Cubs Acquire Garza for Archer, Lee, Guyer, Chirinos & Fuld

[questionmarkgrace]

We didn't "gut" our farm system. We traded two guys who will be backups if everything goes right and are overrated by the BA's of the world right now. We also traded a very good pitching prospect who profiles similarly to several guys already in the system, with very good stuff, but uncertainty if he'll be a 2/3 starter or a bullpen arm(others in this mold include Cashner, Carpenter, even Jay Jackson). And lastly we traded the highest risk prospect from our position of greatest depth in the organization. We're an organization that is long on guys who will be 20th-25th men on MLB rosters, intriguing but flawed arms, and SS. And we traded from each of these to get a 3 win SP that we control for 3 years through his prime at a reasonable cost.

 

we are long on SS? we have starlin castro, who was one of the worst defensive SS in baseball last year, darwin barney, who is in no way a starting SS, and then what? junior lake probably can't play SS now and definitely won't be able to when he fills out. logan watkins could play marginal SS but he can't hit much.

 

Castro had 27 errors this year. Lee had had 27 errors and 34 errors in the last two years. Omar Vizquel had 25 errors at age 21, Ozzie smith had 25 as a rookie (23). Such is the way that young shortstops go. They make a ton of errors.

[BigSlick]

heres the big question: could we have had Greinke with the same haul?

 

if we could, then Hendry made a damn big mistake

[Illini Iceman]

plus it's all well and good that he's a 3 win pitcher, but what's gorzelanny on average, maybe a 1.5 win pitcher? nobody really knows what cashner, jackson, carpenter, archer would be. so we're upgrading by probably a win or two by acquiring garza, but then again for that extra win or two you're also paying significantly more money. i'm fine with garza but not fine with trading three of our top 10 prospects to a small market team for what will probably amount to a small upgrade for an average team.

 

Couldn't you use the same argument to say that if Archer develops into a 3 win pitcher then Jackson or Carpenter will be maybe a 1.5 win pitcher so giving away Archer in this trade eventually would only cost you a win or two anyway.

 

It is a bit risky of a move, but to me this is what big market teams do. Small market teams like the Rays have to move their arbitration eligible players and roll the dice on prospects. Teams like the Cubs should be able to swoop in and get those guys who are more sure things because they can afford to pay them. As long as they keep drafting and developing well in the minors there will be enough guys to go around where they can trade some (Archer / Lee) and keep others (Castro / Cashner) for the big league club.

 

It seems like a big deal to give you your #1 prospect but Archer was only #1 because the Cubs aggressively promoted their two true blue chip prospects last season.

[Illini Iceman]

heres the big question: could we have had Greinke with the same haul?

 

if we could, then Hendry made a damn big mistake

 

All indications are that the Royals wanted major league ready players, so insert Cashner for Archer and/or Castro for Lee.

[Menace II Sobriety]

Where is davearm2 trying to explain opportunity costs to everybody. Tell us all about that econ 101 class you just took and bend our minds.

[Outshined_One]

heres the big question: could we have had Greinke with the same haul?

 

if we could, then Hendry made a damn big mistake

 

Getting Greinke probably would have required a few tweaks to increase the quality, but nothing so substantial as to completely overhaul the deal.

 

What pisses me off is that I think this is also the kind of package that could have netted Adrian Gonzalez. Maybe the Padres wanted the Red Sox prospects, I don't know. But, when you compare that package to what the Cubs gave up, again, I think a minor change or two to the Cubs' prospects to increase the overall quality would have been comparable to what the Red Sox traded for Gonzalez.

 

Also, why do people think the NL Central will be weak this year? As far as I can tell, the Reds, Cardinals, and Brewers will all roughly be the same as or better than last year, while the Pirates (yeah, yeah) should start seeing dividends from bolstering their farm system. I get the feeling that this will be a difficult division to win, even with a good team.

[TruffleShuffle]

Also, since you're stuck on the fact that Gorzelanny has value that's mitigating Garza's impact, you have to acknowledge that Gorzelanny is pretty likely a goner by ST, which will probably recoup the value equivalent to, say, Guyer and Chirinos(not hard). The equivalent of Garza for Archer and Lee isn't nearly as bad or sensationalistic as "we gave up 4 of our best prospects!!!".

