Good job theo

[Guest]

Kyle can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe he's not suggesting any of the moves outlined by Bukie were bad. He does seem to be questioning if this front office is capable of identifying cheap relievers that are capable of performing at above replacement level.

 

While I'm certainly not as worried about it as Kyle, I am puzzled by the choices the team made in who they brought in from the outside.

 

Breaking the bullpen down a bit by category:

 

Holdovers:

 

Marmol, Wood, Russell: all described above and all decent to good decisions

 

Outsiders (offseason):

 

Corpas, Camp: very unimpressive when signed and lived up to those expectations during the year.

 

Castillo: Rule 5 pick who was as raw as expected.

 

Outsiders (in-season):

 

Bowden, Chapman, Socolovich: Interesting guys who have decent stuff and could potentially be a part of future bullpens.

 

Ascencio: swing and a miss here.

 

Internal Rookies:

 

Obviously, the team was constrained here by what was available in the upper levels of the system.

 

Cabrera, Parker, Beliveau, Dolis: All with good arms and zero command. That's what was available at the upper levels of the system, though. Each one is a lottery ticket - could be very solid if they break through on their ability to throw strikes. I wouldn't mind any of them in long relief next year, but none can be counted upon for high leverage duty.

 

Maine, Coleman: hot trash that was used sparingly to cover innings

 

------------------------

 

Realistically, you need about four relievers you count upon for the key innings. You can use the other three spots for a long man and a couple of guys you're hoping to develop into the late inning relievers. Where the Cubs really missed this season is in bringing in Camp + Corpas to complement Marmol and Russell. Maybe they thought Wood had enough left in the tank for one more year. Maybe they just didn't care that much since and simply looked at disposable assets.

 

The key point here is that I agree with all the decisions they made on the guys from last year's pen. I agree that they didn't have much to work with in the upper levels and I'm fine with giving those guys innings in blowouts to see who could possibly establish themselves. Where I have a problem is Camp + Corpas. I really believe there were better guys out there who signed short, low dollar deals. I'm disappointed that our front office chose these guys.

 

Given that this was a lost year, anyway, I'm not that worried about it. I'm hoping they do a better job finding guys when it starts to matter, though.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I think this discussion is what they had in mind when they coined the phrase "rearranging the deck chairs."

 

That's probably true. The only things it's relevant toward is:

 

1) If you think there's a chance it reflects poorly on Hoyer or Epstein's judgment.

2) As a baseline for how quickly the 2013 Cubs can improve

3) In concert with some of the other decisions in discussing whether 61-101 justifies the decision to tank, i.e. were we too bad to be redeemed going into last offseason.

[bukie]

Tim, I mostly agree with your assessment, but I don't really have a problem with Camp's results from this year. They brought in Camp as a short term late inning replacement, and it worked out overall. For the vast majority of the year, Camp was the team's best reliever, until seemingly running out of gas in late August and September.

 

The only real baffling thing to me was Corpas and just how many innings the guy got after being acquired.

[Guest]

To add on to this, the bullpen had a -2.8 bWAR. In 36 IP, Wood, Castillo, Lopez, Hinshaw, and Parker combined for -2.1 WAR (Hinshaw alone is -0.6 in 0.1 IP!). Dolis was another -1.2 in 38 IP himself. Most every one of those were either smart moves to have in the pen at the time, or warm bodies after the team was no longer in the race. In concert with Bukie's post, I'm not terribly worried about bullpen construction. And all that speaks nothing of the fact that evaluating relievers by WAR is a....troublesome exercise.

 

Sorry, but if we're cycling through that many relief pitchers, you should be able to find a few more replacement-level ones even to fill in the garbage innings.

 

Using WAR is a matter of convenience. I'd be glad to entertain alternative methods.

 

The suggestion is that if 7% of bullpen innings are providing the majority of the negative value, then maybe player selection isn't quite the problem.

[Guest]

To add on to this, the bullpen had a -2.8 bWAR. In 36 IP, Wood, Castillo, Lopez, Hinshaw, and Parker combined for -2.1 WAR (Hinshaw alone is -0.6 in 0.1 IP!). Dolis was another -1.2 in 38 IP himself. Most every one of those were either smart moves to have in the pen at the time, or warm bodies after the team was no longer in the race. In concert with Bukie's post, I'm not terribly worried about bullpen construction. And all that speaks nothing of the fact that evaluating relievers by WAR is a....troublesome exercise.

