Quiet Optimism

In Commentary And Analysis by myles102 Comments

So, we've got the team. My best guess at the 25-man roster (Wins Above Replacement – Myles):

Position Player WARM
C Castillo 1.5
1B Rizzo 3.0
2B Valbuena 1.0
SS Castro 2.5
3B Olt 1.0
LF Lake 1.0
CF Sweeney 1.5
RF Schierholtz 1.0
4OF Ruggiano 1.0
5OF Vitters 0.5
UTIL Barney 1.0
UTIL Roberts 0.75
2C Kottaras 0.5
#1 Wood 2.0
#2 Samardzija 2.0
#3 Jackson 1.5
#4 Hammel 1.0
#5 McDonald 0.0
Spot Villanueva 0.75
Spot Rondon 0.25
LOOGY Russell 0.25
LOOGY Wright 0.0
MI Parker 0.0
SU Strop 0.5
CL Veras 1.0
Total   25.0
Adjusted   72.7

Other considerations for the 25-man roster: Logan Watkins, Darnell McDonald, Justin Grimm, Chris Rusin, Armando Rivero, Arodys Vizcaino. There are plenty of other configurations that could emerge, but none of them are appreciably different.

These are quick-and-dirty calculations, and for the most part I think they are very defensible. I admit some of the bench pieces are high, but I built in more playing time than they'll get in their calculations. This assumes that every single player on the 25-man stays on the 25-man the whole season – this obviously won't happen (I think I remember a study showing that a team's 25-man Opening Day roster accounts for roughly 80-85% of that team's playing time in a season). Still, it's a reasonable facsimile, especially if you believe that every team will face roughly the same amount of roster turnover and that their replacements will be of similar quality (I think our replacements are actually slightly better than the average, actually). 

I let's make a sub-table of the players likely to be traded this year and their midseason WARM (either not signed for 2015 or unwilling to sign an extension):

Schierholtz 0.5
Samardzija 1.0
Hammel 0.5
Villanueva 0.375
Veras 0.5

That's only a loss of 2.375 WARM. If that's the case, I think we can reasonably project that even if we jettison every tradeable asset in 2014 (including Shark, which is no certainty), we'd still hover around a 70 win true-talent team. There's a psychological boon to starting your win total with a 7, but more importantly it would represent some incremental progress towards respectability. 

70 wins isn't as far away as you might think. Terrible as the Cubs were last season, they still won 66 games. Their pythagorean win total was 71, so even if we haven't improved (and don't worry, we haven't), we still have a similar true talent level. We're a young team as well, so we aged better than the average squad, and most of our star talent underperformed. 

The "go-for-it" win expectation is probably around 85 wins. Once you have a mid-80s squad, each marginal win becomes incredibly valuable. However, you have to climb the ladder some time. Being 20 wins away means it is very easy to punt on 2015, which (in turn) makes it easier to punt on 2016. 15 wins is still a hell of a climb, but you can get 15 wins in an offseason if you spend correctly and promote a few prospects that work out (something we're poised to do in 2015). In 2015, we could reasonably see the full-season debuts of Christian Villanueva, Javier Baez, Kris Bryant, Arismendy Alcantara, C.J. Edwards, and Pierce Johnson. It's incredibly unlikely (150 to 1 odds?) that all 6 of those take the steps necessary to be ready for the season, but it is possible. Pitchers historically require less seasoning in the majors, and it's worth noting that in the BP Cubs Top 10 they have an ETA of 2015 (not late 2015) or sooner for each of the top 9 guys. 

Here's some more optimism. I'm way down on Junior Lake, who I think will be absolutely exposed in the majors offensively. He's a prospect at SS, a sort-of prospect at 2B, and a 4th OF and a corner. However, Junior Lake would have placed 8th on the BP list if he was eligibile (he was 10th on the talents 25 and under, and Castro and Rizzo are there). That might be damning with faint praise; it isn't. Everyone above him was a comfortable Top 101 prospect, and most people have preached the high ceiling that still exists. I don't think Junior Lake is going to work out, but I'm seemingly in the shrinking minority. If you think about Junior Lake as being a bottom-100 prospect that just so happens to already be on the team, it's more exciting than it was before (and Lake DID put up 1.6 WARP last season). 

Even if 2014 doesn't end up being a magical ride into the sunset, the Cubs still have enormous payroll flexibility in the future. The Cubs shed $33 million in payroll with the losses of Soriano, Hammel, Schierholtz, Fujikawa's buyout and Villanueva. Shark gets probably a $3 million arb raise, Rizzo and Castro graduate to another $5 million, and most of the other arb situations are irrelevant (let's put another $18 million on those raises (Castillo, Wood, and another 10 or so players that graduate in arb status, but many of these players will be non-tendered so that's probably a huge overstatement). That puts the Cubs up $7 million from an already extremely depressed payroll ($84.5 to open this year, if you're wondering). If the Cubs' effective payroll is just a cool $100 million, that's something like $23 million a year to play with AFTER arb raises. That could buy a lot of stuff.

