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Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Sunday, August 08, 2021When Will the Cubs Roar Again?
RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)
Posted: August 08, 2021 at 10:20 PM | 34 comment(s)
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1. Walt Davis Posted: August 08, 2021 at 11:26 PM (#6033493)Indications: Cubs ownership has not spent extra money in three years, since Kimbrel who was only "made possible" due to Zobrist's leave without pay. Second, I suppose it's not tecnhically an indicator as it is past often predicts future, they didn't spend much in the down years under Theo. They grabbed David DeJesus who was less average than expected, signed a couple of flyers on 1-year pitcher contracts (one worked out, the others didn't if I recall), eventually signed Edwin Jackson (much less average than expected). Third, this is an atrocious team right now. I don't know where 71 wins comes from. They lost 4 of 5 before the deadline, have lost 6 of 7 since. The are 10-21 since the end of June which only includes half of their 11-game losing streak.
As it stands, the 2022 Cubs have 2 above-average players in Hendricks and Contreras (not that Hendricks is having a good season), one who might be in Madrigal (probably depends on health) and if they're lucky 5 average players in Happ, Hoerner, Azolay and the surprising Ortega and Wisdom. The other 18 spots on the roster and 14 on the 40-man are not good. Add $50 M to that and you've got a bad team.
I won't be surprised if they're in on a Miles Mikolas type or Lance Lynn 2018 and you never know when one of those pays off big time. I assume they'll take some flyers on a Scott Feldman type. I won't even rule out the possiblity of a Rizzo or Javy return, especially if Javy is the loser in the SS competition. (Acquiring Madrigal though does strongly suggest Hoerner to SS which means no Javy.) I don't know if SD have any prospects they're willing to part with at this point but I'd be more expecting something like the Cubs using their payroll room to eat the Hosmer contract in exchange for a prospect.
Maybe the Ricketts will surprise me. Maybe Jed will discover an ability to dig up good value FAs three years after we needed that skill. Maybe he'll pull off minor miracles like Cashner for Rizzo and Feldman for Arrieta and Strop.
Anyway, I don't get the confusion. They just traded Darvish, Rizzo, Bryant and Javy mostly for a boatload of 18-19 year-old players. The plan is not mysterious. We will again have to trust in the plan ... and if it works as well as the last plan, then congrats to Jed and the 2024-5 Cubs.
Trade away some guys, get whatever they can in terms of prospects, hope they work out, no big deal if they don't. The landscape in MLB has changed so much in the last decade that trading away vets for blue-chip prospects is no longer really a thing, but they're determined to half-assedly follow the same plan anyway.
But let me correct myself. They did spend a lot those first few years under Theo but those were the deadweight contracts nobody was willing to take off their hands. I meant they didn't spend much on acquiring new talent.
I also don't want that to sound too obnoxious (a bit yes) -- the plan worked out pretty well the first time, it would make plenty of sense for Ricketts to think the same plan will work again ... or at least have as good a chance at working as the let's spend $150 M and win 75 plan.
Well Baez is with the Mets...so that explains that.
And of course Rizzo is with the Yankees, who seem to be the Covid masters of MLB.
I suppose one could argue teams have a choice between extending arb-eligible players or on FAs. Alas the Cubs have just one arb-eligible player possibly worth extending (Contreras who is FA after next year).
Seriously folks. Players under contract for next year are Jason Heyward, Kyle Hendricks and David Bote. That's it. Arb players are Contreras, Happ, Kyle Ryan (a reliever with 13 lousy innings this year), Rex Brothers (a reliever with an ERA of 5, his best since 2015 ... he's been hurt a lot), Joe Biagini (a reliever who hasn't pitched in the majors this year) and Jonathan Holder who I've never even heard of (another reliever who hasn't pitched in the majors this year).
Among our pre-arb players, you've probably heard of Nick Madrigal, may have heard us Cub fans talk about Nico Hoerner (on the IL again but a high-contact, low-power MI), Patrick Wisdom (an 29-yo former Cards farmhand having an excellent season), Rafael Ortega (a 30-yo OF in his 7th organization having an excellent season), Keegan Thompson (26-yo, once-injured P who may have figured things out), Adbert (a below-average SP), Alec Mills (an average swingman) and Codi Heuer (from one of our trades).
