WTF? Ricketts Compliments Hendry?

According to Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times, Cubs owner Tom Ricketts is rather fond of General Manager Jim Hendry.

‘‘Over the past year, I’ve had growing confidence in Jim, to be honest,’’ said Ricketts, who spent much of that year evaluating the organization top to bottom. ‘‘He has a good team of people he’s put together. I’m not going to hold [the losses in the playoffs] against him. What I am going to judge him by is how many players we’re consistently bringing up to the major leagues, and are the dollars we’re spending on the big-league team being spent well? .  .  . I think Jim’s doing a good job. I think we’re starting to see some of the fruits of his labor.’’

Are we talking about the same Cubs GM?  This is the same one that signed Alfonso Soriano, then 32, to a 7 year $136M wheelchair contract.  We are talking about the same guy, right?  Maybe it's the one that signed Milton Bradley to a three year $30M disaster contract, and then spun it to Seattle for the nearly as toxic Carlos Silva contract?  Or perhaps its the man that signed Carlos Zambrano to a five year $91.5M contract to provide the same quality of performance that most teams expect out of their number three starter?  Or Kosuke Fukodome?  Or Ryan Dempster?  Or Jeff Samardizja?   Or how about the fact that the team is old, while the farm system is completely barren?

By every one of Rickett's measures (the quality of the farm system and the quality of players money is being spent on), Hendry has been absolute disaster.  Oddly enough, Ricketts likes him.  He even thinks he's starting to see the "fruits of his labor!"  What fruits exactly?  A consistent string of disappointing 75-85 win seasons, while maintaining a bloated payroll?  The Cubs only remedy is to fire the man who created the disaster, blow up the team, and start from scratch.  Unfortunately for Cubs fans, the owner would rather tread water.

My condolences to Cubs fans everywhere.

Cubs Trade Gorzelanny to Nationals

UPDATE (1/17/2011 at 5:46 p.m.):  There's been an update regarding the prospects going to the Cubs.  According to Fox Sports, one of the prospects heading to the Cubs is outfielder Michael Burgess.  Drafted with the 49th overall pick in the 2007 amateur draft by the Nationals, Burgess projects as a corner outfielder with decent power.  While his contact rates improved last season between A and AA ball, some scouts have expressed concerns as to whether he'll make enough contact to be a productive major league regular.

MLB.com is also reporting that right hander A.J. Morris is the pitcher going to the Cubs.  No word on who the third player is at this point.

UPDATE (1/17/2011 at 5:41 p.m.):  Dave Cameron of USS Mariner and Fangraphs just posted an interesting tweet about Tom Gorzelanny.  Among pitchers with at least 130 IP, Gorzelanny finished 113th out of 115 in BB/9.  The only pitchers he was ahead of were Scott Kazmir and Bud Norris.  Perhaps the Cubs made the right move after all.  I'm kind of surprised I missed that to be perfectly honest.

Original Post (1/17/2011 at 3:28 p.m.):  According to Bruce Levine of ESPN Chicago, the Cubs have traded LHP Tom Gorzelanny to the Nationals in exchange for three prospects.  This report is fresh off of the Twitter "presses," so I haven't been able to find any details regarding the prospects the Cubs will receive in return.   The word is that Nationals will be giving up two pitchers and an outfielder.*  

* Judging by the Nationals top 20 prospects per John Sickels, the Nationals farm system is incredibly shallow once you get beyond Bryce Harper, Derek Norris, and Danny Espinoza.  If Cubs fans are looking for prospects to replace the quality prospects traded to the Rays (like Chris Archer), they won't be happy with this trade.  The best they can probably hope for is A.J. Cole or Michael Burgess.  Both players are nice, but they won't be difference makers at the major league level.

Apparently, after trading for Matt Garza, the Cubs felt compelled to trade one of their other five starting pitchers.  The Cubs don't need six starting pitchers.  Moving Gorzelanny allows Carlos Silva, who is due $12M next season, to slot back into the fifth spot of the rotation.  This leaves them without a proven left-handed starter.  There has been talk of moving left handed reliever James Russell into the rotation, but that would likely require removing either Randy Wells or Carlos Silva from the rotation.

From a financial perspective, the Cubs have a ton of payroll tied up for 2011.  With the Cubs signing Geovany Soto to a one year $3M contract yesterday, the Cubs payroll ballooned to $119M, and they still have least two high profile arbitration cases in Garza and Marmol to get through.  Gorzelanny was due for a considerable raise going into his second year of arbitration eligibility.  The Cubs needed to shed unnecessary payroll where ever possible, so trading Gorzelanny makes sense. 
 
For the Nationals, this trade represents a moderate upgrade for their rotation.  The Nationals have reportedly fallen short in their quest for Cliff Lee, Carl Pavano, Matt Garza, and Zach Greinke.  As such Gorzelanny serves as a decent, but unfulfilling, consolation prize.  The Nationals will probably fit Gorzelanny into the number four spot in their rotation behind Livan Hernandez, Jason Marquis, and Jordan Zimmerman.  

Gorzelanny went 7-9 with a 3.92 FIP, 7.86 K/9, 1.75 K/BB, and 2.3 wins above the replacement level.

Cubs Acquire Garza from Rays

According to Bruce Levine of ESPN Chicago, the Rays and Cubs have completed an eight player trade that results in pitcher Matt Garza being shipped to the north side of Chicago. 

From the Rays perspective, I love the trade.  While Garza (15-10, 3.91 ERA) may’ve appeared like he was finally harnessing his ace-potential, there is reason to believe his 2010 performance was a mirage.  His strikeout rate plummeted, while his contact rate jumped.  His ERA outperformed his FIP by half of a run.  He continued to exhibit greater flyball tendencies, which will likely lead to more home runs in the future.  Could he turn these indicators around?  Sure, he’s only 27.  But why take the risk when you have a surplus of young pitching?  Jeremy Hellickson has ace quality stuff, and should have no problem taking Garza’s spot in the rotation.  Top prospect LHP Matt Moore should be ready by mid to late-2011 should they need re-enforcements down the stretch.  Rays GM Andrew Friedman is selling high, which is exactly what he should do. 

In exchange for Garza, they’ll receive five prospects:  RHP Chris Archer, OF Brandon Guyer, and SS Hak-Ju Lee, OF Sam Fuld, and C Robinson Chirinos.  Archer appears to be the gem of the deal.  According to Baseball America, he has two plus-plus pitches, which includes a fastball that touches 96-97 and a slider that dives out of the zone.  His control (4.1 BB/9 rate between high-A and AA ball in 2010) isn’t tremendous, but he’s only 21.  Should he harness his control, I don’t see any reason why he won’t end up being a solid number two quality starter in the major leagues.  Guyer and Lee both project to be solid major league players, having been given a solid “B” grade from John Sickels of minorleaguebaseball.com.

From the Cubs perspective, I don’t really get it.  Then again, Jim Hendry is their General Manager, so most of his moves are down right confusing.  In the short-term, it kind of makes sense.  They do need starting pitching, but there are better, more efficient ways of fulfilling your team’s needs.  This was the kind of trade a legitimate playoff contender makes.  The Cubs are not a legitimate playoff contender.  They’re an old team on the decline with a bloated $144M payroll.  If anything, they should be doing everything in their power to shed payroll and rebuild their already weak farm system—not trade away three of their top ten prospects.  It’s bad business. 

There are probably thousands (if not millions) of Cubs fans rejoicing at the news of their team acquiring Garza, but I’m not really sure why.  This move gets the Cubs further away (not closer) from the elusive World Series championship they crave.  In reality, Cubs fans should be calling for Hendry’s ouster.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like the Chicago Cubs?

Simply put, the Chicago Cubs are a mess.  The lovable losers of Chicago's North Side have not won a World Series since 1908 (102 seasons if you're counting at home), and have little to no prospects of winning a championship for the next three to five seasons.  To make matters worse for this seemingly tortured fan base, the Cubs have been teasing and taunting them for much of the past decade.  In 2003, led by Mark Prior and Kerry Wood, the Cubs went up 3-1 against the Florida Marlins in the NLCS only to completely fall apart.  In 2004, they were ranked by many as heavy favorites to win the National League pennant, but failed to meet expectations after Prior and Wood managed to only make a combined 43 starts.  They finished 16 games behind the Cardinals for the division lead, and three back of the Astros for the Wild Card.  After spending the next two seasons under .500, the Cubs returned to the playoffs in 2007, only to be swept by the NL West division champion Arizona Diamondbacks.  In 2008, the Cubs came out of the gate strong, and finished with a league leading 97 wins.  Most analysts had the Cubs pegged as the clear favorite to win the NL pennant.  Instead, they were swept by the 84-win Los Angeles Dodgers.  In 2009, the Cubs brought back a nearly identical team.  Hope was high.  Instead of a encore performance of 2008, the Cubs stumbled to an 83-78 record, which was good for third place in the NL Central.  2010 was more of the same, only this season it was more extreme.  The team continued to rapidly regress, and for the first time since 2006, they failed to reach .500.

So what happened?  How did a team that had so much promise and talent just a few short years ago devolve into a hopeless mess?  Simple.  Reckless spending on the free agent market.  Rather than use their vast financial advantages to build a top notch player development/minor league system that could supplement the Major League club, the Cubs chose to give away draft picks to sign old, overpriced free agents to ridiculous contracts.  Looking at the Cubs Cot's Baseball Contract page, it doesn't take a genius to see that Cubs payroll and roster flexibility have been considerably compromised.  Looking to 2011, the Cubs have $102.5M committed to eight players with another seven eligible for salary arbitration.  The worst part is that none of the contracts on the books for next season can be considered positive value contracts.  For 2011, the Cubs have the following players on the books:

   Player                Salary         2008-2010 WAR    2011 Proj WAR*        $ Value #
A.Soriano            $19.0M             7.2 WAR               2.0 WAR                $8.1M
C. Zambrano       $18.87M           9.0 WAR               2.5 WAR                $10.5M
A. Ramirez          $14.6M             8.1 WAR               2.5 WAR                $10.5M
K. Fukudome      $14.5M             5.6 WAR               1.5 WAR                $6.5M
R. Dempster        $14.5M           12.5 WAR               3.8 WAR                $15.6M
C. Silva               $12.75M           3.4 WAR               1.0 WAR                $4.1M
M. Byrd              $5.5M               8.9 WAR               2.5 WAR                $10.5M
J. Samardzija       $3.5M             -0.3 WAR               0.0 WAR                $0.0M
J. Grabow           $4.8M             -0.2 WAR                0.0 WAR                $0.0M

* 2011 WAR Projections are based on the three year average of WAR for each player regressed for age.  This is a raw estimate based on player performance trends.

# Value assumes the average value of a win on the free agent market (per Fangraphs) will increase by 5% between 2010 ($3.9M) versus 2011 ($4.1M).       

Essentially, the Cubs are paying out a guaranteed $102.5M in salary in exchange for an projected value of $65.8M in 2011.  That's abysmal.    To make matters worse, Soriano is under contract at approximately $19M per season through 2014 when he's 39 years old.  Carlos Zambrano, one of the few 20-somethings on this list, will be paid approximately $19M per season through 2012.  This would be fine if he was still performing at an elite level.  Unfortunately for the Cubs, Zambrano hasn't pitched at an All-Star level (4.0-5.9 WAR) level since 2005.  All of this spells bad news for the Cubs long-term.

So how do you fix the Cubs?  It's a "simple" three step answer.  First, fire the man who signed these players to their current contracts.  Good riddance, Jim Hendry.  Second, hire either a young, statistically minded Ivy League graduate that will restore sanity to payroll/roster management, or a well respected scouting director to completely rebuild the farm system from the ground up.  (Preferably, the team would find a way to have both on the payroll.)  Third, clean house and start a long-term rebuilding project. 

Now, this last step isn't going to be easy.  The Cubs have a ton of payroll tied up to untradeable players.  In some cases (cough, Alfonso Soriano, cough), it might be a good idea to figure out how and when to buy out his contract for ninety cents on the dollar.  This may not occur until 2012 or 2013, but it needs to happen.  It's really going to hurt ownership to write that check, but doing so will free up payroll sooner and potentially accelerate the Cubs rebuilding process.  At this point, he's a sunk cost.  As he continues to age, his performance will start to hurt the team more than it helps--if it hasn't already. 

Next, they should look at trading some of their semi-untradeable guys, by dangling the "we'll eat some of his salary" carrot to teams interested in the player, but not the contract (see Aramis Ramirez, Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano).  In exchange, the Cubs will need to be prepared to take on some C and B- quality prospects rather than the B+, A-, and A quality prospects.  The other option is to trade a bad contract for a bad contract (see Milton Bradley for Carlos Silva).  Sometimes this works out, but usually it doesn't.  If the Cubs have the option to take on a larger (but shorter-term contract) in exchange for a smaller long-term deal, they should take it.  The key is to clear payroll as soon as possible. 

The Cubs have a long rebuilding process in front of them.  Their players are old, under-productive, and grossly overpaid.  Outside of recently graduated Starlin Castro, and possibly prospect Josh Vitters, the Cubs farm system is pretty shallow at the upper levels.  They've started filling out at the lower levels, but most of those players are raw and years away from contributing to the big club.  The Cubs need to focus on shedding payroll, drafting well, developing players from within, and making targeted moves on the free agent and trade markets.  It's going to take a 180-degree organizational shift to do so, but it appears they have the right ownership in place to do so.  I only hope their fans have the patience to let this play out.