2014 doesn't figure to be a very successful year. However, I think it'll be incremental more successful than 2013, and hopefully a nice springboard to a watchable 2015. Also, milb.tv is just $40!

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  9. Mucker

    Since the season has unofficially began, I’ve got some questions here that maybe should be discussed:

    1. What are the exact details of Aramis Ramirez’s contract?
    2. Are the Cubs still paying Carlos Silva?
    3. Do the Cubs still owe the Padres a player for taking Hoyer?

    And finally, who really owns the Cubs?

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  11. Mucker

    @ uncle dave:
    “Misting Stations” are only a myth. They are kind of like Bigfoot in that there’s very little evidence that they exist yet everyone continues to claim they’ve seen one in person.

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  14. Like You Care

    I always get New Shit Upped…

    Like You Care wrote:

    If you go into the draft saying we have to fill positions X, Y, and Z, there’s a good chance you’ll miss out on some very good players— Steve Palazzolo (@StevePalazzolo) February 14, 2014

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  16. Aisle424

    I would never bet money ON the Cubs because it pisses me off enough when they lose and I don’t have money riding on it, but that over/under seems low based on projections. I wouldn’t call it a no-brainer bet because MB21SG is right that less than 65 is very much a possibility and personally, I think they lose 100 again.

    The team as currently constructed fucking blows so the only thing that saves them is if at least one or two kids comes up AND immediately make an impact. I don’t like the odds of that and there is still a real possibility that Samardzija is traded by the deadline.

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  17. uncle dave

    To me, 65 seems like a bit of a hedge against the possibility that they’ll ship a bunch of guys out during the season (which is a real possibility). Even if they do, though, I think they have more than an even money chance of beating that. They had a -6 difference between their actual and pythag records last season, and they spent a lot of time buttoning up the pen this year, which is one of the most likely reasons they underperformed.

    I don’t see this team being six wins worse than last year, much less ten. I’ll take the over.

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  18. Author
    Myles

    Aisle424 wrote:

    I would never bet money ON the Cubs because it pisses me off enough when they lose and I don’t have money riding on it, but that over/under seems low based on projections. I wouldn’t call it a no-brainer bet because MB21SG is right that less than 65 is very much a possibility and personally, I think they lose 100 again.
    The team as currently constructed fucking blows so the only thing that saves them is if at least one or two kids comes up AND immediately make an impact. I don’t like the odds of that and there is still a real possibility that Samardzija is traded by the deadline.

    I think it’s really hard to find 100 losses on this team. That requires a serious amount of sucktitiude, and that represents a true talent loss of 9 wins from last season. IDK.

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  19. Author
    Myles

    uncle dave wrote:

    To me, 65 seems like a bit of a hedge against the possibility that they’ll ship a bunch of guys out during the season (which is a real possibility). Even if they do, though, I think they have more than an even money chance of beating that. They had a -6 difference between their actual and pythag records last season, and they spent a lot of time buttoning up the pen this year, which is one of the most likely reasons they underperformed.
    I don’t see this team being six wins worse than last year, much less ten. I’ll take the over.

    Yeah, I have a part of my article where I hopefully show that there really isn’t that much talent that can be flipped this year.

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  20. uncle dave

    @ Myles:
    Yep, I do my best to paraphrase every word.

    Of the guys you have listed as trade candidates, really the only one that doesn’t seem imminently replaceable from existing talent is Shark. The rest include back-end rotation types, an average left-handed outfield bat, and a reliever. Those are positions of strength for this club (so to speak).

    I’m not sure what I think of Samardzija. Compared to the rest of the rotation, he most resembles a front-end guy but we’ve seen what, a good half-season or two from him? He’s 29 and this is now the seventh season we’re seeing him with the club. I know it’s not really his fault that he got dicked around early in his career, but what do folks realistically think he’s going to be over the next three to five years?

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  25. BVS, my dad drank Hamms and Buckhorn. Ick.

    I disagree on the Olt projection based on nothin much. But I think he is either going to be very good and put up > 2.5 WAR or about 0.1.

    424 I’m with you. 100 losses. What is sure though is this team projects to be the most boring and anonymous potential 70-win team ever.

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  26. Aisle424

    Myles wrote:

    I think it’s really hard to find 100 losses on this team.

    I can get there without working too hard.

