Yesterday the Cubs traded Marlon Byrd to the Red Sox for Michael Bowden and a player to be named later. Bowden was drafted in the 1st round (47th overall) in 2005. He was the last of the 5 draft picks the Red Sox had in the 1st round that year. In 2006 Bowden established himself as one of the best …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Backups
We've already published the projections for some of the backups along the way. Jeff Baker's was posted with the infield backups and the two possible back-up catchers were published in another article. Without commentary, the others are below. Projection Name PA H HR BB SO avg obp slg wOBA Guru Blake DeWitt 351 82 5 26 55 .256 .313 .376 …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Chris Volstad
It looks like Chris Volstad has the last rotation spot locked up. If you looked up "serviceable" in a dictionary there would probably be a picture of Volstad next to it. He's been in the bigs for most of four seasons, and made 87 starts in his last three years with the Marlins. Perhaps one of the reasons that Thoyer …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Right Field
The Cubs signed DeJesus on November 30th to a 2-year guaranteed contract with a 3rd year option. He's guaranteed $10.5 million over the contract. I think a couple of the reasons the Cubs chose DeJesus is quite simple and I mentioned them in that article. DeJesus played RF for 116 games last season and played 8 games in CF. He’s …
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 …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Center Field
Marlon Byrd is entering the final year of his contract and will earn $6.5 million in 2012. He's been a very good producer for the Cubs relative to what he's been paid. He's contributed 6.4 fWAR so far. 4.4 of that came in his first season in a Cubs uniform and last year he was worth 2 fWAR. It's worth …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Left Field
We've yet to show the projections for any of the outfielders and since I've been going around the horn, we'll start with left field. I'm breaking this into four posts: one for each position and then one for the backups. Despite a .289 OBP last season, Alfonso Soriano managed to post a .325 wOBA, which was good for league average …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Paul Maholm
Next we move to the newest Cubs starter, Paul Maholm. Maholm stat-gathered 13.9 fWAR (11.1 rWAR) in his seven seasons with the Pirates, but it seems like he's been around a lot longer. Some years he was the defacto ace of the staff, and during his tenure he was certainly the most consistent member of their rotations that featured the …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Ryan Dempster
We haven't looked at any of the pitcher projections yet, so we might as well start with the longest tenured starter on the squad. Last year, Dempster looked utterly awful in the first month of the season. He had some terrible BABIP and HR luck but was generally being hit hard. However, after his first 6-8 starts or so he …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Shortstop
Shortstop is the last infield position we have to look at it and it's without a doubt the most exciting position. If you look at Starlin Castro's fWAR you can't help but be impressed, but if you look at his rWAR he looks much less impressive. Whereas UZR sees Castro as a well below average fielder, Total Zone sees him …