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Is Lake’s star rising?

The Cubs went into 2010 with quite a few shortstop prospects vying for four minor-league spots. Hak-Ju Lee was the frontrunner at Peoria, ahead of Logan Watkins. At Daytona, Junior Lake held a slight edge over LeMahieu. Castro started the season at Tennessee, with Flaherty forced over to second or third. Barney was the incumbent at Iowa.

Lee and Barney have had all-star seasons. Castro has done even better, earning a promotion to the big club and entering the conversation for NL ROY. The same age as Castro, Lake had struggled (.248/.277/.365) at Peoria in 2009 and was shaky starting out this season at Daytona, batting .209 during April and May.

Then Lake hit .279 in June and is hitting .307 in July, raising his overall average to .261. Significantly, Lake has seven home runs this month, plus one last month for a total of eight. That’s a lot of bombs for a tall, skinny 20-year-old shortstop. He is slugging .636 for the month.

Lake hit seven HRs last year at Peoria, so he already has fifteen in A ball. By comparison, Castro hit three home runs last year and one this year before his big call-up. Since then he has collected three more HRs, for a total of seven. Barney has hit five home runs last year and this year. Hak-Ju Lee has three, including two at Boise.

Before this month, I knew a couple of interesting items about Lake beyond the fact that the Cubs seem to like him at shortstop and are willing to move other people over to accommodate him. First, he has a gun, the best throwing arm among the organization’s blue-chip shortstop prospects. Second, I knew that he hit a grand-slam home run last season in Peoria that was memorable. Here is an account from the Chiefs’ website last August 14th:

[Lake] blasted one of the longest home runs hit at O’Brien Field this season, the Chiefs fourth grand slam of the year to make it a 5-0 score. Lake’s slam cleared O’Brien Field entirely, landed on Jefferson Street and ended up near the Caterpillar building well beyond the left field limits.

And here is the Peoria Star-Journal’s description of the home run:

The Chiefs led 1-0 when Lake, Friday’s designated hitter, broke the game open with a mammoth grand slam in the fourth inning. The ball one-hopped the Caterpillar building beyond the left field wall.
“We weren’t getting good swings until that, when Junior hit it out of Peoria County,” Pevey said. “It wasn’t just a line drive either, it was a bomb. I think that got us going, and it just rattled them.”

It’s just one home run, but you need a certain amount of power to do it even once. The idea of a lanky shortstop with power is intriguing to me, not only because, growing up in Sox country on the south side, I was lured to the Cubs by Ernie Banks, but also because one of the memorable home runs I’ve witnessed was a golf shot by a young, very tall and skinny Giant third baseman named Kingman.

Speaking of third base, after an off day last Monday, Lake switched positions with LeMahieu, and played third for the next three games. It is probably not a coincidence that Josh Vitters had broken his hand a few days earlier, as a result of which the Cubs may have glimpsed an opening for Lake that the crowded shortstop position might never afford him.

Posted 30 July 2010 † Phil § prospect ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Zambrano and Bradley

I grew up watching the Cubs play ball in the afternoon, when I could have been watching soap operas. I feel pretty much the same way today.

What I find interesting and relevant about Zambrano is that he doesn’t have very good aim with any of his pitches. His minimal pitching motion is also a concern.

When I think of Milton Bradley on the Cubs, I remember a hitter who rarely hit a ball hard. When he did, it was sometimes to left center but usually in foul territory down the right-field line. Von Joshua diagnosed Bradley’s lefty swing in detail and concluded, “You can’t hit like that.”

The misbehavior and the melodrama are less important to me than the technical shortcomings.

Posted 03 July 2010 † Phil § bradley § coaching ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Trading season

With the late-July trading season approaching, the usual rule applies that you trade older, more expensive players at positions where you have a surplus. While I hope they make a few deals, this team does not need to be “blown up,” as some fans are saying. The Cubs won’t make the postseason, and the team is barely watchable, but I still think they are on the rise. I am not a disgruntled Cub fan.

In ways that matter, this is the healthiest Cub organization I have seen in my lifetime, simply because it has started to generate its own position players. One could argue that it did that successfully for a while in the sixties, which was well within my lifetime; but that was an oasis in the desert, nearly fifty years ago, and it was also something of a mirage. Maybe if they had held onto Brock . . .

