A Tale of Two Kiddies

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times (for me to be late in posting).

Starlin Castro burst onto the scene in Friday's 14-7 win in Cincinnati, making much of my analysis of his promotion moot. I was planning on applauding the Cubs for trying something bold yet relatively low-risk, with little potential downside. If a team needs a shot in the arm -- and the Cubs no doubt did -- digging into its prospect pool is a much better way to do it than, say, sending one of your best starters to the bullpen. And while even my favorite baseball writer, Rob Neyer, criticized the Cubs for not waiting a little longer just to avoid Castro getting Super-Two arbitration-eligibility after the 2012 season, I thought it was refreshing to see any front office -- let alone the Cubs -- make a baseball decision based on what it thought was the best interest of the team instead of its finances.

I was also going to beseech the Cubs and their fans to be patient with Castro, and to exercise caution sibce he wasn't going to be some sort of savior. Obviously, the second part of that is surely out the window, as expectations are likely through the roof.

But while some might end up saying that Castro's 3-run homer / 3-run triple performance is the worst thing that could've happened, I'm going to take the opposite stance. It was absolutely the best possible scenario for the kid, his future, and the organization.

Because what that performance has bought is a little bit of patience, which is exactly what the Cubs need and have lacked in the past. It might sound like some sort of crazy oxymoron telling a team to be patient when they've undeniably rushed a prospect, but that's exactly what the Cubs need to be now that he's here.

I hear all the time -- and as a cautionary tale with Castro -- that Felix Pie's flame-out arose because he was rushed. The fact is, he wasn't. Pie spent a full season at each level -- although he did miss half of his AA year with an injury -- and held his own despite typically being one of the youngest players in his league. At the time of his initial call-up, Pie had 1,973 non-rookie-ball plate appearances, 931 of them at AA or AAA. Castro's had 630 and 243, respectively.

No, Pie's issues had nothing to do with being rushed; the problem was that the Cubs were completely impatient, and never really gave him a reasonable opportunity to establish himself.

In Pie's first time up with the Cubs in 2007, he was given 11 starts in his first 12 games, and posted a .233/.250/.419 line in 44 plate appearances. While certainly not great, it's a tiny sample size, five of his 10 hits went for extra bases, and he struck out only eight times. The main reason he "struggled" was that his BABiP was .265. Given his (supposedly) plus defense in centerfield, the Cubs undoubtedly should have given him more time. Instead, he came off the bench for the next ten games or so, went 1-for-6, and was sent back down to AAA.

In Pie's second go-round (also in '07), he started 19 of 20 games and went .228/.295/.354 in 89 plate appearances. Again, it's a very small sample size -- and not all that impressive -- but there were some positive indicators. For one, he drew eight walks, and yes, he was hitting eighth most of the time, but he still had to have the plate discipline to take the pitches (none of BBs were intentional), which is hardly a given with a hitter as young as he was. Plus he stole six bases in seven attempts and still wasn't striking out at an alarming rate. But the Cubs had seen enough, and started Pie in just two games over the next two weeks before shipping him back to Des Moines.

It should be noted that on these return trips to Iowa, Pie annihilated AAA pitching to the tune of 362/.410/.563. He returned to Chicago for good in August of that year, and started all of six games the rest of the way. Apparently, the Cubs decided they'd rather develop 32-year-old Jacque Jones in center, and while Jones did outproduce Pie -- .286/.333/.432 as a CF in 313 PAs -- he also had one 20-plus-game stretch (from May 16 to June 20) in which he went .173/.241/.253. And yet the Cubs, for the most part, stuck with him; he was still the beneficiary of regular playing time, which he used to show off both his XavierNadyPostTommyJohnSurgeryesque throwing arm and his remarkably circuitous routes to flyballs.

Thankfully, Pie was penciled in as the starter in '08. Unfortunately, that penciling lasted all of four games -- after going 3-for-15 with four strikeouts, Pie was in the lineup for just seven of the next 26 contests. On May 5th and 6th, Pie was given back-to-back starts for the first time since those four season-opening games, going 2-for-7 with a walk, which apparently earned him a third start. In that game, he went 0-for-4 with 3 Ks and that was pretty much the end of his career with the Cubs. He only got three at bats over the next handful of games before getting sent down, and by the time he came back up in September, Jim Edmonds was pretty much entrenched in centerfield; Pie was traded to Baltimore the following offseason.

And that should be the cautionary tale in regards to Felix Pie, not some claptrap about him being rushed, which is based not on the facts but rather him being 22 when he was called up. Castro, 20, has been rushed, but as his skill level -- and performance, for the most part -- has warranted it, I don't have much of a problem with it. But I will have a problem if the Cubs don't give him a legitimate shot to get settled in as a big leaguer.

Which is why his huge debut was, well, huge. Because it bought him a whole lot of rope.

Before Friday's game, my notes for this post included that the Cubs should write Castro's name in the lineup every day until the All-Star Break at the very least, regardless of the results. If you are going to bring a player up that quickly, you have to be ready to weather the storm of his struggles.

But there is no doubt in my mind that had Castro started 1-for-20, there would've been a whole lot of wailing about the Cubs jumping the gun, Castro requiring more seasoning, and him needing to be sent back down. I've referenced this before, and it's one of the main causes for my deep-seated hatred of his work, but look at what Paul Sullivan wrote about Pie on August 25, 2007:

Pie has not been able to translate the success he has enjoyed at Triple A to the Cubs, despite being given several opportunities. He hit .362 at Iowa but came into Friday's game hitting .217 in three stints with the Cubs, including a .121 average against left-handers.

Pie's "several opportunities" amounted to all of 174 plate appearances spread out over five months as a 22-year-old. So Sullivan surely would've been leading the Castro's-not-ready charge, and the fans -- for reasons I don't fully understand -- would've been just as eager to label him as yet another over-hyped Cub prospect bust, just as they did with Pie based on Corey Patterson's failings.

In short, Castro wouldn't have stood a chance had he struggled. But because of his huge game, people will now cut him a hell of a lot more slack. Even if he goes through a rough patch, they'll believe he can pull out of it based on that one good game. It sounds ridiculous, but there is no doubt in my mind that it's true.

Still, I beseech Lou Pinella and the Cubs to at all costs just let the kid stay in the lineup. If two weeks from now he's gone from 2-for-5 to 2-for-50, please just leave him alone. Give him a real chance. Because with Geovany Soto quietly putting together a spectacular opening to the season (.362/.516/.594 with an insane .484 wOBA), the Cubs could suddenly be very strong up the middle for years to come. I can't help but wonder what might've been with Pie because it looks like the Cubs are very close to having an eerily similar core of homegrown up-the-middle players to the one that keyed the Yankees late-90's dominance; I'm still hopeful that Brett Jackson can replace Pie into the Bernie Williams role. Sure, that sounds heady stuff, but it's backed up statistically, as Derek Jeter's career .317/.387/.459 line looks like an unabashed pile of shit next to Castro's .400/.400/1.400.

Go Cubs.

Panic move: Cubs send Zambrano to bullpen

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With the Cubs bullpen off to a predictably terrible start -- if you think it wasn't predictable, click here -- I have been fretting about general manager Jim Hendry handing out several Brandon Lyon-esque contracts next offseason, or, worse yet, having him really panic and pull the trigger on a worthy successor to the Jon Garland-for-Matt Karchner / Kyle Lohse-for-Rick Aguilera / Jose Ceda-for-Kevin Gregg deals that have literally shaved years off my life -- that's right, each of those transactions came to my apartment in the form of a razor, and with patented lift-and-cut technology smoothly removed time from my existence in a single stroke. Sure, it sounds exceptionally efficient, but the whole process is, in reality, quite painful.

