Coleman threw 5 innings, allowed 5 hits, 2 of which were home runs. He allowed 4 runs, walked no one and struckout 5.

Tennessee Smokies

The Smokies only had 5 hits last night and one of them left the yard. It was the ony run scored during the game for either team. RF, Michael Burgess was 2-4 with that home run. Logan Watkins was also 2-4 and he struckout the other 2 times. Matt Cerda added the team's other hit and walk. The good news for Trey McNutt is that he allowed 2 hits in the 3.2 innings he pitched (no runs of course). Also good news is that he did strike 3 out. The bad news is that he walked 3, threw 3 wild pitches and reached 80 pitches before the 4th inning ended. Jeffry Antigua, Alberto Cabrera and Frank Batista finished the rest of the game allowing just 4 hits, a walk and strikout 5.

Daytona Cubs

Only 3 different Cubs had hits for Daytona. They had 7 of them on the night and managed to score 6 runs. DH Rubi Silva was 3-4 with 2 doubles and Arismendy Alcantara also added 3 hits in 3 at-bats. Alcantara walked, hit a home run and drove in 4 of those 6 runs. Not bad from the lineup's number 9 hitter. LF John Andreoli had the team's other hit as he went 1-1 with 3 walks. Erik Jokisch allowed 4 hits and 2 runs in 6 innings of work. He walked a batter and struckout 5. Matt Szczur was 0-3 with a walk.

Peoria Chiefs

The Chiefs had only 6 hits, which means the offense for the minor leagues was rather poor last night. They had only 26 hits in their 4 games. Zeke DeVoss and Rafael Lopez were each 1-3 with a walk. Paul Hoilman, Reggie Golden and Taiwan Easterling were each 1-4. Hoilman struckout only once last night. In the 40th round last year the Cubs drafted Patrick Francescon and he got the start for the Chiefs. In 4.2 innings he allowed just 2 hits and a run. He walked none and struckout 9. He did hit 2 batters. He's thrown only 43.1 innings in his young career, but has a ridiculous strikeout and walk ratio. He's struckout 11 batters per 9 and walked 1.7 per 9. That's good for 6.6 strikeouts per walk. It's 43 innings so you know it's a legit sample. Willengton Cruz performed last night's impression of Kerry Wood by pitching .2 innings, allowing 2 hits and 4 runs. He walked 2 and struckout no one.

Minor League Update 4-6-12

I'd like to make this a daily feature here at Obstructed View, but have you looked at the minor league rosters? I'd suggest you avoid doing so if you haven't looked already. I'm not going to tell you about the game. Who cares if the Daytona Cubs won? I'm not even sure they do. Maybe there are a few fans who attend regularly who would like to see a win, but the rest of the world couldn't care less. What's important about these games is how the players perform and even on a daily basis it doesn't much matter, but writing about the Chicago Cubs isn't a whole lot more fun than their minor league teams? Have you seen the Cubs roster? Again, don't look.

Iowa Cubs

This is the most interesting team this year and will be until Brett Jackson and/or Anthony Rizzo are called up to the big leagues. At that point they become just another team in the Cubs minor leagues barely worth paying attention to.

Both of them got off to strong starts last night. Jackson had 2 hits and a walk in 5 plate appearances while Rizzo was 2-4. They each added a stolen base too. The Iowa Cubs had 10 hits, but only Dave Sappelt's double was for extra bases. Tony Campana led off last night and he also had 2 hits. Not to be outdone by Jackson and Rizzo, Campana added a stolen base of his own. Campana also had a sac fly.

Josh Vitters took a walk. No, I wouldn't joke about this shit. He really did. He was 1-3 with a walk. Vitters was the Cubs top pick (3rd overall) back in 2007, but we sometimes forget how young he is. He won't turn 23 until mid August. While his minor league numbers haven't been all that good, he's still young and has played against older talent throughout his career. The bottom line with Vitters is that if he doesn't improve his plate discipline he's got little hope of sticking on MLB roster for too long. His walk rate is horrendous, but we've talked about that enough.

Only 2 I-Cubs went without hits last night: Welington Castillo was 0-2 last night (no walks or HBP) and Adrian Cardenas was 0-3. Castillo also added an error with a catcher's interference.

Randy Wells got the start and threw 6 innings and allowed only 2 hits. He walked 3 and struckout 2. The problem last night was that both hits were home runs. That's about what you get from you number 4 starter. It's just weird the Cubs have their number 4 pitching in Iowa.

Manny Corpas threw 2 scoreless innings. He allowed a hit, didn't walk anybody and did not record a strikeout.

Tennessee Smokies

Logan Watkins and Justin Bour each went 3-5 last night. Bour hit the only home run for the Smokies. James Adduci and Jae-Hoon Ha each had 2 hits.

