Star players and how they are acquired

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Most people around these parts I think could agree on one thing about the Cubs roster this offseason. It had a pretty decent structure of supporting players, but was short on star power. In a given year there are about 45 guys who put up a 5+ fWAR, that seems like a reasonable(and simple!) definition to use. Using that threshold, the Cubs have had 3 star seasons in the last 4 years(Dempster '08, Lee '09, Garza '11). That's at least 3 fewer than expected, and really cuts to why the Cubs have struggled to win the last 2 years.

 

So we need more star players, which is a lot easier to say than it is to fix. Let's take a look at the means in which teams acquire those players. Before we begin, take a minute and guess what percentage of these player seasons come from which category:

 

Players who come from the team's minor league system - Homegrown

Players traded to the team after reaching the Major Leagues - Traded

Players signed as Free Agents from other teams - Free Agent

 

 

Now that you have your perception in mind, let's see what the results are. The last 3 years there have been 126 player seasons of 5 or greater fWAR.

 

Homegrown - 79 - 63%

Traded - 30 - 24%

Free Agent - 17 - 13%

 

That is honestly not the percentages I would've guessed. Even more interesting is the nature of the players acquired in FA or trade. Of the 17 FA player seasons, half of them come from guys who were pulled off the scrap heap. Chris Carpenter, Jayson Werth, Aubrey Huff, Kelly Johnson, none of those guys had bidding wars for there services when they were added by their teams. The traded players are a bit more of the expected variety, but there's still guys like Jose Bautista, Brandon Phillips, Franklin Gutierrez, and Jhonny Peralta who turn out surprise seasons.

 

 

So what's the point of this exercise? At the start of the offseason, I wanted the team to go aggressively into free agency and get a star bat and pitcher, allowing their performance to make the team competitive right away while buying time for the revamped farm system to produce stars down the line. After seeing how the new front office(full of people smarter and more knowledgeable than me) approached the offseason, and the results you see above, I'm a little more at peace with 2012 being a disappointment from a W-L perspective. Don't get me wrong, ultimately the front office needs to be accountable to the end product. If they do nothing but make efficient moves for 3 years and win 75 games, then that's a problem. But considering the circumstances of this roster(no stars, many of the best role players one year from free agency), I'm more willing to accept the approach of adding young MLB ready players to try and find some better long term pieces before being too disappointed in the team not shelling out big dollars in free agency.

[jersey cubs fan]

Players who come from the team's minor league system - Homegrown

Players traded to the team after reaching the Major Leagues - Traded

Players signed as Free Agents from other teams - Free Agent

 

Why limit it to just guys traded after reaching the majors? What about guys traded on the cusp of the majors?

 

Don't get me wrong, ultimately the front office needs to be accountable to the end product. If they do nothing but make efficient moves for 3 years and win 75 games, then that's a problem.

 

If they only win 75 games this year they should be held accountable. I'm not sure why suffering through 2 years of sucking should be considered acceptable. This isn't Hendry's team anymore. They had an opportunity to improve it and they passed on that opportunity, so if the team sucks, it's on them.

[Sammy Sofa]

I don't think anyone here doesn't prefer the idea of the Cubs generating more talent in-house than having to go shopping for it. The disappointment stems from them seemingly being a team that has resources that most of the rest of the league simply doesn't have or isn't willing to have, so the expectation/hope was that they'd be able to temper the path to internal superstardom with external impact pick-ups along the way. The hope was that they'd be one of those few teams with the luxury to do both (which makes me wonder how the percentage of teams that arguably can't add superstars via FA would skew those percentages) instead of one or the other. Hell, even those hoping for big spending this offseason were typically looking for a combination of two players involving the Cubans, Pujols or Fielder, Wilson or Darvish, and then another player from the pitching FA class next year, and not some bonkers spending spree where they just started picking up big names left and right immediately.

[SouthSideRyan]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

[Guest]

Players who come from the team's minor league system - Homegrown

Players traded to the team after reaching the Major Leagues - Traded

Players signed as Free Agents from other teams - Free Agent

 

Why limit it to just guys traded after reaching the majors? What about guys traded on the cusp of the majors?

