Tag: projections

The Quest For Exceeding Expectations

I was able to talk to the Gregs about prospects and the Cubs future on the last Dreamcast, and everything from the various projections (including FanGraphs playoff odds and ZiPS), to the way the Cubs themselves are speaking to the press and whatever this damn slogan is, confirms what we discussed, which is that the Cubs are likely nowhere close to ready to sell out for contention just yet. This post is going to read like a cavalcade of BCB memes, but seriously, most of this is “prove me wrong” and “let’s see what happens”:

“I think there’s definitely years that the projections haven’t liked us or haven’t liked us as much as we might,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said. “But ultimately our job is to prove those wrong.”

From Marquee

It may be a long road until “I can’t argue with you today,” but the various projections taken together suggest the Cubs fall somewhere between 75 and 85 wins, with a good shot of overtaking Milwaukee for second place but likely still behind the Cardinals for the division crown. Since the wild card likely won’t come from the Central, it’s division or bust for this year’s Cubs, and the bust is again more probable. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the Cubs are significantly better than the Reds or Pirates as currently constructed, and I think they can definitely make the two teams above them sweat a bit, but while we are grounding ourselves in realism, there is the whole chaos and hope thing we can still hold on to.

AC asked a bunch of questions a while back that alluded to the amount of variance inherent in this team, which does mess with all the projection systems a bunch because due to the turnover rate over the past few seasons and the rawness of some of the personnel, there isn’t a track record to work with to train the projections. With this variance comes ways to do as Hoyer said and exceed those projections, and I think we’ve all been consistent with the 75-85 range (me at the higher end, and others like Mick probably a little more pessimistic on the lower end). If we compromise and say this is a .500 club right now, with balanced schedule already accounted for, then let’s say we need to squeeze 10-12 more wins out of this club to win the division. In the initial spell to resurrect the Hope Monster, let’s take a look at how the Cubs might be able to add wins at the margins.

Defense

The signings this offseason and the way this club is being built up suggests they are going to raise the floor through solid-to-elite defense. There are Gold Glove-winning or at least Gold Glove-caliber defenders at a minimum of five positions, six if Marcus Stroman is starting, and not counting multiple Gold Glove-winning first baseman Eric Hosmer (your mileage may vary with his defense). The other positions (again not counting Hosmer) can be manned by players who at least won’t trip all over themselves. This, coupled with contact management from the pitching staff (because they sure aren’t striking many batters out), could lead to better-than-average run prevention:

“I do think our game-planning infrastructure has been good for a long time,” Hoyer said. “That’s something that’s been a competitive advantage. But ultimately a ball in play has a certain percentage of being a hit. So the better our defense is, the more that will help that process. We think we have a lot of quality pitchers. But because we’re not going to strike out 30 percent of the guys, we’ll have to rely on good defense, good pitch mix and that’s something our infrastructure is good at. But it’s something that’s a challenge.”

The Cubs attacked this offseason with that in mind. They significantly upgraded their defense and know that they’ve often been ahead of the curve when it comes to finding ways to miss barrels. Despite falling behind in certain areas of player development, the Cubs were one of the first teams to take advantage of pitches that showed seam-shifted wake characteristics. While other organizations focused solely on up-in-the-zone four-seamers, the Cubs continued to value certain types of sinkers.

Via The Athletic

The plan on this end is simple: if they’re not going to miss too many bats, at least miss the sweet spot and have the superb defense gobble up the balls in play and turn them into outs. Because this offense probably won’t score too many runs, giving up fewer runs would at least help the team out in the chaos department. And even with the shift restrictions, the elite defenders up the middle should be able to get to most of the balls in play, which will be good for the team in terms of results, and fun for us fans because of the action and athleticism.

Bending the Rules – Pitcher

I’m too lazy to hunt down where AC asked some of his questions or made me think, but there was a bit about how the pitcher and hitter might attempt to game the pitch clock given the wording of the rules, and also given the whole balk enforcement thing:

We know the pitcher must begin his motion before the timer expires. But the most interesting detail to emerge from Tuesday’s event was that MLB will be more strictly enforcing balks in conjunction with the arrival of the pitch timer.