It’s not a bad season when you bring up a Colvin, a Castro and a Cashner, and they all show definite signs of sticking. A couple more crops like this one and you’re the Tampa Bay Rays. This year they found a right fielder, a shortstop and a stopper (who in due time may be their ace). Next year we’ll see a new centerfielder and second baseman. 2012 will likely bring a new third baseman and–knock wood–a new face in left. There will be several other pitchers and several surprises. I don’t have an exact timetable, but at some point, like all good young teams this one will catch fire.

At the very least, I view the situation as hopeful, and I find that refreshing in itself. I don’t agree that hope springs eternal when you are a Cub fan. Hopelessness has been advisable for decades.

Many Cub fans, it appears, do not share my optimism, and are clamoring for the Cubs to 1) fire the manager, 2) fire the GM and 3) trade the veterans who are in free-agency years.

Fire the manager? Lou is in the final half-season of his contract and will depart at the end of the season in any case. Grant him a dignified exit. I have no issue at all with Lou. He changes the lineup every day because there is no good batting order for this bunch, especially with the 3 and 4 hitters mired in slumps. The only real top-of-the-order hitter on the team is 20 years old and Lou is trying to break him in gently, so he hits him eighth. Unfortunately, you are only allowed one #8 in the batting order, so there is the dilemma of what to do with Theriot and Fukudome. Only one position player in the opening-day lineup, Marlon Byrd, is having a good season. Fire the manager?

You could fire Jim Hendry, who would be the first to admit that Soriano, Fukudome, Bradley and Samardzija were terrible free agent signings. (Samardzija was drafted and not technically a free agent, but given his NFL opportunities, he had to be lured with free-agent dollars.) On the other hand, someone built the minor-league organization that is one of the better ones, if not one of the best, in baseball. The four teams from triple-A Iowa down to low-A Peoria are enjoying winning seasons, and more importantly, they are producing better-than-average major-league players.

In the past, the organization would produce just a small handful of position players in a decade, with an occasional all-star. The eighties were actually a little better than that, producing Jody Davis in ‘81, Joe Carter in ‘83, Dunston in ‘85, Palmeiro in ‘86, Grace in ‘88 and Girardi in ‘89. Among them, these six had seventeen all-star appearances. Unfortunately, eight of Carter’s and Palmeiro’s nine appearances were in other than Cub uniforms, and the late-eighties and early-nineties teams never panned out. Then a funny thing happened around 1990. The well ran dry. Soto, the next homegrown position-playing all-star, came along in 2008, nineteen years after Girardi. It was in the context of this talent dearth that Jim Hendry embarked on his spending spree in 2006-07.

Today you have Colvin and Castro with a shot at being stars, and Brett Jackson maybe making the team out of spring training next season, or sooner if the GM can make a few bold moves. Others are on the way, including a #3 pick. Hendry signed Wilken and Fleita and the managers and coaches and scouts. With his mixed record in free-agent deals and with conservative new ownership, Hendry will not be tempted by marquee free agents. He set the new tone last winter when he worked hard on smaller-scale but successful deals for Silva and Byrd.

On balance, then, Hendry should stay. The team is going to improve whether he stays or goes. Hendry might as well get some credit for it, since it was his judgment, his spadework, his people that rebuilt the organization.

Hendry does have one serious problem going forward. He is on the hook for the remaining years of Soriano’s contract, which I don’t think the Cubs can realistically honor. They have to honor the contract in terms of paying it, but I don’t think they can trade Soriano and I don’t think they can keep him. Nor do I see how the Cubs can eat that large amount of money–counting down from $136 million, one drip at a time, like chemotherapy, it’s about $80 million today–without the GM who signed the contract being required to fall on his sword. Soriano may be the end of Hendry. For me, that will be a bit of a shame. Hendry’s leaving will not make the Cubs better.