Anyway, the upshot is, I've been dreading the story coming off the wire of an Andrew Cashner-for-Tim Byrdak deal, or perhaps a Jay Jackson-for-Takashi Saito swap. And then I saw this headline on ESPN.com:

Cubs moving Zambrano to bullpen

Now, I probably would've gone with something a little flashier, like Panic Move: Cubs send Zambrano to bullpen, but I do admittedly have a flair for the dramatic.

Still, that's what this is: a $53.75 million panic move.

Continuing from Bruce Levine's ESPNChicago.com report:

The Chicago Cubs confirmed reports that manager Lou Piniella is moving struggling starter Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen, in a move that may not be temporary.

"I told him we really needed him in the bullpen," Piniella told reporters.

Now granted, with Ted Lilly returning, someone had to move to the bullpen, and Zambrano could really help there, as he clearly has the greatest chance of becoming an ace reliever. Why? BECAUSE HE'S THE BEST GODDAMN PITCHER of the guys they supposedly considered: Carlos Silva, Tom Gorzelanny, and him. Which is why you want him throwing 200 innings, instead of 70.

I know the choice couldn't have been easy; unlike the bullpen, the rotation has actually been very good. Take a gander at these numbers (through 4/20):

Starter	ERA	FIP	xFIP	BABiP	K/9	BB/9	HR/9
A	0.69	2.01	3.38	.218	5.54	0.00	0.00
B	1.93	2.48	3.79	.266	6.75	2.89	0.00
C	2.45	2.41	3.68	.362	6.38	2.45	0.00
D	3.15	2.81	3.32	.274	9.90	3.60	0.45
E	7.45	4.72	3.37	.435	12.10	4.66	1.86

Without a doubt, Pitcher E has ostensibly been the worst. But more tellingly, he's also been the unluckiest; while his earned run average and fielding-independent pitching stick out like Matt Stairs' belly, his expected fielding-independent pitching -- using a formula that removes the home run component, which can be profoundly influenced by luck in a pitcher's home run per fly ball rate (HR/FB) in a given season -- is solidly near the front of the pack.

Pitcher E, not surprisingly, is Zambrano. Not that any of this should matter, though, because the whole stupid chart serves as an exemplar for why you don't make decisions like these based on three or four starts.

Does anyone think that Pitcher A (Silva) is not going to walk a guy all season? Or allow a home run? Or that he can maintain a .218 BABiP? None of those things are even remotely sustainable; while Silva is an excellent control pitcher, his career walk rate is 1.69 BB/9, and more importantly, he has allowed 1.12 HR/9 and a .312 BABiP. Furthermore, how much longer can we expect Starters B (Gorzelanny) and C (Randy Wells) to not allow a home run? Four innings? Five?

Moving Zambrano to the bullpen shows the same type of horribly-myopic thinking as those prospects-for-middling-reliever deals I so dread. Given the rotation's respective bodies of work the last few seasons, I don't see how Zambrano can be any worse than the #3 starter on this team, behind Ryan Dempster (Starter D) and Lilly, provided the latter is actually healthy. If I were to prioritize which of the five current starters I'd move to the 'pen, I'd go Silva, Gorzelanny, Wells, Zambrano, Dempster.

And really, just how much is Zambrano "struggling"? He undeniably had a disastrous Opening Day, and a quick glance reveals that his traditional stats through four starts -- which I think we can all agree is a totally-representative sample size, and should by all means be taken as the true measure of his ability while his 238 other career starts are completely ignored -- are pretty bad: 1-2, 7.45 ERA. But over his last three games, he's actually 1-1, 4.00, going at least five innings in each while allowing three earned runs or fewer.

More importantly, though, his K-rate has been superb, with 26 in 19.1 innings. As always, he's walking too many guys, but his BB rate isn't that out of line with his career mark (4.1). So Zambrano's struggles are basically a function of two things over which he has varying degrees of control: home runs and hits allowed.

Yes, the home run is one of the three true outcomes, but as I mentioned earlier, there is still an element of luck involved in how many a pitcher yields, especially when you're talking about such a small sample size. After being remarkably stingy with the gopher ball for most of his career, including allowing just 10 homers in 169.1 IP last year, Zambrano has already given up four in 2010. But that's four lousy pitches; if two of them had turned into warning-track outs instead of clearing the fence, Zambrano's home run rate would be more or less in line with his career mark. And so this is largely the product of bad luck, which is borne out by his HR/FB ratio: it's at 21.1%, compared to his career mark of 9.1%.

Zambrano's inflated BAA (.317) is a function of that absurd .435 BABiP, which is 54.3% higher than his career mark of .282. Now I suppose it's possible that he's suddenly become eminently hittable. There are, after all, some disturbing trends in his numbers. Since posting a phenomenal 54.4% ground ball rate in his first full season in '03, Zambrano's GB% has declined every year but one (in 2008, when it rocketed to 47.2% from 46.8%), reaching the low-water mark (44.7%) last season. This year it's at 39.3%, and although it's still plenty low enough to succeed, combined with his increasing line drive rate -- at 26.8% this year, compared to 18.7% for his career -- there are some causes for concern.

But in looking at his strikeouts, it's clear that Zambrano's stuff is still plenty good enough to get major-league hitters out. Given the minuscule sample size -- and the inordinate effect one bad start has on overall numbers just a few games in -- it's infinitely more likely that he's merely the victim of some unfortunate early-season flukiness.

And now the Cubs' entire season has become a victim of it, too. Because reducing Zambrano's workload by 120-or-so innings undoubtedly makes the team worse. I am painfully aware of just how bad the bullpen has been, but how much impact can one player can have on a seven-man relief corps?

Besides, this is a horrifically bad allocation of resources. As best I can tell, no non-40-year-old-Panamian reliever has a deal that averages more than $12.5 million per season, and all the guys in that range are closers. Zambrano, owed the aforementioned $53.75 million over the next three years, basically makes one-and-a-half times that; he's paid the big bucks to log starter innings, and that's what the Cubs should have him doing.

If Zambrano were pitching atrociously, I'd applaud the Cubs for finally grasping the concept a sunk cost and moving him to the 'pen. But he's not. To this point, it's been three decent starts, one horrible one, and whole lot of bad luck. To demote one of your best pitchers based on that, whether it's because you're dissatisfied with him, the bullpen, or a combination thereof, flat-out doesn't make sense. And what happens if Zambrano, who hasn't pitched in relief in eight years, gets injured because his body doesn't handle the sudden transition well? This is just awful on so many levels.

You know, kind of like the Cubs.

80 Is Not Enough

Alright, I'm back with the second half of my season preview. Since I inundated you with four billion words yesterday, let's just dive right in, and I'll try to keep it brief. But keep in mind that I always try to keep it brief, and rarely -- okay, never -- succeed.

NL Central
St. Louis Cardinals	89-73
Cincinnati Reds	84-78
Chicago Cubs	80-82
Milwaukee Brewers	79-83
Pittsburgh Pirates	73-89
Houston Astros	71-91

Unless Chris Carpenter has one of his injury-plagued years, between him, Albert Pujols, Adam Wainwright, and the emerging Colby Rasmus, it's difficult to envision a scenario in which the Cardinals don't win the division.

I like the Reds a lot; their defense is rock-solid -- best in the National League last year, according to FanGraph's Ultimate Zone Rating (UZR), and they'll add a full season of Scott Rolen -- and they have lots of good, young pitching for Dusty Baker to destroy.

As for the Cubs, the biggest problems are their defense and bullpen. There's not much they can do about the D at this point; they basically have all the same players as last year's 21st-ranked unit, although they should improve up-the-middle when Starlin Castro arrives. And the outfield should see a slight uptick with Marlon Byrd taking over in center for the better-suited-in-right Kosuke Fukudome.