The reason is that, in order to enforce the timer, the umpire on the field and the timer operator need a clear indication of when the pitch has begun.

“When the pitcher is bouncing on his foot,” Sword explained, “it’s not clear when you have begun your pitch delivery.”

In the windup, pitchers are allowed to take one step back and one step forward at the start of their delivery and no more. The clock stops when the pitcher steps back or laterally.

From the stretch, pitchers can still tap their feet prior to the delivery of the pitch, but they must come to a complete stop with their feet set at some point. The clock stops when the pitcher lifts his free leg after assuming and holding the set position.

MLB studied the deliveries of every pitcher in the league via video and reached out to those who will be affected by this more strict enforcement. Astros pitcher Luis Garcia, who has been known to take little “cha-cha” steps prior to his delivery, is one such pitcher.

“There’s a whole host of funky deliveries that are within the rules,” Sword said. “We encourage funky pitchers to be funky within the rules.”

From MLB.com

I doubt many pitchers use the windup position with guys on base (unless the only runner is on third) but that was in the past. Now they cannot do any weird leg things to disrupt timing or else it might be called an automatic ball with nobody on, and a balk with guys on. I’d like to know what this does to the windups of guys with funky hitches in their step like Clayton Kershaw or Nestor Cortes (when he’s healthy again), as the way MLB describes it suggests they can’t do the stutter step, but that might just be a set position thing. Then again, if they try a pick off move, that counts as a disengagement so there’s another aspect we have to get into:

They’re a sure bet to forget they can’t just step off the rubber every time they get flustered.

So what do we mean by that? Under the new pitch-timer rules, pitchers have a newfound word to worry about: “disengagement,” which will no longer be something that applies just to various Kardashians every time they break up with their celebrity significant others. In this context, a “disengagement” is a potentially game-changing development that occurs every time a pitcher “disengages” from the rubber in a couple of different ways.

One would be a pickoff throw. That’s easy enough to grasp. What’s harder to remember is that every time a pitcher steps off the rubber, even if it’s merely to gather his thoughts, that is also considered a “disengagement.” And for those who haven’t followed this closely, here’s why that matters:

After two “disengagements,” a pitcher can no longer throw over to first base — or any base — unless he then picks off the runner. If the runner isn’t out, it’s a balk. And that is going to dramatically alter pitching, base-stealing and the art of controlling the running game.

Via The Athletic

If you haven’t had a chance to yet, check out Jayson Stark and Doug Glanville on Starkville on the Athletic’s MLB podcast, it was very fun and informative. But Stark has a point here, not only do pitchers have to deal with the clock now, they also have to remember that they can’t step off to clear their heads, which means they have to extra prepare a game plan before the game even starts because they don’t have time to mess around anymore with the time ticking down. As someone who can’t even remember all the signs (which probably isn’t a problem now with the PitchCom), having even more to think about is probably no fun, but perhaps we aren’t giving these literal professional baseball players enough credit to adjust quickly. But how can Cubs pitchers try to use the new rules to gain advantage?

Given that batters must be alert to the pitcher by eight seconds remaining on the timer, a pitcher who can reset and throw within seven seconds (bases empty) or 12 seconds (runners on) might have a quick pitch advantage, but that’s asking a lot to recover and be prepared to throw by then. The way the rule was explained is that the batter just needs both feet in the box and look at the pitcher and that’s enough for the pitcher to fire, so a batter knowing that this pitcher is prepared to fire at will is under additional stress. My theory is that pitchers who have conviction in their plan before the batter even steps into the box (particularly those who decide to just call their own pitches instead of waiting for Tucker Barnhart or Yan Gomes to press their button) might be able to sneak in this advantage and steal a strike or a bad contact swing. It does help that

Regarding the disengagement issue, I wonder if, even though he’s on the shelf for the moment, Kyle Hendricks can teach the guys his elite pickoff move. Many of the Cubs pitchers can shave a few seconds off their pace and incorporating an above average pickoff move (even if not as good as Hendricks) could help them hold runners better and take advantage of their limited disengagements. Since the Cubs catchers have at least average pop times, a pitcher working faster regardless of the pitch clock ticking down can help control the run game and continue to keep opposing batters off balance.