 

Those guys(Hanley and Wainwright, to name two) are still counted, they just get lumped in with Homegrown. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and I thought that was a simple and intuitive enough line.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, ultimately the front office needs to be accountable to the end product. If they do nothing but make efficient moves for 3 years and win 75 games, then that's a problem.

 

If they only win 75 games this year they should be held accountable. I'm not sure why suffering through 2 years of sucking should be considered acceptable. This isn't Hendry's team anymore. They had an opportunity to improve it and they passed on that opportunity, so if the team sucks, it's on them.

 

That touches on something I thought about elaborating on, but didn't in the original post. The current roster's construction is not such that 2013 is lost. A year is a long time, especially when nearly half our lineup and rotation(maybe more by Opening Day) is under the age of 27.

[SouthSideRyan]

Additionally, you mention we have a nice supporting cast of role players, I wouldn't expect a role player to deliver 3+ WAR. We need more than just 5+ WAR players. Edited January 5, 2012 by SouthSideRyan

[pccubfan]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

 

It's pretty hard to imagine the Cubs competing in the next three years without signing any free agents. It seemed that the stars had aligned this offseason with Pujols and Fielder available. The FO seems to have decided to go a different direction which is why they are being paid the big bucks. I can't say that I'm too interested in investing my time in the 2012 club. Hopefully, this time next year it will appear as though the 2013 will be worth following.

[TheDude]

If they only win 75 games this year they should be held accountable. I'm not sure why suffering through 2 years of sucking should be considered acceptable. This isn't Hendry's team anymore. They had an opportunity to improve it and they passed on that opportunity, so if the team sucks, it's on them.

I can't buy that argument. It's like claiming the Iraq war is Obama's war.

 

Until Hendry's contracts roll off, the team still has his footprint. The front office inherited a mess. They could have continued to band-aid the mess as has been done for 3 straight years, or they could blow it up and build it the their own way.

[SouthSideRyan]

If they only win 75 games this year they should be held accountable. I'm not sure why suffering through 2 years of sucking should be considered acceptable. This isn't Hendry's team anymore. They had an opportunity to improve it and they passed on that opportunity, so if the team sucks, it's on them.

I can't buy that argument. It's like claiming the Iraq war is Obama's war.

 

Until Hendry's contracts roll off, the team still has his footprint. The front office inherited a mess. They could have continued to band-aid the mess as has been done for 3 straight years, or they could blow it up and build it the their own way.

 

Soriano's under contract for 3 more years. So the team is still Hendry's team until 2015??

[SouthSideRyan]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

 

Also, as an added bonus, during those 3 years we get to waste cheap 5+ WAR seasons from Starlin Castro.

[Guest]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

 

That's not the conclusion, although I kinda haphazardly connected two ideas that maybe aren't as strongly connected as I thought. The numbers serve as a reminder. Every year we all do the same thing and try to fill in the projected holes on the roster with Free Agents. They're typically proven successes, and they don't require the difficult task of matching player cost, availability, and need like trades do. The point is that we should stop and re-evaluate if our path to success is "sign a couple of the best free agents". Even more so with the current Cubs team, which has a good number of consistently average or above average role guys who will be gone after the season(Byrd, Z, Dempster, Marshall), you end up chasing wins for several seasons in what's probably a losing outcome(because again, with the above numbers to support, we aren't going to get the gains in FA we think). So what this offseason does is give you the opportunity to fill in those expiring pieces with similar values that have age and team control on their side, meaning that next offseason you're no worse off, but you're adding stars to a team of 27 year olds, instead of repeatedly replacing 30+ year olds when they reach FA(which would be the case of Soto and Garza when they reach FA too).

[Guest]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

 

Also, as an added bonus, during those 3 years we get to waste cheap 5+ WAR seasons from Starlin Castro.

 

If we're blowing an offseason that could have made us a playoff team or near playoff team, why are the following two seasons already written off when we've only gotten rid of expiring contracts and added guys under control for several years?

[Guest]

I think this offseason is Theo breaking down the past regime to build his own. I don't really believe he can be held accountable for a bad 2012 when one considers how much work is necessary to blow up the old to make room for the new. It's still Hendry's mess with a few of Theo's additions and subtractions.

