Three former shortstop prospects struggle offensively

Prior to the 2010 season, Alcides Escobar was ranked by Baseball America as the 12th best prospect in baseball. That same year, Starlin Castro was ranked 16th. Also prior to 2010, Elvis Andrus had just completed an impressive rookie season with the Rangers. Andrus was ranked as high as 19th by Baseball America.

Escobar was 23, Castro was 20 and Andrus, after his first professional season, would be 21 years old in 2010. These weren't just the 3 best shortstops in the minor leagues, but 3 of the best prospects in all of baseball. They were all young, though Castro and Andrus much more so than Escobar. They were all good. They all played SS.

Andrus wasn't much of a hitter, but he more than made up for it with great defense and baserunning. Castro wasn't a great fielder, or a baserunner, but he was a very good hitter considering his age. Escobar was good in the minor leagues, but was never able to carry it over to the big leagues.

Going back to 1980 and looking only at SS through the age of 24, only 2 players, Edgar Renteria and Alex Rodriguez, had more PA at SS than Andrus. Castro had the 8th most, right behind the homophobic Ozzie Guillen. Since Escobar was older and didn't have much success offensively (he has still been worth 5.7 fWAR though), he ranks well below the others and isn't that notable here.

These were guys who were thought very highly of by scouts and their organization and others. They were future stars and two of them have shown they can be just that. Castro more than Andrus because Castro has hit, but fielding and baserunning matter too. It was fun to see so many good young SS entering the league.

This year, each of them rank among the league's worst hitters. Elvis Andrus has a 56 wRC+ (4th worst), Starlin Castro's is 59 (8th worst) and Alcides Escobar's is 64 (9th worst). Despite the horrible offense, Andrus has still been worth 0.7 fWAR and 1.0 rWAR. Escobar has been worth 0.8 fWAR and rWAR. Castro is at -1.5 fWAR and -1.6 rWAR.

Castro still projects as the better offensive player, but his defense and baserunning put him behind the other two. Andrus projects to be the most valuable, but he's being paid the most. Escobar's 4-year, $10.5 million contract is the best of the bunch moving forward. The Royals also have 2 option years in that contract.

I still take Castro over Escobar. I always thought it was strange that Escobar had the higher rankings in the minor leagues and Castro, prior to this year, had shown he was clealry the better player. At this point, Escobar and Castro are somewhat equal to one another, but one of them has a team-friendly contract. If you told me two years ago this would be true, I'd have laughed.

Things can change quickly. We've been watching it the past few months. They can and probably will change again, which is why I'd rather have Castro. I just never though it would be very close and it is.

It's not strange that Escobar has failed to find consistency at the MLB level. That's what happens with top prospects. What is strange is that Andrus has become an even worse hitter than before while Castro has been struggling just as much for half a season.

Series Preview: Chicago Cubs (3-7) at Miami Marlins (4-6)

The Cubs stumble into their next opponent having lost all three series so far this year. They'll face the Marlins and their hideous HR structure. Thank DeRosa that this series is being played in Miami and not Chicago – the media firestorm with Ozzie's return after suspension from his recent comments and the mere existence of Carlos Zambrano would be fanned even further by the Chicago papers if the teams were playing at Wrigley. Z has been doing Z things with the Marlins, walking a bunch of batters and racking up big pitch counts. He was in position to "win" both of the games he started, but fellow newcomer Heath Bell blew the save each time.

Team Matchups

I'll switch to this season's stats. NL Rank in parens.

	Cubs	Marlins
wOBA	.285 (13th)	.293 (10th)
Baserunning	0.8 (5th)	-1.1 (13th)
UZR	3.9 (3rd)	-5.8 (15th)
DRS	2 (4th)	-13 (16th)
SP FIP	3.47 (8th)	3.71 (10th)
RP FIP	4.56 (15th)	4.30 (14th)

Lineups

Updated ZiPS projections for all players

Cubs	wOBA	wOBA	Marlins
RF David DeJesus	.330	.354	SS Jose Reyes
2B Darwin Barney	.291	.308	CF Emilio Bonifacio
SS Starlin Castro	.338	.358	3B Hanley Ramirez
LF Alfonso Soriano	.318	.377	RF Giancarlo Stanton
3B Ian Stewart	.313	.349	LF Logan Morrison
1B Bryan LaHair	.343	.337	1B Gaby Sanchez
C Geovany Soto	.328	.318	2B Omar Infante
CF Marlon Byrd	.314	.304	C John Buck

The Marlins have some thunder in that lineup. Jose Reyes has gotten off to a bad start to the season, posting a .238/.289/.357 line. I'm sure Marlins fans are clamoring for him to be replaced by some replacement level SS in the minors (see: Geovany Soto's slow start).

