Free Agents are not the Cubs Problem

As I pointed out before, the primary problem of the latter years of the Hendy regime in Chicago was not the overspending on free agents. The better culprit is the complete incompetence in drafting and developing young talent. Here is more support for this view (see the Table 3 at the end). In fairness, this study probably would underestimate the negative impact of the Soriano contract since the last three years of his contract are not included. However, the overall point is that the free agent signings were not the biggest problem of the Hendry years.

Large Market Teams Do Not Conduct Fire Sales

Look at this quote from a Cubs blog (Obstructed View):

"It's too bad the Cubs don't have a couple more Garza's they could trade to add some elite talent to their farm system."

If the Cubs had three Garzas, they would not be rebuilding. As a big market team that finished the previous year with a near .500 record (+5 wins for each Garza), and quite a bit of financial flexibility, they would have gone all in. They probably would have signed Prince Fielder, C. J. Wilson (or Yu Darvish) and a right fielder. They would have made trades to improve the current club, such as emptying the farm to get Chase Headley from the Padres. They also would not have made trades that hurt the club this year with the intention of improving it in the future, i.e., they would not have traded Marshall and Cashner for prospects. Most importantly they would not have traded Garza I, Garza II and Garza III.

Myths about the Cubs

During much of this off-season, there has been talk about the problems with the Chicago Cubs and solutions to those problems. One of the most recurring indictments is too many long-term contracts, and that they have to get rid of all the bad contracts before they can start to fix the team. I want to look at the idea that the Cubs have too many long-term contracts. Here is the list of players signed beyond the 2012 season at the beginning of the off-season:

Alfonso Soriano $18 million in 2013 and 2014

Carlos Marmol $9.8 million in 2013

That's it. Now, the Soriano contract is a definite liability, but this is very low level of future commitment for a large-market team. I would even go as far to say that the bigger problem for the Cubs is not the number of long-term contracts being too numerous but that it is too few. If the Cubs had a few more quality players locked up long-term they would look a lot better, even with the deadweight of Soriano's contract. The true indictment of the Hendry years was the failure to produce talent that was worth extending long term, not the signing of expensive over-the-hill veterans.

In truth, the Cubs only had two contracts that were clear liabilities coming into the off-season, Soriano's and Zambrano's one-year $18 million contract*. I have heard numerous times that the Cubs should use the money that they would have spent on Prince Fielder** to pay off Zambrano's and Soriano's contracts. This idea makes no sense, as they have to pay those contracts regardless. The money that would have been used to sign Fielder would have been on top of that, essentially the salaries of Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Pena. This idea especially does not make sense for Zambrano, as I suppose you could use the "Fielder money" this year to buy out Soriano's last two years.

*They also owed some deferred salary that was not helping things.

**I do not want to suggest that signing Fielder necessarily would have been a good idea. I am just arguing against the supposed alternative use of the money.

Tennessee Smokies

My family and I went on a vacation to the Smoky Mountains last week. As part of the trip I dragged everyone to see the Tennessee Smokies play. The Smokies are the AA affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, my favorite team. Amazingly the Smokies managed to leave nine men on base despite hitting into two double plays. They also had a base runner hit by a batted ball and let the go-ahead-run score thanks to an error by their third baseman. Sounds like they are ready to be called up to the big leagues.

End Snark. Actually two of the nine men left on base were at the end of the game after the winning run had been scored. The error was made by a 20-year old, and the base runner hit by the batted ball was a pitcher who probably hasn't had too many chances to practice base running. And of course they won the game, are 29-20 and in first place despite their starting shortstop getting called up to the Cubs three weeks ago.

The Bradley-Silva Trade

There has been much consternation in Cubland over the trade of Milton Bradley for Carlos Silva. As a Cub fan, I cannot say I was happy about the trade when it happened. J.C. actually thinks it did not hurt the Cubs too much, though that is mostly based on the combination of Silva not being completely worthless and the six million dollars. But most importantly, J.C. does not value Bradley particularly highly. Interestingly, I do not think his methodology accounts for much negative value for Bradley's attitude. Baseball Analysts estimates that that could cost his team as much as 1.5 wins above replacement, though this might be hard to look at on straight value as there is certainly an asymmetric effect. Bradley's attitude costs the Cubs more than it will cost the Mariners. The analysis from the Baseball Analysts, however, generally feels the Mariners won the trade. Presumably the difference here is from a higher estimated on-the-field value for Bradley.

An example of a bad analysis of the trade comes from Fangraphs. There are two main problems with their analysis. The first problem is the assumption that Silva will replace Gorzelanny in the rotation. First, if Gorzelanny is the much better pitcher, even the Cubs would presumably start him regardless of how much they are making. Second, Lilly is hurt, so the Cubs will have to need an additional starter. Given that Lilly was the only lefty in the rotation and that Gorzelanny is a lefty and Silva is not, that one of the spots in the rotation would be Gorzelanny's to lose. Lastly, even if the Cubs have no plans for Gorzelanny, he still has trade value and the Cubs could recoup some of his value.

The second problem is completely not accounting for the difference in defensive value because Byrd will be playing CF and Bradley would be playing RF. Their assumptions of the trade being essentially Silva and Byrd for Bradley, turned out to be correct as the Cubs used most of the money from the Mariners to sign Marlon Byrd. Pretty much any analysis of their offensive contributions will conclude that the Cubs are taking a hit to their offense. Some of the commenters at the original post suggest that a defensive position update needs to be made. However, I think that is slightly incorrect. They are essentially replacing one for the other in the lineup, so the offensive contribution is correct. However, at the same time, the Cubs have dramatically improved their defense with the move. This table summarizes the defensive issue:

Fielding Bible Zone Rating

Player value in RF value in CF value in RF value in CF

Byrd -5 0 to -9.5

Fukudome 3 -5 13.1 -18.1

Bradley -7 -6.9

Even if Byrd is not much of an upgrade over Fukudome in CF, Fukudome is a big upgrade over Bradley in RF. Regardless of whether the improvement in defense outweighs the downgrade in offense, any analysis of the trade ignoring defense is going to be insufficient.

The most distressing thing about the analysis is that it comes from a sabermetric site (and a generally good one at that).