Cubs must consider Harden now
The last thing Cubs GM Jim Hendry needs right now is uncertainty. Or should I say “more uncertainty.” With a new owner in town, Hendry appears to be on the clock even though his contract runs through 2012. Maybe that’s why he was a bit, shall we say, impatient, with questions yesterday in the wake of ace lefty Ted Lilly having his shoulder scoped.
Talk about uncertainty. Even though it’s early in the off-season, Hendry has uncertainty with his pitching picture. Right now, the Cubs’ starters who figure to open the season on the active list are Carlos Zambrano (do people still want to trade him now?), Ryan Dempster and Randy Wells plus your choice of Jeff Samardzija, Tom Gorzelanny and maybe Sean Marshall.
That’s why it’s important for Hendry to get serious about bringing Rich Harden back for at least one year. Otherwise, you have two proven veterans plus a guy coming off a big workload in his rookie year as the top three starters. Unless Hendry makes a trade, the rotation is pretty questionable after that. Sure, Lilly could be back sometime in April, but there’s no guarantee of that.
The one wild card I’ve always pointed out with Harden is that none of us has seen the medical reports and records, so we really don’t know what his troublesome right shoulder looks like. But Cubs pitching coach Larry Rothschild and the medical and training staff managed to get 26 big-league starts and 1 minor-league rehab start out of Harden. If the Cubs can use their two-week exclusive negotiating period to sign Harden for one year at anywhere from $8 million to $10 million, they should do it and then worry about lefty reliever John Grabow.
The just-released “Bill James Handbook 2010” projects Harden to have the best ERA among Cubs starting pitchers next year, at 3.33. My feisty friends over at anothercubsblog.com have all the numbers from the James Handbook:
http://www.anothercubsblog.net/site/comments/2010-bill-james-projections...
Here are some of those projections:
Harden: 3.33 ERA
Zambrano: 3.60 ERA
Dempster: 3.83 ERA
Wells: 4.16 ERA
Gorzelanny: 4.11 ERA
Samardzija: 5.44 ERA
Now, projections are just that, but James and the people at Baseball Prospectus and other outlets do a pretty thorough job of putting together their projections, and they’re at least a good guide to go by from this distance to the 2010 season.
Speaking of James’ projections, he predicts a bounce-back year for right fielder Milton Bradley, whom Hendry is trying to trade. The Handbook projects Bradley to have an .834 OPS from a .384 on-base percentage and a .450 slugging percentage. This year, the embattled Bradley had a .775 OPS (down from .999 with Texas in 2008), from his .378 OBP and .397 slugging percentage. But as I’ve said before, I just don’t see how it works with Bradley and the Cubs, not with a room full of players who practically stood in line to tell us they were glad Hendry suspended Bradley for the final two weeks of the season after Bradley verbally trashed the organization. And what happens the first time Bradley pops off in spring training? And what happens when he goes 0-for-5 with 3 strikeouts in the home opener and gets booed? And that’s to say nothing of a field manager who wants nothing more to do with Bradley. We also don’t know what the new others think, but Tom Ricketts has not gone out of his way in the early going to say he’d like to keep Bradley.
As far as the other Cubs’ hitters go, James sees an OPS of .894 for Derrek Lee, with 30 homers. He sees Alfonso Soriano with 30 homers and an OPS of .807. Aramis Ramirez projects to an OPS of .878 with 26 homers, and Geovany Soto projects to an OPS of .830 with 20 homers.
That’s not bad at all, but if the pitching picture doesn’t get better, it’s hard to see the Cubs winning 90 games. Yes, it’s early, but Hendry has his work cut out for him. His first move should be to get things going with Harden.
On the spring-training front, I had a chance to take part yesterday in another teleconference with the Mesa mayor, Scott Smith. The way I see it is that Naples, Fla., wants the Cubs, but Mesa and Arizona need the Cubs. The mayor said that if the Arizona efforts are judged on merit, it’s a “slam dunk” in favor of Mesa. But we’ll see what goes into it. We don’t know how the Ricketts people feel, and we don’t know what newly minted president Crane Kenney is whispering in the family’s ears. Kenney is a Massachusetts native. Does he want the Cubs in Florida for big games against the Red Sox and Yankees?
