February 7, 2009
Trade Possibilities
Now that it is a pretty sure bet that Jake Peavy will at least be starting the 2009 season in a Padres uniform, we can turn to what other trade possibilities the Padres have to make the 2009 squad stronger.
The 1st one that comes to mind for me is a trade of Kevin Kouzmanoff for a starting pitcher.
The Padres have tremendous depth at 3B with Chase Headley at the major league level and alot of good bats in the farm system.
Kouzmanoff is a young player who will be under team control for 4 more seasons and is emerging as both a very good offensive and defensive player for the Padres.
The only thing that stands in the way of a possible trade is Kouzmanoff's shoulder. He has not returned to full activity after his off season surgery, but he is throwing and looks good so far.
Once Spring Training starts in 2 weeks, other teams will get to see how well he has rehabbed and how he is throwing in game situations.
Then he will be very attractive trade bait.
What are the Padres looking for in return?
The Padres have two areas of serious need and both involve pitching. The Padres are looking for a #2 or #3 starting pitcher and for help in the bullpen.
Behind a great 1-2 punch of Peavy and Chris Young, the Padres have a lot of unproven, mediocre or injury rehab projects vying for 3 starting positions.
Baek, Correia, Geer, LeBlanc, Roeneke, Prior and others will all be trying to lock down a spot in Spring Training. None of them are what would be considered a confidence inspiring starter.
Winning 2 of 5 games is not an option.
The bullpen is even more of a question mark with Bell taking over for Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman at the Closer position, Mike Adams is injured and not expected back until after the All Star break, and Cla Meredith and Justin Hampson are the only other Padres relievers with a full season at the ML level.
We have established what the Padres are offering and their needs.
So…
Who stands in need of a Third Baseman?
- The Minnesota Twins are in dire need. They are so desperate they are looking at Joe Crede.
- The Detroit Tigers have Brandon Inge penciled in at 3B.
- The Toronto Blue Jays have the oft injured, but very expensive, Scott Rolen.
Even the Cardinals need a 3B with Troy Glaus' January shoulder surgery.
The next questions:
Are they looking to trade and who do they have to offer?
Let’s take this team by team starting with the ones I think are most probable.
Minnesota Twins
The Twins are hurting at 3B. Without a FA signing or a trade, the Twins will start the season with Brendan Harris or Brian Buscher at third. Ouch!
So YES they are looking to make a move.
Their options are so grey that they are talking seriously about bringing in Joe Crede, who hasn't started regularly since hurting his back in late 2006, and guaranteeing him more than $5 million per season plus incentives.
Now that we have established that they have the need,
What do they have to offer the Padres?
The Twins have a plethora of good young arms. Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey, Francisco Liriano, Glen Perkins and Scott Baker are good young starters that are still 3-4 years away from FA.
Phillip Humber is another good starting prospect on their squad. Good enough that the Mets signed him to a 5 year/$4.2 million contract before he ever threw a pitch in the major leagues and he is out of options. He either stays on the 25 man roster of the Twins have to trade him or expose him to waivers.
Of the 6, Slowey and Baker are the control type pitchers the Padres seem to favor.
So what trades make sense for both teams?
How about the Padres send Kouzmanoff and Wade LeBlanc to the Twins for Slowey and Delmon Young? Leblanc competes for the #5 slot in Minnesota and Young takes over in LF for Headley.
Detroit Tigers
The Tigers have Brandon Inge penciled in as their starting 3B in 2009.
Inge, a career .237 batter, hit .205/.303/.369/.672 in 2008. Inge is a slightly above average fielder at 3B with a 1.1 UZR in 51 games at the position in 2008.
His only backup as of today is Mike Holliman. Who? Hollimon was a 26 year old rookie in 2008, who has exactly 2 games at 3B in his professional career (minors and majors). Both games happened in 2008.
I would guess that Cabrera could move back to 3B, but he was moved to 1B because, despite his incredible bat, he is a terrible fielder at 3B.
Now that we have established that they have the need,
What do they have to offer the Padres?
