Cubs Trade What They Need for What They Don't

The Cubs will traded, have traded, or are in the process of trading pitcher Chris Archer, shortstop Hak-Ju Lee, and outfielders Brandon Guyer and Sam Fuld to the Tampa Bay Rays for accomplished pitcher Matt Garza and not-so-accomplished, minimum-wage outfielder Fernando Perez. All of this is according to Bruce Levine, so I'll give him full credit for unearthing the news.

Reaction among Cubs fans has run the gamut from high praise to meh to pshaw to #@!$. I don't even have an emotional response. I'll just try to make this simple. Let's look at this in terms of baseball assets and liabilities.

Assets:
Players who can play well
Money

Liabilities:
Player contracts

I apologize for the insult to your intelligence, but I'm simplifying it for my own sanity. That's really the equation in a tiny little nutshell.* If you're trying to win at Major League Baseball, you want good players, you want money, and you are contractually obligated to pay your players. Let's examine the Cubs' assets and liabilities.

Players who can play well.
The Cubs have a great catcher, a promising shortstop, corner infielders looking to rebound, a void at second, an overcrowded but undertalented outfield, a galvanized bullpen, and 12 starting pitchers. Heading into today, they also had a farm system of considerable depth if not overwhelming potential. John Sickels offers a quick grade card of the top 20 prospects in the system and a synopsis of the system as a whole, which unsurprisingly varies little from the big-league team. Strong up the middle, weak at the corners, a lot of good-to-very-good pitching.

So you could say the Cubs need corner outfielders and, given the expiring contracts of their current corner infielders, corner infielding prospects at the very least. They also need . . .

Money
When the Ricketts family bought the Cubs for $3 zillion, they spent more money than they had, at least in cash. The last we heard from them, they were saying they could really use $300 million that they would pay back to the citizens of Illinois by not not paying their taxes for the next 30 years. But we've also heard whispers that the Cubs were looking to cut payroll by a-lot percent.

Player Contracts (all numbers courtesy of Cot's Baseball Contracts
Alfonso Soriano: $18 million per year through 2014
Carlos Zambrano: $17.875 million in 2011, $18 million in 2012, and a $19.25 million vesting option in 2013 if Z finishes in the top 2 of the Cy Young vote this year or the top 4 next year, so . . . yeah.
Aramis Ramirez: $14.6 million in 2011, $16 million club option in 2010 that vests if Aramis wins the MVP or the NLCS MVP or if he is traded, so . . . yeah.
Kosuke Fukudome: $13.5 million in 2011
Ryan Dempster: $13.5 million in 2011, $14 million player option in 2012, as well as $3 million in deferred payments over the next two years
Carlos Silva: $11.5 million (Cubs are getting $5.5 million from Seattle) in 2011 and a mutual option in 2012 for $12 million
Carlos Pena: $10 million in 2011 of which $5 million is deferred until 2012
Marlon Byrd: $5.5 million in 2011, $6.5 million in 2012
Jeff Samardzija: $3 million (?) in 2011
John Grabow: $4.8 million in 2011
Carlos Marmol: Pending re-signing/arbitration, probable increase from $2.125 million last year
Kerry Wood: $1.5 million in 2011
Jeff Baker: $1.175 million in 2011
Sean Marshall: Pending re-signing/arbitration, probable increase from $950,000 last year
Tom Gorzelanny: ($800,000 in 2010)
Koyie Hill: ditto ($700,000 in 2010)
Geovany Soto: ditto ($575,000 in 2010)
Randy Wells: ditto ($427,000 in 2010)
Bunch of guys making league minimum...

Has that been simple enough? Is it a big mystery what the Cubs need and what they need to get rid of? The Cubs have a ton of starting pitching. They have no one all that promising at second base. They have a farm system well stocked with what they already have at the big league level. They have a lot of giant contracts.

I'm sure you can notice the disconnect between the Cubs' assets and their liabilities, too. Geovany Soto is the Cubs' best player. He made $575,000 last year. He'll make a bit more this year. By WAR, Randy Wells was the Cubs' 2nd best pitcher last year, and he had to borrow money from Geovany Soto. Players who are good don't necessarily make the most money.

