matt clement – Obstructed View

One of the Finest Days in Cubs History: September 27, 2003

Here we are, in a Cubs baseball season that was deposited into the septic tank of history approximately 150 days ago. If you can name the Cubs current starting rotation, well, that’s just sad. Get a life. The Cubs underperformed major-league caliber baseball again today, but let’s forget about that and find something else to think about. We could celebrate the 172nd birthday of Thomas Nast by smashing piñatas in the form of GOP elephants and Democratic Donkeys (because Santa Claus and Uncle Sam should never be piñatas). We could muster as much excitement as possible over Saturday night’s Toledo-Western Michigan game. We could lament the loss of the NHL preseason. Or, we could reflect on how, only 9 years and 2 days ago, the Cubs had one of their best days in history.

On the morning of Sept 27, 2003, the Cubs were half a game in front of Houston for the NL Central lead, with 3 games left to play. They had to play a double header against Pittsburgh because the previous night’s game was rained out. Mark Prior started game 1 and would eventually go 6.2 innings, striking out 10, on his way to win #18 and a lifetime of arm trouble. He only threw 133 pitches that day which was OK, because he only threw 131 in his previous outing, so he was rested. Kyle Farnsworth and one of my all-time favorite Cubs, Joe Borowski, closed out the game. The score was 4-2. Josh Fogg took the loss. The offensive star was Situational Hitting, in a cameo appearance in Cubs history, as the Cubs scored 2 runs on sac flies and one on a bases-loaded ground out to short. The other run came on a Damien Miller home run, his last as a Cub. As the game was winding down, Houston lost to Milwaukee, setting up game 2 as the clincher.

It was a damn-good Pittsburgh team though (after all, they won 75 games in 2003), so a double-header sweep was unlikely. I have a distinct memory of the feeling of dread that the Cubs would be unable to sweep. Odds and Cubbishness argued for a split.

Game 2 featured the Bearded Wonder against Ryan Vogelsong, in the 7th start of his career. Turned out to be one of his shortest too–he lasted only 1.1 innings and gave up 6 runs. All the Cubs had to do was hold on and they’d clinch the division championship. Sosa hit his 40th HR and Moises Alou hit his 22nd. No one shook Alou’s hand after his jack though. Matt Clement cruised, giving up no runs, 5 hits, and 1 BB through 7 before a run-scoring triple and a passed ball. The Cubs won 7-2. Despite the offensive explosion, no Cub batter had more than one hit or run-scored, and Mark GrudF7 had the most RBI for the game; two. I guess Situational Hitting stuck around for a nightcap. Even Koyie Hill, I mean Paul Bako, had an RBI and run scored on 1 for 3 hitting.

Riding the momentum of their division-clinching double header, the Cubs lost the next day but beat Atlanta in 5 games in the Division Series. I’m not really sure what happened after that.

“You better know who your ninth starter’s going to be”

I’ve been a bit confused by one of Theo’s comments since taking over as President of Baseball Operations.

“We need starting pitching. You can’t take your chances very seriously as a club if you go in to the season without, not just five guys you can point to, but six, seven and eight guys. You better know who your ninth starter’s going to be because you’re going to need him. The numbers show that you’re going to need your ninth starter at some point during the course of the year.

“So we have to build our starting pitching depth. We don’t have a ton of depth beyond the obvious guys who are in the rotation right now. That’s a priority.”

Obviously a team needs depth at starting pitching. Then again, a team needs depth in the bullpen, infield, outfield, and behind the plate. Depth is without a doubt an important part of building a contending team. There will be injuries and you have to replace them with competent ballplayers. But do you really need to know your 9th starter is going to be?

That’s probably overstating it. I really doubt Theo Epstein and/or Jed Hoyer really need to know who the 9th starter is going to be. I think, or rather I’m hopeful, that what he means is that you need depth. I think the Cubs are focusing too much on starting pitching and not enough on offense. There are a couple reasons for this. First, the offense is a lot worse than the pitching staff. Second, there are some high quality starting pitchers who will be available via free agency over the next few years while there is little that will be available offensively. So it’s going to be a lot easier to find pitching in the years to come than it will be to find offensive firepower.