“We believe in Mesa,” Smith said. “We have not only the history and tradition, nearly 60 years of spring training. That history has given us a know-how of what was needed to make a successful spring training. But it also gives us a connection, not only with the Chicago Cubs, but the Chicago Cubs fans, from Chicago, Illinois, throughout the Midwest, who have made it part of their tradition to come here to Mesa for spring training. That only gets you so far, that nostalgia.”
Teams have been going from Florida to Arizona in droves in recent years, so a Cubs move to Florida definitely is against the grain. Despite the relative nearness of the Red Sox and Twins to Naples, travel in Florida is still a major pain compared with Arizona, where bus trips will get even easier after the Diamondbacks and Rockies get out of Tucson.
How this whole spring training thing plays out will give us an early insight into how this new regime is going to do business and what it values.
Stay tuned.
Are the meetings in Indy or Chicago this year? I've read a lot of articles that say they are in Chicago, but on MLB's site they say Indy. Do you attend any of these sessions?
I'm at the GM meetings now at O'Hare. The winter meetings are at Indy next month.
Since the main objective on Hendry's agenda is reportedly to deal Bradley, and since the Mets are supposedly looking to add a left fielder (and reportedly in the past were interested in trading Luis Castillo), maybe a Bradley plus cash for Castillo would be a possibility. And Hendry could even send along Aaron Miles out of the kindness of his heart, to give the Mets another 2B option to make up for the loss of Castillo. Bradley has 2 yrs and $21M left and Castillo 2 yrs and $12M. Flip them and send money to keep both teams spending the same as they would have before the trade. Give the Mets $3M for 2010 since Bradley will make $9M and send them another $6M in 2011 since Bradley is set to earn $12M that year. Of course, that would mean keeping Fukudome in CF so they could add a run producer in RF but the defense would improve at 2B. Colorado is rumored to be willing to listen to offers for Hawpe. Or they could deal for a run producer at 2B. Uggla is available and fits that mold, which would allow them to move Fuk to RF and find a leadoff hitter for CF. The OF defense would improve but the infield would be worse. At this point, the Cubs have more fly-ball pitchers so they might be better off with improving the OF defense. In any event, Hendry has his work cut out for him.
General Managers meetings in Chicago 11/9
Winter meetings in Indy 12/7
Bruce - I read this little nugget in Paul Sullivan's column over the weekend. Had you heard Hendry say that he might move someone other than Fukudome back to another position??
Middle infield: When Hendry said he might have to move a player back to another position, chances are he was referring to Ryan Theriot, whose days at short are numbered because of the emergence of star prospect Starlin Castro. While it's doubtful Castro would be able to make the leap from Double A to the majors, he could start out at Triple-A Iowa and be ready for the second half.
Hendry has never mentioned moving him back to second base. I expect Theriot to be the opening-day shortstop. The Cubs will not rush Castro. If and when he's ready, they'll worry about Theriot then.
Cubs should pick up Austin Kearns to platoon in RF with Kosuke. He is still relatively young and if he gets healthy, he has good upside, and he is a good defender. Could even be an everyday player if he was to get completely healthy.
I saw that Kearns was given his buyout and immediately thought about the Cubs trying to acquire him a few years back, so they did like him back then at least. He's fallen off quite a bit the last couple years, though last year could be attributed to a thumb injury I believe it was. He's still on the right side of thirty and is a plus defender as you mentioned. Not a bad idea for a platoon parter with Kosuke if Hendry can find a CF'er and a middle infielder that can hit. It would be nice to find both of those who bat lefty.
do you have any idea what Lou, Hendry, and the FO think about Mike Cameron? He's almost certainly not returning to Milwaukee after they traded Hardy for Gomez, and would be a great fit for the Cubs. He hits LH, can play a solid CF, and is has played with Lou before. He shouldn't be too expensive, either in years or in $/year, and thus could fit into the Cubs relatively restricted budget.
Actually, he bats right-handed, but he's an interesting player. I think they do like him. We'd have to see how much money he's looking for, but I would not rule him out.
Bruce,
Although too much for the Cubs and he is represented by the devil agent Boras, what do you think CF Rick Ankiel will get on the open market.
I have been impressed with Joel Pineiro in his contract year, a good ground ball pitcher, what do you think the price tag for him will be compared to signing Harden for one more year?
I still hope the Cubs go after him. On top of Cameron being a good player, signing him would also eliminate some of the more distasteful options we've heard the Cubs are looking at getting in return for Bradley (Rowand, Burrell, Wells, etc.).
