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I figured I'd put this quote here. This is Bruce talking about how the organizations sees Jackson (and also Cashner and Coleman): It's very nice to see that they're not moving Jackson because of his questions about his ability. Confirming that Cashner is very unlikely to move to the bullpen though is probably the best news.

I like the strikeouts number. The walk rate is definitely misleading because 2 were intentional and 1-2 more were likely somewhat intentional. He'd probably only have 2-3 walks (and probably closer to 2) in a different spot in the order which is still ok for him.

The bold text is completely false. You had a few people here gung-ho for Lou, but most were vehemently opposed against hiring him even when it was just being suggested before Dusty was actually gone. When Lou was got hired the general consensus beyond those fanatical few was basically "at least he's not Joe Girardi/it could be worst" in terms of being positive. Really? I guess I wasn't quite here then, but I find this kind of hard to believe. Who else did people want? If I recall Bobby Valentine was at the top of many people's wish lists. I believe there was some talk about Fredi Gonzalez as well, but I may be confusing that with the previous search when Dusty Baker was eventually hired. Fredi Gonzalez was definitely a candidate when the 2006 season ended. He got snapped up very quickly. Many people thought Lou was exactly like Baker. They especially stressed his not liking walks/OBP and his misuse of young players. So they were entirely correct in not wanting a continuation of the Baker years, but Lou has proven to have very little in common with Baker.

Definitely the team needed money if they were going to compete. You either need to have a good farm system or need to spend if you're going to win. The Cubs did very little of either in that first 4 year period of Hendry's tenrue. The good thing was that the Cubs didn't have that much unwise spending on their roster so they still had the spending option available to them. But spending your way to a good team from a terrible team over a 1-2 year period is not easy. You have to make very few mistakes and Hendry did just that. Most GM's probably couldn't have built the 2008 team so quickly from what they had to work with in 2006. Money was definitely necessary, but picking the right players was just as necessary and not as easy as choosing the ones who were considered to be the best at that time (if the Cubs did that, they probably would not have won any division titles). But obviously spending as the path to victory has its huge flaw which is that the margin for error is so thin. The better path is to develop the farm system but that takes time. The Cubs are finally getting there with their farm system and now are starting the transition. The trick is going to be to unwind the contracts in such a way that keeps the Cubs competitive but also gives the young players the chance they need to learn and grow at the major league level. And I don't really think the Cubs contract situation is prohibitive. The bomb that could always go off is Soriano. As long as he is productive, his contract is not that bad of a problem. When he becomes clearly not worthy of a roster spot it becomes a big problem. Hopefully the Cubs can get another year or two out of him and trade him but it will probably turn ugly before the end. The other contracts I'm not worried about at all. With the Cubs starting to need to fill less spots with veterans, having overpaid players with such a large payroll is not a big issue. Again for me, it's as long as they are productive and deserve their starting spot, and pretty much all of them (maybe not Silva if he implodes) do. And most of the contracts are not all that long so there isn't that much risk left in them. I am concerned about Hendry doing the balancing act correctly and would not be sad about somebody else doing it instead. But slowly transitioning to a more farm system based team does seem to be the plan even from ownership and Hendry has done a good job of executing the plan the last few years. I think he has the skills to keep following the plan and I feel he is a potentially good option to pick the right veterans to go along with the youngsters as the team goes forward.