Arguing about which is more important to this team is another issue entirely. It’s something that deserves further exploration, but right now I’m curious why they feel they need to be 9 deep in the rotation. Have the Red Sox ever needed a 9th starter? If so, how much have they had to rely on him?

Before I started looking into this I expected that over the years they surely had to have a 9th and probably even 10th or 11th starter. I expected that happened in not just one year, but multiple years. That being said, I also expected that those starters would make few starts and I think if we looked deeper we’d probably find they were primarily spot starts. I wanted to look into the number of starters the Sox needed each year.

In 2003, Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez, John Burkett and Tim Wakefield made 29 or more starts. Casey Fossum and Jeff Suppan combined for 24 starts and four others made a combined 14 starts.

The following year Pedro, Lowe, Wakefield, Curt Schilling and Bronson Arroyo each made 29 or more starts. Byung-Hyun Kim made 3 while Pedro Astacio and Abe Alverez each started one game apiece.

In 2005, Wakefield, Arroyo, Matt Clement and David Wells each made 30 or more starts. Wade Miller and Curt Schilling combined for 27. Clement and Miller weren’t the only former Cubs to start a game for the Sox that year. Former top prospect Geremi Gonzalez made 3 of them. John Halama and Lenny DiNardo each started one game. Jonathan Papelbon started 3 time.

The 2006 Red Sox rotation had all kinds of injury problems. 14 different pitchers started a game and only Josh Beckett and Schilling started more than 23.

It’s clear at this point that the Sox have gone 9 or more deep in their rotation several times, but I’m still not convinced it’s something you have to plan for. Seriously, if your 9th starter is taking the ball every 5th day for more than a few turns in the rotation you’re probably in big trouble.

93 times the Red Sox have needed an 8th or higher starter since 2003. In Jed Hoyer’s two years in San Diego he needed an 8th starter 6 times and didn’t have to call on a 9th starter. In 11 seasons at the helm between these two they’ve needed at least and 8th starter 99 times. I’m not sure how many innings those guys have pitched, but I’d estimate fewer than 5 innings per start for that caliber a starter. If we estimate an average of 4.5 innings pitched that’s 445 innings. Roughly 41 innings each season have been pitched by an 8th starter or higher. That’s about what you’d expect to get from your 4th best reliever.

Those 41 innings are mostly from the 8th starter’s position of course. There are significantly fewer thrown from starters worse than that. So far the Cubs have paid no attention to pitching so we have to question whether or not Theo was serious. I highly doubt he cares all that much if he knows the name of the guy who would be the 9th starter. I think what he said is nothing more than emphasizing the need for depth. I don’t believe he or Jed are crazy enough to think a 9th starter is all that valuable. There’s just no reason to believe that they’ve been faced with needing a valuable 9th starter over the course of their careers.

You’re essentially looking for the quality of a middle reliever for your 8th starter. The 9th starter would be even worse. The Cubs currently have on their roster Matt Garza, Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano and Randy Wells who would be sure things for the rotation. If the season opened today the 5th starter would probably be Andrew Cashner or Jeff Samardzija. Casey Coleman has made several big league starts so he’d be the 7th guy. Trey McNutt could make some emergency starts. So could Chris Carpenter, Rafael Dolis and Jay Jackson.

I’d like to see the Cubs go after a really good starting pitcher, but they’ve let two free agents sign with other teams and the only quality starters remaining are Roy Oswalt and maybe Paul Maholm. Yu Darvish is available, but will cost a lot of money. If the Cubs are only interested in adding depth I’m not convinced they don’t already have it. If they want to improve the rotation then signing Roy Oswalt or Yu Darvish would be a good idea.

Speaking of Darvish, it brings up something else that has irritated me. For more than a year now the media and fans have said that Darvish could be “just another Daisuke Matsuzaka.” Dice-K was worth 8.3 rWAR in his first two seasons in the US. He struckout nearly a batter per inning and while his walk rate (4.2 per 9) he still struckout 2 batters per walk. He led the league in hits per 9 in his second season allowing fewer than 7 hits per 9 innings. His ERA+ was 127 over those two years. Then he was hit with some injuries. That happens with pitchers. Any time you sign a pitcher you accept that he could spend a lot of time on the DL. He was never the same after the injuries, but early on he more than lived up to expectations.