 

Adding a player like Pujols to Hendry's roster isn't really doing anything more than what Hendry might have done, and that's not really what the purpose of going out and getting someone as smart as Theo was intended.

 

Teams with a ton of promising, but maybe not star caliber players, can still go out and be competitive in this league. The Padres were a very competitive team with Jake Peavy and a host of average players not all that long ago. I think the key with this transition is youth and their opportunity to lead the new direction. For whatever reason, Theo didn't like the long term cost of the available free agents, and is disassembling and reassembling in what will more than likely be a lost season, but one that was probably needed anyway in order to restructure the organization.

 

I am curious what the product will look like come April, as I still think that he has more moves in mind.

[CincyCubsFan]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

 

Which is essentially what the front office has done this offseason.

[CincyCubsFan]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

 

Also, as an added bonus, during those 3 years we get to waste cheap 5+ WAR seasons from Starlin Castro.

 

If we're blowing an offseason that could have made us a playoff team or near playoff team, why are the following two seasons already written off when we've only gotten rid of expiring contracts and added guys under control for several years?

 

This is becoming somewhat maddening. Having good players under team control I agree is a good thing. Mediocre players, or players who were once good and are no longer good, I don't see much of a value in.

[CincyCubsFan]

Adding a player like Pujols to Hendry's roster isn't really doing anything more than what Hendry might have done, and that's not really what the purpose of going out and getting someone as smart as Theo was intended.

 

This makes sense, but it completely flies in the face of the Reed Johnson contract.

[CubColtPacer]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

 

Also, as an added bonus, during those 3 years we get to waste cheap 5+ WAR seasons from Starlin Castro.

 

If we're blowing an offseason that could have made us a playoff team or near playoff team, why are the following two seasons already written off when we've only gotten rid of expiring contracts and added guys under control for several years?

 

This is becoming somewhat maddening. Having good players under team control I agree is a good thing. Mediocre players, or players who were once good and are no longer good, I don't see much of a value in.

 

There's plenty of value in average cheap players. You don't want a full roster of them, but baseball players do not follow a standard bell curve. There are not tons of average players out there, so if you have some of them for cheap that's helpful to make sure that you don't have a hole at certain positions.

[Guest]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

 

Also, as an added bonus, during those 3 years we get to waste cheap 5+ WAR seasons from Starlin Castro.

 

If we're blowing an offseason that could have made us a playoff team or near playoff team, why are the following two seasons already written off when we've only gotten rid of expiring contracts and added guys under control for several years?

 

This is becoming somewhat maddening. Having good players under team control I agree is a good thing. Mediocre players, or players who were once good and are no longer good, I don't see much of a value in.

 

Well if their performance was more certain then they wouldn't have been dealt in those deals. They probably aren't going to go 4 for 4 on Stewart, Wood, Volstad, and Shark to the rotation, but the idea is that they are smart enough gambles that a couple of them hit, and that Wood and Stewart step into their primes as 3 win players, which better positions you beyond 2012 than trying to catch up to expiring FA's like Byrd, Dempster, and Z.

[Tracer Bullet]

If they only win 75 games this year they should be held accountable. I'm not sure why suffering through 2 years of sucking should be considered acceptable. This isn't Hendry's team anymore. They had an opportunity to improve it and they passed on that opportunity, so if the team sucks, it's on them.

I can't buy that argument. It's like claiming the Iraq war is Obama's war.

 

Until Hendry's contracts roll off, the team still has his footprint. The front office inherited a mess. They could have continued to band-aid the mess as has been done for 3 straight years, or they could blow it up and build it the their own way.

 

Soriano's under contract for 3 more years. So the team is still Hendry's team until 2015??

 

He said Hendry's footprint. And obviously the fewer contracts from JH, the smaller the print (though he also gets credit for Castro).

 

I think the point is that Theo tanking 2012 to make 2013+ better doesn't mean all of the failures of 2012 are on him, as jersey seemed to suggest. Rather, you hired a great GM to fix your organization, give him more than 1 season to do it.

[SouthSideRyan]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

 

Also, as an added bonus, during those 3 years we get to waste cheap 5+ WAR seasons from Starlin Castro.