 

Sorry, but if we're cycling through that many relief pitchers, you should be able to find a few more replacement-level ones even to fill in the garbage innings.

 

Using WAR is a matter of convenience. I'd be glad to entertain alternative methods.

 

The suggestion is that if 7% of bullpen innings are providing the majority of the negative value, then maybe player selection isn't quite the problem.

All that really matters is the high leverage innings. If you put a bad reliever out there when you're already down 7-2, it doesn't really matter.

 

The worst relievers were low-leverage guys for the most part anyway.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The suggestion is that if 7% of bullpen innings are providing the majority of the negative value, then maybe player selection isn't quite the problem.

 

To which I'd counter that the remaining 93% of the innings failed to provide any positive value to counteract it.

[bukie]

What I'm most curious about is what the FO would have done if some of the flyers had paid off (i.e. Dolis was able to miss bats, Wood was effective, and Stewart played like he did a few years back) and the Cubs had somehow managed to hover around .500 at the deadline. Would they have sold everything off and torpedoed the year? I'd like to think they still would have done the same thing they did, which could have made the fan base even more disgruntled with the process.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The worst relievers were low-leverage guys for the most part anyway.

 

That is a great point, which both you and TT have made.

 

Going by net WPA to account for leverage:

 

James Russell was our best reliever at 0.47 WPA, 73rd in MLB.

 

We had three other relievers with a positive WPA, Germano (0.14), Maholm (0.03 in one relief appearance) and Socolovich (0.04). We employed two pitchers with a neutral WPA, and 16 with a negative.

 

Our net -6.49 WPA was 29th, the Brewers passed us on the last day of the season for 30th. (only 10 bullpens are negative, with an average of +1.72, which is interesting). The Cubs had the 3rd worst MLB bullpen by net WPA of the last five years.

[SouthSideRyan]

What I'm most curious about is what the FO would have done if some of the flyers had paid off (i.e. Dolis was able to miss bats, Wood was effective, and Stewart played like he did a few years back) and the Cubs had somehow managed to hover around .500 at the deadline. Would they have sold everything off and torpedoed the year? I'd like to think they still would have done the same thing they did, which could have made the fan base even more disgruntled with the process.

 

Why would you like to think that? 1/3 of the teams in a league make the playoffs. If you are .500 at the deadline, you should not be selling off.

[bukie]

What I'm most curious about is what the FO would have done if some of the flyers had paid off (i.e. Dolis was able to miss bats, Wood was effective, and Stewart played like he did a few years back) and the Cubs had somehow managed to hover around .500 at the deadline. Would they have sold everything off and torpedoed the year? I'd like to think they still would have done the same thing they did, which could have made the fan base even more disgruntled with the process.

 

Why would you like to think that? 1/3 of the teams in a league make the playoffs. If you are .500 at the deadline, you should not be selling off.

Because I think their plan from the beginning was to clean house and start fresh, while maximizing the value of their current assets to get as much as possible for them. Part of it backfired on them when Garza and Marmol got injured and Dempster didn't want to go to Atlanta, but they still made out with a couple top 10 prospects in Villanueva and Vizcaino.

 

And I like to think that if they had a plan from the beginning they'd stick to it if every gamble broke right for them just as it did when almost everything broke wrong for them.

[Guest]

I think they might have traded Dempster, but anyone under control beyond this year would've been held on to. If guys like Dolis or Stewart took off, they'd be pieces for next year and beyond that put the team closer to contention, making it necessary and valuable to hold on to Garza and possibly Soto.

[jersey cubs fan]

What I'm most curious about is what the FO would have done if some of the flyers had paid off (i.e. Dolis was able to miss bats, Wood was effective, and Stewart played like he did a few years back) and the Cubs had somehow managed to hover around .500 at the deadline. Would they have sold everything off and torpedoed the year? I'd like to think they still would have done the same thing they did, which could have made the fan base even more disgruntled with the process.

 

Why would you like to think that? 1/3 of the teams in a league make the playoffs. If you are .500 at the deadline, you should not be selling off.

Because I think their plan from the beginning was to clean house and start fresh, while maximizing the value of their current assets to get as much as possible for them. Part of it backfired on them when Garza and Marmol got injured and Dempster didn't want to go to Atlanta, but they still made out with a couple top 10 prospects in Villanueva and Vizcaino.

 

And I like to think that if they had a plan from the beginning they'd stick to it if every gamble broke right for them just as it did when almost everything broke wrong for them.