Like the Twins, the Tigers have a number of good young arms. In fact, before the February 4th signing of John Parrish, the Tigers had 7 starting pitchers on their staff to fill 5 slots. Lynn Henning of the Detroit News reported that the Tigers are looking to trade pitching to fill holes in their lineup.
Unlike the Twins, most of the Tigers starting pitchers have 5 or more years of major league service.
The exceptions being the recently added Edwin Jackson, Justin Verlander who is likely untouchable, and Armando Gallaraga.
Jackson has been a disappointment since coming up as a fireballing RH with the Dodgers at 20 yrs old. He has never really lived up to the expectations. Dave Cameron of Fangraphs absolutely hated the trade the Tigers made to get him.
Justin Verlander is another fireball RHP. Unlike Jackson he developed into the ace of the Tigers staff. In 2008 he had a rough year posting a 4.84 ERA and a 4.18 FIP.
Armando Gallaraga (27) is a late blooming starter who had a nice ERA in 2008 but whose FIP was well above league average at 4.88.
Of the 3, I would like to see Verlander in any trade for an everyday player like Kouzmanoff, but he is likely untouchable.
So what do I see as a possible trade?
Kouzmanoff for Jackson and a prospect like Casey Fien or Luis Marte.
Those two teams are the only ones I see as having both a real need right now and the type of pitching the Padres would like back in return for Kouzmanoff.
I have had my say. Now what do you think?
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
An Open Letter to Steven Henson of Yahoo and the rest of the media
January 28, 2009
An Open Letter to Steven Henson of Yahoo and the rest of the media.
Not a Question, a Statement.
Do your homework.
It gets tiring constantly reading poorly researched posts you are trying to pass off as journalism.
The Padres payroll for 2009 including Jake Peavy stands at $41 million as of today and Sandy Alderson has been consistent in local interviews in saying it does not need to be AT $40 million. If you want more information on it try reading my blog. www.websoulsurfer.com It has a complete breakdown.
Here is a quote from an article in the Union Tribune today.
"On Tuesday, Alderson affirmed what Towers recently said about there no longer being any pressure from ownership to reduce the payroll further before Opening Day."
So to say that the Padres HAVE to move Peavy to meet payroll conditions is more something you guys in the media have tried to foist off on us and not the reality of the situation. There is NO fixed budget number.
Like most of you, I too believe that Peavy will be moved. But the Padres have proven it is not just a salary dump, because they have not jumped at some of the low ball offers in terms of talent they have received.
As for Giles, the Red Sox were certainly willing to pay all of his salary at the end of 2008 and other teams were widely reported in the media to be interested in him this off season with not one single mention that the Padres would have to eat any of his salary. Where you got that little tidbit is hard to say, but it is not an opinion shared by many, if any, others. Certainly not publicly. In fact, I can't find anyone other than you who has said it.
The players the Padres set on the field in 2008 certainly showed the talent to win a very weak NL West.
- Jody Gerut (.304/.362/.509/.871 with 14 hr in 283 abs) and Scott Hairston (.305/.341/.609/.950 with 12 hr in 174 abs) had an outstanding showing in CF. In fact their CF platoon was the 3rd best in offensive production in all of baseball and that is playing in Petco Park. Simply AMAZING!
- Brian Giles was outstanding. (.306/.398/.456/.854). In my opinion, there were not many, if any, better RF in baseball in 2008.
- Adrian Gonzalez was far and away the best 1B in the NL West offensively and defensively.
- Kevin Kouzmanoff showed the power he was traded for and improved his defense immensely, putting him up there with the best 3B in the NL West. He is going into his 3rd full professional season and is 27 years old. BOTH are statistically the most likely season to see a career type year. Look for a breakout season from him in 2009.
- Tad Iguchi was quietly providing the leadoff hitter the Padres sorely needed before his injury in 2008. Gerut also proved quite capable there as well, hitting .296/.352/.492/.844 in 240 abs batting lead off.
- Edgar Gonzalez proved to be an able bat off the bench and hit .273/.328/.390/.717 in nearly 300 PA while playing 2B.