Prospects like the Cubs just traded away make, relatively speaking, almost no money at all. Since the Cubs profess to have almost no money at all, it seemed like a match made in heaven. What's more frustrating is that the Cubs just let go of, as Callis ranks them, their number 3, 4, 8, and 15 prospects in exchange for a player who fits into one of the Cubs' current strengths.

These weren't just players without contract liabilities, these were players who could play well.

Are the Cubs a stronger pitching team now? I don't know. Some people would say they definitely are, but I'm not convinced. If they are, I don't think it's by any great stretch. He's got postseason experience, which is great. But guess what, Matt: you won't be getting any more.

The argument I've heard most is that the prospects had a chance to succeed in the big leagues, but Matt Garza has proven he'll succeed now. Really? He's 27 years old, right about the age Carlos Zambrano was when he signed his current contract.

I also hear that Garza isn't eligible for free agency for another two or three years, but he did make $3.35 million last year and will make quite a bit more this year. That number will keep going up, even if he disappoints.

So, let's return to simple. The Cubs were a team with a lot of pitching, a lot of prospects, no money, and a lot of contracts. They got more pitching, unloaded prospects, and acquired a new, soon-to-be-ballooning contract. What did they keep? All their big contracts. And what's supposed to be the real good news is that the Cubs might trade one of their underpaid pitchers.

Okay, yeah, I still don't get it.

Maybe the Cubs' new 6th outfielder can shed some light on the subject. What's it like to be paid the league minimum?



* I was going to include "Players with big contracts who can't play very well" in the Liabilities column, but the fact of the matter is that it's the contracts that are the true competitive liability. If it weren't for the contract, Alfonso Soriano wouldn't be a liability to the Cubs, he'd just be out of work.

Derrek Lee Has Left the Building, But He'll Be Right Back

Gone.

I learned about the Derrek Lee trade (the one that brought him to Chicago) on the way home from work. It hadn't been a particularly good day. I left work late, and it was that time of year when working inside from 7 to 3:30 meant leaving work on time was my only chance at seeing any sunlight. I didn't see any of the natural kind that day, but the trade news provided enough figurative sunshine to lift my spirits for the rest of the evening. The Cubs had raided the Florida Marlins' World Series fire sale, and all it had cost them was Hee-Seop Choi.

That was a great day. Here are Derrek Lee's numbers since then:






The thing about that MVP-caliber 2005 season was that it followed the departure of Sammy Sosa. I was on Team Sammy even after he was unceremoniously dumped in the direction of Baltimore. I knew Sammy's oft-hopping days were behind him, but that also meant the Cubs no longer had a superstar offensive player. It meant we'd no longer hear Pat Hughes issuing updates that centered on the one player's achievements everyone really cared about. In years prior, Pat would open an inning with, "If you're wondering about Sammy Sosa, the answer is yes. He homered in the first and the fifth."

So it was to my sheer delight when, on a day a couple months into the season, the first thing I heard on the radio on the commute home was, "If you're wondering about Derrek Lee, the answer is yes. He homered in his first at-bat and the Cubs lead 3-0." Derrek Lee was the man that year. Absolutely dominant.

The Economics of the Cubs Dodgers Deal

If the buzz leading up to the trade that sent Ted Lilly, Ryan Theriot, and cash to the Dodgers for Wallach, Smit, and DeWitt, the primary snag prolonging the negotiations was the matter of just how much if any cash should be smuggled along with Lilly's things. The number everyone was throwing around was $4 million. Ignoring the talent of the various pieces being swapped, I wanted to look at how much the Cubs are saving by making this deal.

I don't know how anyone ascertains exactly how much is left on a player's deal, but looking at the regular season alone, the Cubs had about 36% of their games left to play. I know that's not perfect, but it's close enough for me: it would leave Lilly with $4.37 million remaining on his contract and Theriot with $947 thousand (MLB Trade Rumors put them at $4.24 million and $918K). Like I said, it's not perfect, but I'm okay with that margin of error for the sake of argument.

Kerry Wood Is a Yankee

The Yankees adding Kerry Wood to their bullpen greatly increases his chances of getting a World Series ring, though I don't know that it does much to increase the Yankees' already solid chances of doing so this year. Best of luck, Kerry. I wish this was your attempt at a 2nd ring, but . . . yeah.

