Transmogrified Tiger

Since it's the season for such rumors, and the Cubs have so many interchangeable pieces that might be traded, I thought it might be fun to have a spot for you to give your hopes or predictions for what happens during this trading season. Be as grounded in reality as you like, and be prepared for someone to call you out if it's not realistic. If you don't want to hear my weird imagined scenarios, skip the rest of the post and make your own! I'll go first: - Feldman to the Royals for Herrera and Mariot - Moore is desperate for a push to the playoffs here, which is why the value proposition is probably tilted in the Cubs favor. He does add one of the better SP on the market though, so it's an easier sell to his fans. He also deals from his greatest strength(the Royals still have Holland, Collins, Crow, and Hochevar in the pen), doesn't touch the current MLB roster, and trades away a volatile commodity in relief pitching. I've been on Herrera and Mariot for a while now. Herrera immediately slots in to a late inning role, and Mariot will certainly have the chance to prove similarly after finishing the year at Iowa. - Villanueva and Schierholtz to the Rangers for Perez and Burns - The Rangers want to round out their rotation and they have a gaping hole in the OF(plus the small but nagging chance Cruz goes down with Biogenesis). They get 2 guys who help now and in 2014. Villanueva plugs a hole in the rotation and gives them flexibility when constructing their staff next year. Schierholtz replaces Murphy's awful production in LF and also gives them an in house RF option if they don't want to bring back Cruz. They give up a SP prospect who's seen his star dim a bit in Perez, and a relief prospect in Burns. The results are still there for Perez, so as long as the stuff checks out, he's a good addition and can compete for a rotation spot next year. Burns has little left to prove in AAA and would be fighting for a MLB bullpen job as soon as the Cubs would like. - Garza and Gregg to the Dodgers for Lee and Magill - subheading: Letting Colletti hang himself. Ned obviously feels a lot of pressure to get his superteam competitive, and there's no easier way than trading for the best SP on the market. He also adds some bullpen reinforcements for good measure. He pays a pretty stiff price, but he's used to winning bidding wars(and there's certainly one for Garza) and considering that Kershaw/Greinke/Ryu are all under team control for many years, and Beckett/Billingsley already for next year, he isn't creating much of a hole either. The Cubs get a top line pitching prospect that will spend 2014 in AAA getting that full year of work before contributing in full the following season. Magill finishes the year in Iowa, where he works on the control problems that popped up this year before fighting alongside Perez for a 2014 rotation spot. After the carnage, there's a couple internal moves to make. Rusin takes one of the rotation spots to get an extended look to see if he can be a swingman/2nd LH reliever on next year's team. Coleman begrudgingly gets the other rotation spot unless Perez shows he has nothing to prove in Iowa. Rosscup and Cabrera are promoted to AAA, Cabrera continues to start, but both are in the discussion for 2014 pen roles. Once Sweeney gets healthy, he takes over Schierholtz's work in RF. DeJesus will be healthy before him, so some combination of DeJesus/Borbon/Hairston covers CF and RF until then. What that means for 2014 is that you've now got about 40 million dollars to spend, make it a bit under 35 after a couple arbitration raises to Shark/Russell, bringing back Sweeney, etc. To spell it out as an example, you can go after one of the big FA OF (Ellsbury/Choo), add a SP or two, and maybe bring in a reliever for extra stability. Let's call it Ellsbury, Jason Vargas, and Benoit. So then you have: Castillo/Rizzo/Barney/Castro/Valbuena/DeJesus/Ellsbury/Sweeney(with Hairston and Soriano for OF platoons) Samardzija/Jackson/Wood/Vargas/Perez/Magill as SP, with Hendricks, Lee, and maybe Cabrera around as 7th options Benoit/Herrera/Russell/Parker/Burns/Mariot/Bowden/Rusin/Cabrera as bullpen options This exercise is really at it's most fun when you're doing it though, so let's hear the creative options you can come up with.

