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mrschroeder08 partyvancaptain pee_callus25 Tags 2010 Preview 5 Million Dollar Black Hole AAAA Aaron Heilman Aaron Miles Alfonso Soriano Andres Blanco Angel Guzman Aramis Ramirez Arizona Diamondbacks Atlanta Braves B.J. Ryan Baltimore Orioles Bob Brenly Bobby Scales Bonehead Booing Boston Red Sox Brett Jackson Bullpen Canadian Concoction Captain Kneejerk Cardinals Carlos Marmol Carlos Silva Carlos Zambrano Chad Fox Chad Tracy Chicago Cubs Chicago White Sox Cincinnati Reds Cleveland Indians Cold War Colorado Rockies Contracts Cubs-Cardinals Rivalry Cubs sale Cubs Curtis Granderson Daniel Herrera David Patton Derrek Lee Designated Hitter Detroit Tigers Disabled list Dominance ERA+ ERROR Esmailin Caridad ESPN Sucks Eternal frustration Eternal Optimism Farewell Farney Florida Marlins Free Agency Future Gatorade Geovanny Soto Geovany Soto Gerald Perry Grades Houston Astros I-Cubs Injuries Jake Fox Jason Marquis Jason Waddell Jeff Gray Jeff Samardzija Jim Hendry Jim Wolf Joey Gathright John Grabow Jose Ascanio Kansas City Royals Kerry Wood Kevin Gregg Kevin Hart Kevin Millar Koyie Hill LaTroy Hawkins Legendary Lineup Los Angeles Angels Los Angeles Dodgers Lou Piniella Luis Vizcaino Man Crush Mark DeRosa Marlon Byrd Micah Hoffpauir Middle Infield Midwestern Bias Milton Bradley Milwaukee Brewers Minnesota Twins Minor Leagues MLB 2K9 Neal Cotts New York Mets New York Yankees Oakland Athletics October Offseason Opening Day OPS+ Payroll Philadelphia Phillies Pittsburgh Pirates Playoffs Randy Wells Rant Rich Harden Ryan Dempster Ryan Freel Ryan Theriot Sam Fuld Sam Zell Sammy Sosa San Diego Padres San Francisco Giants Sandy Alderson Sean Marshall Seattle Mariners St. Louis Cardinals Steroids Strikeouts Suckiness Tampa Bay Rays TBS Texas Rangers Tom Gorzelanny Tom Ricketts Toronto Blue Jays Trade Tribune Company Tyler Colvin Von Joshua Waivers Walks Washington Nationals WTF Xavier Nady RSS Feed The eleven month saga of Milton Bradley's Cubs career is now over. The whole thing was a disaster from jump street, and continued to be bad, right up until the end. In the end, the Cubs owe $15 million and have a useless asset. It is pretty much akin to flushing money down the toilet, only without the need for a plumber. So I suppose that's a plus. Milton Bradley was traded to Seattle for pitcher Carlos Silva and, the most important part of the deal, $9 million. There was a $3 million difference in contracts between the two players, so the Cubs end up freeing $6 million over 2 years. They also open up a hole in the lineup while filling a need for the all-important seventh starter. It looks like Marlon Byrd will be the man to patrol center next year. Of all the remaining options left (Byrd, Ankiel, Podsednik, Damon and Fuld), he is probably the best remaing, but more on that later. In the meantime, let me just reiterate how terribly bad the Milton Bradley signing was. The man had issues in Cleveland, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and Texas. Even when he lead the AL in OPS with Texas, they didn't want him back. How is that not a red flag? Like clockwork, Bradley imploded in Chicago, and the Cubs did nothing to help the situation. The eventual suspension, as well as the badmouthing and back talking by teammates continued to murder what would already be a thin market. To top it all off, the Cubs had a stated goal of getting rid of Bradley, which killed all leverage they had in potential deals with Tampa and Texas. Why would those teams bail the Cubs out if they knew the Cubs *had* to unload this headcase? The Cubs basically painted themselves into a corner where they had to accept a garbage for garbage trade to get any money back. That, my friends, is a classic example of buying high and selling low. Jim Hendry will never be a stock trader. Carlos Silva has no place on the Cubs, even with Ted Lilly's injury. With Zambrano, Dempster, Wells, Gorzelanny, Marshall and Samardzija the Cubs have six starters. Lilly makes seven. Silva had his best year in 2005, with a 3.44 ERA a 7.89 K/BB, and a 1.173 WHIP, but that is now five years ago. After a decidedly average year in 2007, Seattle inexplicably gave him a monster contract. He has responded with numbers that make him among the worst starters in baseball (5.97 fielding-independent ERA). He has been injured, which could explain some of his issues, but ultimately the Cubs have many better options already, making you wonder where Silva will end up. There is always the chance of a pitcher turning it around, especially going from the AL to the NL. He is a sinker ball pitcher, which could help at Wrigley. Bill James even predicts him to have an ERA under 5 this year! As a Cubs fan, I've held out hope for much more improbably things, so maybe Silva will end up being a solid fifth starter. Or maybe the Cubs can flip him (or one of their other arms) in spring training when injuries start affecting other teams plans. My prediction is actually the latter, with Marshall or Gorzelanny being the starter traded to possibly bring back a fourth outfielder. Meanwhile, Marlon Byrd seems to be inevitably coming to Chicago. The Cubs have an array of average options available to them, with Byrd having the best 2009, so I suppose that is the tiebreaker. I cannot argue with this move now, but there were better options that, once again, the Bradley situation ruined. Granderson was probably a pipe dream for what he ended up being traded for, but Mike Cameron was a great stopgap option. Those damn Red Sox snatched him up, however, and now anything the Cubs put in centerfield will be underwhelming. At least with Byrd you have some idea with what you are getting. Ankiel had a horrible 2009 and has been linked to performance-enhancing drugs. Podsednik had a very improbable 2009, but still demonstrated the baseball IQ of a labradoodle with the White Sox. Fuld has absolutely zero power and will probably kill himself running into the bricks if given enough time in center. Byrd will not give you great power (career high 