Cubs' rankings are, well, rank
The Cubs will announce soon that they’re recalling outfielder Sam Fuld from Iowa to replace infielder Aaron Miles, who will go on the DL with an elbow injury. Along with Milton Bradley, Miles is going down as one of the first-half free-agent busts for the Cubs and all of baseball.
To refresh your memory, Miles got a two-year $4.9 million contract from the Cubs last off-season after the St. Louis Cardinals did not tender him a contract. Miles gets $2.2 million this year and $2.7 million next year. Ouch.
If you’re into ranking such as VORP (Value Over Replacement Player), Miles checks in on Baseball Prospectus’ site (baseballprospectus.com) ranked 796th in baseball at negative-8.0 runs. BP defines VORP as “the number of runs contributed beyond what a replacement-level player at the same position would contribute if given the same number of plate appearances.” In other words, Miles would contribute 8 fewer runs than a replacement-level player.
The Cubs are learning this lesson firsthand and painfully this year. A “replacement-level” player such as Bobby Scales ranks 246th in VORP at 2.6. At least he’s in positive territory.
The Cubs are getting killed in the VORP department. The major-league leader is Albert Pujols at 51.4. Second is Joe Mauer at 44.9. Notable Cubs:
95. Ryan Theriot (12.8)
117. D-Lee (10.3)
123. Kosuke Fukudome (10.0)
130. Aramis Ramirez (9.6, and he’s been out almost two months)
189. Reed Johnson (4.7)
191. Jake Fox (4.5)
257. Alfonso Soriano (2.2)
268. Geovany Soto (1.9)
381. Milton Bradley (0.3)
710. Mike Fontenot (-2.6)
That’s “wow” kind of stuff. It’s also a lot of money doing a whole lot of nothing for the Cubs. And a lot of this money is on the books for a long time.
Now, none of us needs to be Einstein or smarter, such as a BP number-cruncher, to know the Cubs are bad offensively.
In less esoteric categories, here is where they rank as a team:
Runs: 13th
OBP: 12th
OPS: 12th
BB: 9th
Here is where some of their players rank in key categories:
OBP
18. Fukudome .383
26. Lee .371
50. Theriot .342
OPS
25. Lee .854
41. Fukudome .797
50. Theriot .752
58. Soriano .733
Bradley has a .717 OPS which is 282 percentage points below is AL-leading .999 OPS of last year.
We’ll blog soon about the Cub’ overall lack of efficiency.
Phil Rogers will always tell you pitching and defense wins....
Then he'll turn around when things look bad and say you should trade your pitching for minor leaguers......which of course would really set your team (Cubs) back
He wanted Maddux back, then wrote that they should trade him to a contender so he'd have a shot at a championship...with Atlanta he was always in the hunt......i mean forget the Cubs let's trade/give Maddux, Zambrano, and anyone else a shot for the big ring, with another team
Maybe Phil should retire and let a young write take his column, lol....sorry i don't agree with Phil
Bruce-
Have a friend in PA who wants to take his boy to get Cub autograph
in front of their hotel in Pitt, which one do they stay at when they're
in town?
Cubs are at the Westin over by the convention center.
Bruce,
Its obvious starting this Thursday and continuing through the following Sunday is going to be one of the "season defining moments". Aramis is on the brink of returning with the offense still caught in transit from last August. I figure if this team cannot get motivated to play the Brewers after the heated serise in Milwaukee in May, then nothing will make this team fired up. My question pertains to the bullpen. I have heard so much about the offensive woes and rightfully so, but I think that the weakest link has still been the inconsistancy of the bullpen. This Saturday marked the 11th loss this season that the Cubs have lost in the last at bat by an opposing team. This bullpen has not been able to keep runners in check with the exception of Sean Marshall who was supposed to be the 5th starter at the start of the season. It is obvious Lou-pa does not have any confidence in David Patton since he only comes in when there is a blowout or the team is in the 13th inning. Why is he still on the team? Aaron Heilman has been the defininition of inconsistant. Angel Guzman has been good, but the history of serious arm injuries makes you wonder how often you can send him out there. Carlos Marmol has nearly walked as many as he has struck out. Kevin Gregg is, well Kevin Gregg. I was wondering if you had heard any rumblings on if Hendry is considering a possible back-end bullpen help? To me, George Sherrill would make perfect sense, especially how well Marshall has been out of the bullpen with inherited runners. I figure Hendry will decide which direction to go once it is determined how the health of Ramirez holds up. With the sale of the Cubs on the horizon, it figures the payroll flexibility is limited to those who have not met incentive deals this year. Guess we will wait and see.
Cheers
Thanks for the note. I usually refrain from calling people "thedirtbag," unless, of course...oh, never mind.
The disconcerting thing about Marmol is that he's been walking more than 1 batter per 1 inning pitched. Larry Rothschild has been looking at tapes, putting last year's and this year's deliveries side by side on the screen to get a comparison. There are some mechanical issues there, and Larry would like Marmol to aim that breaking ball at the front hip of the right-handed batter so that the ball gets a proper break.
I don't see a deal for Sherrill, but he'd help. Baltimore is awfully tough to deal with when it comes to its high-profile players. I'm not sure the payroll flexibility is there at this point, but I'm sure Hendry will go to current ownership by early July and see what can be done.
Marshall's done a nice job. You hope Lou doesn't fall in love with him too much.