Nicholas Struck had a really good outing. He threw 6 innings, allowed 4 hits and a run while walking just 1 and striking out 10. Struck made 11 starts and 12 appearances for the Iowa Cubs at the end of the season last year, but the Cubs opted to send him back to Tennessee to start the year. Between 3 levels last season (Daytona, Tennessee, Iowa), Struck threw 147.1 innings, but allowed a lot of hits. He allowed 173 of them and walked 44.

I became interested in Struck back in 2010. That season he allowed only 108 hits in 128 innings. He struckout 96 so he's not a strikeout pitcher, but last year I lost interest. I'm sure part of the reason he allowed so many hits is nothing more than bad luck, but he just doesn't strike out enough batters. He's only 22 and based on the Cubs recent starting pitching acquisitions I'm not sure he's not better than some they have gone after, but he's more than likely not going to be all that good. He does have good command. He walked 44 last in year in those 147.1 innings.

Kevin Rhoderick relieved struck and allowed a hit over 2 innings while striking out 2. Rhoderick is an intriguing relief prospect. He was drafted in the 9th round in 2010, but didn't play professionally until last year. Between Daytona and Tennesse he threw 71.1 innings, walked 43 and struckout 77. Most of those innings were at the higher level and while he appears to have issues throwing strikes, he does get plenty of strikeouts. Most impressive is that he was ridiculously tough to hit last year. In those 71.1 innings he allowed just 45 of them.

That's more than a large enough sample to reach conclusions! In all seriousness though, we need to see how he performs beyond those innings. He needs to reduce his walks while keeping his strikeouts up there where they currently are. He's tough to hit so he could probably afford to throw a few more in the zone. A strong start from him and we could see him in Chicago by July.

Daytona Cubs

Matt Szczur led off and was 1-5 with an RBI. Rubi Silva had 3 hits.

Along with Dave Sappelt the Cubs also acquired Ronald Torreyes when they traded Sean Marshall to the Reds. Torreyes had 2 hits last night for Daytona. He's also an interesting prospect. He's not going to walk all that much, but he's going to walk about as often as he strikes out. He's hit for a very high average in the minor leagues, but doesn't appear to have great speed. He's definitely not below average and maybe he's just not very good at stealing bases. He did hit 12 triples in 2010, but 10 of them were in Venezuela. Last year he had 5 in about 300 plate appearances. He's stolen 37 bases in 2 years, but has been thrown out 24 times. He'll fit right in with the rest of the Cubs in Chicago. He's also just 19. He has a lot of progression ahead of him so it's difficult to know what to expect. He is only 5'9" and weighs just 140 pounds. Who knows, maybe an offseason transformation like Darwin Barney can turn him into a guy hitting 40 home runs.

Matt Loosen started for the D-Cubs, but lasted only .1 innings. Before he could get the second out he had allowed a hit and walked 4. He was just doing his best Kerry Wood impression. AJ Morris threw an inning and allowed a hit and an unearned run. Morris was one of the guys the Cubs acquired for Tom Gorzelanny, but Morris missed all of the 2011 season so this was his first outing as a Cub. Morris had primarily been a starter in the Nationals organization so I'm the bullpen test is alive and well.

Peoria Chiefs

Michael Jensen, last year's 26th round pick, started for the Chiefs and he allowed just 2 hits in 5 innings and no runs. He walked 1 and struckout 2.

Paul Holliman was drafted in the 19th round last year and began his first full season league by going 0-2 with 2 strikeouts a walk. That's something Holliman will do a lot. Walk and strikeout. He walked in 16.3% of his plate appearances last year. He struckout in 35% of them. He hit 17 home runs (5.7% of his PA). 57% of his 300 plate appearances last season resulted in a walk, strikeout or home run. Add in the 4 HBP and you have 58.3%.

As much as I love these 3 true outcome players, that's an absurd strikeout rate at a short-season league for someone who went to college. That's a ridiculous strikeout rate for someone fresh out of high school. I normally don't care too much about strikeout rate. Last year Holliman, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you can't play at the MLB level striking out that much. Especially when you consider it's only likely to get higher as he moves up the system.

Zeke DeVoss was 1-5 with 3 strikeouts. He was also drafted last year (3rd round). He also takes a lot of walks. He walked in nearly 20% of his 168 plate appearances at Boise last season. He struckout in 16.7% of them. Last year he hit .309/.449/.383. I don't know that I've ever seen an OBP almost 70 points higher than SLG. DeVoss has no power and he had a .390 BABIP last year so that's going to come down considerably.

Cubs 6th Best Since 2007 In Free Agent Signings

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.

Did the Cubs really add that much depth?

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.