I believed then. I believe now, he'll finally be a champion, though no more responsible for it than Joe Girardi.

Lilly and Theriot to Become Dodgers, Cubs get Blake DeWhatnow?

UPDATE II: It's Kyle Smit, not Smith and Brett Wallach, not Walch. I interpreted Smit's name as an abbreviation and Walch as the entire name . . . got those two mixed up.

UPDATE: Jayson Stark is saying the Cubs will, along with Blake DeWitt, receive minor leaguers Brett Walch & Kyle Smith, and the Cubs will pay $2.5 million of Lilly's remaining $4 million in salary. I feel it's my duty to pretend to care, and I'll update when I muster up enough feigned emotion to do so.

About a million people are tweeting that the Cubs and Dodgers have completed a deal sending Lilly and Theriot to LA in exchange for infielder Blake DeWitt and prospects. I'll update when it becomes officially official.

George Ofman Joins Us for a Trade Deadline Edition of WTF

WGN's George Ofman took a break from fielding the calls from angry/delusional Cubs fans to call into our sarcastic corner of Cubdom on Wrigley Talk Friday with Julie from LOHO and Tim from Aisle 424. He had some intriguing perspectives on the Cubs' next manager, the return of Carlos Zambrano, and recent developments from the talks between the Cubs and Dodgers about a deal that would send Ted Lilly and Ryan Theriot to the land of Mannywood. Two big shockers: the Cubs have known they were out of it as long as we have, and Hendry had a chance to pull the trigger on a deal that would have sent Ryan Dempster to La-La Land. Listen in the sidebar player or here.

Many thanks to George, who blogs on That's All She Wrote and tweets under his eponymous handle.  Kudos to Julie for bringing in a steady stream of great guests, including next week's guest, former Cub Doug Glanville. Stay tuned!

Worst Move of the Season Nominee: Trading DeRosa

Before 2009 had a chance to greet the world, Mark DeRosa was greeted instead by a call from Jim Hendry, interrupting his round of golf and his career with the Cubs. It wasn't as if anybody needed an excuse to drink on New Year's Eve (or that Hendry had an explanation for starting so early—he also signed Aaron Miles that day) but Cub fans had an extra load of sorrows to drown after hearing one one of their MVPs had joined a new Tribe.

A day hasn't gone by since then without discussion of this deal among the Cubs faithful. His departure and consequent performance with other teams escalated to near Favresque proportions. We all know the Cubs missed him. We all know he didn't do that great in 2009. Most statistically minded folks know that DeRosa's 78 RBI would have ranked 2nd on this Cubs team. Granted, Aramis Ramirez was hurt for half the season . . . but that reminder just rubs salt in the wound, doesn't it?

De-Ro's defense is acceptable, not great. His speed is par for the slow Cubbie course. His average with runners in scoring position was nothing special (.256). The single biggest observable difference between DeRosa and the guy many viewed as his replacement (you know who) was his rapport with the media and fans. Okay, we really could have used that difference. I should say, you can't track a guys stats with other teams and assume he would have performed the same way with the Cubs. Maybe DeRosa would have had another career year if he'd stayed on. Maybe he would have suffered a career ending injury. Sometimes your stats take a major hit when you change teams (Exhibit A: you know who). So let's just throw the stats out the window for a second.

At the time of the deal, I thought DeRosa was a stepping stone to a Jake Peavy deal, the only thing that could have justified the move for me. But we ditched the DeRosa marijuana and never moved on to the Peavy cocaine. All we got was dirty crack (you know who). So why trade DeRosa?

Here are the numbers I care about: DeRosa made $5.5 million this year, the last in his contract. Kevin Gregg made $4.2 million. Aaron Heilman made $1.625 million. Aaron Miles made $2.2 million. Hendry even signed a free agent who made $7 million this year (you know who). Say what you want about not needing DeRosa, but who among the aforementioned players are you glad we had instead of him?

