A Rough Start

Gold-numbered jerseys?  Check.  Gold-logo emblazoned hats?
Check.  Mandatory around-the-neck gold bling?  None (yet).

Inconsistent offense, shoddy bullpen work highlight first 10 games


It wasn't surprising that many assumed that the 2012 Cubs would struggle on the field.  It probably was surprising, however, that they got off to such an early start at that.  The first homestand, which saw the Cubs host the Nationals for three games and the Brewers for four, started 1-5 for the Cubs as they struggled to find a winning formula.

The Monday night game was not without its highlights, such as Bryan LaHair's monster home run onto Sheffield Avenue early on, but Chris Volstad's shaky start and Shawn Camp's atrocious relief appearance (three earned runs in one inning) spelled doom in a 7-5 loss.  It was a competitive ballgame, however, as Starlin Castro batted in the bottom of the ninth with the tying and winning runs on base.  A John Axford slider then ended all hopes of a comeback.

Tuesday night was a different story.  Paul Maholm, who has now been torched in both of his starts, had allowed six runs by the third inning.  Even the platoon catcher, Jonathan Lucroy, hit a home run. This game left little chance for the Cubs.

Yovani Gallardo and Ryan Dempster had a surprisingly intense pitcher's duel in the Wednesday game.  Gallardo allowed only a first-inning sacrifice fly to Castro, while Dempster held the 1-0 lead until a two-run homer by the other platoon catcher, George Kottaras, gave the Brewers the lead for good in the seventh.

And just like that, the Cubs had lost the first three games of a four-game series and started the season 1-5.  Pretty depressing stuff.  But this, my friends, is the wonder of rebuilding.  The team will be bad, but there are sure to be signs of life.  One such sign came Thursday as the Cubs shut out the Brewers 8-0, a real team effort as six different Cubs knocked in runs.  Matt Garza was even one pitch away from a shutout.  In fact, he got his pitch - an easily-fielded comebacker to the mound - and he promptly fired it into the stands instead of making the easy, 45-foot throw to first base.  Manager Dale Sveum yanked him unnecessarily, and Garza was robbed of the Cubs' first complete game of the season.

Bryan LaHair gets a round of high-fives after hitting the first
Cubs grand slam since October 2010.

The Cubs even broke out the bats for the second straight day in a row, and at a great time.  Those St. Louis Cardinals, decked out in gold-logo'd hats and gold-lettered jerseys just in case anybody forgot that they won the championship last season, were looking for an easy win over this weak Cubs team on their Opening Day.  They didn't get it.  First, rain rained on their parade.  Then, the Cubs rained on their parade.  After a lengthy rain delay of nearly two hours, any Cards fans that stayed looked foolish after a three-run homer by Ian Stewart and a grand slam by LaHair helped give the Cubs a 9-0 lead by the third inning.


Who gave up all these runs?  Why, it was Adam Wainwright.  That's the same Wainwright who, after nearly being the team's ace the last half-decade, missed the entire 2011 season due to injury.  This means he did nothing to contribute to their World Series run even though he is on the team.  So how ironic it was that he was the man to start the game in which they got their World Series rings, wore the glittery gear, and flaunted around pregame in celebratory fashion in front of the second-largest Busch Stadium II crowd ever.  But I digress.


Anyway, the point is that the Cubs did show the ability to score runs.  I like LaHair's power potential; he has two homers so far, one of which went opposite field and the other which left the stadium entirely.  I don't think strength will be an issue with this guy.

The Saturday and Sunday games were a mess.  Volstad imploded in the fourth inning of an otherwise sharp-looking start on Saturday, but the Cubs could never come back from the four allowed in the fourth.  The Cardinals did salvage one win in those odd-looking gold-numbered jerseys.  They had the wit to wear those things for a second game.  Who do they think they are, the New Orleans Saints?  While we're on the topic, is new manager Mike Matheny paying his pitchers to throw at opposing batters (in "kill the head" fashion)?  Probably not, but a concussion did end Matheny's playing career....  Also, in other weird-coincidence news, the Giants wore a similar gold-lettered jersey at their home opener last season as well to celebrate their 2010 World Series championship.  Which team did they host in their home opener?  The Cardinals.

Back to the Sunday game.  That second torching at the hands of Maholm took place on Sunday as Matt Carpenter, some kid who has made a lot of headlines so far, ended up five RBIs for the Cardinals.  The Cubs never really got to Cards starter Jake Westbrook, and the series ended with Friday being the lone Cubs win.  The series started off promisingly, but the end looked like the Cubs team we were expecting to see.

Through these first three series, the Cubs never really showed what their strengths are.  The last guy to make the rotation, Jeff Samardzija, is the only one with more than one win.  The offense scored 18 runs in the first six games then put up 17 runs in the next two.  Kerry Wood's bullpen failures from the first weekend were forgotten in place of a hodgepodge of dismal 'pen work from Camp, Lendy Castillo, and Carlos Marmol namely.  Not to mention Maholm's efforts, which have taken the Cubs out of games practically before they've started.  So far, not so good.  3-7 isn't the end of the world, however, and Sveum has the team playing hard.  The errors are down and the stolen bases are up.  The team certainly has a good swagger, too.

The Cubbies are down in Miami to check out the Marlins' new digs tomorrow night.  Ozzie Guillen will return from his five-game suspension to manage the game.  Just in case the game turns into a Marlins blowout, go online and count as many articles as you can find that mention both Guillen and Fidel Castro written within the last seven days.  Hopefully, though, we can just watch some winning baseball.        

Two Chances, Two Chokes

The game-tying runs allowed in the 8th inning
of the first two games of the season
were allowed by a frustrated Kerry Wood.

Is this the new "Cubs Way" of playing baseball?!  Let's hope not.

You've heard about it all winter.  'Sustained success', 'the right way', 'development', and 'building from within' are just a few phrases that have highlighted a winter of change for the Chicago Cubs.  It may all just be empty talk, but the new Cubs brass even put it in writing with their fundamentals manual, The Cubs Way, which is being distributed throughout the Cubs minor league system.  The effort looks to standardize the way in which prospects are being taught the game throughout all levels of the Cubs system to maximize potential of all prospects and maintaining disciplinary consistency.  However, if the young prospects want to see for their own eyes how the game is played correctly, they ought to stay away from Wrigley Field.  If the first two days are any indication, the major league Cubs will struggle to avoid lines of hypocrisy in 2012.  

Hopefully this will not be the case.  Clearly Dale Sveum was more equipped with the leadership and motivation tools to start his full-time managerial career than Mike Quade was a year ago, and these qualities showed in Spring Training.  So far he has gotten the team much more involved in working on simple yet overlooked fundamentals, including baserunning drills which declared exactly which part of the base the Cubs are supposed to hit when rounding them.  He also got some competition going on to get players more involved. 

Casey Coleman and David DeJesus may not win an award of any type during the rest of either of their careers, but the two gained immediate team respect as they faced off in the final round of the 64-participant bunting tournament in camp.  Coleman swept his way through the pitchers' bracket, while DeJesus did the same in the position players' bracket.  DeJesus ended up winning, but the major reward from this exercise was a sense of accomplishment coming from a fundamental the Cubs needed work on.  

"You're already making me look bad out here.
Vamonos ahora."

After all, these are athletes; they appreciate any added competition to spice things up.  Before it all got started, Tony Campana proclaimed himself as a favorite to win the entire tournament.  He was eliminated in the first round.

The added concentration paid off, as the Cubs brought a winning Spring Training record home with them.  However, the results did not show at all in the first two games of the regular season.  

In the home opener Thursday against the Washington Nationals, Ryan Dempster was finishing up a gem of a performance when he was abruptly yanked with one out to get in the 8th and Ian Desmond on first base.  Enter fan favorite Kerry Wood to hold the 1-0 lead.  A host of problems followed.  Desmond stole second.  Wood walked the next batter, Ryan Zimmerman.  A wild pitch moved Desmond to third and Zimmerman to second.  Wood walks another batter, Adam LaRoche.  After a mound visit, Wood loses another batter in Jayson Werth, whose base on balls forced in the tying run.  