You won't see Wells here. The Cubs have vehemently debunked that one, as I blogged last Saturday. Rowand and Mattews Jr. also would not be as good as Cameron.
Wells I'm not as worried about. But as you said, Rowand and Matthews Jr. aren't as good as Cameron. If Hendry gets Cameron I think he's more likely to try to gamble on a guy like Dontrelle Willis or Jeremy Bonderman. That's more palatable to me, as there's the chance a guy like that would end up being very, very good... especially with some help from Rothschild.
That's another interesting one. I think Hendry still has guilt pangs over that one even though he was the assistant GM when the Cubs traded Willis and others to the Marlins for Clement and Alfonseca. Hendry has told me he talks with Dontrelle now and then. We'll see.
I am a huge Curtis Granderson fan and think a change of leagues would be ideal for him. If the Cubs take on Willis and work out something out in a trade, he would be a perfect fit. Pie in the sky and I am not holding my breath but in my opinion he would look real nice in CF at wrigley. I would take Willis, as well. I think he can be salvaged and be a surprise.
Royals just declined his option, would he be an option for CF? I'm guessing $5 million/per, maybe a two year deal? Then re-sign Johnson for $2 million?
Maybe the Cubs miss the boat on this one if they are trying to send MB to SF for Rowand.
Sam Fuld, $400k, can put up a 330 OBP like Crisp can.
not recommending. I don't know much about Crisp on a day to day basis but I do know that Fuld isn't a starting CF in MLB. The Cubs don't have any depth in their minor league system in terms of everyday CFers until maybe Brett Jackson and that's a stretch in the long term.
Just asking if Bruce has heard anything about Crisp over the years when he's been available.
****you aren't going to let me recommend the Cubs spending money on players since I made that comment about younger, cheaper players...are you?
just asking
how do you know Fuld isn't a starting CF'er in MLB? agree with Boozer, why waste money on Crisp when you have the same guy here if not better. why not invest money on a good mid fielder or pitching.
"how do you know Fuld isn't a starting CF'er in MLB?"
I've seen him play, he's not good enough. At best, he's a 4th/5th outfielder on a contending team.
The Cubs have had at best lukewarm interest in Crisp in the past when his name came up.
no, I just hate when teams pay 6 figure salaries to guys because they are veterans when there is most likely a suitable replacement in your system.
Guys like Aaron Miles when you have Bobby Scales, Andres Blanco. Waste of resources.
Bruce - any word on why Samardzija was sent home from Mexico and Thomas Diamond took his place? What's your outlook for Diamond? Could he be a sleeper for a rotation spot?
If not for being a two-sport star at Notre Dame and being signed to a ridiculous bonus by the Cubs then nobody would be talking much about Samardizija. His pitching reptetoire is limited and non-impressive. Just like his performance to date. To be counting on him to serve a meaningful role in the pitching plans for 2010 is ridiculous. He's just not that good.
Samardzija started 5 games, going 2-0 with a 2.25 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP. In 24 innings, he struck out 22 and walked eight. I guess he was supposed to start five games.
Thanks! I'll be interested to see some updates on Diamond after he logs a few innings.
Quite a few teams in baseball had poor attendance, and revenue. So perhaps a team like the Cubs can pick up players, other teams do not want or can't afford to pay.
Some teams like the Padres, Marlins, Blue Jays and Rangers, perhaps even the Dodgers, will have to or won't keep certain players.
Bruce - I have heard lots of people speculate that Harden would get $11-$12 million in arbitration. I highly doubt that. His salary last year was $7 million. He has won 19 games combined over the last two seasons when he has had reasonable health, and is coming off a season where his ERA rose over 4,00. Does the arbitration process reward potential or strictly look at numbers based on peers with similar statistics? I just don't see Harden getting more than 8-8.5 million from an arbitrator if they are basing his salary on past performance. Am I wrong?
I fully agree with the sentiment that Hendry should focus on signing Harden. As the old saying goes, when you think you have enough pitching, go out and get some more pitching. The Cubs really don't have much depth left in the minors now to call upon if they have one or two of their SP's suffer an injury. Considering the off year that Harden just had and his past history of injuries, I don't see his camp submitting an arbitration figure above $12-13M at most. Hendry would probably submit about $8M and they would likely meet in the middle at around $10M to keep Hendry's perfect record of avoiding arbitration intact. I've said all along that would be money well spent and a much safer bet than signing him to a multi-year contract. And if Harden did reject arbitration, the Cubs would get a couple draft picks out of it if he were to sign elsewhere.