But any defense is rendered moot when a pitcher is walking everybody in sight. And that's the problem with the Cubs' bullpen: too many bases on balls.

For the bullpen to have any chance of being successful, Carlos Marmol has to regain his form from '07-'08, as his already-high walk rate jumped to an insane 7.91 per 9 innings pitched last year. Luckily, he managed to up his groundball/flyball ratio to 0.74 (from 0.62), and that -- combined with what must've been a huge dose of luck -- helped him quarter his home-run rate, from a far-too-hefty (and equally fluky) 1.03 per 9 IP in 2008 to 0.24.
Still, put it all together and Marmol's FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was 4.06, much worse than his 3.41 ERA. It's worth noting, however, that Marmol has out-performed his FIP significantly in each of the last three years. Mariano Rivera consistently does likewise, and manages to do so while mixing in the occasional strike every now and then.

Marmol is so utterly unhittable that he can get away with a very high walk rate, but not as astronomical as last year's. He needs to get it back under 5 per 9 IP, which isn't asking too much. If he can't do that, the Cubs are in big, big trouble, because they don't have a whole lot behind him.

As I mentioned yesterday, their top lefty, John Grabow, has been very hit-lucky the last few seasons, with a completely unsustainable .265 BABiP, and walks a batter every other inning. Their top-right-handed set-up man, Angel Guzman, is out indefinitely, embarking on his annual spring migration to the disabled list. Esmailin Caridad's unproven, and is coming off a 4.17 ERA (and 4.26 FIP) in Triple-A. Justin Berg has a 1.04 strikeout to walk ratio in over 300 innings in Double- and Triple-A. Jeff Samardzija had a 7.53 ERA last year.

I do like Sean Marshall, and James Russell looks promising in that he at least has proven to be somewhat stingy with the walks -- 2.6 per 9 over the course of his minor-league career -- but they're both lefties and likely to be used situationally.

Pretty much the only redeeming factor about the bullpen is that it's cheap. I don't believe in allocating too many resources for relievers; a team typically is better served using some of its organizational arms instead of signing veteran middle men to 3-year, $16.5-million deals. I just wish the pitchers the Cubs elevated had better track records.

The rotation, however, will be better than the 'pen. I expect Carlos Zambrano to win more than nine games, as his peripherals were actually pretty respectable last year -- his FIP (3.77) was his lowest since 2006, and he upped his strikeout rate after it had been in steady decline. A big part of the perception of Zambrano as a disappointment last season -- other than the single-digit wins, which he has little control over -- can be traced to a .308 BABiP that was about 30 points higher than his career number. And that should come back down this year.

However, any Zambrano improvement will likely be offset by some regression by Randy Wells. Wells came into the year having spent parts of three seasons in Triple-A, and allowed BABiPs ranging between .325 and .371. But last season against major-league hitters it was just .294. While that's not insanely low by any means, I'd be surprised given his track record if that's his true level. Because of that and his relatively low K-rate, I'm not expecting very big things from him. If he can somehow match last season's performance, I'd be very happy.

Ryan Dempster shocked me for the second straight year in '09, actually giving the Cubs some value on their 4-year, $52 million investment, which is starting to look much less bat-shit crazy than I originally thought. The most amazing thing is, Dempster has become almost a completely different pitcher since returning to the rotation. Through the '07 season, he had given up 4.7 BB/9. But over the last two seasons, he's dropped that to 3.1, in the process increasing his K:BB ratio from 1.60 to 2.55. It's a remarkable transformation, and as BABiP last year (.307) was right in line with his career mark, Dempster's success might actually continue.

I like Tom Gorzelanny enough, but he has to prove that he can limit his walks, which was the primary reason he fell out of favor in Pittsburgh. And I'm not going to get into it again after yesterday, but I'm not exactly sanguine about strikeout-averse Carlos Silva's chances of being a successful starter, which means the quick return of Ted Lilly will be crucial.

As for the offense, I do like the Cubs bench, especially Chad Tracy and Xavier Nady. Tyler Colvin will not be able to sustain his spring training success, but he's young and cheap so no harm done. It's not like Sam Fuld is a transcendent player anyway, and I expect him and his solid glove to be up soon enough.

In terms of the starters, Byrd should be pretty much what he's always been: a league-average offensive player whose glove in center is also precisely average -- he has a UZR/150 of 0.0 in 4,266.1 innings.

As long as fans can accept Fukudome for what he is -- a middling-average, high-OBP guy with little power and lots of strikeouts -- and the Cubs sit him against lefties, I think he will have a stealthily nice year, and his defense seems to play better in right (UZR of 18.2) than it does in center (-13.5).

In left, while he's one of my all-time least-favorite Cubs, there's almost no way that Albatrasso Soriano can be as bad as he was last year. His BABiP was a career-low .279, and if fortune allows that to return to his career norm (.306), he'll have a much better season. But I don't think anyone knows what to make of his faltering D. Luckily the Cubs aren't even halfway through that magnificent contract of his, so we'll all have plenty of time to figure it out.

Moving to the infield, I expect more of the same from Derrek Lee (not quite as good as last year, but not as bad as the two that preceded it), Ryan Theriot (who hopefully will go back to taking the occasional walk instead of trying to blast home runs), and Aramis Ramirez (highly-productive when in the lineup, which is far too infrequently.)

Geovany Soto will bounce back from an extremely unlucky (.246 BABiP) 2009, as his walk and strikeout rates were almost identical to his Rookie-of-the-Year season's. Although his line drive rate dropped from 21.0% to 18.1% (almost all of which became ground balls), I expect that after having donated those 25 pounds to Tyler Colvin, he'll rejoin the offensive elite among catchers.

Mike Fontenot will also be much improved. (And as the only Cub on my NL-only fantasy team, he'd better be.) His BABiP, an unsustainably-high .353 in 2008, plunged to .276 in '09, and hopefully will settle somewhere in the middle. Fontenot's production fell off notably after he moved to third base -- a position he had very little familiarity with -- in the wake of Ramirez' annual ailment., and while he never used the position switch as an excuse for his struggles, I nonetheless expect him to rebound now that he (hopefully) has a permanent home.

And that's about it. Really, the bullpen and defense are the only things keeping me from predicting a win total in the mid-to-upper 80's. If they can get some good luck with both, I could actually see them being right there with the Cardinals.

The Brewers don't have enough pitching, I like what the Pirates are putting together but they're still a ways away, and the only positive I expect from Houston are a potential break-out years from Felipe Paulino and maybe J.R. Towles.

As for the rest of this stuff:

NL East
Philadelphia Phillies	91-71
Atlanta Braves*	86-76
Florida Marlins	83-79
New York Mets	78-84
Washington Nationals	73-89
NL West
Arizona Diamondbacks	86-76
Colorado Rockies	83-79
Los Angeles Dodgers	82-80
San Francisco Giants	78-84
San Diego Padres	65-97
AL East
Boston Red Sox	98-64
New York Yankees	93-69
Tampa Bay Rays	90-72
Baltimore Orioles	77-85
Toronto Blue Jays	72-90
AL Central
Chicago White Sox	86-76
Minnesota Twins	84-78
Detroit Tigers	78-84
Cleveland Indians	75-87
Kansas City Royals	69-93
AL West
Seattle Mariners	87-75
California Angels	85-77
Texas Rangers	78-84
Oakland A's	77-85

* Wild card

NLDS

St. Louis over Atlanta

Philadelphia over Arizona

ALDS

Boston over Chicago

New York over Seattle

NLCS

St. Louis over Philadelphia

ALCS

Boston over New York

World Series

Boston over St. Louis

And finally, the award winners:

NL Rookie of the Year: Jason Heyward, Braves

He'll be playing a key role on a team I have making the playoffs. As good of an offensive prospect as there's been in recent years, with a minor-league track record that compares favorably to just about any current star's. To me, he has to be given the edge over Steven Strasburg, who not only has never faced professional hitters in a real game, but also is starting the year in the minors.