There's always the argument that we don't know how much we'll be helped by the three pitchers coming from Cleveland in the DeRosa deal. I counter that argument by saying . . . we don't know how much those pitchers will help the Cubs. We do know the help didn't arrive this year (Jeff Stevens made a negligible impact). They probably won't help us in 2010. If the GM of your $135 million team is making bad deals in 2008 at the off chance it will help in 2011, it's time to think about restaffing your organization.

Bad move, Jim. Bad move. Was it the worst? You tell me.

Other Nominees:
Firing Gerald Perry
Incessant Lineup Changes
Bullpen Design & Management
Milton Being Milton

The 2009 Cubs: One Doodle That Can't Be Undid

Some Cub fans would like to give the last offseason the Mark McGwire treatment and just leave the past in the past. Others would like to see every move Jim Hendry made go up in a mushroom cloud. Others are still holding out hope this year will have a happy ending.

I know we can't turn back time. I know this season is all but mathematically over. But I still think we can at least try to learn from our mistakes. (Yes, I know we didn't make the mistakes and that Jim Hendry needs to do the learning in this scenario, but maybe this will at least  be fodder for some good awkward questions to ask at Cubs Convention 2010.) Hendry made a whole pile of moves after the 2009 Dodger sweep, and I want to know which one has hurt the Cubs the most.

I had my opinions, but before sharing them with the world of sorrows that is Cubdom, I was curious what other people thought. I asked my #Cubs tweeps what single move they would undo if they could. Jmkobus spoke for millions who would have never signed Bradley, opting instead for Adam Dunn, the Knight of Wrigley. Pbernicchi would be the leader of the "undo the DeRosa trade" party. Ehudmh posited that if he could reverse Hendry's initial pursuit of Milton Bradley, he could undo every other bad move the Cubs made. TheCubsInHaiku just wishes (in 17 syllables) that Hendry would have quit.

The tragic fact of the matter is that all of those arguments are better ideas than what's played out in reality in 2009. Here's a list of all of the moves since last October that involved signing new contracts, welcoming new players, or saying goodbye to former Cubs with a look at the amount of damage inflicted by each:

10.29.2008 3B Casey McGehee claimed off waivers by Brewers. His 13 HR and 50 RBI make this a pretty damaging move considering Aramis Ramirez's prolonged injury this year, but somewhat unpredictable. Cubs Richter Scale: 3.5

11.13.2008 Traded RHP Jose Ceda to the Marlins for Kevin Gregg. The opposition is slugging .436 against Kevin Gregg. The Cubs only have 3 hitters with a slugging percentage that high. Even if Jose Ceda never pitches again (and he hasn't, since the deal) this trade hurt the Cubs big time. Cubs Richter Scale: 7.5

11.18.2008 Re-signed Ryan Dempster to a 4-year, $52-million contract. Given the length of the deal, this could get worse, but I wouldn't call Demp's numbers in 2009 damaging. Cubs Richter Scale: 0.5

12.11.2008 Bought RHP David Patton from the Reds for cash. This is one move (let's see if there are more) that actually helped the Cubs. David Patton has been pretty decent. Cubs Richter Scale: -0.5

12.12.2008 Signed LHP Neal Cotts, RHP Chad Gaudin, and OF Reed Johnson to 1-year contracts. Setting aside Reed, who is great to have on the team, injured or not, the Cotts and Gaudin signings didn't really work out so good. Cotts especially had a disastrous time with the big-league club, albeit limited. Cubs Richter Scale: 3.5

12.16.2008 Signed free agent Joey Gathright to a one-year contract. He left town quicker than you can say "car-jumping," in a later move. Cubs Richter Scale: 0.085

12.31.2008 Traded Mark DeRosa to Cleveland in exchange for pitchers Jeff Stevens, Chris Archer, and John Gaub. The Cubs have struggled to find run production anywhere in the lineup. 2B has been an offensive black hole. When Ramirez was out, 3B produced similar suction. The pitching prospects might help down the road, but this season, only Stevens has helped at all. What's worse, DeRosa has made the division-leading Cardinals that much better. This one hurts more the longer the season goes on, and nobody but nobody liked this deal at the time it was made. Cubs Richter Scale: 9