The 2008 draft is where a lot of the Cubs current farm strength comes from (along with the international signings). Cashner, Jay Jackson, Chris Carpenter, and Casey Coleman all came from that draft. All are in AA or higher now and have all shown at least pretty long periods of strong pitching. Logan Watkins has gotten high reviews from some of the scouting organizations. I'm not that high on him but he's only 20 and in Peoria. Flaherty and Shafer also have shown flashes. Harrison from that draft was already traded in Grabow/Gorzelanny deal. And there are some other players who could turn out to be bench players or potential relievers from that draft. The other drafts Wilken has done haven't been quite so good. 2006 turned out to be mostly a wasted draft. Samardzija and no 2nd-4th round picks really hurt that. Colvin so far has of course contributed more than at times he was expected to, and him and Blake Parker could make that draft not a total loss. 2007 Vitters is still progressing. They traded Donaldson in the Harden deal. Barney is a future backup SS. Russell is now pitching for the Cubs. Guyer could still do something. This is a fairly underwhelming class overall but decent if you can get value out of Vitters and they already got value out of Donaldson. 2009 has so little information. But it's off to a good start with Brett Jackson doing so well. There are also some intriguing names in later rounds. It isn't off to the rousing start that 2008 was, but few drafts ever are. Wilken is definitely not a bust though. The international signings are definitely boosting this system and will continue to do so, but the Cubs are getting good support from the amateur draft as well. A big key is that the Cubs haven't completely whiffed on any of their first round picks so far which is easy to do. That sort of talent makes the whole rest of your draft look a whole lot better.

The first Barrett trade is the first one that pops into my mind.

In any normal offseason I would agree with you. But the 2006 offseason was a special one. For example, I'll show the starting pitchers who got multi-year deals. I'm not going to put any names, just contract length, contract dollars, and ERA+ for 2007-2009 (I realize the flaws in ERA+ but just for a quick analysis it should be ok..I'm also excluding 2010 for this analysis because of the lack of data so far.): Pitcher A: 3 years, 25: 102, 68, 108 B: 3 years, 24.5: 73, 76, 57 C: 2 years, 12: 116 (retired after 1 year) D: 5 years, 20 (25 million posting fee): 73, 36 (not in majors right now) E: 4 years, 40: 121, 113, 145 F: 3 years, 21: 100, 102, 113 G: 6 years, 52 (51 million posting fee): 108, 160, 82 H: 5 years, 55: 125, 110, 87 I: 2 years, 13: 37, 48 J: 2 years, 23: 88, 132 K: 3 years, 33.75: 79, 94, 100 M: 3 years, 47: 71, not in league, 72 N: 4 years, 42: 96, 85, 76 O: 2 years, 12.5: 84, out of league P: 7 years, 126: 99, 86, 108 There aren't that many combinations of pitchers that would have given the Cubs good shots at the playoffs in 2007-2008. Picking B, D, I, M, N, or O would have disastrous. P and G would be Soriano like contracts. C was unavailable to the Cubs (Orlando Hernandez who resigned and then retired one year later). K is a really bad contract. J, H, and A would have been ok but not great. Hendry probably picked the best two contracts out of that mess (E and F are Lilly and Marquis). The same was true at 2B where Lugo was given his awful contract that Boston is still paying for on his 3rd city now. Kennedy, Durham, and to a lesser extent Iwamura were also given multi-year contracts and were all less productive than DeRosa. Soriano was a terrible contract but there were very few good ones out there. That was also the year Gary Matthews Jr. got his terrible deal. The Cubs chose not to resign Pierre and he got his awful deal. Drew was the only deal that Hendry really missed out on that offseason (Carlos Lee would have been a slightly less horrible deal than Soriano). The Cubs had lots of money that year, but that year is also the one that fans around the league shudder about because it brought horrible contracts to so many teams. For the Cubs to come out of that spending all that money with only Soriano as a problem is a huge coup. They picked up many of the best players of the free agent class and those were often not nearly the highest money getters at their positions. And no, I'm not convinced Hendry should keep his job. But I do think he's done a pretty good job these last 4 years building us out of that mess. Now he needs to continue to change gears and keep building a more long-term solution.