What did we get in return for him? Why did we trade him? He had a nice year a triple A and would have been a nice fill in for Aramis.
The Brewers claimed McGehee off waivers last fall after the Cubs removed him from the 40-man roster with the intent of outrighting him back to Iowa.
Not to bring up a competitive rag but Phil Roger's wrote an article today suggesting the Cubs trade Zambrano.
Phil Rogers has some screws loose for sure but he did make me think that the Cubs may look to make a blockbuster deal to shake things up. As we read about over the winter, the team is looking at this year as an all or nothing season. Naturally the Yankees come to mind-given Wang's problems-but as you know-Z has a full no trade clause. Interesting to see how this plays out cause are ability to dump Soriano, Bradley or even Lee is very limited or none at all-making Z the obvious shake up piece.
In the meantime, I'm for Lou playing the hungry kids-Fuld and Hoffpauir over Soriano and Bradley-to send a message. If they have to skip Z a start to get his head right, I'm for that too.
Bruce,
Were the Cubs really interested in getting DeRosa back? It seems for what the Cardinals gave up that asking price was not that high. I really wish the Cubs would have stood pat in the off season and come back with most of the 08' team. I'm not ready to put DeRo in Cooperstown just yet but how would his 13 hrs and 50 rbi look now compared to Bradley's stats and the baggage that comes along with him?
From everything I've been told, yes, they were interested in bringing him back, and I talked to multiple people about it. I wrote about it for a story in Monday's paper:
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=303482&src=152
They wanted a major-league reliever, probably Guzman, and minor-leaguers. Whether you give that up for a 34-year-old player who is a free agent after the season is the question a team has to ask. Maybe you do give it up.
is better than a Guzman simply because of Guzman's injury history. And supposedly the PTBNL isn't just some throw in with no future, but an actual good prospect.
Weird that Cleveland got a better player (Perez) than any of the three the Cubs got from Cleveland.
Well I guess not that weird....
part of the problem is Lou will over use Guzman again, he won't give Reed the job he won in spring training (CF), so that leaves A-Ram.... as for the sale, i figure it's too late now, take your chances with Fox and Hoff, Freel at 3rd and blanco 2nd.....
I agree with Riggs.
At some point a bad start becomes a bad year, and you can't keep hoping/praying/wishing that guys find that stroke. I know a lot of guys on here point out that the career numbers are much higher, but like a career year, you have to wonder if some of these guys are having a career worst at the plate. The problem for the Cubs is a bunch of guys are all doing it at once. See Soto, Soriano, Bradley, Fontenot, and possibly Fukudome. However, 3 of those guys really don't have a track record so you can't really be surprised that Soto, Fontenot, and Fukudome are non existent at the plate. No excuses for Bradley or Soriano.
As Bruce has pointed out, it's got to be hard to move guys when all your big chips have no trade clauses, and I can only assume the minor league system doesn't have the necessary chips to real in a big time player?
What fix is there for this team? yeah, the bullpen is awful, but those guys usually come at a king's ransom. What big name bullpen guy is out there? What about position players? I mean if Heilman and Marmol could get their act together, you would have a lot of the issues sorted out. Again, that may be wishful thinking as both have shown zero signs of doing it.
Not trying to be a debbie downer, but I just dont see how this team improves itself outside the organization. It has to come from within, and at some point Lou has got to start playing the guys that give him the best chance to win regardless of payroll, past performance. It's July 1 on Wednesday, and at some point a bad start goes to a bad season, and you have to move on.
90 games to go, and this team has yet to show me they are anything but mediocre.
I'm not a big fan of VORP because I think it overvalues the impact a replacement player will have but still does a good job of showing that this team is pathetic.
Cubs are not only a bad team, but the worst team in baseball for $$$$ spent. This fact alone should cost Hendry his job. The even better news is that we are stuck with all of these worthless hacks like Miles, Soriano and Bradley for the next few years and can't even bring in the "replacement player."
Bruce,
Any word on the sale of the team? I saw something on the news Sat. night saying that they're close to finishing it.
I don't see anything done until August, if by then. I'm not privy to the financial discussions, and "close" is probably a relative term. I'm sure Zell talked of re-inviting the other bidders in to put the heat on the Ricketts group to get things moving toward the endgame.
Hey Bruce,
What are the Cubs options going forward besides hoping that everyone turns it around? I'm assuming that it will be very difficult to add any players(with out shipping one out).
Talked with Jim Hendry by phone today. He said "you keep looking." He pointed to Ramirez, Johnson and Guzman coming back as helping. But there's not a whole lot of flexibility. They've got to get rid of money to take money on.
There is very little chance that the Cubs can get rid of money this year without going into fire sale mode and that would be just plain dumb.
The best and only chance this happens.....they would have to trade a starting pitcher and maybe package someone else. Could you package Zambrano and Bradley to the Rangers? Maybe. Could you trade Zambrano to the Phillies? Maybe. Could you trade Bradley to the Mets? Maybe, but with basically no return of prospects.
Cubs should try to do something though.......maybe offer the Orioles the world (translated Vitters and prospects) for Brian Roberts and George Sherrill. Fix the offense and the pen in one fell swoop.
Zambrano took a lot less money than he could have gotten on the open market to get his no-trade clause. It would cost the Cubs a lot more than they have to get him to waive it. Good luck in dealing with the Orioles for any of their high-profile players.