AL Rookie of the Year: Brian Matusz, Orioles

Matusz is the best of what appears to be a weak crop of AL rookies.

NL Cy Young: Roy Halladay, Phillies

Moving from the toughest division in baseball -- and a third of his games against the Yankees, Red Sox, and Rays -- to the National League should make Halladay's already-elite numbers even better. Although I didn't like the Phillies companion deal involving Cliff Lee -- I thought they should have kept both -- Halladay will be the NL's best.

AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez, Mariners

He was damn close last season, but Zach Greinke had a historically great year and got a ton of (well-deserved) early attention.

NL MVP: Chase Utley, Cardinals

Inevitably, voters are going to get tired of picking Albert Pujols every year -- for proof of this phenomenon, look no further than Michael Jordan's mere five MVP's -- and I think this is the year that happens. After a half-decade of being overlooked by voters in favor of his grossly-inferior teammate Ryan Howard, I think Utley finally gets his due this year, in a close race with Pujols and Hanley Ramirez.

AL MVP: Joe Mauer, Twins

Now that voters realize that a catcher with a .340 batting average and 425 OBP is more valuable than his first-base-playing teammate with the gaudy RBI total, I expect Mauer to run away with the award once again.

One final thought: I've read the proposal for floating realignment, which seems completely ridiculous. But something needs to be done, because the set-up as it stands now is totally unfair to the Rays, Orioles, and Blue Jays. It's one thing to not have a shot at a division title because of having one power team in your division, but they've got to deal with two. Because of that, they are the only teams that come into every season with virtually no chance of making the playoffs.

For the third straight year, I think that the AL East will have the three best teams in baseball. But only two of them will be among the eight playoff qualifiers, and it's really unfair to the Rays especially. Not only is their path to the wild card blocked for all intents and purposes, but they have to play the Red Sox and Yankees 36 times to get there, whereas a team like the Twins or White Sox only has to play those two 12 times. Yes, the unbalanced schedule is bullshit too.

Also, as poor as the NL Central is, it's unfair for an organization like Pittsburgh to have to compete with five other teams for the division title, while the fellow small-market A's only have to go against three others in the AL West, but that's small potatoes compared to the injustice that is the AL East.

Since moving an NL team to the AL and having ongoing inter-league series throughout the year would be too radical for Bud Selig, and it appears that the unbalanced schedule and the seemingly weekly nationally-televised Red Sox-Yankees games it produces aren't going anywhere, here's my solution for the poor, downtrodden also-rans in the AL East:

If the third-place team in any division finishes second in the wild-card race and has a better winning percentage than the division titlist with the worst record, they would meet that division winner in a one-game playoff to determine who actually gets to go to the Division Series.

Over the last 10 seasons, this would have come into play only twice: in the AL in '08 -- when the Yankees finished behind the Red Sox and Rays and would've faced the White Sox under the terms of my proposal -- and the NL in '07, with would've seen the Padres taking on the Cubs. But it would serve to give teams in the AL East just a sliver of hope, and isn't that what all fans deserve?

Getting off academic probation: Your 2010 Cubs

Because this gimmick was so overwhelmingly successful last year -- if I recall correctly, I got at least 11 hits that week -- I am bringing back my Cubs' off-season report card. As this off-season was significantly less active -- and by active I mean littered with godawful moves -- than last year's, I don't have a whole lot to work with here. This covers every major transaction the Cubs made, although I might be missing something as neither ESPN.com nor the Cubs' own site has the Jake Fox trade/Aaron Miles jettisoning listed. In fact, it's not listed among the transactions anywhere I could find. I don't know what kind of conspiracy this might be, but it most certainly is shadowy. If because of shadowy conspiracies such as these, this list is not comprehensive, you have my sincerest insincere apologies. I'll also add that I tried to go chronologically for reasons even I don't understand.

10/22/2009 Named Rudy Jaramillo hitting coach

The ultimate much-ado-about-nothing move. While Jaramillo might be a great at what he does, from everything I've seen a major league hitting coach has very little impact on a team's overall offensive attack. Sure, he can get results here and there, but for the most part, he'll help some guys while others regress. It's just the way it works.

Remember when Sammy Sosa's dramatic improvement was attributed to Jeff Pentland? Assuming Pentland was unable to write prescriptions, I think we can safely give the credit elsewhere. But that's not the point. Pentland did not have the same impact on the rest of the Cubs. A hitting coach's approach is going to work for some people, and have little (or negative) effect on others. More importantly, luck and randomness will be much bigger factors to any individual Cubs' statistical improvement this season.

We won't see any lasting offensive improvement until the Cubs organizationally commit to an approach centered around patience and plate discipline. Hiring a new major-league hitting coach is just Hey, look at us, we're doing stuff to get better! as long as they keep promoting guys like Tyler Colvin based largely on an insanely hit-lucky (.576 BABiP; career minor league mark: .313) 77 spring training plate appearances in which he's drawn zero walks.

On the other hand, decorum dictates that the Cubs must have a hitting coach, and Jaramillo's supposedly as good as they come. Just don't expect anything earth shattering. And if the earth does happen to shatter, please look at contributing factors like BABiP before giving Jaramillo the lion's share of the credit. Grade: B+

11/19/09 Traded RHP Aaron Heilman to the Arizona Diamondbacks for 1B Ryne White and LHP Scott Maine

Also known as, Let's All Forget Last Off-Season Happened (LAFLOSH), Part I.

Acquiring Heilman was a terrible idea, and I'm not about to give Jim Hendry an attaboy here because he realized a year too late that Heilman's free-pass-issuin' ways (5.4 BB/9 IP the previous season) would be a terrible fit in the Cubs bullpen. Here's what I wrote of the deal to acquire Heilman in the first place:

Heilman was a mere throw-in to the Mariners in the J.J. Putz deal, but the Cubs couldn't wait to get their hands on the 30-year-old with the 5.21 ERA. Why? Supposedly because Jim Hendry had been an admirer since Heilman's days at Notre Dame. Hey, Jim, here are some other college pitchers you admired: Bobby Brownlie, Ben Christensen, and Grant Johnson. How 'bout we try going with major league track record instead, alright buddy? Thanks. Grade: F

Man, I was a real a-hole last year. Oh how times have changed!

It turned out that Heilman was serviceable last season -- his FIP (fielding independent pitching, which is scaled like ERA) was 4.37 -- although not real popular with the Wrigley faithful. Because of his "success", the Cubs were actually able to get some a little bit of value in return. White is a stocky first baseman with good patience and little power who posted a .266/.371/.356 (BA/OBP/SLG) line as a 22-year-old in High-A ball. I love the walks (65 in 491 PA), but as a 1B at that age in a hitters league, the slugging percentage is just awful. As White was born in Chicago in 1986, I think it's pretty safe to assume he was named after Ryne Sandberg, but I've been unable to unearth any confirmation thereof.

Maine, 25, whose parents were undoubtedly huge Scott Sanderson fans, was actually the bigger prize, a low-arm-slot lefty with excellent peripherals -- FIPs of 2.88 in AA and 2.59 in AAA last year -- who does walk a few too many guys. He's got an injury history, but has already had Tommy John surgery, which in many ways is a good thing because he's gotten it out of the way and performed well since. He strikes out about a batter an inning, and looks like he'll be a decent lefty out of the pen within the next couple of seasons.