Three consecutive walks spelled doom in the form of lost momentum in this ball game.  Dempster had been living dangerously all day by using the homer-unfriendly winds in his favor, but at least he had controlled the base on balls.  Wood lost it.  Not surprisingly, Carlos Marmol didn't make things any better.  After getting two quick outs in a now-tied ball game in 9th, Marmol allowed a double to Chad Tracy and a go-ahead single to Desmond, scoring Tracy's pinch-runner.  The Nationals took the lead for good.

Don't let the hollering fool you.  The Cubs beat
themselves more than the Nationals beat the Cubs.

A day off on Friday gave the team an entire day to stew about blowing the Opening Day not only of 2012, but of the Theo era.  Apparently it got in their heads, because Saturday's game was hardly any better.  The Cubs again held the Nationals down for most of the game until the 8th in a 4-2 game, when Mr. Wood got the first two outs before allowing a solo homer to Danny Espinosa, bringing the deficit down to one.  Then Zimmerman singled, then LaRoche singled, and then Wood was yanked to avoid further damage.  Who was brought in to replace him?  Marmol.  Remember, this is still all with two outs.  Marmol walks Werth, loading the bases.  Finally, Tracy puts the Cubs out of their misery and sucks the life out of the stadium with a two-run go-ahead single.  

These three rallies - two of them when the Nationals were batting with two outs - are pretty much the trademark of the last year's team.  The bullpen was a strength last year, but the hovering frustration of a lack of focus was the most bothersome aspect of last year's team.  Wood immediately took the blame for blowing Opening Day and cited zero excuses, but then it happened again.  We love ya, Kerry, but that's not gonna get 'er done.  Whether it was keeping their eyes on the ball or throwing to the right base, the Cubs lacked in baseball mental fitness last year.  The new management regime made this their primary goal in the offseason, but the early results have disappointed.  Let's hope this doesn't become a trend.

    

End of An Era?

No, Ron Gardenhire can't pitch.  If you ask
me, he shouldn't be managing anymore either.

Where is the blame on Ron Gardenhire for the Twins recent failures?

The media has recently cooled off on the Minnesota Twins.  Thank goodness.  For a while there, the feel-good Twin Cities franchise was driving me insane.  With constant postseason appearances despite a changing supporting core, the Twins represented MLB's equivalent of the Dallas Mavericks.  The knock on the Mavericks for all those years, however, was that they were always just there - a high-seeded playoff team but never actually great enough to win a championship.  Of course they shocked everyone in 2011 by actually the job done, but the Twins are definitely not about to do that.

For the latter part portion of the 2000s and into this new decade, the Twins gained a disproportionate amount of attention as a favorite small-market team of East Coasters.  Why?  Well perhaps the fact that the Yankees played the Twins in the ALDS four times between 2004 and 2010 helped New Yorkers notice that this team had talent.  The Yankees won all four series, but they had seen enough to respect the Twins.

No catcher in the game today is worth
$184 million over eight years.  Besides,
Joe Mauer's Head and Shoulders
endorsements are more than enough
to cover the utility bills.

And instantly, they became overrated.  Joe Mauer's fluke MVP season in 2009 earned him back-to-back covers on the MLB: The Show video game series and a monster, badly-overpaying contract extension.  Mauer, the catcher, became the hero on a team lacking one.  The Twins won most of their games because they were a team that played fundamental baseball during the regular season, only to watch themselves get destroyed in the playoffs as more talented teams came barreling through.  The 2008 Twins, for example, didn't have any starting pitchers earn more than 12 wins, and yet five of them earned at least 10.  And yet, they got to watch the White Sox come down the stretch in September and beat them in a one-game tiebreaker for the division title.

Manager Ron Gardenhire was given much of the credit as to how a team with relatively little star power could play with such a strong collective baseball intelligence on the field.  However, there is the fact that they never won anything in the playoffs.  Ron Gardenhire took over as manager in 2002 and produced immediate results as the Twins made it to the ALCS.  However, they haven't gotten there since and never really made a big push for the World Series.  The Twins of 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2010 all lost in the divisional round. Meanwhile Gardenhire got all this credit for successfully operating a small-market team and maximizing value out of his players.  However, these strategies never held up as stronger teams that simply had more talent strutted past them each fall.

Target Field is more of a challenge to left-handed hitters than
taking a walk is for Alfonso Soriano.

The Twins haven't been nearly as good of a team since they opened Target Field in 2010.  They did win the Central in 2010, but were swept by the Yankees in the ALDS (surprise) despite having home-field advantage.  The team imploded in 2011, however, as the new ballpark's dimensions caught up to them and the their lefty sluggers - namely Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Jim Thome, and Jason Kubel - suffered horribly.  The four hit only 31 homers combined on the season despite having all hit at least 25 in 2009 (Thome did it with the White Sox).

The power outage and/or foolish dimensions of Target Field are not Gardenhire's problems, but his problem is that he did not make necessary adjustments to get the offense going.  The team's RBIs leader, third baseman Danny Valencia, had 72.  He also just watched as his formerly-good pitching staff, which clearly resembles a 'groundball' staff, struck out less batters than any other team while allowing the second-most runs.  In 2010 the Twins allowed the fifth-fewest errors in MLB.  In 2011, they allowed the third-most.

In all facets of the game, the team completely reversed trends negatively while sliding 31 games in the standings between the two years.  This is not the type of season a manager should be able to keep his job from.  When your team goes from a 94-win team to a 63-win team, any defining managerial characteristics you used to pride yourself on have diminished and then look preposterous as your team gets crushed harder than Milton Bradley's stress ball.

The Twins enter 2012 with Gardenhire still at the helm, yet very low expectations to live up to.  This core of Twins players - focused around an overpaid catcher, oft-injured first baseman, and a hodgepodge of mediocre starting pitchers - has made its last playoff run.  Therefore, an era in Minnesota Twins baseball has ended.  It's time for the captain to abandon ship while there's still hope for another to redirect it, and redirect it into rebuilding mode.    

2012 Cubs Preview: Management/Intangibles

The days of the celebrity manager are gone on the North
Side, but Dale Sveum is a respectable guy who will
get things done.

New staff onboard for rebuilding process

Changes are all around the Cubs management heading into this season.  In the dugout, most of the team coaching staff has changed.  Bullpen coach Lester Strode is the only member of the staff who has been there since before 2010.  The rest of the staff consists of manager Dale Sveum, hitting coach Rudy Jaramillo, pitching coach Chris Bosio, first base coach Dave McKay, third base coach Pat Listach, bench coach Jamie Quirk, bullpen catcher Andrew Lane, and another bullpen catcher who is apparently yet-to-be-named.  

In the grand scheme of things, these coaches may seem irrelevant, seeing as it's the players who determine how many games the team actually wins.  Keep in mind, however, that these major league ball players aren't just superstars in their own world; they are on a sports team, and subject to orders of their coaches.  Unless you're name is Aramis Ramirez, you're going to listen to many of the pieces of advice your coaches give you.  Either that or you can take it up with the AAA coaches.

Plus, these coaches could also be on their way to higher positions in baseball.  Not all of them turn out to be great successes, however, as waving a runner home is definitely different than motivating a rebuilding team into the playoffs.  Not even two years ago, though, a certain Mike Quade was still to be found standing at third base whispering in the ears of Cubs players.  Like I said, not all of them turn out to be great successes.

It was time for some change down there.  I do believe that the manager has far, far more influence on the team than any other single coach.  A manager makes the calls on playing time so players want to impress the manager, while still staying as far away as possible.  It's nearly impossible to tell if success or failure of a team takes responsibility on the coaches.  For example, Jaramillo came to the Cubs widely regarded as the best hitting coach in the league, fresh off leading famous Texas Rangers teams to leading the league in category after category year after year offensively.  In Jaramillo's two years as Cubs hitting coach, it's been hard to tell the difference as the offense has stayed mediocre.  