20 HRs last year). He will probably not get on base at a great rate (.340 career OBP). His defense is nothing to write home about (-2.7 UZR last year). Anything more than 2 years at about $6 to $7 million is way too much, and even those figures are stretching. The Cubs need another outfielder however, so they will need to overpay a bit. Finally, this offseason is starting to take shape. Goal one was to undo the 2008-09 offseason. Goal two was to plug any holes left by goal one. That means there will be no great additions. The Cubs will ultimately be relying on bounce back years from Soriano and Soto, and they will sink or swim with those two. With that said, I do expect some measure of improvement from both of them. In baseball, ultimately you look to make the playoffs, and anything can happen from there. This team is already a decent bet to compete and win the division, despite all its troubles. It is also a decent bet to flame out again. What will be really interesting is in one years time with Lee and Lilly having contracts ending and Ramirez having an option to opt out of his final year. I think we will see much more moving and shaking then, but for now, tweaking will have to be the name of the game for the Cubs. Posted in: Milton Bradley, Carlos Silva, Marlon Byrd Jim Hendry suspended Milton Bradley for the rest of the year today, due to his terrible attitude with reporters this week as well as his propensity to blame the fans and their "negative attitude" for his sub-par year. It only took Hendry five and a half months to figure this out. This pretty much means the end of Milton Bradley in Chicago. This is reminiscent of Jose Guillen's departure from the Angels in 2004, when despite being the RBI leader on a team in a pennant race, manager Mike Scioscia suspended him for his poor attitude. Jose Guillen had been removed for a pinch runner and publicly expressed resentment towards that decision. That would be the last he be seen in an Angels uniform. So now what? Chances are the Cubs will have to eat a good amount of the money left on this deal. With Harden probably leaving, and Zambrano possibly being traded (though I think odds are against that), will the Cubs have payroll to spend in right field? If so, the options are few and far between. Mike Cameron is a slightly above average hitter with good defense in the outfield and he would not break the bank. Bobby Abreu will be available once again, and again will probably not command a giant deal. Some rumors have Tampa Bay shopping Carl Crawford and B.J. Upton, but the Cubs will not have the pieces that other teams can offer there. So does this go back to the topic of the "kids" that I wrote about last night? If the Cubs have no viable options via trade or via free agency, will it be Jake Fox's job next year? Or Micah Hoffpauir's? Or Sam Fuld's? None of those sound particularly appealing. Maybe Tyler Colvin can come out of nowhere. Now I think I am dreaming. The bottom line here is last offseason, the Cubs had a perceived hole to fill. Four players could have filled that hole. Three players probably would have performed well enough, and not been complete ass-hats in the process. The Cubs had a 75% shot at getting that right, and in typical Cubs fashion, they found the one player that would fail to fill the 5-year-old black hole in right field. Hey, it only took 25 years to find a long term third base solution after Santo was traded to the Southside. By my math, we only have 20 more years to go until the Cubs finally figure this one out. Posted in: Milton Bradley The Milton Bradley signing has not gone well so far. The whole thing was questionable from the start. There were four potential left-handed (because that was soooo necessary) outfielders: Milton, Bobby Abreu, Adam Dunn and Raul Ibanez. Now ignoring Ibanez's ridiculous season, which I cannot fault Hendry for not predicting, why was Bradley such a target for Hendry, to the point where he was paying him much more than he needed to? Adam Dunn, while no defensive wizard, has a much better health history (one season with less than 150 games played since 2002) and can absolutely rake. Forget the strikeouts, because Dunn also walks an enormous amount (over 100 in each of the last 5 years) and hits balls really far (at least 40 home runs in each of the last 5 years), which would be a scary prospect at Wrigley. Not to mention he signed for less money. Bobby Abreu is another guy. While he has lost his power stroke, he can get on base (35 walks to 30 strikeouts- thats an eye) and again, has a good health history, playing at least 150 games every year since 1998. The obsession Hendry had with Bradley this offseason was based off one good contract year. Now the Cubs are stuck with him, while they could have had at least three other guys with more proven track records. After Milton's wonderful display yesterday, where he made an absolute jackass out of himself, it would be easy to pin a lot of the dropoff from last year to this year on him. In fact, it seems like every move made since November '08 has backfired. But it looks like a lot of the incumbent players have also fallen from their 2008 numbers. OPS is a pretty decent measure of how good a hitter is overall. It adds together OBP, which measures a hitter's patience, with Slugging, which of course is a measure of a hitter's power. OPS+ is a statistic that compares a player to the league average that year, much like ERA+. It also adjusts for ballpark, so an OPS of .890 at Petco is better than an OPS of .890 at Citizen's Bank Park. 100 means average, so 101 would be 1% better than average, and 99 is 1% below average. OK? OK, let's check out some of the numbers. The Cubs offense was good last year, and there is not much debating about that. The team overall OPS+ was 103, which when taking into account this is for the whole team, including pitchers, is not terribly bad. That number this year has fallen all the way down to 87. That kind of drop could be a ride at Six Flags. So why the drop? Let's compare the everyday lineups, and see.
