Cubs and I Are Wishing on a Starlin

Starlin Castro has soared through the minor league ranks; is he ready to stretch his wings at the major league level? Photo by Amandy Rykoff (who has an amazing collection on flickr that I recommend you devote an hour or two to perusing)

I trust you've heard, read, talked, or written about 19-year-old Starlin Castro's arrival at Spring Training and his potential for being a legitimate force at shortstop in the not-so-distant future. How distant (and how legitimate) is still pretty fuzzy. Lou thinks he looks a little Renteria-ish and could even fill in right away for an injured Ryan Theriot if the need presented itself.

But I'm sure you haven't forgotten how the previous installments of this film series turned out. Corey Patterson. Felix Pie. The Hills both Rich and Bobby. We know the gap between highly touted prospect and holy-crap-is-this-guy-for-real All-Star vote getter is a deep and treacherous canyon through which the river of our disappointment flows freely. So how do we know what to expect? I ask because I don't like getting burned by failed expectations any more than you do. So should I risk the excitement or just dismiss this kid until he proves me wrong?

But the truth is, we don't know. We can listen to the scouting reports, but you can usually find a scout who will support whichever conclusion you're predisposed to believe. You can look to the minor league stats, which Bill James says are just as trustworthy as major league stats for their predictive powers. There's an interesting discussion in the comments at this Castro post at ACB about Castro's stats, what they tell us, how different experts interpret them, and what we should believe. (Indulge your curiosity and read through the comments, because there's great food for thought there.)

If you lack faith in the prophetic powers of stats, you can always just watch Castro play this spring and judge for yourself. I know I can't wait. But I do want to call your attention to just one thing: the kid is 19. Nineteen year olds are, as a group, not entirely dependable. They're just unpredictable creatures, those teenagers. As baseball players, the rate of development is pretty drastic. As people . . . same thing.

The reliability of the scouting reports is at the mercy of Castro's youth. They can be impressed by a kid's "makeup," but they can't know if he can handle the challenge of major league baseball in Chicago or anywhere else. And while I do agree that minor league stats can tell us a lot, I think they're really shaky when it comes to teenagers. Let me give you a non-saber stat line for a 19-year-old shortstop who played a full season at the A level:

Player X: 128 Games, 71 RBI, 5 HR, .295 BA, .376 OBP, .394 SLG, 56 Errors

The hitting looks decent, the error total is atrocious, and the overall product doesn't exactly scream future MVP. Keep in mind, these are single-A numbers we're talking about. Here's Castro's line from A+ Daytona and AA Tennessee:

Castro: 127 Games, 49 RBI, 3 HR, .299 BA, .342 OBP, .392 SLG, 39 Errors

I'd call those numbers comparable, no? Neither guy jumps out at you, and the defense suggests both players are actually Jake Fox. But Player X is actually a 19-year-old Derek Jeter.

Now, I know that these stats aren't the best predictors of future performance, but if you're familiar with the ones that are, you have already looked at Castro's. I'm not saying we should expect or even hope Castro will look like the guy who wears the #2 on his Yankee jersey. I can't even guarantee he'll be good enough to replace the guy who wears the #2 on his Cub jersey. 

But I will say that Starlin Castro is only going to get better. Stupid as I'm inclined to be, I'm expecting good things from the kid if he can impress Sweet Lou and ascend through the minors so quickly. I'll be watching with great interest when he plays semi-real games this spring, and something tells me I'll be easily impressed.

Consider my hopes officially raised.

A Few Small Repairs

I've made a couple changes to the site. Not wholesale changes or even dramatic ones, just a few minor adjustments. And that's not because the site doesn't need work, it's just . . . well, what am I gonna do? I'm not exactly chiseling rough edges off the Michelangelo. Oh, and I'm not raising payroll, either. But you know, I think these relatively small additions to life at And Counting might just help out.

The situation here isn't all that different from where the Cubs are right now. Look, last offseason Jim Hendry made some moves that didn't work out. You could call them great moves that went bad, or foolish risks that were doomed from the start. Actually, it's really easy now to say that they were all ridiculously misinformed—but so is this blog, so who am I to judge?

This offseason, Hendry has subtracted just about all of last offseason's moves (the Mark DeRosa toothpaste can't be squeezed back into the tube). Bradley's gone. Gregg is gone. The Aarons both Heilman and Miles. We bid farewell to Rich Harden and Jake Fox, and we'll miss a little bit of Ted Lilly at the outset of the season. But when you look at the 2009 contributions of the dearly departed Cubs, is the absence of any of that really going to sting?

So I look at the additions, the small changes, the slightly altered logos and DISQUS comments of this 2010 Chicago Cubs team. Marlon Byrd. Xavier Nady. Clubhouse gallbladder infection, Carlos Silva. And let's not forget new guy, other new guy, and the dude we got for Jake Fox. None of these guys are going to reconfigure the Cubbie universe. They won't win Nobel Prizes. But the the Cubs don't need wholesale changes. They just need to tread water.

If you want to see the statistical projections, you can check them out at ACB. The Cubs aren't bad. They're not as good as the Cardinals (who suck, by the way). They're not as good on paper as last year's paper team. They might not even be as good on paper as last year's team was on the field.

But I like this team. I expect Soto to have better luck (let's hope his eyebrows weren't the source of his power). I expect Soriano to be healthier and better. I expect Zambrano to be worse and luckier. Marlon Byrd will be good. Someone I've never heard of will be good. The pitching staff will be the least of the Cubs' problems. I expect the sportswriters to fade into the dingy background of the press box. I expect to be wrong about oh so much. But in the end, or at least on the way to the end, I expect to enjoy the 2010 season.