 

Their gambles did break right. They tried to build the worst team they could and succeeded.

[SouthSideRyan]

What I'm most curious about is what the FO would have done if some of the flyers had paid off (i.e. Dolis was able to miss bats, Wood was effective, and Stewart played like he did a few years back) and the Cubs had somehow managed to hover around .500 at the deadline. Would they have sold everything off and torpedoed the year? I'd like to think they still would have done the same thing they did, which could have made the fan base even more disgruntled with the process.

 

Why would you like to think that? 1/3 of the teams in a league make the playoffs. If you are .500 at the deadline, you should not be selling off.

Because I think their plan from the beginning was to clean house and start fresh, while maximizing the value of their current assets to get as much as possible for them. Part of it backfired on them when Garza and Marmol got injured and Dempster didn't want to go to Atlanta, but they still made out with a couple top 10 prospects in Villanueva and Vizcaino.

 

And I like to think that if they had a plan from the beginning they'd stick to it if every gamble broke right for them just as it did when almost everything broke wrong for them.

 

What if they were tied for the wild card at 4 games over? You'd be in favor of them punting a shot at the playoffs so we could get a couple top 100 prospects?

[Exile on Waveland]

What would you categorize as poor decisions Theo made this year and what do you think he should have done?

 

-Losing a bidding war, ostensibly, to the Oakland freakin' A's for Yoenis Cespedes. Not sure about you, but I'd love for the Cubs to have a twenty-six year old outfield that in his first year in the majors/American baseball had a 136 OPS+ and a WAR of 3.4 (baseball reference)/3.1 (fangraphs) (both of which were dragged down by defense). But, hey, something about a fourth year?

 

-Not making a push for Edwin Jackson (who just recently turned twenty-nine years old). Prior to this year, he had WARs of 1.3, 3.6, 3.9, and 3.9, and this year a WAR of 2.7 (fangraphs) (always pitching at least 183 innings per year). Jackson signed a one-year, $11 million contract. This offseason, he's nearly certain to get a multi-year deal. (Hey, maybe he wouldn't have signed with the Cubs, and maybe the Cubs kicked the tires behind the scenes, so, admittedly, there's some conjecture.) I think you'll find certain posters -- he says, patting himself on the back -- wondered at the time why Jackson wasn't more in-demand.

 

Either of those players would have helped this year and in the coming years and neither would have broken the proverbial bank. But the front office, instead, chose to be awful.

[davell]

Jackson turned down 3/27 from the Pirates, because he was wanting 5/60. At that point, signing a one year deal with a contender was certainly a better option than a rebuilding team.

[Exile on Waveland]

Jackson turned down 3/27 from the Pirates, because he was wanting 5/60. At that point, signing a one year deal with a contender was certainly a better option than a rebuilding team.

 

You think the Pittsburgh Pirates are comparable in attractiveness to the Chicago Cubs with Theo Epstein in charge? I don't, records this year be damned. He turned down three years and $27 million from the Pirates, would he have turned down, say, four years and $40 million from the Cubs?

 

(Additionally, it's easy to call the Nationals a contender at this point, but few expected them to be anywhere near the best team in the NL; a potential wild card, yes. They won eighty games last year and their star pitcher was coming off Tommy John surgery. It's not like he signed with the Yankees to contend.)

[XZero771679666304]

Their gambles did break right. They tried to build the worst team they could and succeeded.

 

 

That's horse [expletive]. They made nearly every move with the future in mind and gave little consideration to winning games in 2012, but to say they sat down and willfully constructed the team with the their primary intent being that the 2012 Cubs lose as many games as possible is patently absurd.

 

For one thing, if they wanted to guarantee a massive loss total, they could have done it better. They would have traded off all of their more highly salable assets (Garza, Marmol) before the season started. The would not have signed Maholm or DeJesus, either. They could have left Rizzo in Iowa all year. There are a number of things they could easily have done (or not done) from the start to ensure an even more massive loss total.

 

But they didn't have to. The team was in a compromised state as it was, so by simply making the best long term decisions, they all but guaranteed a fairly awful finish. And even then, I don't think they thought it would have be this bad. I don't think they anticipated Stewart flaming out and being on the DL most of the year, or Soto stinking, Garza getting injured, Wood being ineffective and then retiring, Volstad being a total disaster, etc (though they almost certainly didn't expect Soriano or Shark's years, either).

