Zambrano's Cub career is over, and while his legacy is certainly tarnished by the incidents that eventually drove him out, his contributions were huge.

Statistically speaking, Zambrano was one of the greatest Cubs pitchers of all time, and one of the 3 best of the modern era.

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I wrote this for Obstructed View, but thought I'd repost it here since it comes up that the 2012 Cubs have no chance at being competitive.

One thing that hasn't been discussed much is how the Cubs went from a similarly unwatchable team in 2006 to the playoffs in 2007.  Just like the 2011 Cubs, the 2006 Cubs had some major black holes on their roster, trotted out numerous awful pitchers in the 5th starter spot, and were completely unwatchable and awful.

Somehow they managed to go from that trainwreck into a playoff team the next year.  I was curious how they did it, and curious if that success could be duplicated.

Free Agent Improvements

Of course the lazy answer here is that they spent their way into the playoffs, and that is partly true.  Here's a table of who they brought on, who that person replaced, and what the marginal gain was in WAR:

The Ward / Mabry improvement is a little exaggerated here, mainly because Mabry accumulated that negative WAR largely by playing first.  He'd probably have been a 0 WAR player if Lee hadn't forced him into increased playing time, so that should probably be closer to just Ward's 1.1.  Still - that's a 10 WARimprovement through free agency alone.

Bouncebacks

Like the 2011 Cubs, the narrative for the 2006 Cubs is that they were a bad team made worse by injuries and underperformance.  In particular, the Lee injury cost them dearly. 

Really though - the injury card is a little overplayed for both teams.  When I dug into the numbers, I just didn't see as much of a bounceback year over year from players as I was expecting - here's what there was:

Mabry and Nevin basically combine for a 0 or negative WAR, and Lee put up .9 before he went down.  Ramirez was better in 2006 than I remembered, but definitely bounced back a bit for 2007.  Really though - bouncebacks were a non-factor here, since there was almost as much regression:

Zambrano and Blanco canceled out most of that improvement.  So that's a bit of a net-net.  In terms of single players making a marginal benefit though - Lee's return was right up there in terms of the Lily and Soriano signings though. Development
The 2007 Cubs got a lot of major improvement from a handful of young players who developed into contributors at the same time.  A lot of them had been on the 2006 team but were better used in 2007 (Marmol went from an awful starter to the best reliever in baseball; Theriot actually had a worse WAR in 2007 but was moved to SS to replace Cedeno and his -1.6 WAR).

Note that the Cubs actually got worse at Catcher in 2007 - Barrett was a 2.6 win player in 2006, but fell off the map in 2007.  Kendall replaced him and was worse.  Soto came in for one torrid month to salvage some value there, but again it just shows you can bounce back even if you lost some value here and there. Overall, the changes between 2006 and 2007 accounted for a roughtly 16 WAR improvement.  Most of that came through free agency.  How can the Cubs duplicate that success?  
Finding Black Holes
One of the reasons the Cubs were able to improve so dramatically is that there were some major, major black holes on the team, value-wise: SS: -1.6 WAR 2b: 0 WAR (Neifi / Walker / Theriot) SP: 0 (5th starter spot - Mateo / Marmol / Guzman) 1b: 0  (Lee / Mabry / Nevin) When talking marginal improvements, this is an ideal situation - there's no warm body there already, and you're starting from nothing - so really anything, even a 1.3 WAR shortstop like Theriot, can net you a multi-win improvement.  So where can we improve?

The column on the left is the total WAR at each position for 2011 so far. The first SP spot there is Stephens / Lopez / Davis.  Davis, surprisingly, buoys that WAR figure a bit with his surprisingly positive WAR (.7).  The second SP spot is Wells.  I'll get to him in a minute. In the column to the right, I've identified the free agents who would provide the largest net improvement, based on their current pace for total WAR in 2011.  Now, I don't believe that Beltran will actually be able to duplicate his pace next year, but again you're starting from nothing - if he can give you a 4-win season next year that's a big step towards a double-digit improvement in WAR. Wells should be a bounceback candidate.  If he can get back on track, he's good for a 2-win improvement alone. Based on all this, if you were to try and duplicate the 2007 success story (big spending + good use of developing players) here's you're recipe for success:

• Sign Prince Fielder and CJ Wilson
• Sign Carlos Beltran
• Trade Marlon Byrd to clear his salary; replace him with Jackson
• Get bounceback years from Geovany Soto and, to a lesser extent, Soriano
• Get Randy Wells to stop sucking

Okay, so they didn't invent it per se, but Fangraphs today started carrying the Ultimate Base Running stat, which attempts to measure the runs generated or lost via the skill of base running.

And the Cubs are the worst in baseball at it (sort by BSR to see the rankings).

In fact, they have 3 of the 10 worst baserunners in baseball of players with 100 or more PAs (Fukudome, Ramirez and Soriano are 5th, 9th and 10th respectively).

Here is Fangraphs' primer on UBR.  This excerpt sums up most of the situations where a player can get a positive or negative ranking:

1) On a hit, advancing an extra base, not advancing an extra base, or getting thrown out trying to advance an extra base, as long as no other base runner is blocking an advance.

2) A batter getting thrown out trying to advance an extra base on a hit (if he successfully does, we don’t know it, as he is simply awarded a double, for example, on a usual single where he advances an extra base).