    [img]https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-HasQxDnqJhI/Uv7eDhv3ENI/AAAAAAAAAog/A-gZhVOlFB8/w654-h530-no/war.JPG[/img]

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  27. Aisle424

    That’s not even the doomsday scenario. What if Wood gets hurt? What if Jackson continues to just plain suck, What if Keith Law is right about Junior Lake. Even my pessimistic view isn’t even the worst and we all know shit just happens to this team, so I’m perfectly comfortable with a 100 loss prediction again. Maybe 99 would be a better call, but at that point just call it a nice round 100.

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  29. Aisle424

    @ ktb3:

    Will it come out exactly how I lay it out? No. But the scenarios leading to those under projections aren’t outlandish. Plus losing almost 100 for the 3rd year in a row is going to have a psychological impact on some of these guys. They have to be wondering what the fucking point is in losing game after game after game. These guys aren’t all in it for the long haul. I give Theo and Jed credit for finding the high character guys the last couple years who haven’t phoned it in because those teams could have lost 110 if they had.

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  31. fang2415

    milb.tv is just $40!

    I was seriously going to post and ask you this since MiLB’s website isn’t the clearest. So thanks for saving me the time (dying laughing)

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  34. dmick89, Sweatpants Guru

    @ Aisle424:
    I think 100 is difficult to get to no matter how bad your team is. I’d never bet on a team losing 100 and probably wouldn’t bet on any team losing 95 or more. I can more easily see 100+ losses than I can 80+ wins though. This is a bad team and maybe the worst of the last three years.

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  39. Theo Epstein

    @ Aisle424:

    There’s a real dichotomy in how the organization is perceived by bloggers and how we look at it internally and the morale we have internally. There is a tremendous amount of talent in this organization.

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  40. Rice Cube

    Minor league deal, league minimum if he makes the team, elite baserunning plus switch-hitter, can play multiple positions…seems like a no-brainer and considering his previously-determined arb salary before DFA, it’s a hell of a steal.

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  41. Urk

    @ Suburban kid:

    Great quotes from Theo and from Barney in that article. The stuff from Theo is especially great to read, given that cowardly shit from the anonymouse NFL execs about Michael Sam. Have not braved the comments section yet.

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  46. Dave stuck In parade traffic

    dmick89, Sweatpants Guru wrote:

    uncle dave wrote:
    $100 to charity on over 65.5 for whoever wants it.

    I learned my lesson, but maybe it was a good one since I gave more to charity than I otherwise would have. Good thing you’re not a bookie though. I’d have owed $62,700.

    I’ve clearly not learned mine and continue to get drunk and talk shit on the Internet. Thanks for not taking the bait…

    And good on you for quitting smoking. I recently had a friend pass away at 40 of a heart attack, and smoking-related hypertension was a major factor. Just can’t be too careful with that stuff, you know?

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  47. GW

    @ Rice Cube:

    turns out it’s $2.5 M + possible $425k in incentives if he makes the team. with the money the Royals have to pay him, it makes it essentially the same contract he originally got from KC.

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  52. GW

    [img]http://l.yimg.com/a/p/sp/editorial_image/54/54a74106b5c7438f2ae16265f724c138/tatman_roberts_covers_dbacks_on_field_himself_with_tattoos.jpg[/img]

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  53. dmick89, Sweatpants Guru

    @ GW:
    Yep. Just don’t understand why you’d have two crappy hitting 2nd baseman and pay them so much combined. Also don’t understand why you’d pay Bonifacio nearly as much as he’d have been paid by the Royals. Really not even sure why you’d pay Bonifacio.

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  58. dmick89, Sweatpants Guru

    My brother and I went to our grandparents house for a week in the summer one time when we were teenagers. Imagine a very small town in Iowa. That’s where they lived. Taking a walk was the most exciting thing that you could do. Going to the bathroom was a close second. By the end of the second day it felt as though we’d been there three weeks. It felt like a stint in a jail.

    The Cubs are less exciting than that.

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  68. dmick89, Sweatpants Guru

    @ EnricoPallazzo:
    I started using e-cigarettes back in November. Around Thanksgiving. I had no goals whatsoever seeing as I had failed to quit so many times. Reduction and then finally quitting just came naturally and I gave up the e-cigs about two weeks ago. I know quitting is never easy, but whatever I did this time sure seemed to make it remarkably easy. I’ve spent just over $17 on cigarettes in 2014. I bought three packs in the first few days of January and ended up tossing two. So the financial part of this whole thing is really a bonus.

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  69. Recalcitrant Blogger Nate

    @ dmick89, Sweatpants Guru:

    good work MB. It’s hard, I’ve been trying to cut back/quit myself, and its not easy. I’m trying to stop thinking in terms of smoking/not-smoking and keep in mind how much I’m reducing my smoking. Not easy though.