Hey Bruce,
If I am correct Grabow is a Type A free Agent? If this is the case why not offer him arbitration and wait. No one is going to give up a 1 or 2 rounder for him and this woud drive down the price like it did with many free agents last year. Orlando Hudson for example...
That would seem the way to do it. We'll see just how big a hurry the Cubs are in to re-sign him.
Dempster, Zambrano, Wells and pray? With Lily out with shoulder surgery?( I won't believe he will be back in late April until he gets a start in Wrigley.) Harden? Well, seems the Cubs managed him pretty well. I can't see him getting a huge $ offer with his health issues, unless the clinically insane Steinbrenner bros. give him $40 million for 4 years I would LOVE to say depend on the farm system But we are just now seeing SOME fruit from that vine, and don't want to waste a season on "he COULD win 12" Gorzelanny is a risk Wells had a good season, but enough to be so cocksure that you don't sign a guy like Harden? I don't think that would be prudent at all.
I think I'd rather see the Cubs go after John Lackey over Rich Harden. He seems to be a less volatile pitcher. His best might not match Harden's best, but I'd take consistent above-average performances over spotty ace-quality starts interspersed with terrible outings.
Bruce - Once again, your blogging about Cubs pitching makes a lot of sense. With the uncertainity of Lilly's health, possible sophomore slump from Wells and any unforeseen injuries to the starting staff the Cubs could use the depth from resigning Harden.
If they can get Harden for one season, I would resign him. But I don't trust his health for a multi year contract. There will be other options on the street willing to take a one year contract...example Jon Garland was cut today.
It seems to me that it is important to the planning process for Hendry to resolve the Bradley issue as soon as possible. If he trades Bradley for a pitcher with a bad contract (example - Silva of Mariners, Perez of Mets or my preference Kawakami of Braves) he might be able to bridge the gap until Lilly is recovered.
I almost see Hendry signing Harden as showing a lack of confidence in the farm system that he has helped build. Don't sign Harden and watch the young guys win 12-15 combined games next year in the 5th spot for like $2 million and Hendry has signed his ticket to stay in Chicago. Sign Harden and he's saying he's not sure about the pitching in his farm system which is something the Ricketts are supposed to be looking at quite a bit. Build from within, on the cheap.
If the Cubs can't make it two months without Lilly then there is no need to get Harden anyways because they aren't going to the playoffs next season. Marshall and Gorzellany can fill the holes in the rotation and maybe throw Samardzija and a few minor leaguers in there, too.
Plus, to sign Harden for $10 million+, Hendry will have to get rid of some of the current players to stay near where the payroll is supposed to be, correct?
James only had Harden throwing 135 innings next year. That's not enough to merit a contract that large.
If Hendry was so worried about what signing Harden would imply about his confidence in his farm system, what does signing Joey Gathright to $800k say? or Aaron Miles for $5M?
Signing a mediocre player like Miles implies a lot more about what Hendry thought about his farm system than signing an actually GOOD player like Harden would imply...
He's not stupid, He's TRYING to put the best team on the field...he's just not good at it. I don't think he's worried about his image.
That instead of spending $10 million to sign Harden, Hendry can show confidence in his farm system by relying on the guys he already has and for a lot less money. The farm system that the Ricketts want to rely on to build a strong baseball franchise. New owners, new (or at least stated) stance on the issue.
This is my general line for most of the Cubs spending, too. They have in-house options to fill a problem that's not, at the moment, critical.
What value is there in showing confidence in the farm? They have plenty of space for young arms to contribute. What they don't have is anybody capable of pitching as well as Harden has pitched when healthy, as a Cub. He will not give you 33 starts and 220 innings, but they knew that when they traded for him (giving up a quality arm and a prospect), and he's done exactly what they hoped he'd do.
Hendry showing confidence in guys who are incapable of replacing Harden's value doesn't make them better.
Outside of the strikeouts, what value are you speaking of? He had 9 wins last year and 5 the year before (10 total with Oakland). His career high for wins is 11. You don't think that Marshall, Gorzellany and Samardzija can combine for 11 wins? What parameters are you basing his value on? His games started, innings pitched, ERA and whip last season don't show him as being a ten million dollar pitcher.