- Chase Headley came up mid year and was respectable (.275/.346/.417/.763 with 7 hr in 302 abs while playing in LF) and if he continues to follow the pattern of improvement he has demonstrated to us his entire professional career, 2009 will have him put up much better numbers.
- The pitching staff was never healthy all at once, using 32 pitchers to fill 12 slots during the season, and injuries devastated the catching corp.
The problem was not that there wasn't enough talent. After all, the Padres were picked by many to win the West prior to the 2008 season. The problem was that not enough of them were actually on the team at any one time.
The Padres set a new MLB record for player days on the DL and tied their own MLB record from 2003 for most players used at 57. The number of players on the DL at any given point averaged over 7 players per game. That is nearly 3 times the MLB average.
As for the specious statement by you that "The Padres will have a punchless offense playing in a power-sapping ballpark".
I think you missed two facts.
1 - The Padres ROAD offense was quite good, in the top half of the NL. In fact their power numbers were right there with the Cubs in 2008.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/stats/byteam?cat=Splits&cut_type=34&conference=NL&year=season_2008&sort=724
The bats that provided the power in 2008 are still on the team and are likely to improve given their ages and ML experience.
2 - At Petco NO ONE hit for power. Padres and the visitors. So its not a detriment to the Padres alone. Petco is an equalizer.
The guys over at The Sacrifice Bunt have done a great job of covering that fact, so I will simply give you this link to their site:
http://thesacrificebunt.com/category/padres-101/
Click on it. You will gain valuable knowledge about the game.
A few more things you flat out got wrong or just don't care enough to actually research.
- Khalil Greene's 2008 offense won't be hard to replace. In fact everyone else that the Padres put in the position in 2008 did better. Luis Rodriguez hit .313/.351/.386/.737 in 176 abs while playing SS in 2008. Khalil's career stats (.248/.304/.427/.731) show more power, but are certainly nothing to crow about or worry about replacing for too long.
- Gerut has been named the starting CF. End of story.
- Even if the Padres have Eckstein leading off, why would you have a power bat that struck out 31.4 % of the time in 2008 batting 2nd? That makes no sense at all. It is a slot in the batting order that's primary job is to move up the runner. You need a contact hitter who can occasionally take a walk at #2.
- Kouzmanoff is expected to be ready by the start of spring training. The Padres are so sure of this that Towers has already said that Headley will not see any starts at 3B in spring training, but will continue to take ground balls at the position to keep him fresh.
- David Eckstein was signed to play 2b and took less money to have the opportunity to start at that position. With Rodriguez showing the ability to play the position defensively and hitting well and the signing of Chris Burke and the Rule V pickup of Everth Cabrera there is no reason to believe that Eckstein will be asked to play SS for the Padres.
- WTF is a soft .287? That he didn't hit for power? How many middle infielders do? How many players do in Petco? If the Padres need a little pop in the bat at the position they can run Burke out there if there is a favorable pitching matchup.
- The Padres bullpen from 2004 - 2007 was filled with players off the waiver wire, that were washed up or unwanted or unproven elsewhere, or that were picked up in the Rule V draft. No big FA signings for the Padres bullpen. In fact, Towers has been praised for his ability to find nobodies that do well in a Padre uniform for a few years and crusty old veterans that revive their careers. The one constant has always been Hoffman.
Another specious statement by you was, "Behind Peavy and Young,the rotation is unproven (Josh Geer, Chad Reineke) or proven mediocre" (Cha Seung Baek, Wade LeBlanc).
How is LeBlanc "PROVEN MEDIOCRE"? He has exactly 4 ML starts, same as Geer. If one is unproven, so is the other. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
All LeBlanc has done is win at every level prior to joining the Padres late last season, with more hits than innings pitched at every level and a K/9 of about 9. Certainly nothing to say he is "proven mediocre". Actually quite the contrary. He entered 2008 as the 4th highest rated prospect in the Padres system. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/features/265307.html . And given the fact that he is only 24, he certainly has a chance to continue improving.
The same cannot be said for your writing.