A few months ago in a fit of wishful thinking, I wrote about the possibility of Soriano approaching 30 HRs this year and next year, and actually becoming tradeable after the 2011 season, when there will be $54 million to go on the contract, with the Cubs perhaps willing to pay $35 million. The concept is that someone might pay $10 million a year for two years for an aging Soriano if the Cubs were willing to pay $35, including the entire $18 in the third year. That will be the eighth year of the horrendous contract given to this dim bulb out in left field. Whether Hendry can survive that multimillion-dollar hit depends on how the Cubs are looking at the time. I remain optimistic.

The two significant players who will be entering free agency are Lee and Lilly. Lee is hitting .237, with 73 strikeouts(!) before the end of June. He has some trade value. The problem with trading Lee is that the Cubs are not grooming Lee’s replacement at first base, as they are at several other positions. For the most part, Tim Wilken doesn’t draft slugging corner infielders. Apart from pitchers, the pre-Wilken Cubs used to draft primarily slugging corner infielders, people like Fox and Hoffpauir and Sing and Dopirak and McGehee and Choi and Dubois. Wilken drafts shortstops and centerfielders and catchers. From those, he derives corner outfielders and second, first and third basemen. It’s unclear who would play first the day after Lee was traded. Perhaps it would be Nady, but he is on a one-year deal that won’t be renewed. Who plays first next year? The best Wilken draftee for the position is Rebel Ridling, but he is in high A ball. At Tennessee you have Blake Lalli, a decent middle-of-the order hitter with a .300 lifetime minor-league BA. At Iowa, it’s Hoffpauir or LaHair. I still think Hoffpauir could put up decent numbers if he played every day, but he can’t accomplish what Lee did last year, and may do again next year.

In explaining why he thought Zambrano had scuffled with the wrong teammate, Carlos Silva called Lee “a special guy.” I agree with Silva. If you could sign Lee for not-too-many years and not-too-much money, you would be a better team as a result. Colvin would look good in Lee’s slot in the batting order, so Lee’s status as the focal point of the offense should be adjusted downward. Lee would not have to play every day, as he does now. Pay him accordingly. The key point is that there is no real pressure from below Lee in the organization.

Ted Lilly is considered a valuable trading chip. The problem, again, is that there is not much pressure being exerted on Lilly from within the organization. The only lefty starter in the high minors is J.R. Mathes, who I don’t think will ever throw a pitch in the majors. Lilly has been a number 1 or number 2 starter. Unless you like Gorzellany, or you think Sean Marshall is ready to step up, the team gets worse on the day Lilly departs. I actually think Marshall might be ready. In any case, Lilly may be in high demand, which will give the Cubs no choice but to let him go. If they expect to let him go after the season, then certainly they should trade him now.

In principle, I’m all for trading Ryan Theriot, but Theriot is 15 for 18 in stolen bases, and I would expect a new second baseman to make up those SBs, which Fontenot and Baker can’t do. The Cubs are pitifully slow, although with Colvin and Castro they are moving in the right direction. Darwin Barney is a singles hitter who doesn’t steal bases. Hak-Ju Lee is a few years away. The player I like the most to fill Theriot’s shoes is LeMahieu, who is at Daytona but could be called up to Tennessee tomorrow. LeMahieu slumped early this season but after hitting .340 in June, he has brought his BA up over .290. LeMahieu stole 3 bases after the Cubs drafted him last June, but this year he is a running man: 11 of 15 bases stolen. Apparently he has read the job description for Theriot’s replacement. What I most like about LeMahieu is the 50th run batted in on June 29, which projects to 80 for the season. LeMahieu is a run producer. His season average with RISP is .340. He doesn’t hit home runs, but I believe that is because he is an opposite-field hitter. Depending on how soon LeMahieu gets to AA, and how well he does there, the Cubs could contemplate trading Theriot in the offseason. Other near-term candidates for Theriot’s job are Flaherty and Tony Thomas, who is quietly having a productive season at Tennessee. Flaherty is hitting well at Daytona but needs to prove himself at the next level. He is not a base stealer but projects as a power-hitting middle infielder.

I would offer Soto for trade. Hill is a better catcher. So is Castillo, who is having something of a breakout year at the plate in Iowa. Third string would be Chirinos, who over the past season and a half (plus a winter season in Venezuela where he was 2nd MVP) has hit like Soto did at Iowa in ‘07. Soto is a nice player and would fetch a nice return. The key is that he is replaceable immediately.