Signing Harden because Lilly 'might' be out for a month would be a financial mistake. The wins can be made up by other players currently in the organization. If Hendry gets the OK to give Harden $10 million, he should think long and hard about whether he wants to use that money on a hitter or on a pitcher because he might just end up paying Harden $500k for each start he makes
Harden was a $20.0 million pitcher in 2008, and even this season he was worth $8.2M. Offering arbitration would result in one of two things. Either the Cubs get a supplemental draft pick, or the Cubs get Harden for one more year at about $10. And based on the Fangraphs information, that doesn't sound like all that bad of a risk; combined with the Lilly news, it should be a no brainer.
Harden insists he's healthy, but the only reason I can see Hendry not doing this is based on what they see in his medical records.
...will never be as good as any of us would like him to be, he's done a pretty good job this decade building successful teams. If he was so terrible at it, the Cubs wouldn't have five winning seasons out of their last seven and three postseason appearances. This does not excuse him from the boneheaded moves he's made, but then, close scrutiny of any GM in baseball--even the good ones, will reveal plenty of foolish manuevers that rival or even surpass his.
The Aaron Mileses and Freddy Bynums of the world aside, Hendry's been the best Cubs GM in memory, recent or long-term, and like it or not, the principal architect of easily the best decade of Cubs baseball since the 1930s.
ALL GM's make good moves. All make bad moves. Not all of them have $130 million in payroll.
Hendry doesn't know how to value a free agent. He overpays for ALL of them! And its already being rumored he's going to be doing it again when he signs Grabow.
Appreciate the input, Francisco. Look around baseball, and you'll see that Brian Sabean Ned Colletti and even Theo Epstein have made some really bad moves. What you hope, if you're a fan of a team, is that your GM learns from past mistakes and doesn't make the same kind over and over again. While the Aaron Miles signing was a bad one, trading for Harden was a good deal. Hendry even had his heart in the right place with Bradley, as he took into account such metrics as OBP and OPS.
We'll see what the Ricketts family values and how they view things within the coming year.
Harden is a must sign. At least offer arbitration to him. Both options are decent: either Harden excepts arb and they settle for something like 10ish million or he declines and they get draft picks.
Harden might injury prone, but Mark O'Neill and the rest of the training staff under Hendry's watch have done a great job keeping oft injured players healthy relative to the rest of the league. It's not always going to work all the time and fluke injuries happen (See Prior, Mark. Wood, Kerry; Miller, Wade; Garciaparra, Nomar), but it worked with Alou, Dempster, Bradley(hey at least they kept him healthy! :P), Harden, and I'm sure I'm missing a few on the positive end.
The point is the Cubs would lose their most talented pitcher the last two seasons (xFIP of 3.60 and 3.74 in '08 and '09 respectively) and that just can't happen. It would have been bad before the Lilly surgery, it's even worse now.
On the Bradley front. It sounds like he's a royal pain in the *ss and very uhhh shall we say grating. I don't have any doubt that's true any more after your interview at ACB, you were very adamant about that and gave some rather poignant examples, but losing a player who has that much talent seems to be still rather foolish. Bradley/The Cubs have combined to basically torpedoe his trade value. The suspension at the end of the season basically told the world the Cubs are not going to keep Milton Bradley.
Why in the world would any GM trade for him when they could just wait for the Cubs to dump him and force them to pick up the entirety of the salary without giving up players?
Essentially, why buy the cow when they could get the milk for free?
At this point they have almost no choice, at least if they were going to be economically sensible about it, to either very cleverly regain leverage or stick with Bradley. But any posturing they do will be seen as trying to regain leverage instead of honest reconciliation.
I don't see how the Cubs solve this situation without paying for all of MB's contract or keeping him.
Do you see another way Bruce?
About all Hendry can do here is create some demand or at least the illusion of demand for a guy who does hold some offensive value. If Team X figures Team Y is making an offer to get Bradley, maybe Team X calls and says, "We'll give you this player or that for Bradley." The more teams that are involved or at least looked to be involved or interested, the better chance Hendry has of making a trade and not simply releasing Bradley.
If Hendry can somehow get Bradley's salary off the books, would the Cubs have enough payroll space to pursue Matsui? Have the Cubs mentioned him at all? I'm sure he wouldn't be worth what he would cost, but he seems like the exact kind of guy Hendry wanted last year when he got Bradley.
If you mean Hideki (opposed to Kaz) I don't think he (his knees) could handle playing the OF. He's strictly a DH for the rest of his career.
I thought he would have been a nice addition by trade.