Injuries

Stanton has a sore left knee and is day to day. Former fireballing Cubs bullpen prospect Jose Ceda had Tommy John surgery last week. No word on whether the Marlins are planning on reopening the Kevin Gregg compensation.

Pitching Matchups

ERA, FIP, xFIP, and ZiPS FIP in parens

Tuesday: Ryan Dempster, RHP (1.88, 2.95, 3.11, 3.94) vs Josh Johnson, RHP (8.38, 2.78, 3.50, 2.69), 6:05 PM CT

Dempster followed up his stellar ten strikeout opening day with a merely very good outing against the Brewers. Dempster struck out five and walked three in 6 2/3 and took the loss in a game where the Cubs couldn't get much going offensively. He's the beneficiary of a .176 BABIP on the season #funwithsmallsamplesizes

On the flip side, Johnson's poor numbers seem to be entirely due to batted ball luck (.488 BABIP). He hasn't given up any homers (helped in part by their humongous park), but hitters are hitting him hard so far too. He's given up 15 line drives in his two starts, and his strikeout rates are way down. He's coming off of surgery last year so that could be playing a major role.

Wednesday: Matt Garza, RHP (1.23, 2.48, 2.63, 3.34) vs Mark Buehrle, LHP (3.65, 4.59, 4.16, 3.78), 6:05 PM CT

If Steve Trachsel was the Human Rain Delay, what does that make Mark Buehrle? He's scuffled a bit with his new team and has had some trouble with home runs but he's mostly been as advertised.

Garza blew his chance at a shutout his last time out by throwing the 27th out 15 rows into the stands. It's always so strange to see just how awful he is at fielding the position.

Thursday: Jeff Samardzija, RHP (3.95, 2.15, 2.72, 4.18) vs Matt Cain and Felix Pie, RHP (3.46, 4.35, 3.73, 3.45), 11:40 AM CT

Samardzija's second start wasn't as impressive as his first. His fastballs' velocity was down about 3 mph from the 97 or so in his first start, and he pitched well enough before running into trouble in the fifth. The Cardinals hit five line drives off of him, scoring 5 runs. Luckily the Cubs offense had already posted nine of their own at that point.

Nolasco's best start was his first one, in Cincy. He went 8 innings and killed a ton of grass in their infield. He labored in his second start against the Astros, needing 90 pitches to go five innings against their woeful offense.

Prediction

Cubs lose yet another series.

Cubs and Red Sox finally complete Theo Epstein compensation

Several months after being on the 5-yard line the two sides have agreed to a compensation package. The details were released this morning. The Cubs send Chris Carpenter and a player to be named later. The Cubs will also receive a player to be named later. That part is confusing to me. They said a player had to be sent to the Cubs since it was a trade, which makes no sense to me. Then I noticed that Randy Winn, the guy the Mariners traded to the Rays for Lou Piniella, was actually traded for another player.

You'd think at some point one of the journalists covering this epic adventure would have realized this and reported it. I don't believe any one pointed this out. I'm actually disappointed I didn't even notice it. It would have been as simple as looking at Winn's transactions:

October 28, 2002: Traded by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to the Seattle Mariners for Antonio Perez.

The official transaction between the Marlins and White Sox was this:

Florida Marlins traded RHP Jhan Marinez and SS Osvaldo Martinez to Chicago White Sox and Bristol White Sox traded RHP Ricardo Andres to Greensboro Grasshoppers.

It was as simple as looking at a couple of pages on the interwebz to realize that the Cubs would be getting something in return. It's remarkable that the journalists covering this couldn't be bothered to report this piece of information. They wrote for weeks that a deal was coming soon. It's not like they didn't have another piece of information they could share. So not only are the Cubs beat writers once again shown to be incompetent, but sportswriters in general are pretty bad at their jobs. They had 123 days to figure this out.

Who do the Cubs trade for Theo Epstein?