All in all, I'd say it was a pretty good return for a guy the Cubs likely would have non-tendered. It's basically the polar opposite of last season's Kevin Gregg trade, although I'd rather have (the subsequently injured) Jose Ceda than Maine. Grade: B+

11/20/09 Signed free agent LHP John Grabow

I didn't like this signing when it happened, because I thought it was way too much money ($7.5 million over 2 years) for a pitcher of Grabow's stature. But after reading this, I changed my tune just a little. If you believe the Hardball Times projections, the Cubs essentially paid $5 million for a win, which was the going rate. And given how thin their bullpen appears to be, that's not a bad allocation of resources.

However, Grabow has seriously outperformed his FIPs the last two years, posting ERAs of 2.84 and 3.36 despite FIPs of 4.54 and 4.20. Of course, the differential was due too absurdly low BABiPs, .251 and .279, respectively; Grabow's marks the previous two seasons were .325 and .319. Because he walks far too many guys (nearly 5 per 9 last year), Grabow's inevitable BABip regression is going to have a huge effect on his overall numbers. Hopefully, the Cubs will get one more lucky year out of the next two. Grade: C

11/30/09 Declined arbitration on Chad Fox, Kevin Gregg, Rich Harden, and Reed Johnson

Unlike the incomprehensible failure to offer Kerry Wood arbitration last year, all of these actually made sense. Fox and Gregg were no-brainers, although I'm thrilled that one fabulous year of Gregg cost the Cubs Ceda. I don't care if Ceda's now injured; that trade was inexcusable.

Declining on Harden was also the right move, as he likely would have accepted; he ended up getting 1-year at $7.5 million from Texas, which is probably right around what he would have gotten in arbitration after making $7 mil last year with the Cubs. Given the (much cheaper) options at hand, that would've been a significant waste of capital for an unreliable arm that seemed to slip a whole lot last year, even when healthy.

Johnson made $3 million last year and salaries rarely go down in arbitration. Considering he only got a 1-year deal for $800,000 on the open market, declining was the right move. Instead of spending $3 million-plus on Johnson, the Cubs used it to sign fellow righty Xavier Nady, who is the better offensive player and is two years younger. Of course, Nady can't play center, but according to FanGraph's UZR, Johnson's no great shakes there either, highlight-reel diving catches notwithstanding. Grade: A

12/3/09 Traded IF Aaron Miles and 1B/3B/OF Jake Fox to the Oakland A's for RHP Jeff Gray, OF/1B/3B Matt Spencer, and RHP Ronny Morla

Hey, what do you know ... it's LAFLOSH, Vol. II.

Look, the Aaron Miles signing was horrible. Everybody (not working for the Cubs) knew it. I said the following last year:

This is our DeRosa replacement? Sure, Miles is a reasonable facsimile of DeRosa, provided you won't quibble over 100 points of OPS. Additionally, Miles made Ronny Cedeno obsolete, even though Cedeno was the better (and much cheaper) player; call me crazy, but even in this day and age two years, $4.9 million seems like an awful lot of money for a utility guy. Grade: D

In the deal with the A's, the Cubs also threw in $1 million dollars, to partially pay Miles' freight. So there's two ways of looking at this:

1. For the privilege of one season of Aaron Miles' .185/.224/.242 line, 20 OPS+, .212 wOBA (weighted on base average), and -1.4 WAR (wins above replacement), the Cubs paid out $3.2 million.

2. Assuming everyone agrees that Miles' is worthless -- and I mean that literally, as in he had no trade value, but it also works in the pejorative sense -- then the deal becomes Jake Fox for the 3 A's and $1.7 million (the balance of Miles' contract). So was that a good deal?

Well, Gray posted a 3.82 FIP in the Big-Boy League last year, and has proven himself to be pretty stingy with the walks, averaging just 2.1BB/9 IP in the minors. The Cubs bullpen has had all kinds of problems with bases on balls over the last several seasons, so I would've thought that Gray would've been a nice alternative in there. But despite what I consider a paper-thin relief corps, Gray -- who did battle a groin injury (thankfully, not to the death) in spring training -- is starting the year in Iowa.

The other two guys are a few years away, if they're lucky enough to make it at all. Spencer, a big corner outfielder, posted a respectable .294/.347/.461 line as a 23-year-old in AA, but it was fueled by a mostly unsustainable (for him at least) .342 BABiP. Morla is the more interesting of the two, however. Now 22, he's had terrible luck in two seasons in in low-A ball, striking out 150 in 138.2 IP, but yielding 157 hits thanks to a BABiP allowed of .382. His ERAs were 4.88 and 4.86, but his FIPs came out to 3.36 and 2.99. I'll be watching to see if he's incredibly hittable or incredibly unlucky. I'm guessing it's the latter.

But I really liked Jake Fox. I did wish his plate discipline was a little better -- and really wished he could've stuck behind the plate -- but he had no position, either on the Cubs or in the National League. I thought he did a very good job at third when Piniella finally gave him a shot there, but everyone seems to think that he can't play anywhere except possibly first base long-term. So for his sake, he needed to be moved to the AL. Given all that, this wasn't a bad deal for the Cubs; still, I can't give it a good grade because it was completely necessitated by the unforgivable Miles signing; it'd be like giving Citigroup credit for turning a profit from investments capitalized by TARP funds. Grade: D+

12/18/09 Traded RF Milton Bradley to the Seattle Mariners for RHP Carlos Silva

Hoo boy. Do I even need to say this is LAFLOSH, Vol. III?

Look, the Bradley signing just flat-out was not a good one, spurred by the Cubs' inexplicable compulsion to become more lefthanded. But to a much greater extent than people gave him credit for, Bradley actually lived up to expectations, not only in the crazies but also on the field.

Everyone knew Bradley wouldn't be able to play 110 games in the outfield; he started 109. No one thought he'd get over 500 PAs, something he's done only twice in his career; he finished with 473. But for all of Bradley's woes, he did post a .378 OBP, the 3rd-best mark on the team (among players with 100 or more ABs), trailing only Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez. His career mark is .371.

Aside from the lack of power (30 XBH) the problem with Bradley was the problems with Bradley. He's a malcontent, he's got a persecution complex, he's nuttier than squirrel turds, all of it. None of this should have been a surprise. But somehow it was to Cubs management.

Still, the most damaging aspect of the Bradley saga was the Cubs' suspension of him. It completely destroyed any remaining trade value that Bradley might have had, because it told every other team that the Cubs absolutely would not be taking him back. It was just like the Sammy Sosa thing after 2004; the organization did everything in its power to destroy the guy's worth while he was still in its employ, and it's a horrendous business practice. Suspending Bradley at that point in the season wasn't going to propel the Cubs into the playoffs because of some enormous boost in clubhouse chemistry. It only served to minimize the return when they finally found a taker for him.

To wit: Carlos Silva.

Silva -- wielding his own indefensible contract (4-years, $48 million) that began in 2008 -- had a nice spring, but I'm not buying. Like some other spring training phenoms (yes, I'm picking on Tyler Colvin yet again), with prolonged exposure Silva will be, well, exposed. As someone who doesn't strike anybody out (3.8 / 9 IP), Silva needs three things: an extreme groundball rate, a good defense behind him, and a home park that's pitcher-friendly.

That's nope, not even close, and Are you kidding me?, respectively.

Supposedly Silva's working on the groundball rate, but over the last four years, he's had a 0.84 groundball/flyball ratio, which is only slightly better than average. Meanwhile, the Cubs D was (and likely still is, as most of the key players are the same) below average in '09. FanGraphs has them as 21st in all of baseball, and team UZR over a single season is much more accurate than individual, owing to relative sample sizes. And over the last three years, Wrigley has been the 3rd-, 8th-, and 2nd-best hitter's park in the major leagues.