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  70. dmick89, Sweatpants Guru

    @ Recalcitrant Blogger Nate:
    Every little bit helps, but stay positive. I had told myself there was no way I was going to eat more, but when I finally gave up the ecigs I said “fuck it.” I had put on about 15 pounds over the last year due to getting little or no exercise and have put on about 3 to 4 pounds over the last few weeks. Figure I’ll deal with that later on.

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  79. Berselius, Cubs #12 prospect

    Myles wrote:

    Somewhere, Brett Taylor just screamed.

    The same is likely true with the Cubs FO. I wonder if this makes a Shark extension more likely. According to Julie’s sources (and something else I saw today) it sounds like a NTC is the big stumbling block in the extension talks.

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  83. dmick89, Sweatpants Guru

    @ EnricoPallazzo:
    I did, but could have done a better job. I started off with the things that are made to be roughly the same size as a cigarette, but they didn’t do it. As I said, I didn’t really have any goals, but learned the obvious: more powerful batteries will provide more vapor, which is what would be satisfying to me. It’s what I required in that I blow enough out that it looks like I’m exhaling smoke. It had to be strong enough that i could feel it on my throat. So I went to a larger battery. It was basically the size of a cigar and after a few days of learning to refill the tanks, I was done smoking.

    There’s a startup cost and you may fail. It might work and if it does, you’re not smoking. Even if you stay on the nicotine or even get to no nicotine, but are still vaping, you’re lungs are far better off. Just tell yourself one thing at a time. Sounds like you’re the typical smoker who has struggled with this stuff. Read into a bit. There’s a good forum out there (think it’s called e-cigarettes forum or something like that). You can find some good online stores, good fluid and some good equipment that might suit what you need. We all smoke for different reasons. We all enjoy different things about it and hate most of it. Me, I needed that hit to the throat and if I couldn’t get it from ecigs, they weren’t going to work. Found something that did and it was pretty easy after that.

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  84. dmick89, Sweatpants Guru

    @ Berselius, Cubs #12 prospect:
    I find this hard to believe. How many players have no-trade clauses? It’s not all that many and I’d bet that a good 90% or higher are better players than Jeff Samardzija. It may be something that the agent is asking for, but if Samardzija or the agent are demanding one, they’re rather uninformed. I don’t buy it.

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  86. Berselius, Cubs #12 prospect

    dmick89, Sweatpants Guru wrote:

    It’s not all that many and I’d bet that a good 90% or higher are better players than Jeff Samardzija.

    Truth. That said, if he wants one so badly the Cubs should just say fine, here’s less money and a NTC.

    I don’t really like the whole vibe that I’ve seen from some Cubs fans that pat Thoyer on the back for refusing to give NTCs. You should never take anything off the table, though I guess it’s probably just a negotiating ploy. I do kind of wish they had included one in their Tanaka offer, because if you’re going to do it that’s exactly the kind of deal where you want to include one.

    Also, (dying laughing) at some commenter I saw somewhere today who was calling out players wanting NTCs for family reasons as making themselves more important than the team.

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  87. WaLi

    WaLi wrote:

    @ dmick89, Sweatpants Guru:
    My father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate is part owner of http://www.flavana.com I think it is. I tried it (just the flavored stuff). Seems like it was good stuff. Comes with USB recharger and produced a lot of smoke.

    fixed

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  89. Edwin

    I think some fans associate NTC with Jim Hendry, and associate Jim Hendry with losing from 2009-2013. Same thing goes for “back-loading contracts”.

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  90. GW

    Berselius, Cubs #12 prospect wrote:

    Also, (dying laughing) at some commenter I saw somewhere today who was calling out players wanting NTCs for family reasons as making themselves more important than the team.

    I had an argument a few years back with one of the gf’s cousins or uncles or something. I was defending Michael Crabtree’s holdout after being drafted by the 49ers. He used the same line of thought, that Crabtree had a responsibility to his teammates. It was dumbfounding to me, given that Crabtree didn’t even know his teammates, much less choose them.

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  93. Sk on the heathrow express

    Is there an OV Con scheduled for CHI this weekend or SF next week? If so, I’ll buy both of you a beer.

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  100. dmick89, Sweatpants Guru

    I saw Alan Sepinwall had a poll up about whether Walter White was a villain or hero. There has to be a poll for this? I’ve come up with some other poll ideas.

    Was Jimmy McNulty a drunk?
    Was Cheers the bar where everyone knows your name?
    Was 24 a good look into how the US fights terror?
    Was Prison Break a true story?

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  101. EnricoPallazzo

    you guys are all stupid, according to darwin:

    Darwin Barney was one of the early-bird position players at the Cubs’ spring complex on Thursday. At the Cubs Convention in January, the second baseman said there was no reason the Cubs couldn’t do what the Red Sox did and go from a last-place finish to first.

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