Yes, I would. I meant to make that more clear in my initial analysis. With all of those together, Hendry definitely deserved to be fired for his first 4 years on the job. He did some excellent and some bad in his actual building of the team, but it was the other things that he failed to oversee well that really hurt the club long-term. Since then though I believe is a different story. I don't think most GM's could have taken that 2006 team and made it a winning team in one offseason. Free agents cleaned up that offseason and a lot of teams have scars from that. Hendry picked good talent and got the club back into the playoffs. I also like that in all of the spending, he never got desperate enough to send the farm away. He's stuck to the course even while being told to win and given rapidly expanding resources to do so. He also has shown a willingness to go after different types of players than he would in the past. Yes, there are some players that are overpaid. I don't think Hendry is ever going to get away from that. But as long as he continues to do a good job of picking the right ones who can contribute, then it doesn't matter as much. It matters right now because so many members of the club had to come from free agency. It won't matter nearly as much when the farm system starts producing its fair sure of contributors. And that becomes more and more likely as the months go on. At that point the big thing will become making sure your big free agent acquisitions are not complete duds, and the Cubs have done better than most at that.

Looking back, 2006 was a very, very low point. There were a few things that got the Cubs there: 1) The franchise was not exactly stocked when Hendry got there. The offense was ancient. The bullpen wasn't much better. The starting pitching had some excellent young arms which was the strength of the franchise. There also wasn't that much help coming from the minors anymore. 2) Dusty Baker. He helped destroy the one thing the Cubs had left and that was their young starting pitching. 3)Draft coordinator. The drafts in the early-middle part of the decade were terrible. By 2006, the talent in the minors was quickly drying up because of a lack of quality drafted players. 4) Hendry. He did get Lee and Ramirez which helped replace some of the quickly aging offense. He also got Barrett who was useful for a few years. He had an inability to replace the OF talent that started to decline though and that really hurt the club. He let Baker continue to destroy the arms. He went after the wrong areas of the club and for the wrong players. The Cubs had three choices. They could either 1) wait it out, trade away all their useful talent, and slowly rebuild and go through another 2-3 years of losing, 2) spend money, hope to rebuild the farm system and trade away players from there to get quick veteran fixes, or 3) spend money, hope to rebuild the farm system, hold onto the players on the farm and then start to incorporate the farm system to where less money needs to be spent. The Cubs chose 3. They spent lots of money and returned to winning ways. They had to spend lots of money to do so because even though they got a couple of surprises from the farm (Soto, Wells) it isn't enough to build a team around. They've hung onto most all their talent in the farm system and the talent level slowly began to grow. Now they are at the next phase of that development. They need to start incorporating young players and slowly let some of the other contracts unwind. Castro is the first and it sounds very encouraging that they are going to stick with him. There are other players on his heels and if the Cubs develop 2-3 players here, they won't need a rapidly expanding payroll to keep a winning ballclub. The next step once that happens is to find an elite player to which to build around. The Cubs haven't found that yet from their farm system. They may eventually need to trade for one if they can't find one but it's too soon right now to really trade for one. They need the quantity of possible starters from the farm right now too much. My concern is not what Hendry and Piniella have done so far the last 3+ years but that they will impede the development of the next step. But so far, they seem to be willing to take that path. As long as that is so, I am just fine with them staying on because I really like some aspects of both of them. I think Hendry in particular will have his strengths magnified and his weaknesses will not matter as much in the next phase.

How so? What talent has he found? He doesn't draft, he doesn't sign international free agents. The most involved he's been finding talent in recent history has to be Jeff Samardzija. He signs and trades for established big league players with easily discernible track records. I probably should have said identify rather than find. The first thing is his trades. Hendry has done a very good job of trading away players whose trade value ended up being higher than their future actual value. He doesn't always get full trade value for them, but he has done a good job of not trading away talent. Then he has done a good job of acquiring players with question marks. DeRosa, Lilly, Marquis are good examples from the same offseason. All were players who ended up performing better to much better than they were expected to. Gorzelanny, Silva, and Byrd could end up being examples of the same thing from this year's team. With a couple of exceptions, Hendry has been able to avoid the contracts where the player gives you nothing. And there have been a lot out there in the years that the Cubs have been active in free agency.