Posted 01 July 2010 † Phil § Hendry § Piniella § prospect § soriano § trade ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hitting prospects 2010

This is a new prospect-rating system, adapted from my recent player-value ratings that yielded dollar values for major leaguers. In that system, an offensive player earned points for total bases, walks and stolen bases. Why those particular numbers? Because, as I explained at the time,

They are the means by which a player gets around the bases, in the direction of home, under his own power, without help from the defense (except the pitcher) or from the batters behind him.

In the table below, prospects earn points for each total base, walk or SB. I adjust total points by subtracting the number of games played. Then I divide the adjusted points by games played. A score of one or higher means that you earned 2 or more points per game. In an average game, in other words, you had two or more total bases, walks or steals. Zero or higher means that you earned one or more point per game. 17 players (in this first tabulation on May 18th) have scores above 1, while 26 are below that score.

Think of a score of 1 as a promotability threshold. Hitters above that line will merit a promotion in midseason. Such promotions allow a real prospect to move up quickly. Borderline prospects wait till the end of the season and then hope for a social promotion (to keep the group together, etc).

A few notes on the results:

Matt Spencer, lefty-hitting 1B/OF acquired from Oakland in the Fox deal, was a good acquisition.

Justin Bour, lefty-hitting first baseman for Peoria, is the minor-league “rookie” (first full year in pro ball) highest in the rankings.

Darwin Barney has a nice BA at Iowa but his hits are mostly singles and he doesn’t walk or steal much. This holds his score down. Hak-Ju Lee has a low BA but a fair number of walks and steals, so he scores higher than Barney.

When you think about trading major-leaguers, you look at the pressure that is being generated below them in the organization. I have been saying that Theriot is tradeable–and certainly Castro brushed him aside easily–but nobody in the system seems to want Theriot’s second-base job. I was expecting better seasons out of Flaherty and LeMahieu, and I thought Lee and Watkins would be in a bigger rush. Theriot can continue to hold off Scales and Barney.

The real pressure is in the outfield and behind the plate. Six of the top eight hitting prospects here are outfielders, while #2 and #12 are catchers. Accordingly, I expect Fukudome to be traded any month now, and I continue to believe that Geovany Soto is prime trade bait. The fact that a player is hitting well makes a trade more, not less, likely.

Posted 18 May 2010 † Phil § prospect ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Pitching prospects 2010

Welcome to another season of ranking pitching prospects according to the Marmol Index, where we subtract hits per nine innings from strikeouts per nine innings. Here is what I wrote recently in justification of this unusual metric:

It’s easy to defend the Marmol index. These are the strikeout pitchers. The best scouting report, after all, is what a hitter mutters to himself on the way back to the dugout. A pitcher near the top of this list is a batboy’s friend, routinely forcing hitters to carry their own bats back to the rack.

WHIP is a fine pitching stat, but it rewards pitchers with better control, and control doesn’t tell you much about a prospect’s arm. The Marmol Index ignores walks (as does Marmol, and as must his pitching coach and manager). A high Marmol-index score means your arm is propelling you toward the majors. When the WHIP falls into line, you’re ready.

After a month of games, two lefties, Beliveau and Buchter, are at or near the top, just as in 2009, when both were at Peoria. Buchter skipped Daytona this year, while Beliveau began there but was soon sent back to Peoria, apparently to get used to working out of the pen. He had been a starter in ‘09. By the numbers, it’s not clear what else he can accomplish at Peoria.

Players are ranked, as I indicated, by K/9 minus H/9, the far-right column. Five of the first eighteen–McNutt, Grife, Suarez, Nagel and Struck–are at Peoria for the first time, so the pipeline is being filled.

It’s good to see Andrew Cashner and Aaron Shafer, first and second rounders in 2008, scoring well here. Shafer’s WHIP puts him at number 4 behind Leverton, Suarez and Jackson.

