Cubs - Signed DeRosa

Chicago Cubs - Signed 2B Mark DeRosa to a 3-year contract worth $13 million.

Everybody’s awash in cash, the Red Sox are spending enough to buy the Royals on a pitcher that would generate a ton of resources…revenue-shared resources…, and now the Cubs are giving more than $4 million a year to a really good utility infielder who can start at 2B for a few years while he’s cheap.

Now, this will help the Cubs on the baseball side, mostly because starting a second baseman who shouldn’t be paid $4 million a year is a better idea than starting one of the 50 second basemen they have around that shouldn’t be paid $0 million a year.  It’s still overpaying based on DeRosa’s career season, however, and there’s nothing DeRosa can do that a Joe Inglett can’t.  It’s not as sexy (though signing DeRosa isn’t really all that hot), but giving Keith Ginter a chance to make a comeback is a better idea than this.  ZiPS sees DeRosa as really stable the next 3 years, but the concern about DeRosa isn’t about his play declining but his play to begin with.

2007 ZiPS Projection - Mark DeRosa
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              AB   R    H  2B 3B  HR RBI  BB  SO  SB    BA   OBP   SLG  
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Projection   404  54  107  30  1   8  49  32  85   2  .265  .324  .403

2008         363  50   94  25  1   8  43  30  71   2  .259  .324  .399

2009         355  48   93  26  1   7  42  29  72   2  .262  .326  .400
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Opt. (15%)   458  72  132  37  2  12  64  43  85   3  .288  .357  .456 

Pess. (15%   264  29   62  16  0   3  25  17  65   0  .235  .286  .330
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