Pitching coach Chris Bosio works with Matt Garza.

Off the field, the Cubs are in good shape.  I've talked a lot about president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer; they know what they're doing in this rebuilding process and will do what it takes to get us there.  I just hope fans keep faith as this process will take time.  Meanwhile, however, they'll set us up with some interesting pieces to look at.  Third baseman Ian Stewart is intriguing.  If he has a 30-homer season in Chicago, which he is certainly capable of, people will know his name.  Because right now, the new Cubs are unknowns.  It used to be easy; Ramirez and Lee were the starting infield corners for seven years.  But Stewart and LaHair?  It doesn't have the same ring.  It will, though, and if it won't, then Hoyer and Epstein will find someone whose name will resonate with the fan base.  That's how you know the Cubs are in good hands.

A problem for this team is speed.  The 2012 Cubs will not steal many bases.  They will definitely be the bottom 10 teams in the league in steals.  If Joe Mather beats Tony Campana for the last spot on the roster, then the Cubs will be in the bottom three.  

In fact, offense overall will be a struggle on this team.  54 home runs from a year ago walked out the door when the Cubs let Carlos Pena and Aramis Ramirez walk.  Stewart, LaHair, and Anthony Rizzo are capable of reaching that number, but they are certainly not known commodities like the previous two.  Give Hoyer and Epstein credit for taking a risk on a couple of relatively unknown players.

Pitching-wise, this season will be an interesting one.  The starting pitching will not be particularly good, but at least the players in it play a role in the team's long-term plan.  This is why I would suggest to never start veteran Rodrigo Lopez or setup man Jeff Samardzija.  Last season, a lack of depth saw the Cubs need to scramble Ramon Ortiz, Doug Davis, and Lopez as stopgaps in an emergency injury stretch.  Hopefully that will never, ever happen again.  The newer starters for the back end of the rotation in Travis Wood, Chris Volstad, Paul Maholm, and more, all have a future with the Cubs.  This way all of their experience earned now can impact the future Cubs teams, and not the retirement home or another team.

Many are saying that "it'll get worse before it gets better" for the Cubs.  I have to disagree.  Record-wise, I would expect a similar finish to last year.  In the vibe of the team, however, there will be a knowledge of a bright future ahead.  The festive Wrigley atmosphere knows that better days are coming.  Last year, the desperation deals for Matt Garza and Pena caused confusion and didn't really leave the Cubs an identity.  They weren't ready to contend, but just made two aggressive moves as if so.  This year, the idea is rebuilding.  Whether or not Sveum wants to accept it (which he doesn't), that is the plan, and there will be no more desperation moves that cleans out our farm system - at least, not for a while.          

2012 Cubs Preview: Bullpen

Kerry Wood

Young unit loses prime setup man but remains strong with hard-throwing core


The 2011 Cubs were simply not a good team at 71 wins, 91 losses.  The bullpen, however, was undoubtedly a team strength.  I believe that if the closer had been as good as he had for his entire career, this bullpen would have rivaled those of top contending teams.

That closer, of course, is the nasty Carlos Marmol, 29.  The side-arming right-hander pitched to a 2.86 ERA 61 saves, a 12.9 K/9 ratio, a ridiculous 4.8 H/9 ratio, but a 5.6 BB/9 ratio between 2008-10.  In 2011, however, he worsened to a 4.01 ERA with 10 blown saves, most in the National League.  In six of those blown saves, he also let up at least another run to lose the game.  He has the wildest delivery this side of Francisco Rodriguez but doesn't control it well as K-Rod does.

Carlos Marmol

Marmol throws far too many balls, especially to begin an at-bat.  It seems he always falls behind 2-0 before coming back with a slider over the middle of the plate for strike one.  The issues got so bad last season that he began throwing a cutter (or 'soft' slider) - without telling any coaches.  It didn't work, and manager Dale Sveum has already told him to knock it off.  No, Carlos, you're not Mariano Rivera.  Sorry, but the cutter just isn't that easy.  Marmol was given the ball with a lead to save 44 times last season, and he saved 34 of them.  Hypothetically, if given the same amount of chances this year, saving 40 should be a good goal for him.  It's certainly a challenge, but within his talent level.

Most of those leads handed over to Marmol had something to do with former setup man Sean Marshall.  Marshall, who, like Marmol, began his major league career as an unsuccessful starter, confirmed his status as one of the elite setup men in the game last year with a 2.26 ERA and 4.65 K/BB ratio.  Marshall was flipped to Cincinnati when his stock price was highest, meaning the primary setup man duties fall to Jeff Samardzija.

Jeff Samardzija

I talked briefly about Samardzija in the last post for the rotation, where he is being considered as the longest of longshots.  Truth be told, however, his loss would be a big blow to this 'pen.  His 2.97 ERA showed that he could be a good primary middle reliever, and now with Marshall's departure, he's ready for the next step.  He works lefties tough on the inside part of the plate.  Despite having the matchup advantage, they hit only .208 against the tall former Notre Dame wide receiver.  Righties didn't do any better, hitting .195 off him.  Too many batters got on base via the base on balls (50 of them, to be exact) but he still held hitters to a .220 average with men on base, which is hard to do considering the pressure on the pitcher at that point.  Some want to call his season a fluke, but I hope those factors of domination show that he's a changed pitcher and not just a lucky son-of-a-gun.

I haven't heard anyone call Kerry Wood's 2011 a fluke.  The 34-year-old pitched to a very respectable 3.35 ERA last season with 57 strikeouts in 51 innings.  As always, Wood brought the heat on a daily basis with that nasty curveball.  Wood is guaranteed a job with the Cubs for as long he likes, whether that means in the 'pen or front office.  For this season, however, he's a great option as a middle relief/setup man.

James Russell

Other primary names that will be in the mix include 26-year-old James Russell, 27-year-old Marcos Mateo, 26-year-old John Gaub, 24-year-old Rafael Dolis, 23-year-old Lendy Castillo and 27-year-old Scott Maine.  Clearly it's a very young group, but some have more potential than others.  Russell was tried in the rotation last year during the grand scramble for starting pitching, and he imploded.  Put back into middle relief though, he performed well.  I really like this kid's over-the-top delivery, it's very smooth and fundamentally correct; I hope to see him do well in this role this season.

Mateo is an less developed strikeout pitcher with a good fastball and slider.  He needs to work on his command to prove he can stay in the majors, but I like his raw stuff as it is right now.

John Gaub

Gaub throws some serious, serious heat.  In about 212 career minor league innings, he has struck out 298.  He made his major league debut last season and I believe will play a big role this year.  He's a lefty with a power slider, which already gives him value.  He walks about as many hitters as Marmol, however, so we'll see if his command has improved.

Maine was acquired before 2010 in the trade that sent former Cubs reliever Aaron Heilman to Arizona.  He has gotten tidbits of major league playing time over the past two years, but not enough to be judged upon.  In the minors he has a lifetime 3.34 ERA and recorded 12.6 K/9 last season at AAA Iowa.  He's ready for the major leagues, and I was hoping we'd see more of him last season.  I see him as a setup man as early as 2014 if not next year.

If nothing else, Dolis has a tremendous ability to keep the ball in the ballpark.  In 353.2 minor league innings, he's only allowed 14 homers.  This is good, but he's still going to allow runs if he continues to walk as many as he does in the minors.  If he makes the major league roster out of Spring Training, I'd call that a risky move.

Trever Miller

Speaking of risky moves, Castillo qualifies; he was a Rule 5 pick from the Phillies - meaning he must be on the major league roster all season or else he'll have to be returned the Phillies.  The Cubs' last Rule 5 pick was reliever David Patton in 2009, and that didn't turn out so well.  Patton hasn't pitched in the majors since.  Castillo has a 2.43 career ERA in the minors and exactly one strikeout for every inning pitched on average to go with an impressive 1.15 WHIP.  These are all nice, but they might mean more if Castillo had ever pitched above A ball.  Look for him to be used in blowout games only to begin with (which was also Patton's role).