Jon Heyman thinks the Cubs struck out. I think the Cubs took two steps forward and one and a half steps back. If they can just stay afloat until June, Jim Hendry might make a real move, and this team just might kick a little ass.

Solution: Platoon the Whole Outfield

Sam Fuld hit neither of the 2 Cub homers in tonight's 4-1 win over the Pirates, but he just may have won the game for the Cubs. In place of Soriano in left and in the leadoff spot, Fuld was on base all night, he made a handful of spectacular plays in the field, and he threw out a potential game-tying run at the plate. With a right-handed pitcher on the mound, is there any reason the left-handed Fuld shouldn't be back in this same spot?

Kosuke Fukudome homered tonight, and I hope he's breaking out of his perpetual post-May slump. But when Reed Johnson returns from the DL, is there any reason Kosuke should start against lefties?

As a lefty, Milton Bradley looked pretty decent tonight. And if he resurrects his 2009 season, God bless him. But we've seen Hoffpauir hit against righties, and the results have certainly been better than the MB debacle. Even Jake Fox as a righty would look better against RHP's than what we've seen from Milton, and once Aramis Ramirez returns, it would be a shame to see Fox exit completely from the starting lineup. So . . . would a Milton/Fox/Hoff platoon really be such a bad idea?

Now, as Lou was getting ejected in tonight's game, I had a sneaking suspicion that what really set him off was the 1st base ump's intimation that Lou should have sat Soriano about a week ago. (Aside: Milton and Carlos take note, Lou always takes his hat off when launching into a tirade to avoid inadvertent bumps and the suspensions and fines that accompany them.) So it is with meager hesitation that I toss this suggestion in Lou's general direction. But why not consider it, Your Sweetness?

Platoon the whole outfield. Soriano, Johnson, and Bradley against the lefties; Fuld, Fukudome, and Fox/Hoff (the all f-bomb squad) against the righties. Could it really go any worse than what we've suffered through?

The Cubs Giveth & The Cubs Taketh Away

Getting shutout by a rookie pitcher isn't good enough for a team supposedly blessed with potent bats, and it isn't good enough for their hitting coach, either. So it makes enough sense for Gerald Perry to get the message-sending heave ho after the Cubs were blanked 2-0 by Anthony Swarzak and the Twins.

But apparently, blanking the Cubs isn't good enough for Swarzak to keep his job. The Twins handed him the game ball and a demotion to AAA after his shutout performance on Saturday. So that's what it's come to? Shutting out the Cubs just isn't that impressive?

The sad thing is, the rookie will almost certainly give up more runs in his next minor league start than he did against the Cubbies. Anthony, if you're reading this, look up Jake Fox in AAA. Maybe he and his 5-6 pinch-hitting performance can console you on the pain of being demoted for succeeding.

So the Cubs' futility on offense couldn't keep Swarzak in the big leagues and brought new hitting coach Von Joshua out of the minors. What impact will any of it have on the Cubs offensive woes? Unless Mr. Joshua has a doctorate in psychology, I'm not too sure he'll have the answer to the Cubs troubles.

I also hope I'm wrong, as do all the future rookie pitchers waiting to try their hand against this Cub lineup.

Jake Fox's Bat vs. Sweet Lou's Temper

The Chicago Cubs are reportedly recalling Jake Fox and his uber-bat from AAA, where he's hitting somewhere in the neighborhood of infinity with a google homers and 100% of his team's RBI's. (They also brought up SS Andres Blanco and LHP Jason Waddell.)

With this move, Cub fans are rewarded with three big items off their wish list while shattering one fairy tale:

• Jake Fox has a chance to prove he's not just a AAA legend.
• Aaron Miles will take a break from sullying the Cub lineup card, as he's being placed on the 15-day DL with a bad swing and a partially strained statistical projection.
• Neal Cotts is being sent down to the minors where he is rumored to be trade bait for a Denny's Grand Slam Breakfast and a Bob Walk rookie card.
• Bobby Scales, the exciting spark plug and fan favorite substitute teacher, has been sent down to AAA as well. It's sad to see him go, but his recent bout with the flu probably saddled him with more sick days than he could afford.

Seeing Miles and Cotts out of action will cause much jubilant relief among Cubbie faithful, but it's the Jake Fox call-up that really has fans buzzing, especially given their recent offensive woes. But all of Fox's minor-league exploits amount to little more than Jack Squat—he has to show his stuff on the major-league level. And it seems slightly doubtful that he'll see everyday playing time unless he shows he can play 3B.

Remember those stories of how SF Giants 3B Matt Williams used to practice fielding grounders with a ping pong paddle instead of a glove? The word on Jake Fox is that he looks like he's doing that, only not as successfully. We'll see how fast he cools off.

And speaking of cooling off, Cubs manager Lou Piniella is staying surprisingly cool during this offensive economic downturn, and it's sending some Cub fans' frustration over the boiling point. Lou says blowing up with a hell-fire hissy fit doesn't really work in firing up a team (Lord knows, he's done the research). He says now is the time for him to be calm and reassuring, but many fans are still begging for a classic Lou tirade. 

So here's the big question I'm hoping you can answer. Which will happen first: Jake Fox's bat cooling off like an iceberg, or Lou Piniella's temper erupting like a volcano?