Posted 08 May 2010 † Phil § prospect ‡ Comments (0) °

Unheralded

Tony Campana is center fielder and leadoff hitter for the Tennessee Smokies in the Southern League. As we approach the end of April, Campana sports the highest batting average (.403) on the winningest team (15-3) in the minor leagues. That he is starting his second full professional season in double A means that the organization has him on a fast track. Double A players are often considered a phone call away from the majors.

Campana stole 66 bases in his “rookie” season at A level in the minors. The major league team that would be on the other end of the phone is notable for its lack of speed on the bases. Of Cub regulars, only Theriot has an interest in stealing bases, and he seems to be getting heavier and stronger, not quicker, as he matures. There is a lot of talent on the Cub bench, more than ever, perhaps, but it is not running talent. There is a fit, then, between the Cubs and Campana. In recent seasons, the Cubs have addressed their need for speed with additions like Pie or Fuld or Gathright. The next time that particular need is addressed, the call will probably go out to Campana–or possibly Brandon Guyer. The absolute least you can say about Campana is that he is on the team’s radar, that he is a prospect.

Something must be wrong, then, with prospect rankings, because I can’t find Campana’s name on any list of Cub prospects. See for yourself on this page of links. Most of the lists have ten, fifteen or twenty names, but one of them (Diamond Futures) ranks 38 Cub prospects and then throws in another 31 as unranked C-level honorable mentions. Campana isn’t in anyone’s top 10, 15 or 20, or even DF’s top 69. What is going on here?

The quick answer is that singles hitters who steal bases often do not rank high in OBP or slugging. Slugging is less of an issue at the top of the order, but why doesn’t Campana grow his OBP by walking more–by being more selective, as it is called? Why doesn’t Juan Pierre draw more walks? For that matter, shouldn’t Lou Brock have walked more?

(The simple answer to why singles hitters who steal aggressively don’t draw walks is that pitchers are not stupid.)

A deeper exploration of the bias against leadoff-type hitters might point to an argument between two influential “parties” in baseball, whom I’ll call the Ins and the Outs. If this sounds political, it is. The Ins are the owners, GMs, managers, coaches and fans, all of whom appreciate a player like Campana and feel he has a role. As I indicated, the Cubs have found Campana to be very promotable. Around the NL, Michael Bourn, Nyger Morgan and Dexter Fowler have similar hitting profiles to Campana and enjoy starting gigs in center field. Willy Taveras was in that group for several years and Juan Pierre just switched leagues.

The Outs are baseball’s counter culture, the gurus, the green eyeshades, the intellectuals, the professors of baseball who use statistics to demonstrate that the plum jobs in the game they love have been handed out to the wrong people. The blogging and prospect-ranking elite are of this group. For whatever reason (and that is another essay), they do not seem to like speed on the bases, defensive prowess, athleticism, tools.

For our purposes, it simply needs to be emphasized that Tony Campana does not merit invisibility, that he is a genuine prospect, someone who has a shot if he continues to crank out singles and steal bases.

Posted 27 April 2010 † Phil § prospect ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , ,

Running prospects 2010

The Cubs would score runs in more innings, and thus do better in low-scoring games, if they had hitters who were better adapted to the top of the order. Obviously, Byrd is not a leadoff hitter, nor does Baker belong anywhere other than six through eight. Can either of them bunt, or hit and run, or beat out an infield hit and swipe second ahead of Lee and Ramirez? Fukudome is old and slow. It’s a funny thing about Theriot and Fontenot. By reputation they are “scrappy,” but really they are the opposite. They are not small-ballers. Both men try to play bigger than they are. Theriot bunted in the lead run against Houston last week, but bunting is not his game. (That particular bunt was barely fair and was crossing the foul line when the first baseman opted to field it.)

Help is on the way, though. Tennessee leads the ten-team Southern League in stolen bases (and most other offensive categories including BA and OPS). Tennessee has three speedsters, Campana, Guyer and Castro, who are off to fast starts in AA and could conceivably slot into the Cub lineup, at one or two, later this season.

Peoria is second in the sixteen-team Midwest League in steals. Center fielder Jose Valdez is tied for first in the league with 9 SBs, while shortstop Hak-Ju Lee is third with 7. Last night, Lee reached twice and stole second and third both times. He scored one of the runs in a 2-1 win.