I haven't chosen one, but I'm at least considering neither. In fact, the only one of the four I'm not considering is Hendry alone. I would agree that their performance to date should make both of them not feel very safe and their firing would be deserved. That doesn't make sense to me. Both deserve to be fired, but you are considering that neither should be? The short answer is that I don't necessarily believe that what Hendry did 5 years ago is indicative of what he would do today. I think he's much better at trying to find the right kinds of players now and I absolutely love his ability to find talent. I like the majority of things the team has done since the cupboard was basically bare at the end of 2006 on both the minor and major league levels. As for Lou, he hasn't really done anything significantly right or wrong. He deserves to be fired for the underachieving his team has done in 2009/early 2010 because managers take the fall for such things. I'm actually closer to wanting to fire him over things like his bullpen usage, but it hasn't been a big enough problem that if he kept his job I'd be concerned either. I'm more concerned about keeping both the hitting and pitching coaches and so I'm happy to keep Lou to keep the whole staff together.

I haven't chosen one, but I'm at least considering neither. In fact, the only one of the four I'm not considering is Hendry alone. I would agree that their performance to date should make both of them not feel very safe and their firing would be deserved.

I don't think Cashner has been above 100. He did have 3 starts in a row though where he had 99, 97, and 98 pitches. The first two he finished out the inning. The last one he was pulled with 2 outs in the inning with a 5 run lead after striking out the previous 2 batters which suggests that in Tennessee, 100 was considered his upper limit.

Cashner is on track to fly up the prospect lists. Everything is going right for him. The number that pops out for Cashner first is the HR percentage. 1 HR given up all of last year and only 1 so far this year. Obviously that's going to increase in the majors, but he has proven that he's stingy about giving up HR. The next that pops out is the H/9 inning. A very good 6.6 last year and an even better 5.8 so far this year. Again something that will rise but it shows that there are very few people getting solid contact on him. The strikeout rate has gone way up so far this year. 6.7 last year to 10.3 this year. This is still uncertain where he ends up but he likely won't be a low strikeout pitcher. I could see him settling in the 7-9 range though. The walk rate has gone down slightly so far this year. 3.8/9 last year, and now 3/9 so far this year. Walks are likely to always be somewhat of a problem for Cashner but as long as he keeps it somewhere in the 3 range he'll be fine. Then you add in that he's averaging 6 IP per start. I'd still like to see him elevate the pitch count a little bit but that can be done in time. Finally the reports of his change getting better to become a 3rd pitch is really encouraging for his future as a starter. I don't think there's any doubt that he's at least the 2nd best Cubs prospect right now behind Castro. And that isn't a slight to the other Cubs top prospects but Cashner has quickly moved up to be one of the better pitching prospects in the game. He's proving his good qualities were not a fluke and is showing positive signs on his negative ones. Does that mean he'll be a starter in the majors? Just like every starting pitching prospect, you never know for sure if they'll succeed in the major leagues. But he's a legitimate great to elite starting prospect now that just happens to have bullpen experience if he fails at being a starter.

Jackson is a tough case. He is pretty close if not major league ready at this point. He's almost certainly not going to have any chance at the major league rotation at any point this year with Zambrano and likely Cashner ahead of him. Even if Lilly leaves, he still has to beat out a couple of other pitchers to get into the rotation for next year. So the Cubs have 3 options. They could pitch him in the minors this year and give him a small shot at the rotation next year. He likely won't make it and he'll either go into the minors or the bullpen next year. He could go into the bullpen right now and either develop into a reliever or return to starting down the line (as early as next year). Or he could be traded. Barring expected trades of either starters on the major league roster or Jackson, moving to the bullpen to help the 2010 team is probably the best move for him right now. If the Cubs plan to trade him though then keeping him as a starter in the minors is the better move.

I would in no way be behind punishing him for it or not playing him, but he did have a pretty horrific game despite that batting line. Also the batting line was skewed by the fact that one of the walks was intentional and they might have been being careful with him on the other walk because of runners on, two outs, and Lilly on deck. But yes, he definitely needs to play regardless.