This is a year

A year ago today we joined together to start Obstructed View. We could write about our individual thoughts over the last year, but a blog is a community. We've published over 730 articles and there have been more than 85,000 comments left on them. Your participation makes this much more enjoyable for us. So thanks and we hope you keep coming back. Tell your friends and neighbors too.

We have (actually, And Counting) put together a pretty cool image to mark our very special anniversary. We think it sums things up pretty well.

We're also introducing the Obstructed View Forum. It will soon be linked to on the menu and there will be a module on the sidebar with the latest forum posts. We have forums for the Cubs, baseball in general, football, basketball, other sports, entertainment and other topics.

We hope you use it. If you do, post a link in the comments so people can see it more quickly. There's a lot of activity in the comments and we're not discouraging you from using the comments in the same way you have. We just thought this could add something to the site that was worth trying out.

When we set up this site we installed a chat room and have used that for some of the roundtables we've done. We're going to open that chat room up to be used from time to time during games. We need the traffic on the blog. It helps pay the bills, but we're thinking we could have a weekly chat during a game. Not sure which day or if it will be a specific day each week, but it's something we're planning to do.

Also, there will soon be another contest on Obstructed View. The idea for it belongs to commenter GW so thank him for the riches that one of you will soon have. The contest will include all the players we've posted projections for and you'll vote whether or not you think they beat their projection or fall short of it. Therefore, the winner won't be known until after the season. Although we have yet to think of a prize, we've agreed its range in value will be between a free subscription to Obstructed View and a brand new twenty dollar bill.

Join the Forum discussion on this post

Daily Facepalm 3.23.12 – Too many DUIs edition

Obstructed View Daily Facepalm

Practice game recap

The Cubs pounded the rangers 11-4. Soriano, Mather, Jackson, and Ian Stewart all homered. Matt Garza threw 81 pitches in five innings, but could have gone deeper had Darwin Barney not committed two errors in the fourth inning. Marcos Mateo left the game with an injury and there's no word on how serious it could be. They were looking at his elbow though, so it's probably not good.

Is there a Cubs game today?

Indeed. Jeff Samardzija gets the start against the Rockies today at 3pm. Len and Mick have the call on Gameday. From what I've gathered from the interwebs, Keith Law should be there to see Samardzija pitch today.

Today in horrifying news

This news about former number one pick Matt Bush is horrible. He was driving drunk and hit a 72-year old man on a motorcycle and fled the scene. When the police later apprehended him he blew a .180. According to the local NBC affiliate, Bush's SUV ran over the victim's head, and he only survived because he was wearing a helmet. (Side point – everytime I see someone on a motorcycle not wearing a helmet or in shorts, I just want to Force-push them over for being fucking idiots).

Not to be outdone, Sox of various colors reliever Bobby Jenks was also arrested for a DUI hit-and-run last night.

I know it's not baseball's job to tell these guys what to do when they're not actively doing baseball job related things, but Jesus.

Opening Day starter to be announced today

I suspect that whoever it is, his name will rhyme with Brian Hempster.

Keith Law on various Cubs prospects

Keith Law has seen a Cubs game or two in the past week, and chatted about Cubs prospects. The highlights

  • Vogelbach has lost 20-25 pounds, and looked overmatched, with a slow bat and poor recognition of off-speed pitches. I don't know who he was facing though, he's young enough that he's going to be way down in the system so I'm not too concerned yet. Everyone knows he still has a long way to go
  • Klaw loves Jeimer Candelario. He doesn't have great bat speed but his swing is "simple" and has a good feel for hitting
  • Klaw thinks the current CBA changes wrt international players will be in place as long as Selig and Reinsdorf are around. I don't think they're going anywhere even after they've departed this plane.
  • Hayden Simpson couldn't even hit 90 on the gun earlier this week. Klaw thinks he's donezo, and that his velocity spike that led to the Cubs drafting him was a fluke.
  • Klaw on Samardzija: "Have heard it's been an unbelievable transformation – like the light bulb just went on. It's just spring, but I've seen him in past springs where I wouldn't have given him a snowball's chance of big league value, so there's at least something different there."
  • He lists Baez (who he's very high on), Candelario, Dunston Jr., and Cuban OF Yasiel Balaguer as players to be excited about in the low minors. He thinks Baez ends up as a 3B, though he won't rule out SS

40-man roster update

Andy Sonnanstine was outrighted to AAA yesterday, so the Cubs have two roster spots open. They'll probably go to DeWitt and Mather.

Is there Wrigley Talk Friday today?

Oh, indeed. If could be at either 1 or 2 pm today. Those crafty WTFers like to keep us on our toes.

Today is Wire Quote Day

Cool Lester Smooth says to leave your favorites in the comments.

Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Jeff Samardzija

Since Jeff Samardzija is now a "near-lock" to make the rotation, per Dale Sveum. Let's take a look at his projections for 2012. Just about everyone projected him as a reliever, though a few of them had him making 1-3 starts. It's enough that I'm not going to worry about trying to split all of those numbers out. Here's his projection as a reliever and roughly as the third-guy in the bullpen behind Marmol and Wood.

Projection IP BB HBP SO HR ERA FIP
Steamer 82 44 4 75 9 4 4.39
Bill James 87 51 3 71 10 4.66 4.76
RotoChamp 75 45 2 70 6 4.44 4.09
Tango Marcel 72 35 3 62 7 4 4.17
ZiPS 78.66 46 5 68 8 4.12 4.58
CAIRO 57 33 3 52 5 4.04 4.25
PECOTA 65.33 32 3.33 41 8 4.95 5.00
Oliver 50 28 3.33 42 5 4.76 4.54
DavMarcel 70 45 3.33 66 7 4.65 4.53
Guru 73 37 4 68 7 4.25 4.11
Average 71 39.6 3.33 61.5 7.2 4.39 4.44

That 4.44 FIP would look nice for a starter, but for a reliever in a run environment similar to what we've seen in the NL over the past two years, not so much. In fact, the replacement level FIP for a reliever based on the past two seasons is around 4.10 (it was a great year for pitchers). With this replacement level Samardzija is expected to be worth -2.9 RAR, which is bad for -0.42 WAR (with a leverage index of 1.4).

What about Samardzija as a starter? Using the ~25% rule of thumb, Samardzija would have a 5.55 FIP as a starter, good for around -21 RAR over, say, 120 innings, or -2.0 WAR, though if he pitches that badly there's no way he starts that many innings. So pardon me if this is my reaction.

Now that that's out of the way, let's play a game of point-counterpoint. Obviously Theo and Hoyer can read Fangraphs/Bloomberg/whatever as well as we can, so there must be some reasons why this might happen.

  • Samardzija is a different pitcher than he was the previous six years in the Cubs organization

    It's possible that he is, but just look at his peripherals from last year. .253 BABIP, 5.3% HR/FB, 75% LOB. Someone can be both lucky AND good, but given the track record I don't think it's so likely. I'm also skeptical that he picked up anything new under the tutelage of the mightly Mark Riggins. He did try to take a trick from Ryan Dempster and add a cutter to his repertoire while he was still starting in 2010 to some success in the minors, but that success didn't seem to return with him to the bigs. If Jeff Samardzija had shown such a big improvement in the second half of last year, why trade for two starters when moving Z and the relatively valuable Sean Marshall? There are plenty of other places that the Cubs could shore up at the big league level, not to mention trying to grab a prospect or two instead.

     

  • Hey, it worked for Ryan Dempster

    Apples, meet oranges. Ryan Dempster was a successful MLB pitcher in his past, and was bullpened in the first place while coming back from Tommy John surgery. Not to mention that for every Ryan Dempster who goes from relief to starting and succeeds, there's a dozen James Russells. Not to mention that Samardzija has been given chances to convert back to starting and has fared miserably, both in the upper minors and at the MLB level.
     

  • The Cubs are using this to turn a short-term asset into a long-term asset

    Shockingly, the Cubs should have Jeff Samardzija under team control for three more seasons (his arb years) after 2012, as he only has two years of service time. If they turn him into a starter and he sticks, he'll be more valuable. Though I think most other teams will be able to look at his six seasons as a shitty pitcher and not want to give much back for him.

  • The Cubs have nothing to lose and everything to gain by doing this

    That would be true if the choice was Samardzija vs the likes of Ramon Ortiz, Rodrigo Lopez, or James Russell for a rotation spot. However, Randy Wells pitched well in his first two years before last years injury-lost season, and Volstad and Wood are no slouches either. They're not all-stars, but they're not players to toss aside.Of those three, only Wood has reasonable options to use (and has pretty much punched his ticket to Iowa anyway). As far as Wells or Volstad goes they have to be put on waivers to be optioned to the minors, and neither of them will make it through, which means bullpen time. Wells pitched out of the pen in 07 and 08 but has been a starter ever since. Given how everyone (at least, the media) seems to have forgotten about his 09-10 seasons and the fact that Volstad was in such a prominent trade signs point to Wells heading to the pen, which could affect his stuff and value going forward.

    On the macro-level if Samardzija stinks, the Cubs will be that much closer to the second pick in the draft (it's going to be tough to get past Houston on that one). They're not contending for anything this season, so along those lines it's fine with me. But I'd rather it was the right decision resulting from the right process.

All and all I don't even know what to project. But I feel pretty confident that Jeff Samardzija, starting pitcher, will yet again not be a very successful experiment.

 

Previous pitcher projections