They're the only Cubs on either roster. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/events/all_star/y2013/roster_futures_world.jsp

Please pardon the title, the character limitations made it hard to make the topic clear. The Cubs haven't made the playoffs since 2008, and we're in Year 2 of that drought under Theo. One point that you see pop up quite a bit is the idea that the team needs to be taking steps forward in terms of wins and losses. It helps in a variety of ways, from making the team a more attractive FA destination, to keeping fan morale high, to also being a statistical indicator that the team is nearing a break-through that will send them to the playoffs. With that in mind, I took a look at teams that had made the playoffs since 2007 after at least 3 years of drought. http://i.imgur.com/LTmNuo2.png How to read the chart. Year 1 would be 3 years before the playoff appearance, Year 3 the year before the playoff appearance, etc. Additional playoff appearances are for the 3 years following the first appearance. 2013 is projected based on current standings. A few things I noticed after compiling this: - Lots of playoff teams fit this profile. 26% since 2007, and that number would seem more likely to go up with the extra wild card. - The leap that teams make is a huge one. An average of 16 wins across 13 different instances in 6 years is enough for me to be pretty skeptical of the "how do they get from X wins to a playoff team" arguments that come about. - Teams remained competitive in the seasons that followed their leap. 17 playoff appearances out of a possible 32, 53%. - The size of the leap didn't have much impact on following playoff appearances. Teams who had a leap of less than 10 wins were 8 for 12 (67%), teams with a leap of 15 wins or less were 10 of 21 (48%), and teams with a greater than 15 win leap were 6 of 11 (55%). There's not a lot of actionable things to take from this, aside from maybe the idea that teams should always try to be making the next couple years better, because the threshold to being "ready to contend" isn't one that seems to exist as a win count. How that applies to the Cubs is probably a rorshach test for your feelings on the current FO, which is nice I guess since it means I'm not telling anyone they're wrong. Except those of you who say "I just don't see how this team gets to 85-90 wins" during the offseason. You're not right.

You determine what a "good job" is. Just be consistent in applying it. Past Results: May 2013 - 71% Yes - 28 votes April 2013 - 95% Yes - 21 votes Post 2012 - 96% Yes - 26 votes August 2012 - 90% Yes - 31 votes July 2012 - 85% Yes - 27 votes June 2012 - 96% Yes - 26 votes May 2012 - 96% Yes - 27 votes April 2012 - 61% Yes - 28 votes

This is an idea that's been covered before, Obstructed View did something on the same topic a month ago. With another full month to expand the sample I thought it'd be fun to revisit the fact that Chris Bosio appears to have a universal impact on Ground Ball rates. Name Pre-Bosio 2012 2013 Samardzija 40.3 44.6 48.4 Garza 41.0 47.3 43.6 Wood 31.4 34.3 37.0 Jackson 43.8 N/A 50.8 Villanueva 38.8 N/A 45.3 Feldman 46.5 N/A 50.6 On an individual level there's at least a reasonable explanation for any individual guy(Feldman's had high GB rates forever, Shark getting a chance to expand his repertoire as a starter, small sample size for Jackson, etc), but when you see it laid out cumulatively it becomes striking. When you combine this with the FO's priority towards infield defense, along with the FO's general acumen it adds up to an ability to fill out a rotation pretty well without breaking the bank. The funny thing to me is despite the improvements across the staff, you don't seem to hear of Bosio being a big proponent of a single pitch like Duncan or Don Cooper. Another good sign if you ask me. Any thoughts here? I'm no pitching expert and don't see as many games as I'd like, so I'm curious if there's anything that people are seeing that might contribute to this as well.

There's been a couple mentions connecting Headley with the Cubs recently. Headley's seemingly been on the block for an eternity, but I'm curious what people think of him as a trade target. Some assorted facts and thoughts: - Headley turns 29 tomorrow, is arbitration eligible this offseason, and a FA after next year. - He posted a 7.2 fWAR last year (!) and is already 1.0 this year. That's nearly 800 PAs of MVP level play. - He has a significant Home/Road split. .704 OPS career at Petco, .836 career elsewhere. Last year it was .812 v. .937. Shades of Adrian Gonzalez. - He's a well regarded defender, but he doesn't get an abnormal portion of his value from defense. His career UZR/150 is +7, +6 in last year's 7 win campaign. - On one hand, he's a greater impact acquisition than either Stanton or Price. Because of the fewer years of team control and the fact that Andrew Friedman isn't involved means he should have a lower player cost. The rebuilding Padres may be more willing to take on assets not ready to immediately give huge value at the MLB level too. - On the other hand, you'd need to extend him almost immediately to make it worthwhile. Would you trade for Headley then immediately give him something like 5/100? Would the front office even think about that level of investment(dollars and players) for a guy that turns 29 tomorrow? - Do you like Headley enough to acquire him knowing that you're likely out of tradeable assets that can land you a star(at least without savaging the system) for a year or more? - To throw out something of an actual scenario, let's say Baez starts hitting enough to restore confidence, and Barney as well. Do you give those two and one or two other ancillary players and then turn around and extend Headley? Maybe the Padres laugh at that, I don't know you tell me. With a static payroll, a deal like that leaves you a couple smart rotation/outfield decisions from being a very dangerous team in 2014.