Below is a system-wide (Peoria through Iowa, plus Boise when they get going) base-stealing spreadsheet that I will try to update at least weekly.

Posted 20 April 2010 † Phil § Running § prospect ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Player value

Can Soriano or Fukudome be traded?

Following Tyler Colvin’s impressive spring performance, Lou Piniella has promised to steal three starts a week from Byrd and Fukudome and give them to Colvin. Xavier Nady, meanwhile, will replace Soriano from time to time. Truth be told–and the truth is seldom more than whispered when hefty contracts are in the background–the Cub skipper would rather have Nady in left and Colvin in right. Soriano’s remaining contract is $18 million a year for five years. Fukudome is not far behind, with $13M coming his way this year and $13.5 next year. Fans often forget that you trade the contract, not the player. To trade a contract, you have to know what the contract pays and what the player’s value is today, and be willing to eat (one way or another) any shortfall.

Here is a back-of-the-envelope formula for calculating a player’s current worth. If nothing else, this formula has the virtue of simplicity. Pick a player and a season. Add three numbers: total bases, walks and steals. This gives you a point total. Multiply this total by a per-point dollar-value constant that you use for all players in all seasons. The result is the amount of money the player should have earned in the season in question.

Simple enough? Total bases, walks and steals have something in common, after all. They are the means by which a player gets around the bases, in the direction of home, under his own power, without help from the defense (except the pitcher) or from the batters behind him.

There are two slight wrinkles in the formula. The number I use as the constant is somewhat arbitrary, but it is based on a real contract, namely, Soriano’s contract with the Cubs following his monster 2006 season in Washington. Soriano earned 470 points that season (362 + 67 + 41). Divide that total into 17 million, the average dollars the Cubs promised Soriano per year over eight years. The result is the constant that, when it is multiplied by 470, gets us back to 17 million. The math is circular in terms of Soriano’s 2006 season; but for other players, their value is being computed based on what Soriano earned after his 470-point season. It’s always going to be a guess as to which player, after which season, got exactly what he deserved. The Cubs thought Soriano had a few more 470-point seasons in him, and paid him accordingly. Obviously, in hindsight it should have been a four- or five-year contract, but I can’t be sure that a team ever worries much about the out years in a very long contract, so I don’t assume that the Cubs would have paid Soriano more per season for three or four years than they did for eight. Agree or disagree with that thinking, but there it is. If you disagree, use a shorter contract than Soriano’s to derive the constant value.

The other slight wrinkle is that I didn’t use Soriano’s 470 points to divide into 17 million. I subracted 200 points and used the remainder, 270. Before I did that, the salary numbers were skewed in favor of lower-quality players. Let me illustrate this with Ryan Theriot and Albert Pujols in 2009. Pujols had 505 points. Theriot’s point total–294–was 58 percent of Pujols’. Theriot’s value on the free-agent market is not 58% of Albert Pujols’. There are a certain number of points that represent minimal competence and are not recompensed. Below that threshold, you are not in the majors. I put that threshold, again somewhat arbitrarily, at 200 points.

Scan the spreadsheet below and decide if you think the formula works. In most cases, I use numbers from a player’s season leading up to free agency, and the contract numbers that flowed from that season. There are some discrepancies, especially at the high end where teams like Boston and New York and agents like Scott Boras are involved, and also an outlier involving Bobby Abreu. Overall, I think the formula works nicely especially considering how simple and intutive it is. I don’t see much point in tweaking the formula to get values to align more closely with salaries, since teams sometimes get a bargain and sometimes overpay.

If Fukudome is worth just under $7 million, well, that’s more than I thought. He did hit 38 doubles last season, which is a solid number. I’m not generally a fan of walks, but 93 is a big number. I guess a walk is as good as a single when no one is on base. Fukudome is tradeable, then, if the Cubs agree to pick up half his salary, which they have shown a willingness to do in the past, as when they traded Marquis’s $10 million contract and picked up $1 million of it, plus the $4 million contract of a worthless pitcher. They traded Bradley’s $21 million contract for another one worth $16 million, again for a pitcher who might be worthless (but so far has looked good).