Taking Offense

On the other side of the pitch clock, a batter who studies the game plan well and understands better how the opposing pitcher will attack will be able to avoid the quick pitch because he’s already in the box ready to go rather than adjusting his batting gloves 700 times (seriously, Franklin or Mizuno or whatever company needs to figure out their velcro technology). And with the shift being restricted, maybe more hits come?

“Those are going to be hits again. Those should be hits. That’s a more appealing game than a guy smashing a ball and it looks like nothing because the guy in right field eats it up.”

Ian Happ, from Sports Illustrated

It should be noted, as many others including the Gregs on the last Dreamcast did, that the shift rules don’t preclude a shortstop or second baseman from still positioning just to the side of the second base bag, as I illustrated in a previous post.

A legal shift per the new rules against a lefty batter

Perhaps the lefties are correct, that even if a guy can be just to the side of the bag (and umpires will be looking at this to make sure they don’t straddle that no-man’s land up the middle), if they know there’s an extra hole and no guy on the grass, all they have to do is try to hit the piss out of the ball and there’s a better chance than before that turns into a hit. The middle infielders not getting an extra few feet of reaction space, no matter if they’re elite like Dansby Swanson or Nico Hoerner, will make it that much harder for them to snag a 120 mph ball on the ground or a liner, but I guess we will take a wait and see approach as players and managers adjust their strategies on either side of the ball. Aside from this, the Cubs having some contact hitters in the lineup producing more balls in play could lead to a greater level of chaos which hopefully means more guys on base and opportunities to get some runs. Or they could try to get guys to go the other way or whatever, but that isn’t exactly easy and we all know nobody’s going to try to lay down a bunt all the time anyway.

The other rules change that has been talked about because of the myriad pictures posted on the socials is the larger bases. All sports are ultimately a game of inches (or centimeters if you’re into metric), and having three to 4.5 inches shaved off between bases makes a lot of difference for speedy guys and savvy baserunners, and also challenges catchers who don’t have the best arms or pop times, as well as pitchers continuing to adjust to the pitch clock and disengagement rules. The team with the personnel who can best adapt to the new timings and incentives to run wild may be able to literally steal an extra base and/or run here or there, and the pressure could elicit more balks to get that free base anyway.

The exciting part is that the Cubs are already trying to do this anyway, as we saw last season with lots of steals and also TOOTBLANs. With added speed from this offseason’s signings, I do wonder whether the Cubs can put some dudes on and then put them in motion, although I’m not a huge fan of TOOTBLANs but they need to do something with inconsistent-at-best power in the lineup right now.

It’s Sort of a Plan?

I guess the plan of attack this year is pretty simple in theory:

  • Keep batters off balance within the pitch clock
  • Throw lots of strikes that induce poor contact
  • Let the defense convert lots of outs and reduce runs against
  • Get on base and steal a bunch
  • ????
  • Profit!

There’s so much chaos baked into this team with uncertain projections, variance, and intangibles that you can almost see this working. Will it snag those 12 extra wins? I’ll take a wait and see approach.

The Division is a Pipe Dream

Projections are just projections, and as they say, it’s in the hands of the players to play well and buck the narrative. Although it hasn’t been officially published yet, as we all surmised, the Cardinals are likely to repeat as NL Central division champs again:

Fuck.

FanGraphs already has the projections for the other four teams in the division, including the Cubs. The Cardinals entry will probably be live in the next day or so, but for now we can just add up all the crude WAR and put these teams in their projected order in the Central.

  1. St. Louis Cardinals (48.6)
  2. Milwaukee Brewers (44.4)
  3. Chicago Cubs (35.4)
  4. Pittsburgh Pirates (27.4)
  5. Cincinnati Reds (26.3)

Keep in mind that some of the more recent signings hadn’t been made yet for the other four teams before the Cardinals preview tweet. For example, the Reds just released Mike Moustakas while the Pirates reportedly brought back Andrew McCutchen and the Cubs are supposed to add Trey Mancini. Also keeping in mind that some of the players on the Cubs are either unproven per the ZiPS algorithm (so they’re understandable a bit more conservative on the projection) or are due for a step forward (we hope). But seeing that gap between the Cubs and the top two is somewhat discouraging.