The Cubs bullpen is a very young group now.  The only free agent acquisition, left-hander Trever Miller, is also the only man over 30 heading into the season.  Out of the pool of middle relief candidates, I believe Gaub, Maine, and Russell will become the primary three by midseason especially because of their strong command.  Dolis, Castillo, and Mateo are slightly risky for different reasons and won't all be on the major league roster all year.  Wood, Samardzija, and Marmol are strong pieces at the back.  Despite losing the big prize in Marshall, the bullpen remains a strength for the Cubs despite the uncertainty of the younger pieces.

  

2012 Cubs Preview: Starting Rotation

Ace Matt Garza

The name of the game is depth as revamped rotation is stockpiled with veterans, and determination of final two starters is a toss-up

The top of the rotation remains the same from 2011, as Matt Garza and Ryan Dempster will lead the group.  They appear to have switched places on the depth chart, however, as manager Dale Sveum says Garza will start on Opening Day in just his second year with the Cubs.  Dempster started Opening Day last year and enters his seventh season with the team. 

Sveum is correct in tabbing Garza as the team's ace.  His 10-10 record from last season doesn't show it, but he was definitely the best starter on this team as evidenced by his near 200-inning, 200-strikeout performance with a 3.32 ERA.  He received some of the worst run support on the entire league which explains his mediocre record. 

If Garza performs well in the ace role, it will only increase his trade value stock as the season goes on, which is exactly what the Cubs want.  He will be put in prime position to suceed on this season and, hopefully, flipped for high-level prospects at the trade deadline in July.  Garza, 28, is an emotional and vocal team leader in the prime of his career.  It shouldn't be a surprise if GM Jed Hoyer's phone bill balloons due to other GMs inquiring on his availability.  Oh right, most cell providers don't charge for incoming calls anymore.  So much for that, but you get my point.

Ryan Dempster

Then again, a great guy like Garza could be a valuable character to have around on this rebuilding team.  He is definitely the type of veteran around which a team is built.  In 2008, he took his young Rays team on his shoulders to the World Series, winning the ALCS MVP along the way.  When I chatted with Hoyer earlier this month, he told me that, ideally, he'd like to give Garza an extension if the time is right and he's not more valuable as trade bait, which remains to be seen.  I think both plans are viable options, although if he's traded I'll be sad to see him go.

Dempster, 34, is not the standout talent he once was.  After a shocking 200-inning, 200-strikeout season in 2010, he really came crashing back to Earth with a 4.80 ERA in 2011, again eating over 200 innings but also allowing over 200 hits and holding a 1.49 WHIP.  Dempster appeared to lose confidence in his soft changeup and cement-mixer slider.  Perhaps it would help if he didn't throw these pitches to break right down the middle of the plate.  Seriously, though, he struggled to keep these breaking pitches out of the dirt when he took them out of the strike zone and walked 82 batters on the season.

Paul Maholm

The #3 spot right now could be Paul Maholm's to lose.  Maholm has pitched in the Pittsburgh rotation his entire seven-year major league career, posting a respectable 4.36 ERA during that time amid a group that was anything but.  The 30-year-old is coming off the best season of his career with a 3.66 ERA in about 162 innings.  The southpaw is not a strikeout pitcher but he'll force plenty of groundballs with his frequently-used changeup.  Cubs fans have gotten a good look at Maholm since he has always been in the same division.  Alfonso Soriano has four career homers off him, which is more to any single batter besides Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips.  Maholm has only given up 13 career homers to lefty batters, however.

Two other pitchers who will surely get at least some starts this season are new arrivals, Chris Volstad and Travis Wood.  Volstad, who came from Florida in the Carlos Zambrano trade, is a very tall righty who still hasn't found success in the major leagues.  He uses all of his pitches low and inside on righties and lefties; hopefully he'll learn to use the entire plate with skill and confidence.  Hitters hit .310 off his fastball last year; that'll need to improve.  Perhaps he could switch it up with his changeup more often, as he threw his changeup only 5% of the time to righties.  If nothing else, Volstad, 25, adds young depth.

Travis Wood

Wood, also 25, probably has more potential.  In over 100 innings in 2010, he pitched to a 3.51 and but probably deserved even better, posting an impressive K/BB ratio with 86 strikeouts and only 26 walks.  In about the same amount of playing time in 2011, Wood regressed with a 4.84 ERA and a WHIP that ballooned from 1.08 the year before to 1.49.  This lefty should bring more of the strikeout stuff to the majors soon judging from his 8.4 K/9 career ratio in the minors.  He throws his fastball too much (76% of the time last year) but apparently he commands it well, meaning he's very advanced in his development process.  I would take Wood over Volstad any day.

The last legit option, in my opinion, is righty Randy Wells, 29.  Since his impressive rookie debut in 2009, Wells has scuffled through two disappointing seasons.  This is probably his last chance to prove himself.  With the wide range of candidates this year, a 4.99 ERA won't cut it this time.  Something in his mechanics has been lost along the way, as his career 6.0 K/9 ratio is a far cry from the high strikeout totals he used to rack up in the minor leagues.  So far his fastball has been too hittable.

Randy Wells

Casey Coleman, 24, had a strong debut in 2010 as he showed how he can win with minimal strikeouts but a lot of groundballs.  In 2011 he was really, really bad with a 6.40 ERA although his strikeouts were up.  If he wants to win, he'll have to do it the way he did in 2010, using Nationals starter Jordan Zimmermann as a model.  Coleman is definitely a longshot.

Speaking of longshots, there's another one in 27-year-old Jeff Samardzija.  He isn't a longshot because he's not up to the task; rather, he's such a dominant setup man that he's probably better served in the bullpen.  After an unbelievable rookie season in 2008, he was looking like a bust after horrible seasons in 2009 and 2010 switching between the rotation and bullpen.  I was sick of him and wanted him gone.  Instead, he came back in 2011 firmly staying in the bullpen and became one of the strongest setup men in the league, forming the best setup duo in baseball between him and Sean Marshall.  The Cubs will stretch him out in Spring Training to see what he's got as a starter just in case, but it's highly unlikely that he'll move.

The starting rotation in 2011 was the worst in baseball in terms of ERA.  This was definitely because of early injuries to #4 and #5 starters Wells and Andrew Cashner in the first week of the season, which exposed the team's lack of depth and sent then-GM Jim Hendry scrambling to fill a rotation.  Soon enough, Coleman, Doug Davis, Ramon Ortiz, and Rodrigo Lopez were getting far more time than they had earned in the major leagues.  The injuries blew up in the team's face, and it hampered the team's efforts to put together any kind of win streak.  This season, with new additions in Wood, Volstad, Maholm, Andy Sonnanstine, and Ryan Rowland-Smith, there will always be major league worthy arms available.

 

2012 Cubs Preview: Outfield

You're not doing it right, Alfonso.  When they
say, 'use your head', they don't mean it like that.

Aging bunch to be aided and eventually replaced by younger players

Although the past decade has seen all kinds of changes in the Wrigley outfield, 2012 will not bring drastic changes.  At least, not right away.

For the fifth consecutive season, veteran Alfonso Soriano will man left field (he started 2007 in center).  Soriano takes a lot of criticism for not living up to his gargantuan contract, and most of it is fair.  It was a bad contract to begin with and there's little hope that he'll ever return to the form the Cubs thought they were getting.

In his outstanding 2006 season with the Nationals, his walk year, he became only the fourth player ever to have a 40-40 season with 46 homers and 41 steals.  In five seasons since with the Cubs, he has totaled 54 steals.  In his first two seasons with the Cubs he hit .291 with 62 homers and 38 steals while missing significant time to leg injuries both years.  A reduction in steals was understandable, and the offense was definitely there so Cubs fans remained hopeful.  However, a miserable 2009 showed that he had lost a considerable amount of talent from his glory days with New York and Texas.  From 2009-11 he hit only .248 and averaged about 23 homers per season, a far cry from the 36 he averaged between 2004-06.  He had lost virtually all speed, stealing just 16 bases between 2009-11.