This has been a strange year so far. So far the Cubs peripherals are better than the Cubs actual runs scored and runs allowed which is in turn better than the Cubs actual record. For example, look at the Cubs ranks in their peripherals: Batting OBP: 4th in NL SLG: 4th in NL OPS: 4th in NL HR: 4th in NL BA: 5th in NL BB: 7th in NL (tied) K's: 6th fewest in NL And just in case they were making tons of outs on the bases: SB%: 5th in NL (3rd fewest caught stealing) Pitching: BB/9: 3rd fewest K/9: 2nd K/BB: 1st HR: 6th most OBP against: 7th SLG against: 10th OPS against: 9th WHIP: 7th BAA: 8th The peripherals would suggest an above average offense. They are solid in just about every category. On the pitching side, it would suggest average to above average. They are giving up too many extra base hits and home runs to be very good. They have also likely gotten unlucky in the BABIP department to be below league average in BAA with such good K numbers and not exceptionally high HR numbers. Even with that bad luck, they should still be at least average in runs. Instead, the offense is 6th in runs/game and the pitching is 11th. Both numbers are a couple of rankings below what the peripherals would suggest (and the pitching one would be further off if not for the BABIP differential). Even with those run scored/run allowed numbers that are worse than they should be, the Cubs expected win/loss would be 16-17. But they are even underperforming that so far with their 14-19 record. So before we even get into which Cubs have overperformed/underperformed so far, there is a problem in the Cubs team numbers. All the team numbers suggest they should have been better than they are. They should have scored more runs, they should have allowed less runs, and they should have won more ballgames based on their performance so far. So far, none of those things have happened. As far as I can tell, there isn't really a good explanation for why that is. The NL randomly being more clutch than the Cubs accounts for some of it. On the batting side, the NL is 53 points better in OPS with RISP this year while the Cubs are only 6. On the pitching side, the NL is 46 points worse in OPS with RISP while the Cubs are 179 points worse. But I have a hard time thinking that is all of it.

Castro better be playing every day unless he need an off day to rest. That or you send him back down. He better not ride the bench. The fact that the Cubs said that Fontenot is the backup SS when Castro needs a day off and not Theriot is a very good sign for Castro continuing to start IMO. They have already thought that far ahead and want to get Theriot comfortable at 2B because they feel he's there for the long haul. The comments Hendry made that implied Theriot needed to move anyway also supports that they are thinking along those lines. Since they certainly don't see Fontenot as an everyday shortstop, it seems they think Castro is the only legitimate SS on the roster right now.

Tracy was willing to go to Iowa if need be at the end of ST. I assume it's probably the same now and that he didn't refuse. I think a DFA would be due to his high service time already accrued (6 years) and that I believe he was out of options anyway. So the only way to get him to the minors is to remove him from the 40 man roster and then outright him to the minors after passing through waivers. Based on the way the news was reported, it sounds like the Cubs want to try to get him through waivers and send him to Iowa.

I doubt we'll see a Baker release (more likely to be Tracy IMO if they're going to release somebody) and I doubt you see a Fontenot/Theriot platoon either. They probably see Fontenot and Theriot as close enough against right-handers (which might be true if the Fontenot of a couple of years ago doesn't make an appearance) that there's no reason to start the player who has to be pulled from the game when a left-handed reliever comes in. Theriot would be the full-time starter with Fontenot getting the occasional start. As for Castro, if true the Cubs better give him the time he deserves. If they do that and are patient, then the only reason I don't like this move is that they could have waited a month and not made him a Super 2. I'm not worried much about Castro being overwhelmed by the league and not being able to make adjustments, but those adjustments will take time and the Cubs have to be committed to him for a while now.

Well, he must be lobbing pitches up to the plate so swinging would seem to be appropriate. He's allowed 31.9% LD percentage so far and 35% of his fly balls given up have been for home runs (which translates to teams batting .384 off of him and him giving up 3.26 HR/9 so far). His K/BB ratio is actually pretty decent but he's still getting pounded.