Darvish is younger and was a significantly better pitcher in Japan. There really is no comparison between the two, but if the best you have is that Dice-K didn’t live up to expectations you’re wrong. He lived up to them and then got injured. Happens all the time.

This doesn’t mean I want the Cubs to shell out $100 million or more to acquire him. I’m just saying that any pitcher could just be another Dice-K. Dice-K was just another Mark Prior. Mark Prior was just another Kerry Wood and so on.

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Evaluate GM Decisions At The Time They Are Made!

You’ve probably read similar articles elsewhere and are sure to read them in the future, but the Boston Globe took a look at Theo’s transactions and marked them as successes or failures. If you’ve been reading this site or ACB before it for any amount of time you know I have serious issues with how people classify transactions in that way. You can’t look at a transaction after the fact and evaluate whether or not it was a good decision. That’s not how it works. No GM knows how a specific player is going to perform in the future. All we have is the basic aging curve and the player’s past statistics to evaluate how he is likely to perform.

Imagine you’re at a bar and after 10 or 12 drinks you get in your car and drive home safely. Was it a good decision to drive drunk because you ended up getting home safely? Of course not, but people who evaluate transactions after the fact are using information that we couldn’t have known. It’s very likely a drunk person will get home without injuring himself or others. It’s more likely than not. However, drinking greatly impairs a person’s ability to operate a vehicle. It significantly increases the chances of an accident resulting in injury or death to yourself and others. Because of that increased risk, we know getting in a car after drinking is a bad idea. Whether or not you safely reached your destiniation is irrelevant information when deciding whether or not a good decision had been made.

That’s what people are doing when they evaluate a contract years after it was signed. The decision was made months or years ago and the decision is either good, decent or bad at that time. The decision does not become good or bad years later.

Let’s say Albert Pujols signs with the Cubs this offseason for 8 years and $24 million. No, I didn’t leave a zero out. $3 million per year for Albert Pujols. That’s what the Cubs sign him for. Let’s also say that he performs like a replacement level player the first few years of the contract and then is well below replacement level after that. He’s suffered a series of injuries sapping his power, pitchers are pitching him more in the zone rather than nibbling and every other stat collapses. If that happened he’s worth $0, but the Cubs have paid $24 million more than that. It would appear to be a bad deal if we were judging it based on information we didn’t have at the time we made the decision. I don’t even think the dumbest man alive would claim that contract was bad regardless of how it ended up. We would know that signing him to that deal is good just as we’d know driving home after 10 or 12 drinks is a bad decision. How come we can’t come to similar conclusions when the quality of the decision is less obvious?

Edgar Renteria‘s 4 year, $40 million contract is thrown in with the busts, but Renteria was worth 9.2 rWAR from 2005 through 2008. The Red Sox traded him a year after signing him, but over those 4 years he was a valuable player. He was probably not worth the contract he signed overall, but we’re looking at this after we already know what happened. The decision was made at the end of the 2004 season. We have to look at it then.

From 2002 through 2004 Renteria was worth 13.2 rWAR. I’m too lazy to do an actual projection, but we can see that the previous 3 years, the most important ones, were pretty good for Renteria. We know he was entering only his age 28 season in 2005 so he wasn’t over the hill yet. He was at the end of his peak and would begin to decline. A reasonable projection probably came it at about 11 WAR. Renteria underperformed his projection, but at the time, the contract was anything but a bust. Perhaps you don’t consider it a good decision, but it absolutely was not a bad one.

The Red Sox signed Matt Clement for 3 years, beginning in 2005, for a total of $24 million. Clement had spent the previous 3 seasons pitching very well for the Cubs. He had been worth almost 10 rWAR. I don’t even need to think this over in my head to know that signing was a good one. It worked out poorly as Clement was injured, but at the time it was a good one.

Listed under “Bad Extensions” is Curt Schilling‘s 1-year, $8 million extension for the 2007 season. He had been worth more than 10 WAR the previous 3 years and they paid him for about 2 wins. He was actually worth 3 rWAR. That was a good decision at the time and turned out to be a very good one.