Add all of those offensive woes to his already bad defense, and you've got an average to below-average player making $20 million per year now.  Soriano flashed early power least season before again fading into the mediocrity Cubs fans have become accustomed to.  It was almost a tease, but he could do it again and give the Cubs a legitimate power threat.  He's not hard to get out because he still chases the sliders too much.  26 homers and 88 RBIs, however, aren't that bad if you ignore the average, contract, and defense.  That's only one home run less than Adrian Gonzalez's total of 27, and as many RBIs as Justin Upton produced last season.

Center fielder Marlon Byrd

Despite all the negatives around Soriano, he represents the biggest power threat in this outfield.  The starting center fielder, Marlon Byrd, enters his third season with the Cubs and the final one on his contract.  Byrd is 34 and definitely declining offensively, bringing disappointing power and speed skills for a center fielder.  He is a fan favorite for his effort and defensive hustle, and those may get even better this season.  You see, Byrd lost about 40 pounds this offseason so the size comparisons to an NFL linebacker will most definitely not be heard anymore.  That's all good and well, but it won't make him any more valuable offensively where, frankly, he's lacking.

The starting right fielder will be newcomer David DeJesus.  DeJesus, like Soriano and Byrd, is on the wrong side of 30 although he is the youngest of the group at 32.  If there's one thing that has defined his career so far, it's been his ability to get on base.  He has a career .356 OBP with a career high of .384 from 2010.  Playing all but one year of his career with the Royals, he has virtually no winning experience.  Not even a year with Oakland in 2011 could change that.

Right fielder David DeJesus

DeJesus does not have great size at 5'11", 190 lbs., but he's a nice, athletic player defensively.  I'm unsure about his arm, and I hope to see more during Spring Training.  Offensively, his power is about a tick below Byrd's, but I would take DeJesus over Byrd because DeJesus is a lefty who makes better contact (never striking out more than 87 times in a season), is more patient, and has a more compact, fluid swing.  DeJesus is a low ball hitter who spreads line drives to all fields well.  I was skeptical at first because DeJesus is somewhat average in all five tools for outfielders, but he's a solid lefty bat with enough skills defensively to play a respectable right field.  I'm content with him in right.

Now for the backups, part-timers, and call-ups.  Bryan LaHair will presumably get some innings if not a few starts in the outfield after he started most of his major league games in right field last September.  For a breakdown of his play, see the post below as he's also the starting first baseman.  Ahead of him on the depth chart, however, are Tony Campana and Reed Johnson.

Speedy fourth outfielder Tony Campana

Campana, 25, has apparently changed his jersey number to #1 for this season and beyond after Kosuke Fukudome's departure left the number vacated.  Although Campana isn't actually '#1' as in most valuable on this team, he could prove to be pretty close to it by the end of the season.  Manager Dale Sveum said at the Cubs Convention that he wants to have a more athletic team that steals more bases.  Well, Dale, it's going to be hard to do that looking at the roster here, as the Cubs finished 2011 with the third-fewest steals in the league.  Campana, however, accounted for 24 of the Cubs' 69 team steals.  He was also only caught twice, giving him one of the best stolen-base ratios in the league.

The dude is seriously undersized at 5'8", 165 lbs., but he does play superb defense and hustles like no one else on the roster.  His 'baseball kid' character shines through in a way reminiscent of former outfield utilityman Sam Fuld, but Campana brings the blazing speed Fuld didn't have on the basepaths.  In the minors, Campana has stolen up to 66 bases.  If he wants to use that speed in the majors, however, he'll have to prove he can get on base consistently.

Johnson, 35, never had speed anywhere close to Campana's.  If you've seen Johnson chase down a dropping fly ball in left field, however, you might not have known that.  Reed is also a definite fan favorite for his commitment to defensive play.  It's not even that Johnson has some rocket arm he can show off to the fans; rather, he just hustles to every fly ball and looks like a complete natural diving for the ball, showing no fear.  This kind of effort is what the fans want to see, and it was lacking on the 2011 team; especially from the player Johnson usually replaced in the late innings, Soriano.

Backup outfielder Reed Johnson

Johnson had a great offensive season in 2011, hitting .309 and even throwing in a walk-off homer.  He's a great high-ball hitter who hits fastballs and changeups well, and he uses the entire strike zone.  He is, however, a dead righty pull hitter.  The lefty Campana uses the entire field with more regularity despite the fact that Johnson is a more experienced hitter overall.  In a post over a month ago I disagreed with the decision to resign Johnson, preferring Campana to be the primary fourth outfielder.  Now that the Cubs have signed him, however, they're bound to give him at least a bit of playing time.

Unless Soriano or Byrd are traded midseason, there is little chance that Johnson and Campana both remain on the major league roster all season.  That's because top prospect Brett Jackson will probably debut sometime this season.  Jackson was the organization's top draft pick in 2009 and so far the high status has paid off as he's been great in the minor leagues.  The lefty-batting Jackson has 20-20 potential with solid defensive skills, projecting as the Cubs' future starting center fielder.  I discussed Jackson more in-depth in my post on top prospects recently, read more about him here.

There's no doubt the outfield for the Cubs is an aging group right now.  It's going to change a lot in the next few years, however, as I think Soriano and Byrd will both be gone by this time next season.  Jackson should be the starting center fielder for years to come, and prospects Matt Szczur and Reggie Golden, neither of whom will debut in the majors this season, will play major roles in for the big league Cubs in a few years barring trades or free agent signings.  The key question for the current group of Soriano, Byrd, and DeJesus is how much value is still left in these aging veterans?  Can Soriano hit for a high enough average to make himself valuable in the trade market?  Can Byrd stay healthy and prove his weight loss expands his abilities and delays his aging process?  Can DeJesus fully recover from a bad season in Oakland last year?

2012 Cubs Preview: Infield

Shortstop Starlin Castro

Rebuilt, unproven group looks to make lasting impact

If there's one thing for sure about this infield, it's that the times are a-changin' at Wrigley.  None of the four starters on the infield from just two years ago are still in the organization.  On Opening Day 2010, Derrek Lee started at first base, Mike Fontenot started at second, Ryan Theriot started at shortstop, and Aramis Ramriez started at third.  Lee, Fontenot, and Theriot were all traded midseason; Ramirez played through 2011 before leaving as a free agent and signing with Milwaukee.  The starters now are less familiar to the Cubs faithful, a younger group that will work hard all the same.

Starting at first base, for the time being, will be 29-year-old Bryan LaHair, a career minor leaguer who has had very little playing time in the majors.  In fact, the only major league action he's seen besides last year's 20-game trial was in 2008 with Seattle.  

First baseman Bryan LaHair

LaHair has a chance to prove he should have been in the major leagues all along, however, if he produce with his massive power potential.  He has hit at least 25 homers in each of the last three seasons in the minors in AAA, including 38 last year to make him the Pacific Coast League MVP.  He also boasted a .331 average and a .405 OBP, rounding out an excellent season overall. This hard work earned him a trip to the major league Cubs, and he didn't disappoint, blasting a huge game-tying home run in the bottom of the 9th inning to ruin Cincinnati pitcher Mike Leake's shutout.

With LaHair, the power potential is there.  His defensive and all-around offensive skills, however, remain to be seen at the major league level.  He will most definitely have to make adjustments as the season goes on; pitchers aren't going to leave a hitter like this with too many fastballs in the middle of the plate.  His key will be hitting breaking pitches; namely curveballs, which he seemed to have some trouble with last season.

First baseman Anthony Rizzo

LaHair is exciting in his own right, but top prospect Anthony Rizzo is waiting in the wings to steal his job.  Rizzo was acquired from San Diego for another top prospect in starter Andrew Cashner.  Rizzo has monster power potential as well.  Last season he hit .331 with 26 homers and 101 RBIs for AAA Tucson in only 93 games.  The Theo & Jed brain trust resonate well with Rizzo, as Theo drafted him in Boston, then traded him to Jed in San Diego in the Adrian Gonzalez trade, and now they have gotten him back together.  