You determine what a "good job" is. Just be consistent in applying it. Past Results: April 2013 - 95% Yes - 21 votes Post 2012 - 96% Yes - 26 votes August 2012 - 90% Yes - 31 votes July 2012 - 85% Yes - 27 votes June 2012 - 96% Yes - 26 votes May 2012 - 96% Yes - 27 votes April 2012 - 61% Yes - 28 votes

Entering today's game, Luis Valbuena has 375 PAs as a Cub. In those PAs he's accrued 2.1 fWAR, which if you extrapolate over a full season(650 PAs), becomes 3.6 fWAR. That is obviously quite good, so here's some details to fill in around that number: - There are 39 3B with 350+ PA since Opening Day 2012. Valbuena's 3.6 fWAR per 650 PAs ranks T-14th. - Valbuena ranks as the best defensive 3B in MLB in that timeframe, +15 in a bit more than a half season's work. BR has positive things to say about his defense as well, but not nearly that positive, so worth keeping in mind as that's a huge chunk of his overall value. Anecdotally, Valbuena has seemed to be a very good 3B even if he's not transcendentally good as those UZR numbers might indicate. - Valbuena has played a bit of a platoon's workload, taking 18% of his PAs against LHP. Using Castro as a proxy(since he's played in every Cubs game during Valbuena's era), it would be ~24% as an every day player. The good news is that his performance against LHP hasn't been so bad that changing that proportion doesn't actually change his overall production. Using his wOBA splits as a Cub, changing the proportion to 24% lowers his total wOBA by .001. - More generally speaking, Valbuena is 27 years old and not even arbitration eligible until this offseason. Important details when thinking about his role going forward. Now I didn't start this thread to say, "no need to add a 3B, we've got our man here". Valbuena's value is very defense dependent, and he's only done it over < 400 PAs that have been hand picked to an extent. That said, he's matched or outproduced names like Zimmerman, Middlebrooks, Lawrie, ARod, Moustakas, and Youkilis since the beginning of last year, so I think it's time we start thinking of him as being closer to Barney in value than a random waiver castoff. In the absence of a higher ceiling, long term solution, I'm more and more comfortable with him playing there every day in the interim.

Apologies if this was discussed in detail elsewhere(or maybe you just don't find it interesting), but with Watkins getting off to a good start it led me to take a closer look at how interesting his minor league progression was. I'll stick to his full seasons for the strength of the sample(500+ PAs at each full season level), and note that he's been age appropriate at each level: 20 at Peoria, 21 at Daytona, 22 at Tennessee, and now 23 at Iowa. Let's see each of his peripherals by year: BB% A-: 11.2% A+: 8.8% AA: 12.9% Encouraging to see his best walk rate coming at the most advanced level, in the greatest number of PAs too. After tonight's walkfest, he has 8 BB in 41 PAs at Iowa. K% A-: 18.7% A+: 19.3% AA: 16.5% Again with marked improvement after a slight step back at Daytona. Early Iowa returns are much worse on this front, but it is only 41 PA. ISO A-: .077 A+: .123 AA: .141 Steady improvement, with 20 2B, 11 3B, and 9 HR last year. Unsurprisingly the PCL has helped continue this trend with a .182 ISO thus far. SB A-: 19 SB, 66% A+: 21 SB, 81% AA: 28 SB, 80% Watkins not only became more prolific on the bases, he's become more efficient too. He's 0 for 1 on the young Iowa season. None of these are all that dramatic or surprising on their own. What strikes me is that Watkins has made strides in increasing walks, and lowering strikeouts, and increasing power, and being a greater weapon on the basepaths, all while progressing through full season levels. He even posted his highest fielding percentages at 2B and SS to boot. All this is to say that I think Watkins the prospect is probably more valuable than we've given him credit for. He was a 21st round pick that didn't have a ton of fanfare(his draft day picture is him in football pads, IIRC), but he got the 4th highest bonus in the class, and BA rated him the Cubs' Best Athlete and Late Round Pick of 2008. With the improvements he's made, and the reports that he's a decent to good 2B defender and passable at SS, I think we have to consider him an MLB regular if he continues to hit at Iowa. It's not a huge difference from what he was considered before(a good utility candidate), but an important one, especially with Barney's future potentially in doubt as he hits arbitration.