To keep his trade value up, Fukudome will need to play a lot, so maybe Colvin will sub more frequently for Byrd. The Cubs like Byrd, and at the moment have no plans to trade him. So he can be subbed for. That’s the upside-down logic imposed by expensive free agency.

Soriano’s value has sunk quite low. He cannot be traded and must therefore play every day. There is that logic again, but even knowing that it is twisted, I still subscribe to it. I can never look at Soriano’s career numbers and not be struck by his earlier hitting prowess. Consider those 362 total bases in 2006. On the table below, only Holliday in ‘07 with 386, A-Rod in ‘07 (376) and Pujols last year (374) racked up higher TBs. That’s fast company. Those fellows are worth a lot of money. Soriano also had 381 TBs back in 2002 with the Yankees, and 358 the following year. You simply cannot give up on a talent like this if it means swallowing $50+ million. My advice to the Cubs would be to give Soriano two more years to put up healthy numbers to the point where he is tradeable, at half of his salary, for the two following years. Whatever years are left on his contract at that point, the Cubs will have to eat entirely. But the time to give up on Soriano is not upon us yet.

Maybe he’ll be great again. Am I dreaming?

A few comments about the spreadsheet:

This is LBFC, and I can appreciate a player who specializes in singles and steals. It does not surprise me that Juan Pierre can command $8.8 million/year for five years. The formula has him worth more than that. I added a row for Matt Kemp to illustrate that Pierre simply was superseded by a younger player with a higher value. Like Theriot, Kemp is still under club control and cannot earn what he is worth.

Holliday seems to have gotten a contract for 2010 and beyond, based on his performance in 2007. Speaking of Holliday, if I were inclined to tweak the player values I might deduct 15-20% for left fielders across the board. I don’t think the Cubs had any idea how poor an outfielder Soriano was when they signed him. At the time, they were considering him for center field. Adam Dunn’s agent certainly ran into resistance based on his client’s defensive play.

Joe Mauer spent the first month of his 2009 MVP season on the DL, or his points would be higher and more in line with his new contract. The Twins are also compensating him for the years when he was underpaid.

Posted 08 April 2010 † Phil § soriano § trade ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Tossed

Mariners outfielder Milton Bradley was ejected from Friday night’s game against the Reds at Goodyear Ballpark, marking the second straight spring contest from which he’s been tossed.

On Friday night in the top of the fourth inning, Bradley, who started in left field and hit an RBI double in the first, appeared to dispute a third strike called by home plate umpire Jon Merry and was immediately tossed. He was replaced by Joe Dunigan.

It was a similar incident to what happened in Bradley’s last start, Wednesday night in Peoria, when the outfielder was ejected by home plate umpire Dan Bellino for dropping his bat and taking off his gloves after being called out on strikes in a game against Texas. –mlb.com

Bradley has a kind of mild autism. He can’t sense what the people around him are doing, except that they’re getting in his face. He lacks insight into what home plate umpires try to do.

Not that an umpire’s job is easy to figure out, or that it’s spelled out in the rule book. But most players figure it out.

It’s a common misconception that umpires call balls and strikes. They call strikes. A pitch is a ball by default, unless the ump signals a strike by raising his right arm and barking something. In a high percentage of at-bats, Bradley gets to two strikes and then dares the ump to call a third and final one. The ump thinks, That’s my job, buddy. You do your job–protecting the plate with two strikes–and I’ll do mine.

Umps also enforce a certain kind of ballplaying, which can be summarized in the old coach’s challenge to “be a hitter.” Umps have always widened the strike zone for hitters who look like they are trying to draw a walk. Otherwise, Eddie Gaedel would have had a long career. Umps are old-fashioned, while Bradley is modern, a child of the OBP era, in which a walk is at least as good as a hit. Protecting the plate with two strikes is not something Bradley would consider doing.

When Bradley enters the batter’s box, the present collides with the past, often with tectonic results.