 

If we're blowing an offseason that could have made us a playoff team or near playoff team, why are the following two seasons already written off when we've only gotten rid of expiring contracts and added guys under control for several years?

 

This is becoming somewhat maddening. Having good players under team control I agree is a good thing. Mediocre players, or players who were once good and are no longer good, I don't see much of a value in.

 

There's plenty of value in average cheap players. You don't want a full roster of them, but baseball players do not follow a standard bell curve. There are not tons of average players out there, so if you have some of them for cheap that's helpful to make sure that you don't have a hole at certain positions.

 

And that's my biggest problem with acquiring Volstad on purpose. He may wind up a cheap average player for us this year, but we're not trying to win games this year, so what's the point. By time he matters to us, he's no longer cheap.

[pccubfan]

I think this offseason is Theo breaking down the past regime to build his own. I don't really believe he can be held accountable for a bad 2012 when one considers how much work is necessary to blow up the old to make room for the new. It's still Hendry's mess with a few of Theo's additions and subtractions.

 

Adding a player like Pujols to Hendry's roster isn't really doing anything more than what Hendry might have done, and that's not really what the purpose of going out and getting someone as smart as Theo was intended.

 

Teams with a ton of promising, but maybe not star caliber players, can still go out and be competitive in this league. The Padres were a very competitive team with Jake Peavy and a host of average players not all that long ago. I think the key with this transition is youth and their opportunity to lead the new direction. For whatever reason, Theo didn't like the long term cost of the available free agents, and is disassembling and reassembling in what will more than likely be a lost season, but one that was probably needed anyway in order to restructure the organization.

 

I am curious what the product will look like come April, as I still think that he has more moves in mind.

 

I certainly am not going to blame Theo and crew for not winning in 2012. But with the resources the Cubs have available they should be expected to compete in 2013.

[SouthSideRyan]

I have a problem with your conclusion here. Basically, we just keep signing averagish floor lottery tickets and hope one turns into Jose Bautista while we wait for the farm system to produce elite players? I don't see how that doesn't turn into a 75 win team for the next 3 years.

 

Also, as an added bonus, during those 3 years we get to waste cheap 5+ WAR seasons from Starlin Castro.

 

If we're blowing an offseason that could have made us a playoff team or near playoff team, why are the following two seasons already written off when we've only gotten rid of expiring contracts and added guys under control for several years?

 

This was prior to reading your clarification from my last post.

[Sammy Sofa]

If they only win 75 games this year they should be held accountable. I'm not sure why suffering through 2 years of sucking should be considered acceptable. This isn't Hendry's team anymore. They had an opportunity to improve it and they passed on that opportunity, so if the team sucks, it's on them.

I can't buy that argument. It's like claiming the Iraq war is Obama's war.

 

Until Hendry's contracts roll off, the team still has his footprint. The front office inherited a mess. They could have continued to band-aid the mess as has been done for 3 straight years, or they could blow it up and build it the their own way.

 

Soriano's under contract for 3 more years. So the team is still Hendry's team until 2015??

 

He said Hendry's footprint. And obviously the fewer contracts from JH, the smaller the print (though he also gets credit for Castro).

 

I think the point is that Theo ranking 2012 to make 2013+ better doesn't mean all of the failures of 2012 are on him, as jersey seemed to suggest. Rather, you hired a great GM to fix your organization, give him more than 1 season to do it.

 

The pieces were/are there to be both better now and down the line.

[bukie]

The front office obviously feels they'd rather gamble on Volstad being more valuable than Zambrano this year overall. If the gamble doesn't pan out, they non tender Volstad at the end of the season. If it does, he's under team control for two additional seasons at less than 15 million.

[SouthSideRyan]

Soriano's under contract for 3 more years. So the team is still Hendry's team until 2015??

 

 

I think the point is that Theo tanking 2012 to make 2013+ better doesn't mean all of the failures of 2012 are on him, as jersey seemed to suggest. Rather, you hired a great GM to fix your organization, give him more than 1 season to do it.

 

Can everyone stop acting like people are saying Theo's an idiot and I give up on him forever? You can be pissed about a certain move, or even a certain offseason without losing faith in the big picture.