Theo Epstein is going to make mistakes. Some of his transactions will be good. Some will only be decent. Some will be bad. Nobody is perfect. Even if you evaluate the decision in a correct manner you will find bad decisions. Carl Crawford, though some people disagree, was a very poor decision in my opinion. Berselius and I both said the same thing right after it was signed. There’s still plenty of time for Crawford to perform up to expectations, but that doesn’t change whether or not the decision was good.

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11 Cubs Sure To Disappoint

I should have written this about ten days ago, but I didn’t so I’m going to do it now. Early season stats mean absolutely nothing to me so there’s no risk of them influencing this list.

10. Blake DeWitt

Why he’s here: The Cubs got Blake DeWitt from the Dodgers last summer in return for Ted Lilly. Lilly was a very good pitcher for the Cubs for 3+ seasons and with only two months remaining on his contract, the lefty simply didn’t have much value. The Cubs did get Blake DeWitt and a couple minor leaguers who may actually make an impact this season, but Cubs fans wanted more than DeWitt. It didn’t bother them so much last year since it was the end of the season, but with a full season ahead of him, an inability to high lefties or righties, Cubs fans will begin complaining about DeWitt since that’s all they got for Lilly.

Why he might not be here: The Cubs go to a strict DeWitt/Baker platoon and each of them performs better in that split statistic. The 2nd base job for the Cubs produces more than expected and people begin to forget about Mark DeRosa

9. Sean Marshall

Why he’s here: The lefty reliever had a breakout season last year, but he’s actually been quite good as a reliever for awhile now. He posted a 3.74 FIP in 2009 and his ERA as a reliever prior to 2010 was about 3.20. The reason Marshall’s not looked as good as those numbers is because of the starts he’s gotten in the big leagues. His FIP in 2010 was nearly 1 run less than his career FIP as a reliever. It was roughly 1.5 runs worse than his FIP in 2009. Marshall also picked up a modest two-year contract, but with the increased money and increased level of performance, expectations are really high.

Why he might not be here: Maybe he really improved that much. I won’t believe until I see it, but it’s always possible. His curveball is a lot of fun to watch even if Marshall is Trachsel-esque on the mound.

8. Carlos Marmol

Why he’s here: Ridiculously good season in 2010 and that led to a three year contract. It’s almost impossible that Marmol will have another season as good as his 2010 season and the media and fans always compare players to the performance they posted the year they their contracts.

Why he might not be here: If he can show improved command and/or the offense performs better than expected, which would lead to a higher saves total. The media and fans love that.

7. Kerry Wood

Why he’s here: Yeah, all three of the relievers at the back end of the Cubs bullpen make the list and are right next to one another. Cubs fans remember 1998 Kerry Wood. Some also remember 2003 Wood and some also even remember 2008 Kerry Wood. Since he left the Cubs his numbers as a reliever have not been especially impressive (league average actually, which isn’t good for a reliever). His dominating 2008 as a reliever was helped out significantly by Wood walking 2 batters fewer per 9 innings. Since then the walks have increased to career high levels. His unsustainable home run rate in 2008 has also increased to his career average rate.

Why he might not be here: He struckout 20 batters in a game in 1998. Every single Cubs fans, even ones who weren’t yet alive, remember that game. He’s an icon in Chicago and he took $1.5 million to come back to Chicago when he could have earned millions more elsewhere. If he’s judged on his performance, Cubs fans will be disappointed. It’s likely one of those where fans end up being a bit of both and they’ll want the Cubs to re-sign him after the season is over.

6. Carlos Pena

Why he’s here: Coming off an awful season in Tampa Bay and joining a team in which the beat writers still think batting average is the tell-all statistic. Pena will hit for a low average. He’ll probably get on base and hit for some power too, but come August when fans take note of his .220ish batting average, the media and fans will wonder why on earth Jim Hendry signed a guy who hit below .200 last year.