Some critics point to his major league trial in 2011 and raise red flags on his potential.  In 153 at-bats

 Rizzo batted only .141 with one home run, and I think all of the hype surrounding himself may have gotten to him.  That is not enough playing time for him to be judged on his future.  He still has the most polished talent of any prospect in the Cubs' system right now, and he'll make an impact soon.  The Cubs brass has said he'll start the season in the minors, but he hopes to change their minds with a strong Spring Training.

At second base, the story one year ago was the battle between Blake DeWitt and Darwin Barney.  There was DeWitt, the chronic underachiever in the big leagues who offered little offensive value and not as much effort as you would like on the field, and Barney, the younger option who was unknown offensively.  I endorsed Barney, and I'm still glad with that choice.  Although Barney isn't a great hitter, he made great contact last year and showed 100% effort all the time, using his superior athleticism. 

Second baseman Darwin Barney

I expect Barney's offense to continue to improve after it tailed off at the end of last season.  DeWitt's role this season, if there is one for the major league Cubs, remains to be seen.  He saw time at second base, third base, and left field last season and should again play numerous positions.  His .385 career slugging percentage shows he doesn't have hardly any pop in that bat; if he wants to make himself more valuable to the team, I suggest he become more patient to draw more walks and get on base.  

I also like what I've seen and heard about second baseman Adrian Cardenas, who could oust DeWitt for the utility role.  Cardenas has never played in the major leagues but did play left field, shortstop, third base, and second base for AAA Sacramento in the Oakland A's system.  He is two years younger than DeWitt at 25 and was claimed off waivers from Oakland earlier this month.  To make room on the 40-man roster, DeWitt was designated for assignment.  

Cardenas has a career .303 average and a .368 OBP in the minors, both good marks for a middle infielder.  Overall, if the Cubs are going younger and newer, Cardenas is the guy that should make the roster.

Second baseman Adrian Cardenas

As shortstop, the situation isn't nearly as confusing.  The cornerstone of the franchise (for now, at least) is the shortstop Starlin Castro who will be entering just his third season in the major leagues.  After a superb, All-Star 2011 season in which he nabbed the NL hits crown, Castro looks to build both offensively and defensively to become an MVP candidate sometime in the future.  Despite being super-athletic, agile and speedy, he has a lot of work to do on both sides of the ball.  

Offensively, he needs to develop more power to take his game to the next level.  If he could reach 20 homers per season, he would be in the same conversation as elite shortstops like Hanley Ramirez.  Defensively, he definitely needs to work on his accuracy.  He can fire the ball across the diamond like any other raging 22-year-old, but finding the glove is obviously key.  If he could even get his arm accuracy into the average range, his wide range at shortstop would make him an elite defender overall.  This kid doesn't need too many days off, but Dale Sveum should sit him at least once a month.  He was only yanked from a game after starting it once last year and that was in the 12th inning, so I wouldn't expect to see much of that, either.

Third baseman Ian Stewart

At third base, newcomer Ian Stewart will get the bulk majority of the playing time.  Stewart replaces the long-standing Aramis Ramirez who spent over eight seasons at the hot corner for the Cubs.  Stewart is coming off a horrible 2011 in which he didn't hit any homers in 48 games for Colorado.  He was highly-regarded as a prospect in the Rockies system, however, and hit 25 homers for the 2009 Wild Card champion team.  In Baseball America's 2005 prospect rankings, Stewart was #4 overall with vast power potential, coming off a 30-homer season in A ball at the age of 19!  In that same 2004 season he threw in 19 steals and a .398 OBP, but he hasn't been able to match that success since.  He has still been good with home run totals in the high teens, but couldn't recreate that monster season.

Stewart returned to the minors in 2011 for the first time since 2008.  He definitely showed that his injuries hadn't erased his talent with 14 homers and 42 RBIs in only 45 games, and he does walk more than most third basemen.  If he can unlock his power potential he showed early in his career and in 2009, this 27-year-old could be primed for a career year.

Cardenas and Jeff Baker should provide backup here.  I have never been a fan of Baker's because he's such a non-factor offensively, but I do have to admit that he has nice value to give lefties a day off against a lefty starter.  Baker has drastic righty-lefty splits, and his numbers against lefties are far more impressive.  In his career he's batting .309 against lefties and .239 against righties, while slugging a respectable .526 against lefties but only .364 against righties.  Of the 11 home runs he has hit while on the Cubs over two and a half seasons, all but one have come off a southpaw.

Well, there will be a lot of new faces around the infield this summer for the Cubs.  Of the seven players mentioned here, three were acquired this winter.  It's definitely a younger group, as Baker, 30, is the oldest player out of the entire group.  Although losing one of the team's core players over the last decade in Ramirez was a big loss to some, it was the right move in the long run.  The team needs to get younger and more athletic to build its own culture.  If Ramirez were one of the 'nice guys' of baseball and pledged to help the young kids learn the ropes, we might have a different story.  But then again, Carlos Pena is a 'nice guy', and he was let go of anyway.  It's up to the 22-year-old Castro to welcome his new teammates in.  He should get used to them too, because most of them are here to stay.    

2012 Cubs Preview: Catchers



Starting catcher Geovany Soto

 This is first of the six-post comprehensive season preview on the 2012 Chicago Cubs!  Each of the next six days will feature the next segment.  First we'll take a look at the Cubs' situation behind the plate.

Inconsistent Soto will again try to live up to potential; this time, he'll have a better supporting cast

The incumbent at the catcher position is 2008 NL Rookie of the Year Geovany Soto.  Since winning that award, however, Soto's career has not gone as envisioned.  The best season of his career was that rookie season and he hasn't come all that close since.  2012 will be Soto's fifth season in the major leagues and he's still looking for his second 55-RBI season, even though he was projected as a major run producer and drove in 86 in his rookie year.  Given, he only 207 games between 2009 and 2010, but there's another problem in itself.  

"I tell you, if he continues to swing the bat the way he has since his recall, this guy's going to have a great career both behind the plate and at the plate." -Cubs TV commentator Bob Brenly after Soto's first career homer in Pittsburgh, September 9, 2007.

Defensively, Soto is no standout behind the plate.  Last season he threw out a career high of 30% of attempted basestealers, raising his career average to 27%.  For comparison, he's still well behind his Cardinal counterpart in Yadier Molina, who, at a career 44%, is regarded as perhaps the best defensive catcher in the game.  Soto's South Side counterpart, A.J. Pierzynski, has never been well known for defense and has a career mark of 24% but was at his worst in 2011.  

Soto has a good arm, but his mobility is sometimes affected by his size.  Soto did lose about 20 pounds last offseason and looked better than Cubs fans had seen him about a year ago, but he regained the weight as the season went on, further hampering his ability to make quick moves.  Remember, Geo, physics constitutes that mass and acceleration are inversely proportional.  In simple terms, less mass = quicker acceleration.

Offensively, Soto has been all over the board.  First he tore up the Pacific Coast League with the AAA Iowa Cubs in 2007, hitting .353 with 109 RBIs to become the PCL MVP.  His performance was noticed by the big league brass, and Soto even started two of the three playoff games that year despite being a September call-up (Matt Moore, anyone?).  Then Soto helped power the Cubs to 97 wins on the NL's best team by calling the pitches for one of baseball's deepest pitching staffs.  He had it all; 23 homers, a .364 OBP, 86 RBIs, an All-Star appearance, and even two triples.  

It went quickly downhill from there.  In 2009 he played for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic, approximately at which time he failed a drug test for marijuana; the results came out later in the season, but this must have hung over him the entire season.  When he wasn't injured, he was bad.  When I say bad, I mean he was being outhit by Koyie Hill.  Okay well not that bad.  Still, though, his average dropped 67 points to .218 and his slugging percentage was a measly .321.  