I thought this was fun last year, so I'll bring it back again. Kudos to Rob, who had the best prediction(accuracy + detail) in my estimation: So let's hear the fearless predictions for this year. I'll start: Schierholtz puts up an .850+ OPS.

I thought this was fun last year, so I'll bring it back again. Kudos to MWV, who had the best prediction(accuracy + detail) in my estimation: So let's hear the fearless predictions for this year. I'll start: Wood and Villanueva combine for 6 WAR.

I meant to have one of these for the midpoint of the offseason, but I forgot. Remember, how you define good job is up to you, just be consistent with your definition. Past results: Post 2012 season - 84% - 31 votes Post Trade Deadline - 90% Yes - 42 Votes Opening Day 2012 - 87% Yes - 31 Votes

Rosenthal:

Nice move for the Nationals. I'd trade a good low level pitching prospect to have Span at 2/12 with an option for 3/21.

Barely thread worthy, but it might give SSR a rage-stroke, so there's that.

Remember, how you define good job is up to you, just be consistent with your definition. Past results: Post Trade Deadline - 90% Yes - 42 Votes Opening Day - 87% Yes - 31 Votes

Thanks to David for picking up the mantle on this, and my apologies for not getting a September poll up. Remember, you determine what a "good job" is for yourself, just be consistent in applying it. Past Results: August - 90% Yes - 31 votes July - 85% Yes - 27 votes June - 96% Yes - 26 votes May - 96% Yes - 27 votes April - 61% Yes - 28 votes

Remember, how you define good job is up to you, just be consistent with your definition. Past results: Opening Day - 87% Yes - 31 Votes

With an off day today, I'll put this up a day early. As with previous polls, what you think is a "good" job is up to you. As long as you apply your own definition consistently, that's what matters. Past results: May - 96% Yes - 27 votes April - 61% Yes - 28 votes

I guess Harry wasn't blowing smoke after all.

New poll for a new month. As with the first poll, what you think is a "good" job is up to you. As long as you apply your own definition consistently, that's what matters. Past results: April - 61% Yes - 28 votes

Like the Manager poll, thought this might be a worthwhile thing to track, although on a less frequent basis. As with the manager poll, how you define a "good job" is up to you, just be consistent with it.

Thought this would be an interesting thing to track on a semi-regular basis. What you think is a "good" job is up to you. As long as you apply your own definition consistently, that's what matters. If you don't think there's enough information to tell yet, just abstain from voting.

Before ST games start, let's try something that we can all look back and pound our chest or laugh at each other after the season. Give me your pitcher that you think will greatly exceed expectations this year. You can also pick someone who will fall way short of expectations, but not only is that not as fun, but for most Cub pitchers(like the hitters) there's not as far to go down as there is to go up. Say what you truly believe, but "I think Ryan Dempster will ERA 4.20 instead of 4.05" isn't all that fun either. I'll start: Jeff Beliveau puts up the best statistical season of any Cub reliever.

Before ST games start, let's try something that we can all look back and pound our chest or laugh at each other after the season. Give me your hitter that you think will greatly exceed expectations this year. You can also pick someone who will fall way short of expectations, but not only is that not as fun, but for most Cub hitters there's not as far to go down as there is to go up. Say what you truly believe, but "I think Darwin Barney will OPS 715 instead of 695" isn't all that fun either. I'll start: Ian Stewart will put up an all star caliber season at 3B.