So the 2022 roster:
C Contreras
1B Wisdom
2B Madrigal
SS Hoerner
3B ???
OF Happ
OF Heyward
OF Ortega
bench ??? but Brennen Davis and Miguel Amaya waiting at Iowa.
Now if Wisdom really is anything like a 130 OPS+ hitter and Ortega is anything like a 140 OPS+ hitter and Madrigal hits like he has then that may not be a disasrous lineup. The complete lack of a bench will likely keep things well below-average even if those things happen.
The real disaster is the pitching:
SP Hendricks
SP Adbert
SP Keegan Thompson
SP Alec Mills I guess
SP ??? (eventually Brailyn Marquez if he gets healthy)
RP Codi Heuer
RP ??? (I don't think there's a single 2021 Cubs reliever I'd keep other than Heuer)
Anyway, to turn that into an average much less good team you need at least 1 good SP, 1 average SP, 3 good RP, and some combination of real 3B/OF and a bench. And then you're still counting on probably at least 2 of Wisdom, Ortega and Davis being for real. The Cubs didn't do this to immediately turn around and commit $100 M a year in long-term contracts.
This should be scandalous. MLB's 4th or 5th wealthiest team has only two players making more than $10 M a year.
Somewhat tangentially, one of the weird problems the Cubs have had is trouble posting an above-average K/BB ratio over the past few years, even though they always have a good head start with Hendricks on the staff. As much as the FO likes cycling through relievers and retooling the bullpen every year, they either have a coaching issue or a player acquisition issue or a combination of both, because it's just not very sabermetric and it's not like they're making up for it by excelling in other aspects.
This year, after trading Darvish but still nominally contending, the Cubs had an opening day payroll of about $141 million, which was good for 14th in MLB.
As of now, with no acquisitions and no trades of guys making above the minimum, the Cubs are looking at a 2022 payroll somewhere between $80-$90 million after arb awards. That would be good for somewhere in the mid/low 20s for payroll compared to the 2021 rankings.
My wild guess is they will re-sign one of the guys they traded away and maybe do an Edwin Jackson-style pitcher signing. There are some good FA out there but the Cubs will probably have to overpay since the team isn't trying to win and is likely to trade away any surplus value again next year. There's probably enough mutual sentiment to bring Rizzo back, though.
After June 13 they lost 6 of 8 before winning 2 in a row. Then they lost 13 of 15 before winning 2 in a row. Then they lost 5 of 7 before winning 2 in a row. Currently lost 11 of 13 waiting for that next 2-game winning streak. This team had turned sour before the deadline and now it looks like a disaster.
There's just nothing to be excited about with regard to this franchise right now. I feel bad for everyone on that roster, especially Contreras and Hendricks.
The Darvish trade did it for me.
There's just nothing to be excited about with regard to this franchise right now. I feel bad for everyone on that roster, especially Contreras and Hendricks.
agree 100% on all of this.
Honestly, I'd be surprised that they managed to win that many.
They just did. Not sure if it was the awful performance last night or him continuing to be a dick. Maybe the cubs will finally pass the 85% vaccine threshold now.
And I mean, look - I know it's a lost season and we probably have at least a couple more on deck. But goddammit, this is supposed to be one of the class franchises in the league, and rebuilding or no, it's an abysmal org-wide failure for a Cubs team to be this bad. The whole org should be humiliated, instead of the arrogant bizarro-world self-congratulatory "well we won't do things halfway!" posturing that we're getting instead.
So I know it's unfair to put that on Arrieta's shoulders, and I know it's scapegoating him to make him the symbol of this current team. But as the once-dominant player who is now an utter embarrassment, he pretty much is a perfect symbol. And the accountability is still necessary, IMO.
Yikes! The number of good players on the Cubs active roster just got cut in half. The Cubs have to go 11-35 or better this season to avoid losing 100 games. What are the odds they do that? I'm thinking 10 or 11 wins feels like a pretty decent over-under.
It would take a bit of a perfect storm, but Kyle Hendricks has a chance to win 20 games for a team that loses 100. He has to win 7 of his 9 or 10 remaining starts while the Cubs go no better than 3-33 in non-Kyle starts. That's a tall order on both ends.
Again, I haven't watched an inning since the trade deadline, but given these box scores, I would tend to agree. This is 2012 levels of bad without the optimism.
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