12.31.2008 Signed POC Aaron Miles to a 2-year contract. Yes, the same day the DeRosa deal went down, Hendry also signed the human out. The New Year's Eve drinking started plenty early in the Hendry house. This has to go down as the single worst day of the offseason. Aaron Miles was sketched in as a possible everyday starter on the Cubs roster. He's hitting .174. In the 2nd half, he's hitting .038. The Cubs are paying him two and a half million bucks to do that. Cubs Richter Scale: 5 (but considering how tiny Aaron Miles is, that's a tremendous shock)

1.5.2009 Signed LHP Bill White (aka Guillermo Blanco) to a minor league deal. I put this in here only for the Blanco joke. Cubs Richter Scale: NA

1.6.2009 Traded RHP Jason Marquis to the Rockies for RHP Luis Viscaino. In the baseball sense, this move helped the Rockies immensely. He has 14 wins (and has reached double-digit win totals for 6 years running) and a 3.75 ERA. From the business side, the Cubs wound up paying Luis Viscaino a few million bucks to get released by every team in baseball. Since financial restrictions were such a pressing factor in the offseason, it would have helped to gain a productive salary instead. While I don't think the Cubs have been hurt all that much by not having him, the Rockies are leading the Wild Card race, so . . . that hurts. Cubs Richter Scale: 2.5

1.8.2009 Signed Milton Bradley to a 3-year, incentive-laden contract worth up to $30 million. I've said before that Cub fans put too much blame on Bradley for the 2009 debacle. It is pretty standard for newly signed veterans (Alfonso Soriano, Jacque Jones, Derrek Lee, Moises Alou) to struggle in their first half-season at Wrigley. Since then, Bradley has been productive and healthy. Some chastise him for the distraction he has been, but I don't see how anything that distracts attention away from this team could be viewed as a bad thing. Bottom line: if a clubhouse distraction is the reason you're losing, you suck. Yes, the Cubs did commit a lot of money to Bradley, but not so much that they couldn't have kept DeRosa and just not traded for Kevin Gregg or signed Aaron Miles. Cubs Richter Scale: -2.0 Yes. That's right. I'm saying he's helped the Cubs. Deal with it.

1.18.2009 Traded Felix Pie to the Orioles for pitchers Garrett Olson and Henry Williiamson. Painful, but hardly damaging for this season. Although it did pave the way for their next move. Cubs Richter Scale: Owie

1.28.2009 Traded Garrett Olson and Ronny Cedeno to the Mariners for Aaron Heilman. I feel like Heilman has gotten some bad breaks and that he would be better as a starting pitcher than a reliever. But he hasn't provided much relief to Cub fans. He has a WHIP of 1.5, an ERA of 4.35, and opponents are slugging .422 off of him. I view him as the replacement for Bobby Howry, and he's been precisely that. Not good. Cubs Richter Scale: 6.5

1.30.2009 Signed Paul Bako to a 1-year contract. He didn't make the team. Cubs Richter Scale: --

2.2.2009 Traded Rich Hill to the Orioles for PTBN and traded Michael Wuertz to the A's for prospects Richie Robnett and Justin Sellers. Rich Hill is struggling. But Michael Wuertz has a 3.09 ERA, a 1.03 WHIP, and a .205 batting average against for the A's. I always liked Wuertz, even though he struggled with his control (his strikeout to walk ratio is up to 4.3 now, though). Given the struggles of the Cub bullpen, this oft overlooked deal deserves more attention. Cubs Richter Scale: 7.4


Aside from minor league deals and other insignificant moves, that's the sum total of the 2009 Cubs offseason. Now, you might be wondering about letting Henry Blanco and Kerry Wood walk away, but in my opinion A) those aren't really moves, they're just moves that didn't get made; and B) neither one would have been a whole lot of help to this Cubs team. Koyie Hill is a white Hank White. Kevin Gregg has been Kerry without the blisters.

So, yeah, if I could undo one move, I have to admit it would be the DeRosa trade. If the Cubs had not acquired Kevin Gregg, Aaron Miles, and Aaron Heilman, we still could have afforded Milton Bradley.  If we've learned nothing else, it's that we should take away Jim Hendry's cell phone this New Year's Eve.

NOTE: If you're on Twitter, let your displeasure be heard (and read) by clicking the "tweets" box to the left.