Then, a turn for the better.  Soto hit the DL again in 2010 but was far more effective as his walk rate was a career high and his .393 OBP is still a number unheard of for catchers.  He was definitely limited because of his injuries, but in a full season he would have been one of the best in the NL. 

Backup catcher Welington Castillo

Of course, he regressed again in 2011.  The power was there; everything else wasn't.  Geo struck out more and walked less than ever, resulting in a career low .310 OBP.  Even that power took a long time to get 'in swing' (pun not intended), as perhaps he wasn't used to his slimmer self.  As I explained, he gained the weight back, and the power returned.  Could there be a correlation there?  Quite possibly.  

Luckily for Cubs fans, catcher should be a stronger position than usual this season even if Soto isn't on his game again.  Taking over the reigns as backup catcher is 25-year-old Welington Castillo.  Castillo got his first splash of major league action in 2010, playing in seven games and hitting his first career homer at Sun Life Stadium in South Florida.  Castillo got more attention, however, for his shattered bat that struck Tyler Colvin on the basepaths in that same series.  

Castillo barely got any playing time last season, but he will get plenty this season.  He's a stronger defensive catcher than Soto and a more fit figure overall.  He can also swing it, which is a nice change for Cubs fans.  Hill was good defensively, but it's hard to become a fan favorite when you can't hit water if you fell out of boat.  Castillo batted .287 with 16 homers and a .516 slugging percentage in only 75 games last season.  It's good to stay younger here so Castillo can learn and improve, instead of watching the 33-year-old Hill decline.

Third-string catcher Steve Clevenger

The wild card in this race is 26-year-old Steve Clevenger.  He got his first career hit, a double, at the end of last season in San Diego.  He's decent defensively although not as active as Castillo and he really struggled back there last season, throwing out only 11% of basestealers and committing eight errors in 96 games.  Offensively, though, he's a nice surprise.  He doesn't bring the power of Soto or Castillo, but he gets on base and is very, very patient for a catcher.  He walks almost as much as he strikes out; the John Jaso model, if you will.  In 448 plate appearances last season, he batted .319 with an incredible .383 OBP.  Clevenger will probably get some playing time later in the season but, barring injuries, I'd be shocked if he makes the club out of Spring Training

28-year-old Chris Robinson, the backup catcher in Iowa last season, could get some playing time in Chicago in the event of an emergency.  He's average defensively and has virtually no power, but he hits for a nice average.  A former third-round pick of Tigers in the 2005 draft, Robinson has yet to debut in the major leagues.

I've dished on and on about this position for long enough.  Let's bury the hatchet.  I have high hopes for Soto given his history in even-numbered years, and I've been calling for Castillo for over a year and a half now.  Even if Soto still can't find rookie form, Castillo will take up the slack and play well, especially defensively.  This position is definitely a strength on the 2012 Cubs.             

Compensated? Not Really

Theo Epstein

The lengthy discussion over compensation for Theo Epstein's move from the Red Sox to the Cubs ended as the two teams agreed that 26-year-old right-hander Chris Carpenter would be enough to 'compensate' the Red Sox.  The Cubs lose their third-round pick in the 2008 draft who made his MLB debut in 2011, pitching in 10 games with a strong 2.79 ERA.

Carpenter has floated around the Cubs' system in recent years, quickly making his way up to AAA Iowa in 2010.  He split 2011 in the minors between AA Tennessee and AAA Iowa and again struggled in Iowa, with an ERA over 6.00 and a ballooning WHIP over 1.8.  He fared well in his major league trial last summer, but it may not have been as good as the ERA would suggest, as he walked seven in those nine and two-thirds innings.  The only national attention he received was serving up a monster home run ball to Yankees right fielder Nick Swisher in a nationally televised Sunday night game on ESPN.

Despite his struggles, this man has tremendous potential.  Not necessarily the same potential that his St. Louis counterpart, also a starter in Chris Carpenter, had, but still this younger version has promising talent.  Most notably there's the 100 mph fastball which has blown away more than a few hitters in his career.  Following that is his average slider, which he throws about one-fourth of the time.

Chris Carpenter

He prefers to work inside and definitely doesn't use the outside part of the plate enough to neither righties nor lefties, but there is a bigger problem in his repertoire.  He needs another pitch.  Carpenter switched to being a reliever this season in the minors and majors but before had been a starter for nearly his entire career.  This season his play suffered out of the bullpen, and his fastball and slider are basically his only two legitimate pitches.  It's awfully hard to keep major league hitters off-balance when you throw a fastball 75% of the time, no matter how fast it is.  If he develops a quality changeup, he'll thrive in either role.

As you've heard here, this dude has potential with the fastball.  A hittable slider and lack of a tertiary pitch have hurt him thus far, however.  That and the tendency of hard-throwers to have shoulder injuries, this makes him a definite high-risk, high-reward type.  Does this sound like fair compensation for executive Theo Epstein?  I do not know.  This compensation process just seems foolish.  Boston's GM swaps teams, and Boston gets to choose one highly-touted Chicago prospect?  Does this make this entire transaction a 'trade'?  If so, we just traded a jersey for a suit.

I don't think executives and players can be measured in team value along the same parameters in which they could be 'traded' for each other.  If Epstein left the Red Sox for the Cubs while under contract, which may have been the case, then the Cubs should have given up a draft pick.  Giving up one volatile prospect is not fair compensation for either side really.  Carpenter isn't a huge loss, but that fact that we lost him is wrong.

Billy Beane Marches On

Athletics GM Billy Beane

The Oakland A's just gave Billy Beane an extension through 2019 - but is he still the right man for the job?  Is his celebrity status what's keeping him there?

The Moneyball movie, released September 23 last fall, displayed two perspectives on the Oakland Athletics.  The first one, which was the selling point of the movie and common reaction from the general public, was that the movie celebrated a truly historic and unprecedented story of a comeback team; not only on the field itself, but within the front office.

The other perspective, an underlying and somewhat depressing observation, was a comparison of the 'Moneyball' 2002 A's and the 2011 version.  On the release date of the movie, the A's won in Anaheim in the sixth-to-last game of another losing season, their fourth in five years.  It was a 3-1 final, raising the team's record to 71-86 on the season in standout starter Gio Gonzalez's second-to-last start with Oakland.  The A's had closed out their home schedule the day before with a win over the defending AL champion Texas Rangers - in front of a measly crowd of barely 14,000.  After the game in Anaheim, the A's won three of their remaining five games to finish the season at 74-88 with some young talent, most of which has since been dumped in the genesis of another do-over rebuilding plan.  This is not the first such plan since the A's were last relevant in 2006, and it probably won't be their last in the near future.  At the helm the entire time, however, has been general manager Billy Beane.

Oakland's Famed 'Big Three' (from left):
Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder

The 2002 A's were definitely a team definitely that faced failure before the season even started.  The team three major starts in closer Jason Isringhausen, first baseman and reigning MVP Jason Giambi, and center fielder Johnny Damon, as the movie focused on.  What the movie failed to explain, however, was how the A's did still have the best rotation trio in the major leagues in Barry Zito, Tim Hudson, and Mark Mulder besides a quick flash of Hudson.  If you exempt a few seconds showing him making an error, the film also whiffed on mentioning the team's shortshop, Miguel Tejada, who just happened to win the AL MVP that year.  Throw in Zito's Cy Young, and you've got the MVP and Cy Young winners together on the same 103-win team that won its division.  Wasn't this team supposedly struggling?  An example of the legendary tale of the underdog?  If I didn't know better, I would say this was the class of the American League, complete with star power and value deals.

The 2002 AL MVP, shortstop Miguel Tejada

But the movie credits Beane and the fictional Peter Brand as the undisputed saviors with their conservative money-saving approach of finding unsung heroes with the best value.  It's a great approach, but you can't win 103 games if the best players on the team are Scott Hatteberg, Chad Bradford, and David Justice.  You just can't.  There has to be a supporting cast.  It's a humbling, feel-good story that these rejects were made stars in their own way through harnessing their skills of getting on base and, in Bradford's case, maintaining impeccable control.  But it takes a full team effort to avoid 'losing the last game of the season'.