Pretty much a puff piece on Castro but a couple interesting quotes. I also like to see that he apparently is over 190 pounds at this point: http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100504&content_id=9783724&vkey=news_milb&fext=.jsp

Unless they make a trade probably the former. Baker can do the things that Tracy does and is also more versatile. I see it as pretty likely that one of the 3 is traded though (Fontenot, Baker, or Tracy) even if it is just for a PTBNL.

I don't understand how a team with such good hitting and starting pitching can be sub .500. That good hitting goes away mysteriously when there are RISP. And the bullpen is bad enough to negate the good starting pitching. This has been shown false about 75 times on the forum, but I'll throw the updated numbers out there: Overall: .278/.350/.445/.794 RISP: .258/.342/.444/.786 RISP, 2 out: .250/.339/.482/.821 bases loaded: .290/.333/.419/.753 Oddly enough, the scoring spree against AZ has created a gap. That's the biggest difference there's been all year and it's pretty much only batting average that's different. Where did you get the RISP number Tim? ESPN has it as .256/.337/.436 now, and it says that's through 26 games so that appears to have been updated. All the other numbers are identical. Looking at the numbers though, a teams OPS is supposed to get slightly better with RISP (due to increased walks). Here are the numbers for the NL: 2009 Total: .259/.330/.409 RISP: .258/.350/.401 2008 Total: .260/.331/.413 RISP: .260/.352/.406 2007 Total: .266/.334/.422 RISP: .269/.357/.423 That sort of pattern continues in previous years. Batting average stays about the same, OBP goes up by around 20 points, and slugging sometimes stays around the same and sometimes drops a few points. So the Cubs ISOP is up so far with RISP, but their batting average is way off and their walk rate is also slightly off so far. The overall OPS that is 21 points down gets worse when it should be 10-20 points up. That hurts even worse when the NL has been an outlier at this point with RISP. Instead of settling into that 10-20 point gap so far, the NL has been 56 points of OPS better with RISP. While that should settle down as the season goes along, those are still teams that the Cubs are competing against and their RISP numbers artificially being up helps the Cubs lose. The Cubs are one of 4 teams for their numbers to be down with RISP so far-the Cubs, Philly, Washington, and San Francisco who has been really bad. They've already played 3 outliers on the other side-Arizona is around 160 points better, Houston is about 130 points better, and Atlanta is around 80 points better. So the Cubs performance with RISP has hurt them somewhat so far, and it has made it even worse when you consider that the National League as a whole is red hot with RISP right now. However, those are all good things for the Cubs going forward! Those are statistics that show that the NL should cool off in that department and the Cubs should be better than they have been as the season goes along. The Cubs are now 2nd in OBP, 2nd in SLG, and 3rd in OPS in the NL. If that comes anywhere close to continuing, they'll score a lot of runs over the course of the season.

The Cubs current window is closing. Bringing up Castro too early would be a possible hit to the next window. The farm system is not stocked but it is hardly bare either. The Cubs have a pretty good core down there. Is it enough to sustain a medium or high payroll team? Absolutely. What makes you think Ricketts is going to dramatically lower the payroll? He has stressed that all the money he makes on the team is going back into the team. And I doubt the Tribune was losing large amounts of money on the team. And if you believed that Ricketts was going to lower payroll, then why would you want Castro to cost millions more than he should for 3-4 years straight? Wouldn't that hurt a lowered payroll? Isn't 1 month a small price to pay for a better budget for all that time? As for the developing talent question, the Cubs have been very good at developing pitchers over the years. And wouldn't the Cubs have to get credit for developing Castro if he's this player who is going to help the team? The Cubs are starting to both draft and develop talent better than they have in the past. If Castro becomes a starter, the Cubs will have 3 homegrown position players in their lineup who have all joined the lineup in the last 5 years. I can sympathize with this argument, but that's a fan's argument and not a GM's. A GM has to be above that and do what's best for the team. What are his specific improvements he can make that can only be done in the majors?