3) On a hit, the batter advancing, not advancing, or getting thrown out when a runner is safe or out advancing an extra base.

4) Trailing runners advancing, not advancing or getting thrown out when a leading runner is safe or out trying to advance an extra base on a hit or an out. This is basically lumped together with #1 above.

5) Runners trying to advance on fly ball outs – i.e. tagging up.

6) As mentioned above, on ground balls to the infield, runners on first staying out of the force or DP at second base, whether the batter is out or is safe on a FC.

7) Also as mentioned above, a runner on second advancing or not (or getting thrown out) on a ground ball hit to SS or 3B.

Also worth noting is that the Cubs have been in the bottom 3rd in baseball in baserunning every year since 2006.

One of the few bright spots this season has been the emergence of Tyler Colvin.  Colvin's success was pretty unexpected - he's putting up numbers that he didn't show any indication of in the minors, suddenly exploding with new found power.

Given his unexpected success, it's hard to know what to expect of him going forward.  MB21 over at Another Cubs Blog wrote a great article comparing Colvin's age 24 season to Alfonso Soriano's age 25 season - definitely an optimistic comp but he makes a good case.

For me though, Colvin's season is eerily similar to a different Cubs prospect.  That prospect had a breakout couple of years, playing excellent outfield defense, mashing a bunch of home runs, and striking out a lot.  Like Colvin, a lot of people had high hopes, and ignored a lot of troubling signs in his peripherals.  I'm talking of course about Corey Patterson.

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Amidst the recent Bradley-bashing that's been going on here and in the media, I keep seeing something that just didn't sit right with me: the notion being bandied about that Bradley's played a large part of the Cubs coming up short of expectations this year.

So I decided to do a little digging: using a reasonable set of expectations for the roster - something I'm sure Hendry was working with this off-season - who has underperformed the most?  Especially given that even the most pessimistic of projections had the Cubs winning 90 games.

For my base set of expectations, I used ACB's excellent projections from the pre-season for the 2009 Cubs. Then I simply subtracted each player's actual WAR from their projected WAR.  One caveat: remember that these projections are for a full season of baseball, while the actual WAR is based on a partial season.  However, enough baseball's been played at this point that it's still a useful thing to look at.

Goodbye Casey, you'll... be missed?

The Brewers added a potentially intriguing piece to their third-base puzzle on Wednesday, claiming Casey McGehee off waivers from the Cubs.

McGehee, who turned 26 on Oct. 12 and is a right-handed hitter, batted .296 with 12 home runs and 92 RBIs for the Triple-A Iowa Cubs in 2008 but could not continue that success after a September callup. He hit .167 (4-for-24) in nine games with the Cubs, going 0-for-6 during the season-ending series against the Brewers in Milwaukee.

Story on MLB.com (courtesy of MLBTR).

Thought this was an interesting note in the Sun Times today:

The team was not ruling out surgery for right-hander Rich Harden as they awaited results of exams by their medical staff before tonight's midnight deadline for exercising his $7 million club option for 2009.

Harden's health has been an issue since the Cubs acquired him in July, and his velocity waned significantly at the end of the season.

Also interesting is that hte deadline extension is midnight tonight.

Update: As stated in the thread, the option has now been excercised and surgery is off the table.

John Walsh at The Hardball Times has a fascinating article up about the change-up, how it's used, and how one - and only one - pitcher in the big leagues uses it differently from anyone else: our very own Ted Lilly.

It seems Ted Lilly not only challenges but flaunts conventional wisdom by throwing his change-up inside more often than he does outside.

Highly recommended reading.

This is the part where I add an unrelated sentence to the end of my diary because of the arbitrary word limit.

As mentioned on MLB Trade Rumors, Ken Rosenthal's latest has a couple of nice Cubs nuggets in it.

The Cubs not only will pursue the best available starting pitcher — C.C. Sabathia? — but they also have shown interest in Rockies closer Brian Fuentes, a left-hander who would help reduce the late-inning load on righties Carlos Marmol and Kerry Wood. Fuentes, a free agent at the end of the season, could fill a variety of roles — matchup specialist, setup man, closer — making him appealing to virtually every contender . . .

Food for thought.  Fuentes would be an incredible addition to an already excellent bullpen.  Sabathia is the only starter who could be available that I would sell the farm for without any reservations whatsoever.

Update: Per Northsider below, Rosenthal has backpedaled and now says the Cubs are not interested in Fuentes.

Per MLB Trade Rumors, Jones has been released by the Tigers.  He'll be replaced on the active roster by minor leaguer Matt Joyce.

I can't help but feel bad for Jones.  He was in the dog house with Cubs fans before he'd ever even picked up a bat.  While it was a pretty bad signing at the time by Hendry, he seems like a good guy who didn't deserve the treatment he received.

I'm sure he'll get a job somewhere though - San Diego is the obvious choice; maybe a Dusty Baker reunion to replace the struggling Patterson.

One of my favorite baseball bloggers, JC Bradbury, has an interesting article up today.  He proposes that the best way to send a clear message about HGH is to remove it from the list of banned substances, since it's considered an ineffective PED by sports physiologists.  By keeping it on the banned list, he reasons, you're sending a mixed message about its efficacy.

Pretty interesting read.