Beane did also play a major role in acquiring the team's other stars, as he drafted Mulder and Zito with the team's first-round draft picks in 1998 and 1999, respectively.  But since this era he hasn't had much luck.  The 2002 LDS loss to the Minnesota Twins was their third consecutive year of being eliminated in the LDS - in the fifth and final game, no less.  They lost the decisive Game 5 again in 2003, this time to the Red Sox.  As is protocol for the cash-strapped A's, the team watched as Tejada had bolted for free-agent money by 2004 and Mulder and Hudson were dealt a year later in a desperation move to stay competitive by acquiring mid-level talent for depth.  Conventional wisdom pegged the team to roll over and die.

Third baseman Eric Chavez

A couple newly-found stars, however, kept the A's in the W column.  Despite major roster turnover in between, the A's won at least 88 games every year from 2000 to 2006, making the playoffs in the first four and last of those seven years.  A new wave of players, including powerful third baseman Eric Chavez, shortstop Bobby Crosby, starter Dan Haren (who had been acquired in Mulder's trade to St. Louis), right fielder Nick Swisher, and lights-out strikeout closer Huston Street emerged to bring Oakland back over the hump and into the playoffs in 2006.  Hell, the team even took a flier on a 38-year-old Frank Thomas, recently ousted from the White Sox, and he gave them 38 homers in a season no one saw coming.  The changing of the guard worked, as Beane, after his team triumphantly beat down the Twins in a three-game sweep of the ALDS, had successfully led the A's back to the ALCS for the first time since the Dennis Eckersley days.

With this quick wheeling-and-dealing, Beane saved his team from depressingly regressing into submission after his star players had past their prime.  Although not all these moves were entirely popular in Oakland, they put the team within a few games of the World Series in 2006.  A truly incredible series of events took place there.  To many he appeared to be demolishing the team by trading away two of the three in the famed 'Big Three'.  Instead, the A's were back and better than ever just a year later.

The years since haven't exactly been smooth sailing.  2007 was a catastrophic year for the Athletics, as the wheels fell off in the form of injuries to Chavez, Crosby, Street, outfielder Mark Kotsay, and starter Rich Harden all hampered the team's performance.  And bam, Beane goes to work.  This time he sends Swisher to the White Sox, Haren to the Diamondbacks, Kotsay to the Braves, and at the trade deadline of 2008 he sent Harden to the Cubs.

It didn't produce immediate results.  The A's suffered through a losing season in 2007 for the first time in nine years, and they had nearly identical results the year after.  Besides the random emergence of power-hitting outfielder Jack Cust, these were not teams to write home about.  Beane wanted to do something about that.

Left fielder Matt Holliday.  Acquired in Beane's push
for a winner in 2009, he didn't even last a full season.

Three quick acquisitions for the 2009 season meant Billy was all in.  Beane brought back a now 38-year-old Giambi in search of a miracle, acquired prime slugger Matt Holliday from Colorado, and plugged in clutch veteran shortstop Orlando Cabrera.  However, Holliday suffered through a power outage and Giambi suffered through an everything-outage.  The movement was ill-fated from the beginning, as the young guns of the pitching staff were nowhere near ready to compete under winning expectations.  Giambi, Holliday, and Cabrera were all quickly disposed of by the start of September, another quick "three-and-out" for our man Billy.


The 2009 season wasn't a total lost effort, however, as some of those youngsters on the pitching staff got valuable experience from their struggles.  Power closer Andrew Bailey even won Rookie of the Year.  The result of this development were impressive performances the next year from starters Gio Gonzalez, Trevor Cahill, Brett Anderson, and Dallas Braden, none of whom were older than 26.  The offense wasn't there, so the A's stayed in mediocrity in 2010.  If the A's could secure some offense, the experts said, Oakland would a be a team to beat in 2011.  As had been the case for a while, the A's had some nice young players but fell short because they didn't have a complete team.  This wasn't necessarily Beane's fault, but evidently his strategies weren't working like they used to.

The situation in Oakland became even more desperate after their cross-bay counterpart, the San Francisco Giants, took home the World Series trophy in 2010.  The resulting loss in market share hurt an already economically-wounded franchise.  As you can guess by now, Beane refused to give up on the team and went back to work again on securing offense.

Left fielder Josh Willingham.  Another one-
and-done impact player.

Beane successfully dragged in designated hitter Hideki Matsui, left fielder Josh Willingham, and right fielder David DeJesus, three under-the-radar veteran offensive pieces.  Matsui and Willingham offered power, while DeJesus offered on-base skills and defense.  Those two joined an offensive core of value players in catcher Kurt Suzuki, third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff, and consistent second baseman Mark Ellis.


Right when the A's looked to be in an improved position from the year before on Opening Day 2011, the strength of the team fell apart.  That standout rotation blew up.  While Gonzalez still had a great season, Cahill's ERA ballooned to over 4.00, unacceptable for the ace of a playoff contender.  Braden and Anderson both missed most of the season to injury.  A bust prospect reincarnated in Brandon McCarthy literally came out of nowhere to be the new #2 starter.  The A's payroll of $66 million was the ninth-smallest in the league.  Even that was up six spots from the year before, and four spots up from 2009.

The A's franchise is at a crossroads right now.  Management has been calling for a move to the southern Bay Area for over five years as the team's average attendance at the archaic O.co Coliseum is dismal at best.  The 2011 average of 18,232 doesn't sell out most NBA arenas, and is currently being beat by the nearby Golden State Warriors' average of 18,705.  Of course NBA tickets are more expensive than baseball tickets, so the Warriors are making significantly more revenue on each home date.

Commissioner Bud Selig approved a move to Fremont, California for the A's in late 2006, where the proposed Cisco Field was to be constructed.  Funding fell through, and the plan was scrapped.  Now the A's call for a move to San Jose.  The Comish has been far less decisive this time.  A few months ago, he announced that the A's situation was now a "top priority" for his office to deal with.  Not to give approval, that is, but to make a decision either way.  Meanwhile one of his historic franchises, an original American League franchise founded in 1901 in Philadelphia, is rotting in this state of dismay without the necessary funds to improve the team or the fan base to get these funds.

The proposed Cisco Field, now placed in San Jose.  If
approved now, completion projects to be in time
for the 2016 season.

A move to San Jose is imminent for the front office.  Beane admitted in December that they're building the team under the assumption that they will have a new ballpark there in a handful of years, because they don't have any other choice.  But for the next couple years, there's little hope in sight.  For the umpteenth time as Oakland's GM, Billy Beane again had to hit the self-destruct button.  He let go of DeJesus and Kouzmanoff and traded his budding top two starters, sending Cahill to Arizona and Gonzalez to Washington.  The result is a depleted team with very little elite talent.
        
This latest rebuilding plan will take a few years, and it's a necessary process if the A's want to have a winner in time for the potential move to San Jose.  The plan has already been started by Beane, but should he really be the one to execute it?  As you've read here, Beane had immense success in the early 2000s and a dismal reign since.  The A's haven't had a winning season since 2006.  Some say Beane was given this monster extension under the old 'any publicity is good publicity' theory in that the A's want to keep Beane just to draw attention to themselves.  But under the financial constraints they have seemingly always been subject to, I don't think there's any single better candidate for the job.  Beane has never been afraid to make bold trades and be aggressive in his shuffling, a trait that has served the team well as evidenced by their constant supply of promising young players.  But it's just really, really hard to build a winner under those conditions.  Now get Billy a new ballpark and some cash, and he'll have the team battling Texas and Anaheim for the division every year.

Billy has already started the rebuilding process with the dumping of those aforementioned players.  It's going to get worse before it gets better, as this year's team could easily lose 100 games.  But to let go of Beane now wouldn't make sense.  If ownership were looking for a different approach, Beane would have been fired before he sent away the team's two biggest stars in Gonzalez and Cahill.  Now, they might as well let him finish what he started.