The Cubs hired Theo Epstein 4 months ago and it was about that time that we were told the two sides were on the 5-yard line regarding compensation. I can only assume that Ken O'Keefe is running the offense. Every week we're told that Bud Selig will resolve the compensation issue soon. Each week goes by without a resolution. Recently the Boston media has wondered if Reed Johnson and Jeff Baker might be the start of compensation.

I'll admit that I have no freaking clue who they end getting, but there are certain rules regarding transactions. That's what this is. You can call it compensation, but it's a trade. For Andrew Cashner, the Padres sent the Cubs Anthony Rizzo as compensation. Same thing. For example:

Florida Marlins traded RHP Jhan Marinez and SS Osvaldo Martinez to Chicago White Sox and Bristol White Sox traded RHP Ricardo Andres to Greensboro Grasshoppers.

That's the official transaction listed on the Miami Marlins website on September 29th when they traded those two players for Ozzie Guillen. It's quite clearly a trade.

Because of this, there are a few things to consider. First, players who are drafted cannot be traded until one year after they signed their contract. This eliminates all of the 2011 Cubs draft picks. Second, teams cannot trade a recently signed free agent until June 15th. This is why there are no sign and trades in baseball. Draft picks aren't signed and then traded and free agents aren't either. It's not allowed. A player could theoretically approve a trade as far as I know. At least with regards to free agents. It's entirely possible Reed Johnson could approve a trade to the Red Sox, but why would he?

He chose to sign with the Cubs because he likes Chicago. He could have chosen to sign with the Red Sox this offseason, but didn't. I see no reason to think he'd be willing to accept a trade.

In the article by Nick Cafardo linked earlier in the post he wonders if Anthony Rizzo might be in play. You've got to be kidding me. He's a top 100 prospect. The Marlins didn't get close to a top 100 prospect in return for Guillen and there was a possibility of tampering charges being filed. I actually find it hard to believe that a player on the 40-man roster would be traded to the Red Sox for this. I can't imagine Bud Selig deciding it's fair to send a rostered player to Boston when the Cubs could have used that roster spot to protect someone else earlier on. Someone like Ryan Flaherty. He absolutely would have been protected if Josh Vitters wasn't on the 40-man roster.

But who knows? Bud Selig is an idiot so I don't have any idea. He could give the Red Sox Matt Garza and Starlin Castro and it wouldn't even surprise me. I'd shrug my shoulders and say to myself, Bud being Bud.

When the media told us 4 months ago the Cubs were on the 5-yard line it would have been helpful to know that they were on their own 5-yard line, both teams had infinite timeouts and the Cubs had the ball for eternity.

More on compensation for Theo

We’ve talked a bit about compensation for Theo Epstein here and it’s been discussed a lot all over the internet. I thought it would be interesting to compare what the Marlins gave up for Ozzie Guillen to what the Cubs might have to give up. The Marlins sent the White Sox as compensation for hiring Guillen Jhan Marinez and Osvaldo Martinez. Marinez, a RHP, was the 4th ranked prospect in the Marlins organization according to Baseball America.

Marinez turned 23 years old in August and is a hard throwing late inning reliever who sits 92-95 and tops out at 98. Baseball America said that he has been resistant to coaching in previous years, but that changed in 2011. He had a solid season at AA this year and pitched 2.2 innings at the big league level in 2010. He walks a lot and strikes a lot of guys out. He probably fell a bit this year, but probably not by much.

Osvaldo Martinez turned 23 in May. He’s had big league action in each of 2010 and 2011 and owns a career .258/.300/.348 line in only 71 plate appearances. He hit very poorly in his first taste of AAA this season and undoubtedly fell quite a lot. Probably even out of the top 10.

Both players fell a bit in their rankings and were top 5 prospects entering the season. Josh Vitters was ranked 5th overall and fell a lot too. He should be out of the top 10, probably should have been entering the season. He’s very comparable to Martinez though Vitters has much more potential.

Unfortunately for the Cubs, they don’t really have anyone that matches Marinez. Chris Carpenter would be the closest, but he probably fell out of the top 10.

So I think Brett Jackson or Trey McNutt are out of reach. Matt Szczur was the 7th ranked prospect and he had a pretty good season overall. Depending on how crazy Baseball America gets with recent draft picks, Szczur could find himself in a similar spot next year. Szczur and Jackson were the only Cubs in a full season league ranked in the top 20. I’m going to assume neither will be traded.

I think Josh Vitters and Chris Carpenter make a lot of sense if we’re using the Guillen trade as an example.

Continue reading “More on compensation for Theo”