 

right, except in the scenario you're giving here, it's not garza for archer and lee. assuming that you recoup the value of guyer and chirinos for gorzo - which i strongly doubt will happen, given that back-end starters with underwhelming stuff are undervalued in the market, and the cubs have basically put up a flashing neon sign that says "we don't want this guy" - the trade is garza for archer, lee and gorzelanny. so you're gaining 1.5 wins at the big league level and adding several million dollars in payroll, and subtracting two of your top 5 prospects. again, i fail to see how the cubs are making out well here, unless archer and lee both are complete busts.

[Abedunk34]

someone break down the prospecty-ness of the people we gave up.

 

 

We gave up an Ichiro, a right-handed Dontrelle Willis, a Bengie Molina, and a guy that will be great for team chemistry and plays the right way.

 

Chris Archer is black?

 

Definitely too black to be compared to a white pitcher.

Was Archer the black guy Bradley was gonna give Z?

[Backtobanks]

heres the big question: could we have had Greinke with the same haul?

 

if we could, then Hendry made a damn big mistake

 

Getting Greinke probably would have required a few tweaks to increase the quality, but nothing so substantial as to completely overhaul the deal.

 

What pisses me off is that I think this is also the kind of package that could have netted Adrian Gonzalez. Maybe the Padres wanted the Red Sox prospects, I don't know. But, when you compare that package to what the Cubs gave up, again, I think a minor change or two to the Cubs' prospects to increase the overall quality would have been comparable to what the Red Sox traded for Gonzalez.

 

Also, why do people think the NL Central will be weak this year? As far as I can tell, the Reds, Cardinals, and Brewers will all roughly be the same as or better than last year, while the Pirates (yeah, yeah) should start seeing dividends from bolstering their farm system. I get the feeling that this will be a difficult division to win, even with a good team.

 

No use bringing up Greinke and Gonzalez because the Cubs don't have the money for their contracts. The big reason for this deal is that Garza has had success, is still young, and is controlled for the next 3 years.

[roadster]

heres the big question: could we have had Greinke with the same haul?

 

if we could, then Hendry made a damn big mistake

 

Getting Greinke probably would have required a few tweaks to increase the quality, but nothing so substantial as to completely overhaul the deal.

 

What pisses me off is that I think this is also the kind of package that could have netted Adrian Gonzalez. Maybe the Padres wanted the Red Sox prospects, I don't know. But, when you compare that package to what the Cubs gave up, again, I think a minor change or two to the Cubs' prospects to increase the overall quality would have been comparable to what the Red Sox traded for Gonzalez.

 

Also, why do people think the NL Central will be weak this year? As far as I can tell, the Reds, Cardinals, and Brewers will all roughly be the same as or better than last year, while the Pirates (yeah, yeah) should start seeing dividends from bolstering their farm system. I get the feeling that this will be a difficult division to win, even with a good team.

 

I believe the new GM of the Padres came from the Red Sox and in my opinion was going to trade with the Red Sox only because of his familiarity with the players...I think this package is comparable but familiarity wins out in this case.

 

In addition, I am not sure if the Cubs/Ricketts were willing to meet the numbers for Gonzo in the next couple of years with still the Soriano bloated contract in the books (I think Aramis comes off in 2012?).

[roadster]

Where is davearm2 trying to explain opportunity costs to everybody. Tell us all about that econ 101 class you just took and bend our minds.

 

Does anyone know of a website the shows the odds of winning/going to the playoffs for 2010? I don't think going into the year that the Rangers, Reds, or Giants were highly thought of.

[CubColtPacer]

heres the big question: could we have had Greinke with the same haul?

 

if we could, then Hendry made a damn big mistake

 

Getting Greinke probably would have required a few tweaks to increase the quality, but nothing so substantial as to completely overhaul the deal.

 

What pisses me off is that I think this is also the kind of package that could have netted Adrian Gonzalez. Maybe the Padres wanted the Red Sox prospects, I don't know. But, when you compare that package to what the Cubs gave up, again, I think a minor change or two to the Cubs' prospects to increase the overall quality would have been comparable to what the Red Sox traded for Gonzalez.

 

Also, why do people think the NL Central will be weak this year? As far as I can tell, the Reds, Cardinals, and Brewers will all roughly be the same as or better than last year, while the Pirates (yeah, yeah) should start seeing dividends from bolstering their farm system. I get the feeling that this will be a difficult division to win, even with a good team.

 

Some of the reports of the time were exactly that. The Cubs made a strong offer but the Padres were familiar with the Red Sox prospects and so that was a more comfortable deal for them to make.

 

TT brings up the greatest point IMO. The prospects that were traded all have inflated values right now (at least according to rankings like BA-I have no idea how GM's value these guys). If I had to bet on if each of their indiviual rankings to go up or down next year, I'd bet on all 4 of them going down. That would have been especially true in the Cubs system. Chirinos has nothing left to prove in the minors but is a huge question mark for the majors. So another year in the minors would have just left him older and make him lose value. Guyer broke out last year and while I like him seems like a classic guy that will fall back to the pack a little bit next year. Archer's issues with control will become a bigger question mark as he needs to be major league ready soon. And Lee's value can only go up from here if he develops some power quickly. I'm not down on all the Cubs prospects but these prospects especially were projected to have higher bets of hitting their ceiling than I believe they really have.

 

And if all of them have inflated values, their trade values being too high for this deal only applies to this offseason. By next offseason, this package of players almost certainly won't be able to get somebody better than Garza.

[Guest]

What's the point of this? Truly, our Cobs are a fucked up organization. Ricketts said he wanted to start building within and we trade decent prospects for someone who is going to be extremely expensive to keep in the near term.

 

A ship without someone at the rudder keeps going in circles.

[RynoRules]

I don't have a problem trading prospects for established ML talent like Garza, but damn, did we have to send thus much for a guy like Garza? He's not freaking Nolan Ryan, Jack Morris, or even Rick Suttcliffe. He's probably Matt Clement, whose stuff I loved, but who could never harness it consistently.

[mhuber92211]

This time last year Archer was what #14 on BA's list? A dominant season from someone like Simpson this year will make all forget Archer this time next year.

 

For realistic trades (i.e. Not Gonzalez or Grienke) who else would the Cubs have traded Archer and Lee for? While it may be easy to say that Archer will continue to improve, isn't it similarly as likely that he regresses to a mid level option?

[Guest]

Part of my issue is that there has been too much careless spending, and now the entire roster is suffering because of it. Instead of having the money to lock up a good player for a long time, they have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to fill roster spots (Pena).

 

With guestimates somewhere in the 6-10m range for Garza over the next 2 years, how much of that money maybe could have been spent going towards an impact player like Albert Pujols or Miguel Cabrera. The difference between:

 

Zambrano, Dempster, Wells, Gorzellany, Cashner/Archer

 

and

 

Zambrano, Dempster, Garza, Wells, Cashner/Gorzellany

 

may not be worth the lost prospects and tied up payroll to improve the team where it really needs improved. On offense.

 

That's officially a pretty expensive pitching staff, and there isn't a single ace on the staff. Next year we will continue hearing about our cash flow woes and good players will go to teams not named the Cubs. And we say that the Cubs just can't afford a guy like Adrian Gonzalez, yet he's only costing 6.5m this year, which is what is being spent on Garza this year and Pena is making more than that spread out over a few seasons. With Aramis, Fukudome, Byrd, Pena and that miserable lefty in the pen all potentially coming off the books next year, a lot of money could have been freed up to change the direction of this organization for the better. Garza's money just tied up some of that money freeing up. Will that cost the Cubs an opportunity to sign/trade for a difference maker once again?

 

No one can deny that the perfect profile player the Cubs wanted/needed this offseason was Adrian Gonzalez. Power hitting lefty 1b with a great glove. Ironically, he was available. But alas, the Cubs blew their wad signing players we won't remember the names of in just a few short years. All because it's more important to win now rather than in the future. Ironically again, Adrian Gonzalez would have increased the chances of winning now and in the future, much moreso than Garza and Pena combined, IMO. If the Cubs didn't have a complement player to Garza between Archer, McNutt, Cashner and Jackson for dirt cheap coming through the ranks, I might be on board with the cost to go and get Garza. As it is, I sense that next year the good players will go elsewhere because the Cubs have no money to spend once again.

[CUBZ99]

I don't typically agree with Barry Rozner, but I think he hit the nail on the head his opinion piece today. He basically argues that the blame for this trade should fall on the Ricketts if it doesn't pan out.

 

The Ricketts should have known by the end of the year that the Cubs payroll was bloated with some bad contracts and had the perfect opportunity to clean house and rebuild. Instead they talked rebuilding, but kept all of the same people running the organization.

 

Hendry has one last shot to salvage his job and the team, and the disaster he created.

 

Selfishly, I like the move and hope that it at least makes the team competitive this year. Ricketts has already stated that the budget for the minor leagues would be higher, so lets hope he sticks to his word.

[Little Slide Rooter]

I suppose heres 1 way to look at it: we traded 3 top prospects for a front end starter. I dont love it, but I guess we'll survive. we then traded 2 minor leaguers in their late 20's for 2 more minor leaguers in their late 20's. I dont know how the same people who never felt that Jake Fox and Micah Hoffpauir were worth anything see any value in Chirinos. Remember, all we ere offered for Chirinos was the 1st base version if him, and the Rangers wanted more as well.

[Tyrant]

When you trade for a guy with questions, the expectation is that those questions knock his value down some and, thus, you give up less in prospects. However, by dealing two of their top five prospects, the Cubs paid full price for Garza. By trading Archer and Lee in the same deal, I would have hoped the return would have been a player I was confident would be a significant difference maker to the team for the present and future. Not a guy who has performed much better than his peripherals indicate, is about to get a whole lot more expensive and could just as easily regress to his peripherals as improve to the #1/2 starter Hendry and others hope he could be.

 

Had we given up less in the trade, Garza could have come over, regressed a bit to his peripherals and the Cubs still would have come out ok in the deal. However, we paid for the potential Garza possesses, so to make the deal make sense, he must fulfill that potential. I would have cut off negotiations at Lee/Guyer/Chirinos/Fuld/one more prospect the level of Lee (high ceiling, but a long way away). That way we're still giving up good pieces, but if Garza quits outpitching his peripherals we didn't give up so much that we end up losing the deal. If that wasn't enough to make the deal happen, then move on elsewhere or don't add another starter at all. We didn't need another starter anyway.

 

To summarize: The more you invest in a player, the more important it is that player produces at the highest level possible. The Cubs invested a lot in Garza, so it's that much more important that he continue to outpitch his peripherals (or improve them).

 

Is there something you'd like to say about Garza's peripherals?

 

As it's been said on here and elsewhere, xFIP and FIP are just metrics. They can be very useful. But they are certainly not the only way to get a complete picture of a pitcher. Garza has put up actual results that are better than his xFIP and FIP for 700+ major league innings. At some point people need to examine why that might be happening instead of ignoring a trend and just pointing to his FIP's and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

Fangraphs had that article yesterday that basically chalked it up to Garza being lucky on his flyballs not going over the fence as often as Aaron Harang's. They said there's no evidence to suggest that's a skill, which seems odd to me. Given that Garza has a big, riding fastball and likes to work up in the zone, I think it's very possible that he's developed the ability to be successful that way. And since xFIP tends to favor high-strikeout, groundball types like Ubaldo Jimenez, it may not completely measure Garza as a pitcher. Granted, that's just one possible explanation I threw out there and it may not actually mean anything. But I think there's enough of a sample size of Garza outperforming his PERIPHERALS that it should lead to more examination, instead of taking every Fangraphs metric as an absolute.

[wvcbxl]

It's quite possible that the Cubs don't feel that Archer will be able to improve his command. If that's the case, this was the right time to trade him.

 

To me, this is part of the key to understand the rationale of this trade. It's possible the Cubs think that there's something about Archer's command issues they (as an organisation) can't fix - so selling high on him makes sense. It's also possible they've seen something in Garza they think they can still improve.

 

At this point, I'm both confused and intrigued by this trade. It looks like an opportunity gamble more than like a part of a grand scheme.

[Illini Iceman]

I don't typically agree with Barry Rozner, but I think he hit the nail on the head his opinion piece today. He basically argues that the blame for this trade should fall on the Ricketts if it doesn't pan out.

 

The Ricketts should have known by the end of the year that the Cubs payroll was bloated with some bad contracts and had the perfect opportunity to clean house and rebuild. Instead they talked rebuilding, but kept all of the same people running the organization.

 

Hendry has one last shot to salvage his job and the team, and the disaster he created.

 

Selfishly, I like the move and hope that it at least makes the team competitive this year. Ricketts has already stated that the budget for the minor leagues would be higher, so lets hope he sticks to his word.

 

Rozner is probably just bitter that they didn't name Sandberg the manager.

[Guest]

This is today's Sun-Times.

 

http://twitpic.com/3o63sy

 

Except, that is not Matt Garza.

[Clem Fandango]

This is today's Sun-Times.

 

http://twitpic.com/3o63sy

 

Except, that is not Matt Garza.

 

That's not embarrassing at all!

[Clem Fandango]

BTW, is there still no word on who the minor league pitcher we're getting back is?

[bcl412]

This is today's Sun-Times.

 

http://twitpic.com/3o63sy

 

Except, that is not Matt Garza.

 

We traded those prospects for a reliever? Now I'm pissed.