Early look at 2015 depth chart

Cubs Video

The Cubs have begun building some momentum this month, with Javier Baez showing pitchers that pitching around him will not save them from being taken deep. The traditional August/September death march has turned into

.

But come October, the work begins on the 2015 Cubs. Unofficially, the front office has been working on that team for three years, to the detriment of the 2012, 2013 and 2014 Cubs. So what do they have to show for it?

Well, imagine for a moment that Epstein's long angleshoot (giving Jon Lester's dad cancer so that he could bond with the impending free-agent pitcher) doesn't pay off, and Poor Tom Ricketts puts a freeze on payroll again so the family can fund some right-wing political campaign in some place that considers Omaha to be “urban.”

If the Cubs had to build their 2015 team entirely around assets they already have in place, what would it look like? There are a lot of possible permutations of positions and pitcher roles with the same players. Here's the team I'd build, and what it means I expect for the actual offseason.

Outfield

Starting

Kris Bryant* / Arismendy Alcantara / Jorge Soler

Bench

Justin Ruggiano, Ryan Sweeney

Depth

Ryan Sweeney, Matt Szczur, Junior Lake

*Bryant, of course, likely won't be up until after the service-time deadline passes in late April.

Those starters are an immensely talented group that will have a total of four months of MLB experience going into the season. I think they'll be underrated for that reason, especially in the post-PED, young-skewing MLB.

Ryan Sweeney is under contract for one more year at $1.5m with a $500k buyout, while Chris Coghlan and Ruggiano will be in their second-to-last arbitration years. There's a bit of redundancy there, as you'd only need two of the three in a perfect world. But with service time issues and inexperience higher up the depth chart, I don't see any need not to have that redundancy. Alcantara's ability to double as a utility infielder could make up for deficiencies elsewhere.

Down in the depths, Lake can buy himself another year in the organization by staying on the MLB roster for all of 2014 and saving his last option. Let's hope it doesn't get down this far.

Offseason expectation

Stand pat. There's a nice mix of displaced rookies and veteran depth.

Infield

Starters

Luis Valbuena / Starlin Castro / Javier Baez / Anthony Rizzo

Bench

Logan Watkins, Mike Olt

Depth

Christian Villanueva

Late-season potential

Addison Russell

The starting infield is the strength of the organization and the envy of most of baseball (any Mets fans reading this, imagine your hand just got slapped as you reached for a cookie). It's not that hard to dream on the 100-HR potential there, and it's pretty solid defensively. Addison Russell looms as a potential late-season shot-in-the-arm and coverage for injuries.

The bench and depth is weak, which reveals a potential key offseason target. If you think Mike Olt's BABIP was unlucky this year, you can make a thin case for him to be a “break glass if you need pinch-hit power against a lefty” bench guy, and Logan Watkins wouldn't be the worst 6th infielder in history. But that's the nicest I can be on either of them.

Offseason expectation

Infield depth should be an offseason priority. If you want to carry six outfielders and have Alcantara back up the infield when he's not starting in CF, then you can get away with only one addition, but two would be preferable.

Catcher

Starter

Welington Castillo

Bench

John Baker

Depth

None worth mentioning

I've never been one of Welington Castillo's biggest fans. He's a fringe starter who got a big boost when BABIP and the UZR-RNG gave him a 3.3 fWAR season in 2013, but he's more realistically worth half that in any given year.

Offseason expectation

Everyone always needs a third catcher or two for AAA, and we'll surely swap one in at some point in the offseason. But catcher is also a dark horse for a position the Cubs might target to upgrade with their big fat pile of resources.

Rotation

Starters

Jake Arrieta / Kyle Hendricks / Jacob Turner? / Travis Wood / Edwin Jackson

Depth

Dan Straily, Felix Doubront, Tsuyoshi Wada?

Re-conversion candidates

Justin Grimm, Neil Ramirez, Arodys Vizcaino

Late-season potential

Pierce Johnson, C.J. Edwards

Who knows what is happening with Jacob Turner. He apparently is going to become ours for free? That's hard to believe until official. And as far as I can tell, nobody knows if Wada has a release clause or not.

Reconverting pitchers is risky business and probably unnecessary given the depth, but I figured they should be listed regardless. After Arrieta, you could make a case for six or seven guys in any order.

How good is what we have? They're pitchers, who the heck knows. Arrieta's shoulder could pop at any minute, who knows what slutters are doing to his elbow. Hendricks' offspeed stuff has been just impressive enough to give him a shot at being a pretty decent MLB pitcher. Jackson, Wood and Turner all have peripherals that claim they should be useful starters in the future despite their ERAs. As Transmogrified Tiger has been demonstrating well lately, parity of pitching is tightening up in MLB and it's getting easier to find acceptable value in motley crews such as this.

Offseason expectation

It's obvious and not at all a secret that the Cubs need front-of-rotation pitching and will be targeting it this offseason. The depth is actually really good here, and there's plenty of guys to fight it out for rotation spots in the spring. There should be a lot of speculation about eating Edwin Jackson's deal to send him away, but you can do that as easily on March 29th as you can now, so there's not a ton of incentive not to give him another spring to look better.

Bullpen

MLB pen

Neil Ramirez, Hector Rondon, Pedro Strop, Arodys Vizcaino, Armando Rivero, Justin Grimm, Wesley Wright

Depth

Blake Parker, Brian Schlitter, Zac Rosscup, anyone who doesn't make the rotation

Late-season potential

C.J. Edwards, if they give up on him being a starter

There's a ton of potential here, it's certainly not a likely weakness. Only one lefty makes the original seven, but there will doubtlessly be much action on the Des Moines Shuttle.

Offseason expectation

I wouldn't mind seeing a good lefty targeted. It seems like we have plenty, but I'm not sure how much we can trust Rosscup, and Wright hasn't exactly set the world on fire.

Comments section, feel free to tell me how many names I misspelled .... go