The only thing in Silva's favor is that he's going to the easier league. But I don't think that's going to be enough. At the absolute best, Silva will be a league-average 4th-starter, and at $8 million a season -- which is the net after deducting the Mariners $9-million contribution -- that's no bargain. Grade: D+

01/02/10 Signed free agent CF Marlon Byrd

I didn't like this signing much at the time, believing it would fall right in line with Hendry's other hideous 3-year deals to overrated 30-something outfielders (Bradley, Jacque Jones). But I'm starting to come around at least a little bit, mostly because of the same Hardball Times piece, wherein Byrd (3-years, $15 million) was listed as the third-best buy among all free agent position players.

Sure, Byrd benefited from one of the best hitters' parks in the American League, but Wrigley is at least the Ballpark's equal in that regard, plus he should get a boost by moving out of the AL. Besides, $5 million a season isn't a whole lot of money -- Jesus, did I really type that? -- so there's not a whole lot of risk. If someone like Brett Jackson proves he's ready earlier than expected, Byrd's contract won't be much of a hindrance to his progress. Grade: C+

01/27/10 Signed free agent 1B/3B/OF Chad Tracy

I liked this deal a lot. Tracy was a highly-regarded hitting prospect who never quite lived up to all the hype. Over his first three seasons -- during each of which he had at least 530 PAs -- he posted a .291/.348/.470 line for an OPS+ of 106. But injuries and the emergence of other players in the Diamondbacks system, he hasn't had as many as 300 PAs in any season since, and his numbers have dropped across the board. In 2007, he had a .wOBA of .342. In '08 it was .313. Last year, .296. Looking on the bright side, though, he is trending more positively then Alfonso Soriano (his wOBA's down .066 over the last three seasons) at exactly 1% of the cost.

And for just $900,000, the Cubs, unlike last year, now have a legitimate backup they can plug in when Ramirez has his annual nagging-injury acquiescence. I believe Tracy will prove to be very valuable coming off the bench Grade: A-

01/29/10 Signed free agent RF Xavier Nady

I really liked the Nady signing too, and not just for his Cal pedigree.

Okay, it was mostly for his Cal pedigree.

While Nady's probably not as good as his stellar 2008 campaign (.305/.357/.510), he does have a lifetime wOBA of .342, which is slightly above league average. He also killed the ball in his last go-round in the NL, during the first half of that 2008 season (.330/.383/.535), and I'm guessing there's a chance that the Cubs and their sabermetric-eschewing tendencies didn't realize those numbers were fueled by a wholly unsustainable .363 BABiP, 50 points higher than the mark over the rest of his career.

But as fourth outfielder/first basemen types go, Nady is definitely high end. He has murdered left-handed pitching throughout the course of his career, going .307/.382/.470 for a .370 wOBA. That's appealing with Kosuke Fukudome doing his Neifi Perez impression against lefties (.324 SLG; .304 wOBA).

There is some significant downside. The first is that Nady is coming off of Tommy John surgery on his throwing arm, and right field is not the place to stick a guy with a bad wing. The second is that he's making $3.3 million. Not a ton of money, but not cheap either for an incapacitated part-timer. Grade: B

02/04/10 Signed free agent 1B Kevin Millar

I liked the Millar signing too, but as a first baseman who doesn't play passable defense in the outfield (he's got a career -17.2 UZR/150 out there), he was just too redundant with Tracy and Nady. Although with Nady unable to reach second base on four hops at this point, I would've liked to have seen them start Nady on the DL with Millar taking his place. But I'm guessing the Cubs figured an injured Nady was still better afield than Millar, and as the latter didn't have a guaranteed deal anyway, cutting him lose didn't cost them anything. Except perhaps the additional karmic expense of letting go of a guy largely credited with helping the Red Sox break their own championship drought/curse. As we all know, that's exactly what the Cubs needed, more bad karma. Grade: Incomplete

03/27/10 Traded 2B Andres Blanco to the Texas Rangers for a player to be named later or cash

When it became clear that the Cubs weren't going to have a spot for Blanco, they had to do something because he was out of options. That surprised the hell out of me, because I was under the impression that he was a rookie last year, but no. He played (rather sparingly) for the Royals in 04-06, his age 20-22 seasons, totaling just 249 PAs but consuming his options.

Since Blanco is never going to hit enough to warrant any playing time -- he's got a career .264/.319/.352 line in 1143 AAA plate appearances -- the PBTNL will either be organizational flotsam or monetary jetsam. While everyone seems to agree that Blanco's a nice glove man, in the age of the ridiculous 12-man pitching staff, there's just not a place for a guy like that on a big-league bench anymore. I find that to be a little sad. Grade: B-

Cumulative GPA: 2.7

By the Cubs' standards, a solid B- is pretty damn good. Coming off a severely disappointing 2009, it was a reasonably productive winter in which I believe the Cubs at least accomplished most of their goals, although the same could have been said after last off-season. The difference is, their agenda this time was much more logical in the baseball sense, as opposed to being fueled by an inane desire to become more left-handed due to a 3-game-long flame-out after a 97-win season.

So what does it all mean? Find out early tomorrow, when I'll be back with my season preview.

Paul Sullivan: The Miracle Worker

As in, it's a miracle this guy's still working. Quoth Paul:

Because of circumstances beyond his control, Tyler Colvin is blocked in right field until 2012, in center field until 2013 and in left field until 2015.

Poor Tyler Colvin and his .318 OBP in nearly 1200 Double-A plate appearances. When will he ever get a legitimate shot to prove himself?*

* Keep in mind that this is the same Paul Sullivan who wrote on August 25, 2007:

(Felix) Pie has not been able to translate the success he has enjoyed at Triple A to the Cubs, despite being given several opportunities. He hit .362 at Iowa but came into Friday's game hitting .217 in three stints with the Cubs, including a .121 average against left-handers.

Pie's "several opportunities" at that time amounted to a grand total of 174 plate appearances spread over five months when he was 22. For what it's worth, in Pie's one half-season in Double-A, he put up a .304/.349/.554 (BA/OBP/SLG) line as a 20-year-old. Colvin's composite AA line (over his age 21-23 seasons): .276/.318/.461.

Look, I know the same Colvin-related pap appeared on the Cubs site, but does Sullivan really have to gorge at whatever trough the Cubs put in front of him? Given their inexplicable compulsion to become more lefthanded -- to the extent that they traded away a versatile, relatively-inexpensive fan favorite so they could pay $24 million for one season of Milton Bradley -- does he actually believe that if anyone within the Cubs thought Colvin had a shot at being a starter in the majors that he wouldn't have been given a chance? If Colvin had previously performed well -- and I'm relatively certain his performance would have to be categorized largely as a circumstance within his control -- the Cubs wouldn't have felt the need to sign that centerfielder to a 3-year deal. In theory at least.

The only people who still believe in Colvin as a prospect are the ones within the organization still defiantly standing behind their reach-pick of him in the 2006 draft. Apparently Sullivan -- who's previously shown a bizarre preoccupation with fellow great-tools-middling-results draftee Jeff Samardzija -- only looks at signing bonus when evaluating a minor leaguer.

The perception of Colvin as a non-prospect isn't just my own. This crazy site -- put together by some magnificent bastard who divined that ranking the top-2000 prospects in baseball would generate a whole lot of traffic/publicity for his little blog -- has Colvin listed as the 915th-best prospect in all of baseball. And if you prefer reputable sources, Baseball America doesn't have Colvin in their Cubs top-10. Nor does ESPN.com's Keith Law, and Colvin's not on Baseball Prospectus' top-15, either. And John Sickels ranked him as the Cubs 19th-best prospect -- keep in mind that the Cubs system is more top-heavy than deep -- and graded him as a C, saying, "He made some progress last year but looks more like a fourth outfielder/extra bat than a future starter to me."

Well, of course Sickels, he has to be a fourth outfielder: Because of circumstances beyond his control, he's hopelessly blocked!