Why he might not be here: Like Adam Dunn, Pena is more than capable of driving in a lot of runs and that’s another statistic that’s looked at too often as an evaluation tool. That will be hard to do since he doesn’t hit lefties especially well and unlike Dunn, isn’t going to hit in the middle of the order all the time. Against lefties, he’ll hit lower.

5. Kosuke Fukudome

Why he’s here: It’s the final year of Fukudome’s 4-year, $42 million contract the Cubs and Fukudome signed following the 2007 season. It’s important to note in my opinion that at the time the media and fans were talking about how Fukudome was going to be the next Cubs superstar. That never made sense to me. Based on his stats in Japan and how other Japanes position players had performed, Fukudome was likely to be about an .800 OPS hitter. Maybe a bit lower or a bit higher. Certainly not bad, but not great. Fukudome got off to an outstanding start and by 2009 Cubs fans were ready to see him go. It’s likely to get uglier than ever this season.

Why he might not be here: So far Fukudome is playing primarily vs righties while Colvin is tasked with the difficult duty of hitting lefties. Fukudome has hit righties well in his career and it’s possible he puts up some big numbers this year in part time duty. Even if that happens, Cubs fans are still probably going to be disappointed in what they got out of Fukudome.

4. Starlin Castro

Why he’s here: Castro set the bar high last year. As a 20-year old he held his own in the big leagues and I think it was even reported over one million times that his batting average was over .300 when the season ended. That’s a flashy number for someone that age. Some of his other numbers weren’t nearly as impressive and he ended up being about league average based on wOBA, but batting average is still king. It’s hard to hit .300 in the big leagues and there’s a very good chance Castro’s sophomore season will be judged on his batting average.

Why he might not be here: Maybe he’s Tony Gwynn who never batted below .300. If Castro can maitain those averages, his defense will become less a focus than it has been.

3. Tyler Colvin

Why he’s here: The lefty slugger had a breakout season a year ago and flashed some legit power. He strikes out a lot and the fans hate strikeouts. He doesn’t get on base that much and his batting average is going to remain low. He’s no longer new to the media and fans so his flaws will stand out more this season.

Why he might not be here: He’s not Kosuke Fukudome.

2. Carlos Zambrano

Why he’s here: When you think back to the 2003 season the Cubs entered the season with a rotation of Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Matt Clement, Shawn Estes and the young Carlos Zambrano. Entering 2004 fans referred to the Cubs rotation as Wood, Prior, Clement and Zambrano. After Clement left it was Wood, Prior and Zambrano. Zambrano fared better than expected for several seasons when he was considered either a back end of the rotation starter or a mid rotation one. Once Wood and Prior went down for good, Zambrano became the top of the rotation and that was during the awful 2006 Cubs season. Fans often talk about how Zambrano has never lived up to the hype. Zambrano was an afterthought in the Cubs rotation for several years and he never lived up to the hype? No, the hype never lived up to Carlos Zambrano. He can’t win with the fans and media. He’s a polarizing athlete and has had enough run-ins to more than wear out his welcome, if we was ever actually welcomed in the first place.

Why he might not be here: Zambrano becomes the so-called good-luck pitcher as the Cubs offense scores bundles with him on the mound. As a result he wins 17 or more games. If that happens, then all we’ll hear is about how the Cubs paid Zambrano $1 million per win so people are just less disappointed. There’s no winning for Zambrano. He ain’t Charlie Sheen.

1b. Mike Quade

Why he’s here: The team won a million games last season after he took over, but the only difference between the team before and during was Carlos Zambrano. The clubhouse chemistry was much talked about, but winning results in good clubhouse chemistry. As this team loses, that clubhouse chemistry gets worse. With a first year manager in the big leagues, it could get bad quickly and Quade may find himself unemployed by August. From the sounds of it, the chemistry may already be an issue and it’s only going to get worse.

Why he might not be here: The same Cubs who stood up for him after the season continue to stand up for him. Based on the history of sports, that’s not usually true, but the history of sports already ended so it doesn’t matter.

1. Alfonso Soriano

Why he’s here: He signed an 8-year, $136 million contract after the 2006 season.

Why he might not be here:

Others who may disappoint: Aramis Ramirez, Matt Garza, Randy Wells and Andrew Cashner.

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