Transmogrified Tiger

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.

http://www.wgntv.com/blogs/lenandbob/wgntv-cubs-regular-season-tv-schedule-20120208,0,7384930,full.story 70 WGN (with 2 potential ESPN games) 67 CSN 10 FOX (1 overlap with WGN) 8 WCIU 8 CSN+

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.

I'm putting this in Transactions because I'd like it to be about what type of acquisitions need to be made for the rest of the offseason. Right now, the Cubs can pretty much field a complete roster with current players. Garza/Dempster/Z/Cashner/Wells make a 5 man rotation, the bullpen remains the same, the bench has in house options for most every spot, and there's a player in place for every position except 1B. With the projections I put in for the current roster, this team is about 2 impact players(4+ WAR) from being in contention, and 3 impact players from a playoff caliber team. Not exactly a rosy picture. I put this into a document below for everyone to play with. Since there's no way to let people edit the document and not save it, I have to ask that no one mess with the copied projections at the bottom. I'd like to keep them there as a point of reference, as accurate or inaccurate as they may be. Otherwise, have fun seeing what happens if we sign Fielder and Castro breaks out for 6 WAR, or how bad we are if we trade Garza for prospects and forfeit 1B for the season. Here's the link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjL2eBSl-d4RdEpNRk1wZl9kb2FBUWpGbUEyYllfLWc I'm particularly interested in what scenarios people come up with that put the team In Contention, or even as a Playoff Team. Also, for reference(and since it's something I double checked), if your bench and bullpen goes much above 6-8 WAR, you're probably being a bit too optimistic. Have fun, and share your findings!

Pick 1 Manningham @ SF Maurice Morris @ Chi James Jones v. Min

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/10/official-elias-rankings.html Ramirez is the highest rated Type B player. EDIT: Pena is Type B too.

http://twitter.com/#!/cst_cubs/status/13085130176765132

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/07/eli.html Here's a bunch of Cubs for reference. Soto - A Pena - None, but close to the B cutoff Ramirez - B Castro - B Byrd - A Fukudome - B Soriano - B Garza - A Dempster - B (close to A) Zambrano - B (close to none) Marmol - A Marshall - A Wood - B

He gets forgotten a bit because he pitches in middle relief and he was truly awful as an emergency starter, but here's what he's quietly done this year as a reliever: 31.1 IP, 22 H, 20K, 8 BB, 2 HR 1.44 ERA, 0.96 WHIP, 2.5 K/BB, 0.54 HR/9 And that brings his career numbers as a reliever to: 80.1 IP, 77 H, 62 K, 19 BB, 13 HR 3.59 ERA, 1.19, WHIP, 3.3 K/BB, 1.45 HR/9 It looks like his HR rate was as unsustainably bad last year as it is good this year, but either way he's managed to be an effective reliever two straight seasons. Coupled with Samardzija's emergence, the bullpen looks to be a strength for next year at the least.

Fine, I'll start. 10 teams, 5x5 C Matt Wieters 1B Mark Teixeira 2B Brandon Phillips 3B Aramis Ramirez SS Stephen Drew 2B/SS Brian Roberts 1B/3B Kevin Youkilis OF Matt Kemp OF Shin-Soo Choo OF Franklin Gutierrez OF Mike Stanton OF Nick Markakis UTIL Mark Reynolds P Justin Verlander P Dan Haren P Zack Greinke P Ryan Dempster P Javier Vazquez P Craig Kimbrel P Leo Nunez P Ervin Santana P Gio Gonzalez BE Matt LaPorta BE John Lackey BE Jed Lowrie

What are you guys using for research this year? Any favorite guides or cheatsheets?

http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/cubs/post/_/id/3267/quade-plans-to-bat-castro-second That would make the most logical lead off options guys who don't even have full time jobs guaranteed: DeWitt and Fukudome. I'm also not sure which of Pena, Soto, or even Soriano is being considered for the 3rd spot.

Coello is 26, 6-5 240 lbs. Career 10/4 K/BB ratio, so it looks like he's in the wild flamethrower mold that we seem to like in our middle relievers.

http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/5197

A LH OF with speed and gap power for 1 mil, and a catcher for 500k. http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/?p=10829 I kinda wish those scouting reports were a bit more optimistic.

http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=6036906 Sad story, last week she was feeling fine and at Disney World.

http://blogs.dailyherald.com/node/5095 2 years, 1.6 million in 2011, 3.1 in 2012. Also mentions that Garza will get 5.95 mil this year, like was reported in another thread. And, Gorzelanny will get a 2.1 million contract before officially being shipped to Washington.