*****

Now even if Colvin played Franklin Gutierrez/Willie Mays/Andruw Jones-40-pounds-ago caliber defense in centerfield -- unlikely given that BA named Sam Fuld the best defensive outfielder in the Cubs' system -- as of now his bat just will not play at the major league level. Courtesy of this site, I found these slash stat projections for Colvin as a Cub this season:

	BA	OBP	SLG
Bill James	.264	.303	.424
CAIRO	.242	.289	.398
CHONE	.258	.300	.407
PECOTA	.258	.302	.424
ZiPS	.249	.287	.394
AVG	.254	.296	.409

Now granted, those numbers are on par with the Cubs' $17-million-a-year-until-he-turns-62 leftfielder, but in general that is not starting-caliber production. Speaking of which:

Long-terms contracts to Kosuke Fukudome, Marlon Byrd and Alfonso Soriano, respectively, have clogged the outfield picture for the foreseeable future.

With the possible exception of Soriano -- and I exclude him only because Jim Hendry seems wholly unable to grasp the concept of a sunk cost -- none of those guys are blocking Colvin; Colvin's lack of production is. Besides, in the Cubs' eyes, this is make-or-break time for Fukudome. If he doesn't produce this season, they likely will eat his contract next year, either paying someone to take him or moving him for someone else's onerous deal -- Hey, Milton Bradley will still have a year left. We gotta get more lefthanded! And Byrd is making "only" $16.5 million over the next three years; believe me, if the Cubs have a hot-shot prospect forcing his way into the lineup, ol' Marlon will not be an impediment.

Actually, the Cubs just might have such a prospect, only his name is Brett Jackson (No. 2 by Law and BA, No. 3 by Sickels, No. 4 by BP). Jackson, incidentally, is never mentioned in this article either because A) Nobody with the Cubs has felt the need to pump him up to Sullivan, since people who actually know what they're talking about are already saying he's a legit prospect; or B):

Colvin, a first-round pick in 2006, has been one of the most impressive players in Cubs camp, hitting .556 after going 2-for-3 with a triple in Friday's 12-3 loss to Milwaukee.

Wow, in a whole 18 plate appearances! In other news, if Derrek Lee can just get 600 PAs in 2010, he will undoubtedly shatter Barry Bonds' single-season record with the first-ever 100-home-run season, because he has two homers in 12 spring training trips to the plate.

The Cubs project Colvin as a corner outfielder and he figures to take over in right when Fukudome's contract ends after 2011. But he has been playing center most of the spring and could make the team as a fifth outfielder.

If anyone in the Cubs' hierarchy really thinks that Colvin's bat will ever play in a corner outfield spot, seriously just shoot me now and get it over with.

Could the Cubs get Colvin enough playing time as a reserve outfielder, or is he better off going to Triple-A, where he would play regularly? A week ago, the answer was easy.

But suddenly Colvin has jumped into the picture.

For the love of God, Sully -- and I call you Sully because I feel like we've really bonded over the course of this post -- please don't tell me the Cubs are evaluating personnel based on a week of stats put up against mostly non-major-league pitchers who aren't even in game shape yet. I mean, there's only so much I can take.

The Cubs are expected to send a dozen or so players to minor-league camp early next week, but Colvin is likely to stay a little longer. He bulked up in the offseason, and it's paying off. ...

Colvin was on his way to play in Mexico before the Cubs asked him if he wanted to take the offseason off and train with strength coach Tim Buss at the Cubs complex in Mesa, Ariz. Calling it a "no-brainer," Colvin put on 25 pounds through lifting and "eating my fiance's cooking every night."

Two questions: 1. Was his fiance cooking HGH? 2. Is her maiden name Conte? If the answer to both of these is no, then forget it. Because unless what he's done can actually enhance his performance instead of just increasing his bulk, Colvin still will not be a productive major leaguer.

Look, I don't want to wish ill on Colvin; still, I'd prefer he sustain a good performance -- I don't know, for a prolonged period of time, maybe. In, let's say, games that actually count -- before we start lamenting his not-really-all-that-blocked path to big-league stardom.

But if the Cubs are making decisions based on a single week's performance then this organization is in more trouble than even I believed, and they're going to have to do more than just replace GM Jim Hendry; they'll need to bring in some sort of miracle worker.

Seven Days of Hell

There was a week-long period last month that put me in a sporting-related funk from which I am just now beginning to emerge.

November 6: Tyrus Thomas -- my favorite Bulls player, along with Joakim Noah -- breaks his arm while doing pullups. Wait... What?

November 7: Cal's dim Rose Bowl hopes are fully extinguished in a crushing 31-14 loss at home to Oregon State. Worse yet, star tailback Jahvid Best -- a really nice kid who I covered when he was in high school and I was at The Oakland Tribune -- suffered one of the scariest injuries I've ever seen on a football field. He has not played since, and as a junior and likely first-round pick, he may have played his last game for the Golden Bears.

November 8: The Bears mail another one in at home against the Cardinals, allowing touchdowns on Arizona's first four possessions (and a field goal on the fifth, a 22-second drive that ended the first half) in a 41-21 loss.

November 12: Coming off the short week, the Bears -- well, mostly Jay Cutler -- completely soil themselves in a disheartening 10-6 loss to a 49ers team exceptional only in its mediocrity. Cutler throws five picks, including one in the end zone to snuff out the Bears potential game-winning drive, leading to the profanity-laced tirade in the entry below.

But none of the above suffering compared to the pain I felt as I read this piece on alleged Cubs super-prospect Josh Vitters, which contained this little nugget:

Vitters averages a base on balls every 30 minor league plate appearances, which is offset by his contact rate because he strikes out only once every 6 1/2 at-bats.

"I'm not going up there looking for a walk," he said. "If I see a good pitch and I can drive it, I'm going to swing. It's not a problem at all because I don't strike out a lot."

Vitters' Arizona numbers bear that out. He has struck out just seven times in 50 at-bats.

First off, that the Tribune could run a story by a writer (Tom Carkeek) that believes the inability to take a walk somehow becomes irrelevant if the player strikes out infrequently is infuriating. Not only does it piss me off because they should be paying me to write stories that contain actual insight, but it also lends legitimacy to this ridiculous line of thinking, and leads to casual fans (and the children!) believing such tripe to be true.

But leaving all that aside, what bothers me most is that Vitters thinks this obvious flaw in his game -- one that has had me concerned from the get-go -- isn't a problem.

Now I can see him thinking that, because he is a kid who has always hit the everliving shit out of the ball. But the fact that no one in the organization, not a single coach or player development staffer, has let Vitters know that walking 12 times in 484 plate appearances last season is, in fact, a problem, speaks volumes about the lack of even semi-sophisticated thinking within the Cubs front office.

There is no way that Vitters develops into a successful major-leaguer without at least a little more plate discipline. Sure he might enjoy some early success (like, say, Jeff Francoeur) but eventually all that out-making will turn him into a millstone (like, say, Jeff Francoeur).

But apparently, no one in the Cubs organization realizes this. How is that possible? Could it be that the laughable clogging-up-the-bases mentality about walks was not unique to Dusty Baker? Plate discipline, working the count, and attempting to drawing of walks should be at the forefront of instruction for hitters in any minor-league system. Instead, the Cubs have players openly deriding the taking of a walk. You know, because they don't strike out.

If the Cubs aren't going to give Vitters even the most basic instruction, they should unload him while he still has value. Because as Vitters moves up, his free-swinging approach ensures his value will go down. And until the Cubs get their player-development issues squared away, it won't matter that the talent level in their system is increasing, which it definitely is. They'll continue to allow highly-touted guys to flame out in the minors, because they are incapable of maximizing the ability those players have.

When Vitters goes the way of Ryan Harvey, perhaps then he will realize the folly of thinking not taking a walk is not a problem at all.

Milton Bradley's Perfection

(Editor's note: For some ungodly reason, Mr. SKIA has been sitting on this post for nearly two weeks, completely unwilling to write the last few sentences until now. Deadbeat.)

Wait. What? The Cubs are still playing? Really?

Well, at least all of them but this guy.

So the Milton Bradley saga is over, for this season at least. Bradley's deal, which basically no one thought was a good idea at the time, is looking even worse now. Which prompted this article and its accompanying poll:


My vote was unintentionally shown in the capture. So why did I vote for Wallace? Football contracts aren't fully guaranteed, meaning the Bears were able to weasel out of Muhammad's deal after three seasons for significantly less than the $30 million. I'm not a big enough hockey fan to quantify exactly how bad the Gilmour deal was, but I have a hard time believing it'll be any worse than the one the Hawks just gave to Mr. Here Comes (12 Years of Shoulder) Trouble. And while the Navarro deal (4 years, $20 million, for a 25-43 record) was a terrible return for what was a ton of cash at the time (1997) 1. I don't care about the White Sox and 2. While it was a lot of money then, it can't compare to the signing of a glorified roll player for three times the dollars just nine years later. Plus, Wallace basically cost the Bulls very nearly the full $60 million for just two seasons; to get rid of him they had to take back Larry Hughes -- who the Bulls paid around $14 million to stay away from the team last year -- and to get rid of Hughes, they had to take back Tim Thomas, who's been bought out, and Jerome James, who's injured and unlikely to play another NBA game. Additionally, the Bulls signing of Wallace made (the younger and cheaper) Tyson Chandler (supposedly) expendable, and the organization basically gave Chandler away to the Hornets to get out from under his own (supposedly) onerous contract. With the salary cap in basketball -- not to mention the luxury tax -- an atrocious contract like Wallace's really, really hurts.

But apparently after the latest Bradley dust-up, not many people in Chicago agree with me:


So why didn't I vote for Bradley, who basically 3/4 of Chicago fans* said was the worst? Because not only is Bradley not the worst ever free-agent signing in Chicago, he's not even the worst one in the history of the Cubs. Or the worst one still on the Cubs.

That honor goes to Alfonso Soriano.

* Let's be honest. It's doubtful that a non-Cubs fan would be reading the article in order to find the poll in the first place, so it's really just Cubs fans voting, not a random sampling of the city's fans.

I suppose I should admit that it all depends on how you define signing. To me, signing is part and parcel with the contract that's been signed. Therefore the player with the worst contract is the worst signing. However, if you just view signing to mean acquisition, then Bradley's is perhaps the worst in Cubs history (though still not worse than Wallace's, which was for a year more and twice the dollars). While the mere thought of Soriano's contract exacerbates my GERD, his acquisition, for the short term, at least appeared to pay dividends. The year before they signed Soriano, the Cubs finished in last place at 66-96, the third-worst record in all of baseball; in the first two years of his deal, the Cubs won back-to-back division titles. Sure, he was just one (overpaid) piece, but Soriano's signing didn't look all that bad to the casual observer.

Meanwhile, Bradley was signed immediately following the second of those division titles, and in his first season the Cubs are 10 games out of first place. Not only has Bradley's production not met expectations -- while his malcontentedness has -- but the Cubs also jettisoned popular team player / glue guy Mark De Rosa in order to free up the cash to ink him. Bad times all around.

Still, I can't get over the disparity of the contracts.

If the Cubs want to extricate themselves from Bradley's deal -- and I mean just flat dump him, washing their hands of the entire situation -- it would mean that they essentially had given him a 1-year, $30 million contract. Sure that's a horrible return for corner outfielder who played slightly below-average defense and posted a 100 OPS+ (exactly league average) while being a general stick-in-the-mud. But starting with this season -- one in which Soriano's OPS, by the way, is just about 50 points less than Bradley's, which includes a 75-point gap in OBP -- the Cubs are on the hook for six years and... oh no, the reflux... $106 million. That's one hundred and six million dollars. Meaning if you make $100,000 a year (which is considered a pretty decent living, by the way), by the year 3069 you would have earned as much as the Cubs will shell out to Soriano between this season and 2014.

I'm guessing Alfonso Soriano loves Milton Bradley. Because without him, Soriano would be Bradley. That is, he'd be the target of all the fans ire. Instead, Soriano's basically gotten a free pass this year, despite the fact that his OBP is 75 points lower than Bradley's. And his defense, incidentally, is actually much worse than Bradley's, as their UZR150's look like this: Soriano, -13.7; Bradley, -4.3. Using fangraphs.com value calculations, Soriano's actually been worse than replacement level, and has a value of negative-$3.9 million. Bradley (due mostly to that high OBP) has a value of $5.3 million. Now of course, that doesn't quantify the disruption factor, the negative vibe, and everything else. But considering it would cost the Cubs a lump sum payment of $21 million to drop Bradley right now, while Soriano -- the significantly less productive player -- would cost $90 million, I'd say the Soriano signing is far, far worse.

Shifting gears, I want to get back to what Bradley actually said (most recently, at least) to trigger the suspension. From the Daily Herald:

"It's just not a positive environment. I need a stable, healthy, enjoyable environment. There's too many people everywhere in your face with a microphone asking the same questions repeatedly. Everything is just bashing you. You got out there and you play harder than anybody on the field and never get credit for it. It's just negativity.

"And you understand why they haven't won in 100 years here, because it's negative. It's what it is."

Asked whether he was talking about the fans, the media or even the Cubs organization, he replied: "It's everything. It's everybody."

You know what? Bradley is absolutely right -- the atmosphere is extremely negative. Fans (and I'm including myself here) and the media (and I'm not including myself here) are exceptionally pessimistic and always expect the worst. The Chicken Little phenomenon of Cubs fans was never more apparent than during Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS -- yes, I really was there -- when the atmosphere in the park went from "We're going to the World Series!" to "We're totally screwed" in the blink of an eye. The entire stadium tightened up, convinced that some fan had cost the Cubs the World Series. Of course, that's exactly what happened, but it wasn't destined to occur because of a fan touching a foul ball; it happened because of the way everyone reacted afterwards. Some players lost their cool, the fans totally freaked out, the remaining players started feeling the pressure, and the Cubs were done. Still makes me nauseous thinking about it.

Ever since then, Cubs fans have become increasingly willing to turn on the home team or a specific member of it. Bradley's not the first to feel it, though the vitriol possibly has been the most intense. Of course, he didn't do himself any favors with his surly attitude with the press and his major persecution complex. (Umpires and tykes at his kids' preschool alike, they're all against Milton Bradley!) All the booing made Bradley dislike Wrigley; he even admitted not being "comfortable" because of the "adversity and hatred" he faced there, going as far as saying, "I just pray the game is nine innings so I can be out there the least amount of time as possible and go home."

Ok, so are we clear about Milton Bradley hating playing at Wrigley, how all the negativity -- which no doubt exists -- had such deleterious effects on his psyche? Good. Because the numbers bear it out. Here are Bradley's Road/Home splits:

206 AB, 61 H, 9 HR, 28 RBI, 33 BB, 48 K, .296/.407/.485, 130 OPS+
-VS-
187 AB, 40 H, 3 HR, 12 RBI, 33 BB, 47 K, .214/.347/.299, 67 OPS+

That is a pretty drastic difference. Almost makes you feel bad for the guy, to see his performance suffering so badly because of the atmosphere at his home field. But perhaps I should have put the tags in there:

Home: 206 AB, 61 H, 9 HR, 28 RBI, 33 BB, 48 K, .296/.407/.485, 130 OPS+

Away: 187 AB, 40 H, 3 HR, 12 RBI, 33 BB, 47 K, .214/.347/.299, 67 OPS+

Man, just imagine how good he would have at Wrigley if the fans had only supported him.