 

The bottom line is that writing off 2012 as a casualty of the process =/= willfully constructing the worst possible roster, especially when they didn't remotely construct the worst possible roster they realistically could have. This was an "audition" year (especially for the bullpen, which seems perfectly reasonable to me), where a bunch of guys who may or may not have future value were evaluated. If things had broken even a bit better for some of them, this could realistically have been a 75 win team.

 

As bad as it turned out, it could have been much worse, if that had been the intent from day 1.

[XZero771679666304]

(Additionally, it's easy to call the Nationals a contender at this point, but few expected them to be anywhere near the best team in the NL; a potential wild card, yes. They won eighty games last year and their star pitcher was coming off Tommy John surgery. It's not like he signed with the Yankees to contend.)

 

They were a much better fit for a guy tring to build value on a 1-year deal than the Cubs were.

[jersey cubs fan]

Their gambles did break right. They tried to build the worst team they could and succeeded.

 

 

That's horse [expletive]. They made nearly every move with the future in mind and gave little consideration to winning games in 2012, but to say they sat down and willfully constructed the team with the their primary intent being that the 2012 Cubs lose as many games as possible is patently absurd.

 

Your response to this tongue in cheek statement is patently absurd.

[XZero771679666304]

What would you categorize as poor decisions Theo made this year and what do you think he should have done?

 

-Losing a bidding war, ostensibly, to the Oakland freakin' A's for Yoenis Cespedes. Not sure about you, but I'd love for the Cubs to have a twenty-six year old outfield that in his first year in the majors/American baseball had a 136 OPS+ and a WAR of 3.4 (baseball reference)/3.1 (fangraphs) (both of which were dragged down by defense). But, hey, something about a fourth year?

 

-Not making a push for Edwin Jackson (who just recently turned twenty-nine years old). Prior to this year, he had WARs of 1.3, 3.6, 3.9, and 3.9, and this year a WAR of 2.7 (fangraphs) (always pitching at least 183 innings per year). Jackson signed a one-year, $11 million contract. This offseason, he's nearly certain to get a multi-year deal. (Hey, maybe he wouldn't have signed with the Cubs, and maybe the Cubs kicked the tires behind the scenes, so, admittedly, there's some conjecture.) I think you'll find certain posters -- he says, patting himself on the back -- wondered at the time why Jackson wasn't more in-demand.

 

Either of those players would have helped this year and in the coming years and neither would have broken the proverbial bank. But the front office, instead, chose to be awful.

 

 

Yeah, Cespedes and Darvish are the two players that I would really like to have seen obtained. I believe they made what they believed to be a competitive bid for Darvish, but I have a hard time with not giving Cespedes 4 years or offering 6/60 or something, unless Theo/Jed weren't given a chance to counter.

 

But make no mistake, this would still have been an awful team regardless.

[XZero771679666304]

Their gambles did break right. They tried to build the worst team they could and succeeded.

 

 

That's horse [expletive]. They made nearly every move with the future in mind and gave little consideration to winning games in 2012, but to say they sat down and willfully constructed the team with the their primary intent being that the 2012 Cubs lose as many games as possible is patently absurd.

 

Your response to this tongue in cheek statement is patently absurd.

 

Some people have made that claim seriously, so I took it at face value.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

It's no less absurd than "They did pretty much everything right, just virtually all of their gambles turned out bad," which is also frequently pushed.

 

They made the decision to do everything with the view that the 2012 season was worthless. The result was predictable and therefore intentional. Heck, even a guy like Maholm looks to me like he was acquired with the intent to flip.

[SouthSideRyan]

(Additionally, it's easy to call the Nationals a contender at this point, but few expected them to be anywhere near the best team in the NL; a potential wild card, yes. They won eighty games last year and their star pitcher was coming off Tommy John surgery. It's not like he signed with the Yankees to contend.)

 

They were a much better fit for a guy tring to build value on a 1-year deal than the Cubs were.

 

Not with hindsight considering the Cubs would've traded him in July, meaning the team who signs him wouldn't lose a draft pick this offseason.

[23sharks]

By winning 90 games his last year there? Sign me up to have that is a down year please.

 

At some point, Epstein has to take the blame for either the 2012 Red Sox or Cubs. He can't dodge both.

 

He takes blame for the 2012 Cubs. You don't get to take a dive and then dodge the criticism for all the losses you caused by fielding a horrible team.

 

Completely agree.

[Sammy Sofa]

The Cespedes thing gnaws at my soul.