This is about what we expected, though, and while the Cubs should be given plenty of credit for spending and winning the sneaky prize or whatever, it is difficult to stop wondering “what if” they had gotten some of the big names before settling on the players they did. I think there is a plan in place and I sincerely hope they’re right in using defense as their divisional market inefficiency. We’ll get a preview in about a month in snippets of spring training action, and we’ll see it for real come Opening Day.

2016 Steamer Projections: 100 Wins?

Well. That sure was fun. Although the Theo & Jed may not be done swinging deals yet (rumors include trading for a cost controlled, young starter and/or a CF), we can take a look at how the New-Look-Cubs project for next season with the additions of Jason Heyward, John Lackey, Ben Zobrist, and Adam Warren.

First, a fun look at the top ten position players in fWAR according to Steamer:

Name Team Off Def WAR
Mike Trout Angels 61.6 3.3 9.2
Bryce Harper Nationals 49.5 -6 6.8
Josh Donaldson Blue Jays 23.9 10.1 5.9
Giancarlo Stanton Marlins 39.9 -4.7 5.9
Manny Machado Orioles 18.7 14.2 5.8
Andrew McCutchen Pirates 37.1 -3.6 5.7
Kris Bryant Cubs 29.2 3.1 5.6
Paul Goldschmidt Diamondbacks 35.6 -6.6 5.2
Anthony Rizzo Cubs 31.9 -4.5 5.1
Jason Heyward Cubs 19.6 5.7 4.8

That's three Cubs position players that are projected to be in the top 10 in 2016 fWAR. Quite impressive. Jake Arrieta also comes in at #5 for pitcher WAR projections.

Now let's take a look at the projections for the all the Cubs currently rostered.

Name PA Off Def WAR
Anthony Rizzo 657 31.9 -4.5 5.1
Kris Bryant 651 29.2 3.1 5.6
Jason Heyward 648 19.6 5.7 4.8
Ben Zobrist 621 10.4 1.8 3.3
Jorge Soler 520 4.4 -9.3 1.2
Kyle Schwarber 501 14.8 -6 2.6
Addison Russell 501 -4.7 8.9 2.1
Miguel Montero 412 -4.3 9 1.9
Chris Coghlan 283 -1.1 -3.1 0.5
Javier Baez 273 1.7 -0.1 1.1
Tommy La Stella 156 -0.4 -2.4 0.2
David Ross 151 -7.9 3.4 0
Brendan Ryan 141 -8 2.5 -0.1
Arismendy Alcantara 90 -1.7 0.3 0.1
Christian Villanueva 70 -1.3 -1.4 -0.1
Matt Szczur 47 -1.3 -1 -0.1
Willson Contreras 13 -0.2 0.3 0.1
TOTAL      

28.3

Name IP ERA FIP WAR
Jake Arrieta 208 2.93 2.93 5.2
Jon Lester 204 3.15 3.22 4.4
John Lackey 193 3.67 3.72 2.9
Kyle Hendricks 166 3.49 3.61 2.7
Jason Hammel 157 3.74 3.80 2.2
Pedro Strop 65 3.06 3.14 0.8
Hector Rondon 65 3.13 3.22 0.7
Travis Wood 63 3.36 3.85 0.4
Justin Grimm 55 3.03 3.12 0.7
Trevor Cahill 55 3.53 3.58 0.4
Adam Warren 40 3.06 3.26 0.4
Neil Ramirez 35 3.39 3.59 0.2
Clayton Richard 30 3.57 3.86 0.1
Rex Brothers 25 3.96 3.99 0
Yoervis Medina 20 3.96 4.05 0
Zac Rosscup 15 3.35 3.57 0.1
Spencer Patton 10 3.34 3.40 0.1
Pierce Johnson 10 3.67 3.82 0
Andury Acevedo 10 4.24 4.39 0
Carl Edwards 9 4.22 4.16 0.1
Eric Jokisch 9 4.12 4.28 0.1
Dallas Beeler 9 4.30 4.45 0.1
TOTAL       21.6

The projected "true talent level" of the 2016 Chicago Cubs is 49.9 wins above replacement. A replacement level team is 47.7 wins. Put those numbers together and Steamer projects the currently-as-built Cubs to win 97.6 games.