Posted 20 March 2010 † Phil § bradley ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Supersub

Lou Piniella says his pitching coach won’t let him keep fewer than twelve pitchers on the 25-man active roster. That leaves thirteen position players, of whom ten, I would say, have already made the team. The ten includes two catchers (Soto, Hill), four infielders (Lee, Fontenot, Theriot, Ramirez) and four outfielders (Soriano, Byrd, Fukudome, Nady). Baker is believed to have made the team also, and that may be true. Still, he’s not a starter, and he makes under a million. I think he might be on the same bubble that Fontenot was on until he performed well this spring. The Cubs have at least two openings for position players, then, and quite possibly three.

In terms of what the team wants out of those final three players, I would cite six functional categories. The Cubs need a player who can –

1) fill in occasionally for Lee and Ramirez
2) fill in defensively for Theriot and Fontenot
3) provide some offense at second base when Fontenot slumps
4) fill in defensively for Soriano
5) fill in offensively for Fukudome
6) serve as emergency catcher

Lou seems to be trying to finesse number two by making Fontenot the backup shortstop, but that is a reach. Fontenot could use a late-inning defensive sub himself.

Baker was brought in last season while Fontenot was mired in a slump, and he played every day and did fairly well. The team certainly wants someone like Baker–though not necessarily Baker–as insurance at second base.

Fukudome hits in the two-hole for two reasons: it would be a shame to waste all those walks, and a right fielder hitting eighth would be impossible to trade. A right fielder hitting second is not highly desirable either, but you have to bat him somewhere until Nady is ready to play the outfield. Meanwhile, a substitute outfielder with some pop would take starts away from Fukudome, which Nady is bound to do, eventually, anyway.

I have explained previously why I think the Cubs need three catchers. Lou doesn’t seem to have much confidence in Soto behind the plate, and he tended late last season to bring in Hill–if he wasn’t in the game already–during the late innings of close games. You can only do that if you have a third catcher. Jake Fox was available in an emergency last year.

Below is a table with six columns, one for each of the requirements given above. As shorthand in the column headers, I merely give the name of the player(s) to be substituted for, and I use (O) in parentheses to signify a mainly offensive substitution, and (D) to indicate a more defensive role.

The candidates for the three roster spots are listed in individual rows, with an X in any column where the player fulfills the requirement. A large X means that the player satisfies the requirement in a big way. A small x means that the requirement is satisfied to an extent.

Lee/Aram Theriot/Font(D) Fontenot(O) Soriano(D) Fukudome(O) Soto/Hill
Chad Tracy X
Kevin Millar X
Darwin Barney X x
Andres Blanco X
Jeff Baker X X x
Tyler Colvin X X
Brad Snyder X X
Sam Fuld X
Jim Adduci X x
R. Chirinos X x X X
Chris Robinson X
W. Castillo X

You may glean from the table that the supersub in the title of this piece is Robinson Chirinos. I see Chirinos as capable of performing a role similar to that of Mark DeRosa a couple of seasons ago. A problem with the comparison is that DeRosa did not catch.

Another problem with the comparison, I will admit, is that Chirinos is hardly a proven major-league hitter. He had a breakout season in 2009, but it was in high-A. Still, newfound power is power. Ballparks are the same dimensions at every level. In Venezuela this winter (also not the major leagues) Chirinos put up remarkable numbers and came in second in MVP voting. Small data sample, but in 7 at bats this spring, Chirinos has 3 hits including a double and a home run. At least Piniella has seen with his own eyes that he has a catching prospect with some pop. No other catcher in camp has a home run this spring.

Chirinos has been catching for two seasons. Before that, he was a middle infielder. By that I mean a real middle infielder, one who can play shortstop. He played 100 games at short as recently as 2007. He is experienced at second and third. Baker, when he came up from the minors in 2007, was a third baseman and sometime outfielder. He has never played shortstop as a pro, and he tried second for the first time at any level in 2008.

Go down the rows yourself and fill in your own X’s if you don’t agree with mine. Who gives you the most bang for your buck? If you put Chirinos on the team and also Colvin or Snyder (or maybe Adduci), you’ve X’ed every column and you’re left with a free roster spot to do anything you want with!

Absent Chirinos–he may get sent to minor-league camp later today–you can fill in all the boxes except catcher with Baker, Colvin/Snyder(/Adduci) and Blanco/Barney.

Posted 19 March 2010 † Phil § Hendry § Piniella § prospect ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , , , , , , , ,