SB Nation User Blog: DGU

Hendry's Offseason Strategy

DGU — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:58:16 -0000

Hendry's Offseason Strategy

Bruce Miles has an interesting article up with some good quotes from Hendry on his off-season strategy.
"As we've been saying from Day One, we need them to play better. But you're also going to see good players available late. I'm sure there will be some quality non-tenders. There will be some free agents that will be available late in the year as it was last year, maybe even more so this year.

"I think it's going to be an important winter for us if we can pick up some pieces that are good, quality depth-type of guys or guys that can play a few positions."

To me, this sounds like lesson learned - rather than have an off-season fixated on one answer and moving quickly to achieve that goal, Jim intends to lay back, build depth, and employ the ability to get bargains he so excels at in-season.

So, here's my question - anyone have some ideas on non-tenders we should keep our eyes open for

The Only CF That Fits for 2010

DGU — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:40:47 -0000

The Cubs want to move Fukudome back to RF and get a CF. There is a good CF available in Mike Cameron. He wouldn't be a bad acquisition, but he's RH and strikes out a lot and is old enough that sudden decline could be a big problem. Plus, with a tight budget, he could easily be cost prohibitive. The Cubs would obviously prefer a LH CF, a younger CF, and a CF with better speed. Curtis Granderson and Carlos Beltran would both be great, except their teams would have to be foolish to trade them for anything but an overwhelming offer. Indeed, both players have had trade rumors debunked.

This has led some people to look at other free agent options. There's Marlon Byrd, but he's basically the poor man's Mike Cameron. Rick Ankiel is projected to have a .310 OBP and has below average CF defense. When people look at him, squint, and say, "He's the best option," well you know things aren't good. Why not stick with Sam Fuld? Randy Winn, for example, has been good in the past, but like Ankiel had a bad season, and isn't really a CF upgrade on Dome. Why play him over Fuld? Ditto Coco Crisp.

There is, though, a young CF who is left-handed, plays great CF defense, has speed and power and is actually available. Bill James projects this player to hit .272/.325/.443, a projection that offers slight improvement on this player's 2009 #s. Of course, there's hope that he could hit even better than that since his second half numbers in 2009 were .290/.346/.497. Most importantly for the Cubs, he's still only due the league minimum - with a team who has a lot of young talent coming up, giving this player a chance makes even more sense.

The only player who makes sense for 2010 CF is Felix Pie. Baltimore doesn't have a place for him with Markakis-Reimold-Jones. We'd obviously have to offer more than we got when we traded him. Maybe Sean Marshall, expendable with Grabow, Gorzelanny, and Gaub, would do it.

He offers everything we're looking for in a CF - the only reason he wouldn't be on the top of our list is the shame of recognizing the horrid mistake of dumping him last year for Milton Bradley and Joey Gathright. Lou needs to get over the shame, though, and recognize what's best for the team now. Felix Pie is our best option for CF in 2010.

Poll

Bring back Felix Pie?

Not a rumor, Bruce Miles speculates on a Bradley trade with good return

DGU — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:30:27 -0000

Not a rumor, Bruce Miles speculates on a Bradley trade with good return

I didn't want to put this in the title, but Bruce Miles speculates on a possible Bradley+Prospects for Halladay at this link. So, some won't believe this is even possible because it's Halladay (whose $$$ price tag alone may easily be a budget buster). But do you think a deal like this is the way for Hendry to go - not to eat the $$$, but to give up prospects to incline a team like the Jays to eat the contract?

Lost in the Toronto Rumor: Olney's Suggested Swaps

DGU — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:08:59 -0000

Lost in the Toronto Rumor: Olney's Suggested Swaps

This got lost in debunking the Toronto rumor (and also probably lost behind the subscriber wall), but Olney made some suggestions on who the Cubs might more realistically get: Carlos Silva, Derek Lowe, Gary Matthews Jr., Barry Zito, Aaron Rowand, Oliver Perez, and Dontrelle Willis. How do you rank these guys?

Why Other Teams Should Want Milton Bradley

DGU — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:51:21 -0000

As Cub fans, we just watched a disappointing season end with the team putting a lot of the blame on Bradley. Seeing Milton carry the albatross of destroying a 97-win team, we wonder why anyone would want him. And yet there are reports saying Jim Hendry is able to negotiate with a solid number of teams. Certainly there are some teams that have made it clear they don't want players with character problems - the Angels and the Indians, for example. And there are teams that Bradley wore out his welcome with and won't go back to. But I think there are reasons that the market for Bradley could be bigger than just teams looking to dump bad contracts of their own. It strikes me, for example, that Bradley's situation is awfully reminiscent of the Angels's situation with Jose Guillen in 2004. Guillen had been suspended for the last 8 days of the season after a dugout tantrum that was the last straw. Now, Guillen only cost 3.5 M and for only one year. But he netted Juan Rivera and Maicer Izturis.

A lot has been made of Bradley never sticking with a team for more than two years. It's been asked what team would want to take Bradley for two full years now. But I don't think that's how a buying team might look at it. Think of it this way - Bradley's trade value is probably going to be higher at the end of 2010 than it is now. How could his trade value be lower? Perhaps if he was injured for the entire season, that could do it. And that's a possibility. But under almost every other scenario, Bradley will be worth more going into 2011, when there's only one year left on his contract, when he'll almost certainly be coming off a better season of offense, and when, probably, part of his salary is already being paid by Jim Hendry.

So, say you're the Giants. You trade Aaron Rowand for Milton Bradley straight up, getting out from Rowand's contract, you get some much needed OBP for your lineup, and then if you don't want another season of Bradley, you can pay part of Bradley's contract and get the equivelant of Juan Rivera and Maicer Izturis in return. In other words, trading for Milton Bradley could easily be seen as a great buy low, wait a year, sell higher opportunity.

Let's consider a different kind of trade, too. If Jim Hendry paid 6 M of Bradley's 2010 salary and 6 M of Bradley's 2011 salary, that would leave 3 M this year and 6 M next year. Would it make sense to the Marlins to trade Jeremy Hermida for that, fully intending to do things the Marlin way and trade Bradley in 2011? Bradley and Hermida have the same health uncertainty, but Bradley's a better bet for better production. And what if the baseball market picked up again a year from now? Bradley at 6 M for 1 year in a recovering economy would be a steal.

Or what about the Blue Jays? They aren't likely to contend unless they get massive years out of cheap acquisitions. They can afford to pay more than the Marlins would pay. If Milton only cost you 5 M in 2010 and 8 in 2001, what would you pay for a perfect risk, someone who you can trade for more than you paid in 2011 even if he doesn't give you the boost you need over the other AL East behemoths in 2010. What injury-risky pitcher would you offer? Would it even make sense to trade Scott Downs for Bradley?

It could be that the only way we trade Milton Bradley is by paying his whole contract and getting nothing much back. It could be that we have to trade him for a bad contract that is marginally helpful. But trying to look at it from other teams' perspectives - there's reason to buy a guy who is a lock for solid OBP and could end up again with the best OPS in your league. What does Jason Bay offer over Milton Bradley when you have to pay Bay twice as much for twice as many years? There's even more reason to buy him when you consider that you will almost certainly be able to trade him for more in a year then you have to pay to get him now.

Other teams shouldn't think of Milton Bradley as a house they will buy to live in, but a house they buy to fix up the value and flip when the market is better. Not everyone will see it that way, but of the 30 teams out there, someone will.

Poll

What will Jim Hendry get back for Milton Bradley?

Tim Dierkes' Cubs' Offseason Plan: Keep Milton

DGU — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:16:08 -0000

Tim Dierkes' Cubs' Offseason Plan: Keep Milton

Two quotes to sum up:
"My advice: work it out, rather than eating $15MM+ or taking on a different bad contract. Bradley is not the reason the Cubs received over 2,000 plate appearances of subpar hitting from Soriano, Fontenot, Soto, Hill, Hoffpauir, and Miles, nor is he the reason Ramirez was limited to 342 PAs due to a shoulder injury."
and
"The Cubs are a pricey team with room for little more than tinkering. GM Jim Hendry will need to push the right buttons this winter after a 2008-09 offseason filled with miscalculations."

He also suggests Billy Wagner might be a good pickup if $$$ allowed.

Stephen Drew to be shopped?

DGU — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:50:23 -0000

Stephen Drew to be shopped?

This links to a long article by Nick Cafardo that includes information about Jaramillo as well. What interests me, however, is the idea that the D'backs would shop Stephen Drew. If so, I'd hope the Cubs would be in on this. As a left-handed SS with power, platooned, Drew could fit our lineup very well. Additionally, Tracy Ringolsby is saying that Brad Hawpe is not going to be on the market, which makes me wonder if one of Carlos Gonzalez, Seth Smith, or Dexter Fowler might be.

The 2010 Pitching Staff

DGU — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:50:55 -0000

When Stevens, Archer, and Gaub didn't translate into Jake Peavy there was a lot of frustration last off-season. But this offseason, Mark DeRosa is heading towards free agency while both Stevens and Gaub may be a part of the Cubs' pitching staff for the next six years. You may still disagree with the trade of Mark DeRosa, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be excited about the Cubs' pitching depth.

The Cubs' seem unlikely to bring back Rich Harden and unlikely to trade Carlos Zambrano. That leaves us with a straightforward rotation of Lilly, Z, Demp, Wells, and one of Gorzelanny, Marshall, or Samardzija. The first three are fairly solid. What about the last three?

Randy Wells astounded me all season long, and it wasn't all good luck. Fangraphs gives us a statistic called FIP (fielding independent pitching), which is a better stat for predicting future ERA than ERA itself because FIP helps correct for luck and other factors out of a pitcher's control. Wells' 2009 FIP was 3.88, which suggests he should still be good next year, if not astoundingly good as he was this season.

Sean Marshall, on the other hand, was a little unlucky, with a better FIP than ERA. He might seem an obvious candidate to be left in the bullpen since his reliever ERA was 2 runs lower than his starter ERA. But look a little closer at his splits. His WHIP was nearly the same in both roles. His walk rate went up significantly as a reliever. What's more, Marshall's starter ERA is skewed by his last start against LA on May 31. Apart from that start, Marshall had a 3.79 ERA in just over 40 IP. On the other hand, when you look at Marshall's game logs, a significant portion of his ERs came from outings where he was asked to go for more than one inning. Given his durability issues, being a strictly one-inning reliever may be the best use of him.

Tom Gorzelanny was extremely unlucky according to FIP. After all, he was striking out nearly a batter an inning, posting a nice 1.32 WHIP. I'd be really comfortable with giving Tom a shot at the fifth starter's job in 2010.

Jeff Samardzija was a frustration this season, although Baseball America put him in their top 20 prospects in the PCL. Samardzija also cut his walk rate in AAA, a good sign. Talking about Jeff is a good place to introduce another statistical tool we can make use of - one I'll admit to understanding only partially. Over at Baseball Prospectus, Clay Davenport offers"translations" of a pitcher's raw stats. What is he translating them into? Into a standardized ML average stat. In short, the DTs (Davenport Translations) tell us what a minor leaguer or foreign player would have done had they been in the MLs performing as they did. Jeff's translated AAA ERA (also, defense-independent) was 7.32, disappointingly similar to his small-sample size ML ERA. All this goes to the point that Jeff Samardzija is not ready to help out the big league club. Some have said, "maybe his AAA stats are poor because he's being forced to work on secondary pitches." That may be, but then the point is still that his secondary pitches aren't ready. Here's to hoping the Cubs leave Jeff in AAA at least the first half of 2010, no matter how he looks. Jerking him around between starting and relieving can't be helping.

Having filled roles of 5 ML starters, one AAA starter, and a reliever, there are six more reliever openings, assuming a twelve-man staff. Should I waste a line or two about the 12th man being unnecessary, especially when Lou Piniellla is your manager? Nah - Lou's made it clear he has to have 12 guys. So maybe, instead, I'll just suggest that Jim Hendry is absolutely right to use that 12th spot on Rule 5 guys. David Patton isn't ready to be in the MLs, but he'll get to develop this year in the minors and maybe be ready to help in 2011 or 2012. Might as well do it again, rather than leave someone like Scott Eyre or Michael Wuertz in that bench--rotting role.

Carlos Marmol, Angel Guzman, and John Grabow seem locks for spots, if not the three back-end spots. I'm not all that impressed with Grabow and hope the Cubs don't overpay him. But, he's a veteran lefty, and we won't be breaking camp again without one. We could do worse. Jim Hendry would do well to use Grabow's Type A status against him in any negotiations. Angel Guzman was lucky, yes, but he was still good, especially in the first half when he wasn't as lucky. I'm convinced Guzman will be good so long as he is healthy, but that health is far from assured. I wouldn't count on him. Marmol will almost certainly be the closer; more on him later.

Aaron Heilman. Sigh. Aaron Heilman is frustrating because he walks a lot of guys and then gives up a lot of HRs. He's kind of like Kevin Gregg minus the closer's label, but better. That said, Heilman can eat innings. Don't put him in the game in a high leverage position and he has value. He might even have more value than that if the Cubs can get him to go back to being the pitcher he was in 2006-07. In those years, he hardly used his slider. He got less strikeouts, but he also walked a whole lot less players, too, and was a better pitcher because of it. Now, it may be that the slider became necessary because the fastball became worse, or it may be that the fastball became worse because Heilman was working on the slider.

That leaves one or two open spots depending on whether you buy into the Rule V strategy. Scanning the Iowa Davenport Translations, Stevens and Gaub both look like excellent options. I'd like to see both of them make the staff. Ascanio, Parker, Berg, and Waddell look like fair options. Caridad doesn't look as good, but his AAA stats came as a starter - perhaps relieving suits him. With this kind of mid-relief depth, Heilman may not make much sense at his arb cost.

Finally, we come back to Carlos Marmol. From 2008-2009 Marmol nearly doubled his walk rate while quartering his HR rate. Given how hard it is to hit Marmol, a lot of hitters just decided not to swing. I think that's what we see reflected in those numbers, not a change so much in what Marmol was doing as in how hitters were approaching him. Similarly, digging into his splits, we see that he was a lot better in save situations than in non-saves, so maybe closing suits him, especially if hitters see this as their last chance to score a run. If it's the 8th inning and you're down by two with Marmol on the mound, just keep taking, and best-case scenario, he loads the bases and Kevin Gregg is brought in. You can't use that strategy when Marmol is the closer.

So, Marmol might be a good closer. On the other hand, he's a good trade chip, too. With the Indians looking to trade Kerry Wood, the Cubs might see if a three-way trade of bad contracts could bring back Kerry - something like Bradley for Burrell for Wood. Marmol, then, could be the ticket to getting the position player we need.

Poll

Should the Cubs trade Carlos Marmol?

No way - he's our homegrown closer!

116 votes

Only if the offered trade blows us away.

204 votes

Yes - selling the closer is the way to improve the team.

25 votes

345 votes | Poll has closed

Bruce Miles' AFL and Rumors

DGU — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 13:05:55 -0000

Bruce Miles' AFL and Rumors

No doubt many of you have been here already; I only wanted to draw attention to this comment from Bruce in the comments section:
"Certainly Hendry's bosses, John McDonough and Crane Kenney included, had a big hand in overpaying Soriano. They saw the empty seats in '06 and figured the organization had to do something big. If it were up to Hendry alone, I'd bet they could have had Soriano for "only" six years."

Aramis: Not Hendry's Fault

DGU — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 23:19:10 -0000

Aramis: Not Hendry's Fault

"It's not his fault," Ramirez said of Hendry's decision to sign Bradley. "Milton put up great numbers last year. It didn't work out. (Hendry's) the same guy who put back-to-back (division) championship teams together.

"We went to the playoffs in '07, last year and this year we were in the race even though we didn't have the production we're supposed to have from a lot of players. I don't think its Jim Hendry's fault. If the guys in here would've done their job, and I didn't go down, we would've been in better position."