They will be a popular pick by most baseball pundits to win the NL Central and 2016 World Series. A lot can still go wrong, but it looks like 2016 will be a very competitive year on the North Side. By pretty much all our reactions to the Jason Heyward signing, it was a huge get for the Cubs not only by addition, but subtraction from the Cardinals. I'm sure many of your agree with me, but on paper the 2016 Cubs will be the best Cubs team of my lifetime. I'm just glad that we finally have an owner and leadership that didn't cave into the pressure (and poorly written essays) of fans and instead followed their process. Get excited ladies and gentlemen. 

Cubs’ Steamer Projections

While we wait for Tanaka to make a decision between choosing the Yankees today, or choosing the Yankees tomorrow, I took a look at how our offense performed relative to the league at each prediction. I then looked at who was projected to get the bulk of the starts at each position, and compared their Steamer projection to last year's averages.

  BA OBP SLG wOBA
C 0.245 0.31 0.388 0.307
1B 0.254 0.332 0.43 0.333
2B 0.257 0.316 0.376 0.305
SS 0.254 0.308 0.367 0.298
3B 0.256 0.317 0.398 0.314
LF 0.252 0.32 0.399 0.317
CF 0.258 0.324 0.395 0.317
RF 0.261 0.324 0.419 0.325

These are the averages from last year. Here's the primary starter last year as of season's end last year, and their slash lines:

2013 P AVG BA OBP SLG wOBA difference
Castillo 0.274 0.349 0.397 0.331 0.024
Rizzo 0.233 0.323 0.419 0.325 -0.008
Barney 0.208 0.266 0.303 0.252 -0.053
Castro 0.245 0.284 0.347 0.28 -0.018
Valbuena 0.218 0.331 0.378 0.315 0.001
Lake 0.284 0.332 0.428 0.335 0.018
Sweeney 0.266 0.324 0.448 0.337 0.02
Schierholtz 0.251 0.301 0.47 0.331 0.006

Now, that doesn't tell the whole story. Soriano played a lot more often than Lake did, and it also ignores the backups for each position. To get a slightly clearer picture (only slightly clearer because FanGraphs can not sort by actual starts at each position – instead, it puts the FULL stats of anyone who played appreciably at any position), here's the slash by position, instead:

C 0.039
1B -0.008
2B -0.062
SS -0.018
3B 0.005
LF 0.004
CF 0.002
RF -0.018
Total -0.056
AVG -0.007

That means that the average wOBA, team-wide, was 7 points lower than the major league average. This doesn't exactly match to the actual difference of 10 points between the league wOBA (.314) and the Cubs' wOBA (.304), but it'll work for my purposes.

Next, I took the Steamer projections for the same 8 players (sadly, the team did not make literally a single upgrade to the offense this offseason so far).

    BA OBP SLG wOBA  
C Castillo 0.255 0.328 0.414 0.326 0.019
1B Rizzo 0.268 0.35 0.501 0.367 0.034
2B Barney 0.248 0.3 0.344 0.285 -0.02
SS Castro 0.277 0.32 0.411 0.319 0.021
3B Valbuena 0.24 0.326 0.383 0.315 0.001
LF Lake 0.258 0.307 0.396 0.309 -0.008
CF Sweeney 0.269 0.331 0.401 0.322 0.005
RF Schierholtz 0.256 0.314 0.432 0.324 -0.001
Total           0.051
AVG           0.006375

As you can see, Steamer is relatively optimistic essentially across the board. There are minor regressions from Lake, Sweeney, Schierholtz, and Castillo, but Steamer (and most projections) are very bullish on Castro's ability to bounce back, and it foresees similar leaps forward from Rizzo and Barney. I will say that if Barney doesn't take those leaps, he'll be replaced, and essentially anyone who replaces him will provide the .285 wOBA he's projected to hit (and probably a bit more). 

All told, these projections would have us at 6 points above average, offensively. I'm definitely not buying that, especially because we were only supposed to be 7 point below last year and we were actually 10. We also will undoubtedly lose some of these starters to injury and/or ineffectiveness. On the whole, though, I think the makeup of our team is ideal for some natural improvement. As constituted, the team has a chance to be average offensively, and I'd confidently peg them as just a whisper or two below.

 

2014 Cubs: Can They Compete?

dmick89 has finally been cured! Not of his back problems, but of his boundless optimism for all things Cubs. That article is more-or-less required reading for this article, but I'll very quickly sum it up and say that there isn't a whole lot of hope that the Cubs are going to be actual contenders next year or the year after. I'm not as pessimistic about the Cubs chances, but I'm going to attempt to take a hard look at what a 2014 team might look like should the Cubs actually find themselves as a competitive team. My "projections," as they are, are necessarily optimistic, because that's the only real way that this team could realistically compete; even I know that. 

First, let's take a look at the 2014 free agents (mlbtr here): 

A pretty slim pickings to be certain. I'll highlight who I think could be interesting:

C:
Brian McCann: I think there's every chance he reaches free agency with the Evan Gattis phenomenon coupled with his probable payday. He's on the wrong side of 30, but if you really needed a catcher (and the jury is out on Castillo's ability to put together 120 solid games: .267/.322/.353 for a .301 wOBA this season), he's really the only guy. Everyone else is a backup. I'm not about to touch him but he's the best a small crop.

1B: 
The Cubs don't need a 1B. There actually three intriguing guys to me in Justin Morneau, Kendrys Morales, and Mike Morse. Morse can "play" LF (worst fielder in the majors by far) and is antithetical in approach to Epstein, but he'd be instant power. He'll make too much for the Cubs to seriously inquire at LF. 

2B: 
In a scenario in which the Cubs compete, they either have a) landed Robinson Cano in free agency to some ridiculous deal (hopefully this doesn't happen), b) Darwin Barney finally has a wOBA north of .300 (could happen), or c) Logan Watkins picks up the mantle at 2B and sticks. I think b) or c) have equal chances of happening and would be happy with either outcome. Chase Utley will be a free agency but no thanks. Ben Zobrist also has a chance of making it, but since his option is $7MM and the buyout is already $2.5MM, the Rays will probably pick that up even if the price tag is pretty high. 

SS:
I think that Brendan Ryan is actually an intriguing backup MINF prospect. He's a toolsy fielder who can't hit if his life depended on it (career wOBA: .279). However, he can play SS and 2B really well and is the type of 25th man that good teams would love to have. I don't think he fits on the Cubs, especially if Lake and/or Watkins are going to be occupying that role, but it's an interesting thought regardless, as well as a measuring stick to see if the Cubs are actually serious about competing. When they start trying to pick up the neat bench pieces, I'll start feeling confident that THEY are confident. Castro is absolutely, 100% essential to any competitive Cubs team so for the purposes of this article we are assuming he's more 2011 than 2013. 

3B: 
I think Luis Valbuena has played himself (current slump notwithstanding) into consideration at 3B next year, though he's been putrescent lately. There's no hope in FA at the position, so the position is either filled via Valbuena, Lake, or Vitters next year. 

LF:
I'm assuming (hoping) that Soriano is not a Cub next year. There's no help here: all of the FA options are as bad as Sori or worse. Furthermore, there is no real help on the horizon next year. The only outfielders of note at AAA are Brett Jackson and Jae-Hoon Ha, neither of which have the bat to even pretend to play at LF (neither are a sure bet to have a bat for CF!). This is probably where I'm least confident in the Cubs' ability to field a competent player, though there are some creative options: Curtis Granderson can hack it in LF, though you'd rather him play CF to maximize his value, and same with Tacoby Bellsbury.

CF: 
I'm hoping that Brett Jackson can at least be a below-average player here. If not him, than Dave Sappelt. If not Sappelt, than the Cubs could either target Granderson or Ellsbury. Franklin Gutierrez is an interesting option, especially defensively; unfortunately, he's so often injured, and those injuries have taken away his major weapon (speed). 

RF: 
I'm going to blow your mind right now. There's a greater than 50% chance that the best outfielder on the Cubs roster in 2014 right now is Julio Borbon. Schierholtz should be traded, as should DeJesus (though either could stay for competitiveness/injury reasons). The Cubs badly need an outfielder that can provide offense and can plug a hole for a little while. I think that gap is going to filled by Shin-Soo Choo. He's incredible this year, even if he's well off his pace from the beginning of the season. June was his worst month this year and he still had a .364 OBP. I think the Cubs will at least make a VERY strong play at Choo in the offseason, even if he's older than is typical for this FO to pursue. Nelson Cruz and Hunter Pence are the only other two mildly appealing options at RF and I'm not especially interested in either of them. 

SP:
There are way too many options to meaningfully parse through; let's just say there are a bunch of 30-somethings that I'll trust the FO to use to address whatever holes the Cubs might have at the bottom of their rotation. 

RP:
Same as SP, except there are actually a few very flattering options. Eric O' Flaherty is closer material, though he is having UCL surgery and as such is a TJS guy that this FO loves to take chances on. He's a 2015 guy at the earliest and thus past the scope of this article; I mention him only because I'd like to see this FO take a chance on him. Boone Logan is another great lefty out of the pen that the Cubs could easily look at as well; should the Cubs trade James Russell (and I really, really want them to do so because the return could be slightly better than Marshall's was), Logan could become a definite target for a 3/15 type of deal. Kind of crazy to think about paying 3 and 15 for a reliever, but here we are. 

A Short Aside on Trades:

It's also important to realize that any shortfalls this team might have could be solved partially by the return on any trades the Cubs make. The Cubs could be trading Schierholtz, DeJesus, Feldman, Villanueva, Soriano, and Garza this year. The Cubs could easily net a capable outfielder in one of those trades, which really helps out the outlook of the team.

Let's go ahead and just imagine that the only impactful FA signing is Shin-Soo Choo (5/75? 5/80? IDK), and he plays RF. The Cubs of 2013 could look like this:

    wOBA wRC+ FIP
C Castillo 0.31 95  
1B Rizzo 0.355 125  
2B Barney 0.285 75  
SS Castro 0.32 100  
3B Valbuena 0.32 100  
LF Wasteland 0.3 85  
CF Jackson 0.3 85  
RF Choo* 0.36 130  
         
MINF Watkins 0.31 95  
CINF Lake 0.3 85  
COF Hairston 0.31 95  
OF Sappelt 0.3 85  
         
SP Samardzija     3
SP Wood     3.6
SP Jackson     3.5
SP Villanueva     4
SP Negrin     4
RP Bowden     |
RP Parker     |
RP Rodriguez     |
RP Coleman     |
RP Lim     |
RP Neshek*     v
RP Logan*     average?

This team is not hard to envision. It's essentially an average offense with little punch but a slightly stronger bottom of the lineup than average, and a slightly above-average rotation coupled with a dice-roll bullpen. You're only signing one player of real note (Choo), and a pair of relievers that together couldn't cost you more than 7 million per. In addition, I don't doubt for a second this FO's ability to get slightly more creative than Wasteland at LF, and this also disregards any returns on a trade this team could have at the deadline. It projects a return to form for Castro (no sure thing), a modest gain for Rizzo, and fairly achievable numbers for everyone else. Looking at that team, I could see it winning 79-87 games; not exactly knocking down the door for the playoffs, but a respectable launching pad for 2015 for sure.

Do the Cubs have more than a 5% shot of making the playoffs next year? Probably not. However, it's important to show signs of progress, and on that front I really do think the Cubs are getting there. Alcantara could come as soon as the mid-2014, and the rest of the reinforcements could arrive in 2015. Hopefully, this is the last year the Cubs are really bad, and I think that could be the case realistically as well.

 

Cubs interested in Giancarlo Stanton

Nick Cafardo says the Cubs are one of many teams interested in acquiring the Marlins 22 year old superstar.

1. Giancarlo Stanton, RF, Marlins — It would be a coup for whichever of the 25 teams (I’m exaggerating) that would or have bid for him to actually acquire him. But commissioner Bud Selig is watching the Marlins closely after the salary dump in the Blue Jays deal. While Selig did not step in to change or block that trade, he may not look too fondly upon a deal for the Marlins’ biggest draw. Teams would have to give their very best to the Marlins for baseball’s best young slugger. The Phillies, Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles, Cubs, and many more are inquiring, according to a major league source.

If Stanton is available, and that's a big if, of course the Cubs are interested. Along with every other team in baseball.

But let's dream for a moment and pretend the Cubs are only one of a few teams interested and that the Marlins are desparate the shed the salary of someone making the major league minimum. Are you dreaming yet?

He has a career .383 wOBA and only just finished his age 22 season. He has already totaled over 13 fWAR and 12 rWAR in 3 seasons in which he's been one of the youngest players in baseball. If he's not aready a superstar, he soon will be. Bill James projects he'll have a .403 wOBA next season.

Both UZR and DRS agree he's a well above average fielder too.

Are you dreaming now?

What would it take to acquire him?

You can forget about Javier Baez being enough to get it done. It's going to take a hell of a lot more than that. Stanton has one year in which he makes league minimum and then three years of arbitration. HIs surplus trade value is as high or higher than anybody in baseball.

I wouldn't really even know where to begin to estimate what it would take to acquire him, but I'd start with 3 of the top 5 Cubs prospects and then you can probably add on to that.

The Cubs would have a core that includes Starlin Castro, Anthony Rizzo and Stanton. All of them are very young and should only get better and better. It would probably be one of the best young cores of talent that I've seen an offense have in my life.

Projecting the 2012 Cubs – Carlos Marmol

Marmol followed up his stellar 3 WAR 2010 season a much more heart-attacky 2011 season. Marmol's ten blown saves led all of baseball last year (tied with LAAoLAoDoQEoA's Jordan Walden). Marmol walks (and hits) a ton of batters, and continued that trend in 2011. However, his K/9 dropped to a "mere" 12 batters per nine, down from the record-breaking 15.99 of 2010. Marmol's HR rate also jumped up, as he gave up 7.5% HR/FB as opposed to the microscopic numbers he posted in '09 and '10. That's still quite good, but his HR-precenting skills were going to regress at some point. Speaking of regression, Marmol's BABIP over the past two years has hovered up around .300, which seems normal until you consider what an extreme fly ball/pop up inducing pitcher he is. One thing that looks like a blip in his otherwise stellar 2010 numbers was his 6.3% IFFB%, which had been well into the double digits previously, even reaching as high as 20% in 2009. His 2011 numbers also showed a lower number (9%), which could mean that batters are making better contact off of him.

Carlos Marmol got the pitchers equivalent of "best shape of his life" going into spring training, namely, the "we've made his delivery smoother" cliche. Not that spring stats mean much of anything, but Marmol has seemed just as wild as before, and has even looked more hittable. Most of that could probably be attributed to him focusing on locating his fastball, which he needs to mix in with his devastating slider. I don't think Marmol needs that much work on the slider because even when it's "on" he probably still doesn't know where the hell it is going. Marmol suffered a hand injury a week or so but all signs pointed to it being cramps. He got an MRI for it…on his neck, which was also sore. Could be something to look out for going forward.

Projection IP BB HBP SO HR ERA FIP
Steamer 71 43 5 89 7 3.17 3.84
Bill James 76 52 8 97 5 3.43 3.71
RotoChamp 70 47 10 101 4 3.34 3.34
Tango Marcel 70 38 6 85 4 3.34 3.24
ZiPS 73.33 49 9 101 5 3.19 3.55
CAIRO 77 49 8 107 4 3.26 3.16
PECOTA 74.7 40 7.67 98 5 2.57 3.20
Oliver 75 49 7.67 102 4 3.95 3.28
DavMarcel 65 55 7.67 125 5 4.19 3.09
Guru 69 39 6 88 4 3.63 3.20
Average 72.1 46.1 7.67 99.3 4.7 3.41 3.37

With this projection, Marmol is worth 6.37 RAR, which combined with his closer role nets 1.31 WAR. He's getting more expensive, and I wonder if the Cubs would be able to move him for much of anything right now. Thank goodness for the Proven Closer surtax, though it's too bad Ed Wade isn't around to trade some of the Astros' copious reserves of nothing at the Cubs to get him.

Previous pitcher projections: