Cubs apparently sign Reed Johnson for some reason

[CincyCubsFan]

Reed Johnson is a necessary evil, and his cost is not a burden, and as such people should just accept the fact that he's there and that it really won't make a huge difference one way or the other because whether you like it or not, sadly, he's more of a safe bet than our alternatives, and maybe Theo & Co. view that as a worthy of an extra million to gamble on.

 

Necessary for what exactly? Taking us from a 68 win team to a 69 win team?

[Clem Fandango]

Reed Johnson is a necessary evil, and his cost is not a burden, and as such people should just accept the fact that he's there

 

He's absoulutely not necessary in any way shape or form.

 

And that next line is BS. It's stupid. Why do we have to just accept the fact that anybody is here if we don't agree with that player being here? If the team signs Niefi Perez and you don't like it, you don't just have to accept that he's here. It's a freaking message board dedicated to the Chicago Cubs. The very reason for this site's existence is for people to discuss the team and it's players, good or bad. If management signs a crappy old veteran to a guaranteed contract (not confirmed as far as I know) then we have every right to bitch about it.

 

It's a waste of bandwidth to discuss this move.

[USSoccer]

What the crap is this signing about?

[CyHawk_Cub]

Reed Johnson is a necessary evil, and his cost is not a burden, and as such people should just accept the fact that he's there and that it really won't make a huge difference one way or the other because whether you like it or not, sadly, he's more of a safe bet than our alternatives, and maybe Theo & Co. view that as a worthy of an extra million to gamble on.

 

Necessary for what exactly? Taking us from a 68 win team to a 69 win team?

 

I think even that's being optimistic...

[SouthSideRyan]

I'd rather have Montanez backing up the corners than Johnson.

[USSoccer]

I'd rather have Montanez backing up the corners than Johnson.

 

For a fraction of the cost, no less.

 

This signing sucks no matter how it's spun. It's exactly what people got pissed at Hendry for doing-overpaying for mediocrity. If we're so damn broke, why are we paying him $1.5m for bad production when we can pay league minimum for bad production? Is the faint possibility of a fractionally higher WAR worth it if we're so broke?

 

Conversely, if we aren't broke, why are we wasting a roster spot on utter crap? If we are trying to compete, parallel fronts, etc, why sign this pile of suck?

 

There's no defense of this. It's terrible.

[hankp101]

I keep seeing 1.5 mil tossed around, but has that actually been reported or is it a guess?

[El Duderino]

maybe they signed him as a coach

[SouthSideRyan]

I keep seeing 1.5 mil tossed around, but has that actually been reported or is it a guess?

 

There are enough stone age GMs left that a guy with a .309/.348/.467 line with a good clubhouse rep will almost certainly cost more than 1M. Especially considering how early in the offseason he signed.

[Little Slide Rooter]

1.5 mil? Good God. Id have been OK with 500k but for other than that I'd just as soon have stuck with Montanez who some equivalent we could pull off the AAAA scrap heap. I guess it makes sense is Byrd or Soriano are

On their way out of town but even then we dont need to spend that much on a broken down 5th outfielder. At this point I'm kind of surprised that Koyie Hill was non tendered.

[Little Slide Rooter]

I keep seeing 1.5 mil tossed around, but has that actually been reported or is it a guess?

 

There are enough stone age GMs left that a guy with a .309/.348/.467 line with a good clubhouse rep will almost certainly cost more than 1M. Especially considering how early in the offseason he signed.

 

But we signed Hoyer because we were trying to get away from whole stone age GM thing.

[hankp101]

I keep seeing 1.5 mil tossed around, but has that actually been reported or is it a guess?

 

There are enough stone age GMs left that a guy with a .309/.348/.467 line with a good clubhouse rep will almost certainly cost more than 1M. Especially considering how early in the offseason he signed.

 

So all this gnashing of teeth with no idea what the deal is? Didn't he sign a minor league with us last year

[SouthSideRyan]

I keep seeing 1.5 mil tossed around, but has that actually been reported or is it a guess?

 

There are enough stone age GMs left that a guy with a .309/.348/.467 line with a good clubhouse rep will almost certainly cost more than 1M. Especially considering how early in the offseason he signed.

 

So all this gnashing of teeth with no idea what the deal is? Didn't he sign a minor league with us last year

 

He signed a minor league deal after putting up a 650 OPS. You'll find that none of us care about him signing a minor league deal. You'll also find that he did not sign a minor league deal.

[Guest]

For those that think Reed Johnson has any redeeming value, I point you to his 2011 luck-neutral line as calculated from Rob's article:

 

0.252/0.295/0.396

 

With age, he's only likely to get worse.

[hankp101]

I keep seeing 1.5 mil tossed around, but has that actually been reported or is it a guess?

 

There are enough stone age GMs left that a guy with a .309/.348/.467 line with a good clubhouse rep will almost certainly cost more than 1M. Especially considering how early in the offseason he signed.

 

So all this gnashing of teeth with no idea what the deal is? Didn't he sign a minor league with us last year

 

He signed a minor league deal after putting up a 650 OPS. You'll find that none of us care about him signing a minor league deal. You'll also find that he did not sign a minor league deal.

 

If he gets a major league deal that represents a 67% raise, then this is a bad deal. I doubt he got that much money and a major league deal. Time will tell.

[davell]

I threw that number out on the first page of this thread. Certainly was a guess and hopefully it's wrong.

[davell]

Wittenmeyer has an article up, touching on Reed, the trade, and Buckner. Says Johnson's deal is "believed to be worth slightly over a million dollars".

[davearm2]

For those that think Reed Johnson has any redeeming value, I point you to his 2011 luck-neutral line as calculated from Rob's article:

 

0.252/0.295/0.396

 

With age, he's only likely to get worse.

Not defending the signing necessarily, but I'd be willing to bet that Jed and Theo have predictive tools that are even more sophisticated than the method Rob applied for the article.

 

Point being, this isn't news to them, and they decided to sign him anyway.

[CUBZ99]

Wittenmeyer has an article up, touching on Reed, the trade, and Buckner. Says Johnson's deal is "believed to be worth slightly over a million dollars".

 

Over $1MM uggh :banghead: I thought we fired Hendry to get rid of this nonsense? This offseason started off great with the Theo signing and has been depressing ever since.

[davell]

So far, Theo has........Hired Hoyer, McLeod, Rahman, and others to give us much more of a front office presence. He fired Quade. Hired Sveum. Offered arbitration to both Aramis and Pena. Non tendered Hill. Signed DeJesus to a team friendly deal. Traded for a relatively high upside guy in Stewart, while giving up nothing of consequence. Traded one year of Marshall for 5 of Wood, plus prospects. Signed Reed Johnson for slightly over a mill. No big signings of FA yet. Overall direction of team looks to be rebuilding, but still not totally sure honestly. Bottom line is of the moves we HAVE made, if giving Reed Johnson slightly over a mill winds up being the worst move of the entire offseason, I'm completely OK with it.

[Clem Fandango]

So far, Theo has........Hired Hoyer, McLeod, Rahman, and others to give us much more of a front office presence. He fired Quade. Hired Sveum. Offered arbitration to both Aramis and Pena. Non tendered Hill. Signed DeJesus to a team friendly deal. Traded for a relatively high upside guy in Stewart, while giving up nothing of consequence. Traded one year of Marshall for 5 of Wood, plus prospects. Signed Reed Johnson for slightly over a mill. No big signings of FA yet. Overall direction of team looks to be rebuilding, but still not totally sure honestly. Bottom line is of the moves we HAVE made, if giving Reed Johnson slightly over a mill winds up being the worst move of the entire offseason, I'm completely OK with it.

 

Well put. It seems like people are more upset about this because Theo and Jed did it and not Hendry. Fact is, Hendry gave $900,000 to a guy coming of a 74 OPS+ season, and while I thought the $1.5 was legit (my bad) it seems like they might give him what... $1.2 or $1.3 million... after a 122 OPS+ season? I don't expect Johnson to fully recreate those numbers one iota, but we could do a whole lot worse, and there aren't many options out there that can do a whole lot better at the price.

[Tanner_20]

OMG! Theo isn't signing any of the players that I wanted in his first month of the job! I'm going to piss and moan until 2014 because we signed Reed Johnson to a one year deal...

[CyHawk_Cub]

OMG! Theo isn't signing any of the players that I wanted in his first month of the job! I'm going to piss and moan until 2014 because we signed Reed Johnson to a one year deal...

 

:roll:

[Backtobanks]

So far, Theo has........Hired Hoyer, McLeod, Rahman, and others to give us much more of a front office presence. He fired Quade. Hired Sveum. Offered arbitration to both Aramis and Pena. Non tendered Hill. Signed DeJesus to a team friendly deal. Traded for a relatively high upside guy in Stewart, while giving up nothing of consequence. Traded one year of Marshall for 5 of Wood, plus prospects. Signed Reed Johnson for slightly over a mill. No big signings of FA yet. Overall direction of team looks to be rebuilding, but still not totally sure honestly. Bottom line is of the moves we HAVE made, if giving Reed Johnson slightly over a mill winds up being the worst move of the entire offseason, I'm completely OK with it.

 

Well put. It seems like people are more upset about this because Theo and Jed did it and not Hendry. Fact is, Hendry gave $900,000 to a guy coming of a 74 OPS+ season, and while I thought the $1.5 was legit (my bad) it seems like they might give him what... $1.2 or $1.3 million... after a 122 OPS+ season? I don't expect Johnson to fully recreate those numbers one iota, but we could do a whole lot worse, and there aren't many options out there that can do a whole lot better at the price.

 

The fact is there are better options out there for approximately $1 million more - Andruw Jones. I understand many posters remaining positive (or trying to), but if we're being honest Theo/Hoyer has sucked this offseason and "rebuilding" has pushed back "contending" for probably an additional 2 years. While you're listing all of the accomplishments, let's not forget that he passed up Darvish, probably Fielder, Pujols, etc. Now if he manages to sign the 2 Cubans and pull off a big trade or two, then we can talk about a good offseason.

[TruffleShuffle]

So far, Theo has........Hired Hoyer, McLeod, Rahman, and others to give us much more of a front office presence. He fired Quade. Hired Sveum. Offered arbitration to both Aramis and Pena. Non tendered Hill. Signed DeJesus to a team friendly deal. Traded for a relatively high upside guy in Stewart, while giving up nothing of consequence. Traded one year of Marshall for 5 of Wood, plus prospects. Signed Reed Johnson for slightly over a mill. No big signings of FA yet. Overall direction of team looks to be rebuilding, but still not totally sure honestly. Bottom line is of the moves we HAVE made, if giving Reed Johnson slightly over a mill winds up being the worst move of the entire offseason, I'm completely OK with it.

 

Well put. It seems like people are more upset about this because Theo and Jed did it and not Hendry. Fact is, Hendry gave $900,000 to a guy coming of a 74 OPS+ season, and while I thought the $1.5 was legit (my bad) it seems like they might give him what... $1.2 or $1.3 million... after a 122 OPS+ season? I don't expect Johnson to fully recreate those numbers one iota, but we could do a whole lot worse, and there aren't many options out there that can do a whole lot better at the price.

 

nobody would argue with the reed johnson signing if he puts up a line similar to last year. but that line was based on an absurd amount of luck. he walked 5 times and struck out 63 times for God's sakes. as tim has already pointed out, his luck-neutral line would have been .252/.295/.396, which is terrible.