*Insert Lou voice* I wish I could explain it. I really do. But as I have learned with the Cubs, there is no point explaining. To have the third highest payroll, and the 25th most productive offense, is maddening. And now Twins fans are starting to invade Wrigley. Baseball is a cruel sport sometimes. Stats are from baseball-reference.com Posted in: OPS+, Milton Bradley Yesterday's post was quite negative on the whole. Today I will try to be more balanced, but I still have two negatives to get out. I am a hard man to please. A day later and I am still angry about the Chad Fox thing. Mostly because I feel that the Cubs were dumb and irresponsible for bringing him in to begin with. It is clear his elbow is shot, and has been shot for 4 years now. Yet the Cubs keep giving him an opportunity to ruin it for good. Sure from the Cubs end it is a low risk investment, but I feel like for Chad Fox it is way too dangerous. Yet the Cubs keep giving him an opportunity to do serious damage. If you want to keep him aboard, hire him as a coach or a consultant. It is time to quit, because it is irresponsible as an organization to give this guy the ball anymore. It's like giving the guy who had one too many margaritas his car keys. You are just as guilty for any damage done. So, again, Jim Hendry, STOP IT! Ryan Freel, maybe you are still coming off that head injury. Maybe you are rusty after a couple weeks off. Maybe you and Farney were discussing where to eat after the game. But getting picked off second like that is unacceptable. Shape up fast, I beg of you, or things will not be fun in Chicago. (We have very, very angry fans now-a-days.) I feel I should be positive a bit though... so I will run through it quickly:
Posted in: Chad Fox, Sean Marshall, Angel Guzman, Bobby Scales, Milton Bradley Answer: the Cubs bench. *rimshot* The Cubs offense finally erupts for 3 runs, and another Cub goes down. This is a disturbing 2004-2005 style trend, where nagging injuries just seem to come on a daily basis. But what is confusing me is why the injured continue to occupy roster spots. OK, maybe not all of them. Just Milton Bradley. See, MLB instituted this nifty rule a few decades ago where you can place injured players on a magical list called 'the disabled list'. Players placed on this list must remain on there for a designated period of time, usually 15 days. The beautiful part is that, while on this list, they do not count against your 25-man limit. So you can use those spots on healthy players. The Cubs seem not to get this concept when it comes to Milton. Let's just look at what the Cubs position player situation is: Soto, Hoffpauir, Miles, Theriot, Fontenot, Fukudome, Johnson and Soriano start. Hill and... Gathright (yikes) are the bench. And other 'bench' players are Lee, Ramirez and Bradley. You can't go on with that bench, and that's not getting into how pathetic that starting infield really looks. The candidates are likely Jake Fox or Sam Fuld, as they are the only position players in AAA on the 40-man roster. I would think Fox would be the likely candidate to move up. But that all depends on the Cubs being informed of the DL rule. Meanwhile, the Milton Bradley thing is becoming a comedy of errors quickly. His season opening slump is something that can happen to any player. Soriano got off to a slow start in '07. But the quick groin injury which has hampered him for, ironically, 15 days now, coupled with the 2-games suspension he could be serving if he is injured but not disabled, almost seems to be a joke. They said he was injury-prone. They said he was a hot-head. But honestly, who thought it would all come out and hurt the team (cuz that's what he's doing) this early. And on top of that, he is already angry at the media for some reason. If Milton is upset by the bright spotlight the media in Chicago, then maybe he should have done a bit of homework before jumping aboard. And maybe Chicago should have done some homework on this guy's psyche. I mean my God, Chicago ruined the perpetually happy Jacque Jones (sorry Jacque). What did you think would happen with Milton Bradley? Bottom line, 2009 is off to a very shaky start. But the Phillies started '08 8-8. The season is still very young. Posted in: Milton Bradley, Injuries, Disabled list | ||