The one positive comment you had for the Padres in your post is that "Bell was groomed for the closer role and should be fine." Do you realize that first year closers have a save percentage of about 70% and that Hoffman, in what most consider a down year" had an 88.2% save percentage? I didn't think so.
Bell may have been groomed for the job, but his stats (career and 2008) and the stats for first year closers should not give anyone enough confidence to say he "should be fine". We all HOPE he will be fine, but to proclaim it as if it is fact in the face of somewhat shaky stats and history is entirely another animal.
Maybe it is time for some of the bloggers who actually have a knowledge of and a passion for the game of baseball to start writing for media outlets like Yahoo.
An Open Letter to Steven Henson of Yahoo and the rest of the media.
Not a Question, a Statement.
Do your homework.
It gets tiring constantly reading poorly researched posts you are trying to pass off as journalism.
The Padres payroll for 2009 including Jake Peavy stands at $41 million as of today and Sandy Alderson has been consistent in local interviews in saying it does not need to be AT $40 million. If you want more information on it try reading my blog. www.websoulsurfer.com It has a complete breakdown.
Here is a quote from an article in the Union Tribune today.
"On Tuesday, Alderson affirmed what Towers recently said about there no longer being any pressure from ownership to reduce the payroll further before Opening Day."
So to say that the Padres HAVE to move Peavy to meet payroll conditions is more something you guys in the media have tried to foist off on us and not the reality of the situation. There is NO fixed budget number.
Like most of you, I too believe that Peavy will be moved. But the Padres have proven it is not just a salary dump, because they have not jumped at some of the low ball offers in terms of talent they have received.
As for Giles, the Red Sox were certainly willing to pay all of his salary at the end of 2008 and other teams were widely reported in the media to be interested in him this off season with not one single mention that the Padres would have to eat any of his salary. Where you got that little tidbit is hard to say, but it is not an opinion shared by many, if any, others. Certainly not publicly. In fact, I can't find anyone other than you who has said it.
The players the Padres set on the field in 2008 certainly showed the talent to win a very weak NL West.
- Jody Gerut (.304/.362/.509/.871 with 14 hr in 283 abs) and Scott Hairston (.305/.341/.609/.950 with 12 hr in 174 abs) had an outstanding showing in CF. In fact their CF platoon was the 3rd best in offensive production in all of baseball and that is playing in Petco Park. Simply AMAZING!
- Brian Giles was outstanding. (.306/.398/.456/.854). In my opinion, there were not many, if any, better RF in baseball in 2008.
- Adrian Gonzalez was far and away the best 1B in the NL West offensively and defensively.
- Kevin Kouzmanoff showed the power he was traded for and improved his defense immensely, putting him up there with the best 3B in the NL West. He is going into his 3rd full professional season and is 27 years old. BOTH are statistically the most likely season to see a career type year. Look for a breakout season from him in 2009.
- Tad Iguchi was quietly providing the leadoff hitter the Padres sorely needed before his injury in 2008. Gerut also proved quite capable there as well, hitting .296/.352/.492/.844 in 240 abs batting lead off.
- Edgar Gonzalez proved to be an able bat off the bench and hit .273/.328/.390/.717 in nearly 300 PA while playing 2B.
- Chase Headley came up mid year and was respectable (.275/.346/.417/.763 with 7 hr in 302 abs while playing in LF) and if he continues to follow the pattern of improvement he has demonstrated to us his entire professional career, 2009 will have him put up much better numbers.
- The pitching staff was never healthy all at once, using 32 pitchers to fill 12 slots during the season, and injuries devastated the catching corp.
The problem was not that there wasn't enough talent. After all, the Padres were picked by many to win the West prior to the 2008 season. The problem was that not enough of them were actually on the team at any one time.
The Padres set a new MLB record for player days on the DL and tied their own MLB record from 2003 for most players used at 57. The number of players on the DL at any given point averaged over 7 players per game. That is nearly 3 times the MLB average.
As for the specious statement by you that "The Padres will have a punchless offense playing in a power-sapping ballpark".
I think you missed two facts.
1 - The Padres ROAD offense was quite good, in the top half of the NL. In fact their power numbers were right there with the Cubs in 2008.
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/stats/byteam?cat=Splits&cut_type=34&conference=NL&year=season_2008&sort=724
The bats that provided the power in 2008 are still on the team and are likely to improve given their ages and ML experience.
2 - At Petco NO ONE hit for power. Padres and the visitors. So its not a detriment to the Padres alone. Petco is an equalizer.
The guys over at The Sacrifice Bunt have done a great job of covering that fact, so I will simply give you this link to their site:
http://thesacrificebunt.com/category/padres-101/
Click on it. You will gain valuable knowledge about the game.
A few more things you flat out got wrong or just don't care enough to actually research.
- Khalil Greene's 2008 offense won't be hard to replace. In fact everyone else that the Padres put in the position in 2008 did better. Luis Rodriguez hit .313/.351/.386/.737 in 176 abs while playing SS in 2008. Khalil's career stats (.248/.304/.427/.731) show more power, but are certainly nothing to crow about or worry about replacing for too long.
- Gerut has been named the starting CF. End of story.
- Even if the Padres have Eckstein leading off, why would you have a power bat that struck out 31.4 % of the time in 2008 batting 2nd? That makes no sense at all. It is a slot in the batting order that's primary job is to move up the runner. You need a contact hitter who can occasionally take a walk at #2.
- Kouzmanoff is expected to be ready by the start of spring training. The Padres are so sure of this that Towers has already said that Headley will not see any starts at 3B in spring training, but will continue to take ground balls at the position to keep him fresh.
- David Eckstein was signed to play 2b and took less money to have the opportunity to start at that position. With Rodriguez showing the ability to play the position defensively and hitting well and the signing of Chris Burke and the Rule V pickup of Everth Cabrera there is no reason to believe that Eckstein will be asked to play SS for the Padres.
- WTF is a soft .287? That he didn't hit for power? How many middle infielders do? How many players do in Petco? If the Padres need a little pop in the bat at the position they can run Burke out there if there is a favorable pitching matchup.
- The Padres bullpen from 2004 - 2007 was filled with players off the waiver wire, that were washed up or unwanted or unproven elsewhere, or that were picked up in the Rule V draft. No big FA signings for the Padres bullpen. In fact, Towers has been praised for his ability to find nobodies that do well in a Padre uniform for a few years and crusty old veterans that revive their careers. The one constant has always been Hoffman.
Another specious statement by you was, "Behind Peavy and Young,the rotation is unproven (Josh Geer, Chad Reineke) or proven mediocre" (Cha Seung Baek, Wade LeBlanc).
How is LeBlanc "PROVEN MEDIOCRE"? He has exactly 4 ML starts, same as Geer. If one is unproven, so is the other. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
All LeBlanc has done is win at every level prior to joining the Padres late last season, with more hits than innings pitched at every level and a K/9 of about 9. Certainly nothing to say he is "proven mediocre". Actually quite the contrary. He entered 2008 as the 4th highest rated prospect in the Padres system. http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/prospects/features/265307.html . And given the fact that he is only 24, he certainly has a chance to continue improving.
The same cannot be said for your writing.
The one positive comment you had for the Padres in your post is that "Bell was groomed for the closer role and should be fine." Do you realize that first year closers have a save percentage of about 70% and that Hoffman, in what most consider a down year" had an 88.2% save percentage? I didn't think so.
Bell may have been groomed for the job, but his stats (career and 2008) and the stats for first year closers should not give anyone enough confidence to say he "should be fine". We all HOPE he will be fine, but to proclaim it as if it is fact in the face of somewhat shaky stats and history is entirely another animal.
Maybe it is time for some of the bloggers who actually have a knowledge of and a passion for the game of baseball to start writing for media outlets like Yahoo.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Why the Cubs Need Jake Peavy
Why the Cubs Need Jake Peavy.
January 26, 2009
The Padres and the Cubs have been kicking around the idea of a Peavy to the Cubs trade since the Winter Meetings.
There have been discussions set forth that argue pros and cons of Peavy being traded and from both sides of the issue Cubs and Padres).
I am going to set down here why I think the Cubs NEED Peavy broken down into 3 issues or areas.
1) The Cubs team shortcomings in 2008.
2) The Cubs team shortcomings in 2009.
3) How those weaknesses were exposed in the 2008 playoffs.
Then I am going to tell you the one critical skill Jake Peavy brings to the table that will help the Cubs finally win a World Series regardless of their other weaknesses as a team.
1) Cubs shortcoming in 2008
While the Cubs had a nice regular season in 2008, they proved that they did not have the dominating pitching necessary to shut down a good offensive team and their mediocre defense was exposed under pressure.
The 1st problem was pitchers unable to go late into games.
Throughout 2008, Dempster consistently collapsed when forced to pitch with a high pitch count. For the season, after 90 pitches his era increased to 4.50 and over 100 pitches it increased to over 6.00. Career its even worse with an ERA of 4.90 after pitch 90.
Lilly was even worse in 2008, with an ERA of 10.18 after the 90th pitch.
In game One of the playoffs, Dempster completely collapsed when he got close to 100 pitches and gave up 4 earned runs and got only 2 outs in the 5th inning.
In game Three, Harden could only go 4.1 innings and the bullpen had to pick up the slack.
With Harden injured and likely to only make half his starts in 2009, this problem figures to be worse.
The 2nd problem was head to head.
Dempster and the other Cubs pitchers not named Zambrano were not able to step up their game and be better than the other teams best, the other teams Ace. Overall Cubs pitchers other than Zambrano had a .372 winning percentage against the other teams #1. Not good.
In the playoffs you are facing the other teams best.
In games One and Three of the 2008 playoffs a good pitcher was unable to step up and be a stopper. That was the whole problem. Good pitchers, not great pitchers, were not able to step it up a notch against the superior competition you find in the playoffs.
The defense gave up a 3rd game.
That brings us to the 3rd weakness of the Cubs in 2008,
A mediocre defense up the middle. Under playoff pressure mediocre can easily fall apart and become real bad.
Exhibit #1. In game Two of the playoffs DeRosa and Lee committed errors at critical times in the 2nd inning and Theriot threw one away in the 9th and gave away 5 unearned runs. The defense was not able to step up, and the Zambrano was not able to recover from 4 unearned runs in the 2nd inning.
2) Cubs Shortcomings in 2009
Pitching.
You are probably saying, how can he say that? Easy.
After the 2008 season Rich Harden had a choice to make. Have surgery or rehab his shoulder. He chose rehab. He will
be lucky to get half a season in with 15-18 starts being an educated guess (from Peter Gammons and CHONE projections) as to how many starts he might get in 2009. So who picks up the other 15-18 starts?
Marquis and his 30+ starts are gone.
Sean Gallagher is gone.
That is 55 starts gone.
Who picks up those starts? Marshall? Hill? Olson? They may throw the starts, but more than likely not as effectively as Harden and Marquis.
Dempster in his 11th major league season had a career year. His ERA was nearly 2 points lower than his career average of about 4.7 going into the season and he pitched 140 more innings. Chances are he doesn't repeat 2008, but falls back closer to his career average for ERA in 130-140 innings and struggles to win 10 games.
I can count on one hand the number of guys who came back out of the pen and had two consecutive sub 3.00 era seasons. Do you really think that Dempster is going to be one of them? Not likely.
Normally what happens when a pitcher has that huge of an increase in innings is that he gets hurt the following year and sees an increase in his ERA of at least a full point. That is far more likely an outcome for Dempster in 2009 than to throw 200+ innings with a 2.96 ERA again.
Weak Defense all around.
Uber Utility Man Mark DeRosa, and his -4.2 UZR at 2b and +0.1 UZR at SS and +4.5 in the OF, is gone. In his 7 seasons, DeRosa had a career UZR at 2B of -4.9, -1.4 at SS and +13.9 in the OF.
Now Aaron Miles will be patrolling the middle infield and subbing in the outfield. Last season Miles had a 1.1 UZR at 2B, 1.0 at ss, -0.9 at 3B and 0.0 in the OF. Over the 6 years of his career he has a -9.7 UZR at 2B and a -10.9 UZR at SS, the 2 positions he will be asked to play most in 2009.
For UZR, league average is 0.0 Numbers above zero are better and below zero are worse.
Overall I can't say that they have gotten better defensively at the Uber Utility Man position, only held steady in age.
Aramis Ramirez reverted to his normal defensive form in 2008 with a -3.3 UZR and a .945 Fp and 18 errors. This is more typical of how he plays the field than 2007. Expect him to stay close to those numbers in 2009.
Theriot was the Cubs main SS in 2008 and defensively he recorded a below average -0.4 at the position.
Bradley the oft injured now mans RF. He has played more than 100 games in the field only once in a 7 year career. Last season he recorded one of the lowest fielding percentage in the game for any position in the 20 games he played in RF. Granted he was returning from anterior cruciate ligament surgery in the off season, but it didn't get better late in the season, it got worse.
The best fielding starting outfielder on the Cubs team, Kusuke Fukodome, will be patrolling the bench as often as not in 2009 while playing in a CF platoon with Reed Johnson. And Pie is gone. No young guy to come in and be a defensive replacement late in games.
The OF as a whole will be below league average defensively.
The biggest reason the Cubs must have Peavy.
Peavy is not only a true Ace, Peavy is a stopper. The guy you can hand the ball to and expect that he will step up and be better than the other guys best. In his career Peavy has consistently stepped it up when its the other teams ace on the mound recording a .702 winning percentage for his career in those situations, better than his overall win percentage of .581.
THAT is the ultimate thing you look for in a playoff pitcher, the ability to step it up and consistently be better than the other teams best pitcher.
Late in games Peavy has been good too. Career he he has a 3.86 ERA after pitch 90 & 4.58 after pitch 105. In 2008 he was even better with a 3.24 era after the 90th pitch.
Peavy has averaged 30.33 starts since 2003 when first he started the season in the ML. In 2008 the Padres held him out only because the team was already so far back in in the standings in late May. According to news reports in the San Diego Union Tribune at the time, Peavy didn't feel he needed to go on the DL, but the team erred on the side of caution because the team was playing so poorly.
You can count on him taking the ball. He has a warrior mentality and he does better when the competition is better.
Those are the reasons the Cubs NEED Jake Peavy if they are going to make a run at winning a World Series in 2009.
January 26, 2009
The Padres and the Cubs have been kicking around the idea of a Peavy to the Cubs trade since the Winter Meetings.
There have been discussions set forth that argue pros and cons of Peavy being traded and from both sides of the issue Cubs and Padres).
I am going to set down here why I think the Cubs NEED Peavy broken down into 3 issues or areas.
1) The Cubs team shortcomings in 2008.
2) The Cubs team shortcomings in 2009.
3) How those weaknesses were exposed in the 2008 playoffs.
Then I am going to tell you the one critical skill Jake Peavy brings to the table that will help the Cubs finally win a World Series regardless of their other weaknesses as a team.
1) Cubs shortcoming in 2008
While the Cubs had a nice regular season in 2008, they proved that they did not have the dominating pitching necessary to shut down a good offensive team and their mediocre defense was exposed under pressure.
The 1st problem was pitchers unable to go late into games.
Throughout 2008, Dempster consistently collapsed when forced to pitch with a high pitch count. For the season, after 90 pitches his era increased to 4.50 and over 100 pitches it increased to over 6.00. Career its even worse with an ERA of 4.90 after pitch 90.
Lilly was even worse in 2008, with an ERA of 10.18 after the 90th pitch.
In game One of the playoffs, Dempster completely collapsed when he got close to 100 pitches and gave up 4 earned runs and got only 2 outs in the 5th inning.
In game Three, Harden could only go 4.1 innings and the bullpen had to pick up the slack.
With Harden injured and likely to only make half his starts in 2009, this problem figures to be worse.
The 2nd problem was head to head.
Dempster and the other Cubs pitchers not named Zambrano were not able to step up their game and be better than the other teams best, the other teams Ace. Overall Cubs pitchers other than Zambrano had a .372 winning percentage against the other teams #1. Not good.
In the playoffs you are facing the other teams best.
In games One and Three of the 2008 playoffs a good pitcher was unable to step up and be a stopper. That was the whole problem. Good pitchers, not great pitchers, were not able to step it up a notch against the superior competition you find in the playoffs.
The defense gave up a 3rd game.
That brings us to the 3rd weakness of the Cubs in 2008,
A mediocre defense up the middle. Under playoff pressure mediocre can easily fall apart and become real bad.
Exhibit #1. In game Two of the playoffs DeRosa and Lee committed errors at critical times in the 2nd inning and Theriot threw one away in the 9th and gave away 5 unearned runs. The defense was not able to step up, and the Zambrano was not able to recover from 4 unearned runs in the 2nd inning.
2) Cubs Shortcomings in 2009
Pitching.
You are probably saying, how can he say that? Easy.
After the 2008 season Rich Harden had a choice to make. Have surgery or rehab his shoulder. He chose rehab. He will
be lucky to get half a season in with 15-18 starts being an educated guess (from Peter Gammons and CHONE projections) as to how many starts he might get in 2009. So who picks up the other 15-18 starts?
Marquis and his 30+ starts are gone.
Sean Gallagher is gone.
That is 55 starts gone.
Who picks up those starts? Marshall? Hill? Olson? They may throw the starts, but more than likely not as effectively as Harden and Marquis.
Dempster in his 11th major league season had a career year. His ERA was nearly 2 points lower than his career average of about 4.7 going into the season and he pitched 140 more innings. Chances are he doesn't repeat 2008, but falls back closer to his career average for ERA in 130-140 innings and struggles to win 10 games.
I can count on one hand the number of guys who came back out of the pen and had two consecutive sub 3.00 era seasons. Do you really think that Dempster is going to be one of them? Not likely.
Normally what happens when a pitcher has that huge of an increase in innings is that he gets hurt the following year and sees an increase in his ERA of at least a full point. That is far more likely an outcome for Dempster in 2009 than to throw 200+ innings with a 2.96 ERA again.
Weak Defense all around.
Uber Utility Man Mark DeRosa, and his -4.2 UZR at 2b and +0.1 UZR at SS and +4.5 in the OF, is gone. In his 7 seasons, DeRosa had a career UZR at 2B of -4.9, -1.4 at SS and +13.9 in the OF.
Now Aaron Miles will be patrolling the middle infield and subbing in the outfield. Last season Miles had a 1.1 UZR at 2B, 1.0 at ss, -0.9 at 3B and 0.0 in the OF. Over the 6 years of his career he has a -9.7 UZR at 2B and a -10.9 UZR at SS, the 2 positions he will be asked to play most in 2009.
For UZR, league average is 0.0 Numbers above zero are better and below zero are worse.
Overall I can't say that they have gotten better defensively at the Uber Utility Man position, only held steady in age.
Aramis Ramirez reverted to his normal defensive form in 2008 with a -3.3 UZR and a .945 Fp and 18 errors. This is more typical of how he plays the field than 2007. Expect him to stay close to those numbers in 2009.
Theriot was the Cubs main SS in 2008 and defensively he recorded a below average -0.4 at the position.
Bradley the oft injured now mans RF. He has played more than 100 games in the field only once in a 7 year career. Last season he recorded one of the lowest fielding percentage in the game for any position in the 20 games he played in RF. Granted he was returning from anterior cruciate ligament surgery in the off season, but it didn't get better late in the season, it got worse.
The best fielding starting outfielder on the Cubs team, Kusuke Fukodome, will be patrolling the bench as often as not in 2009 while playing in a CF platoon with Reed Johnson. And Pie is gone. No young guy to come in and be a defensive replacement late in games.
The OF as a whole will be below league average defensively.
The biggest reason the Cubs must have Peavy.
Peavy is not only a true Ace, Peavy is a stopper. The guy you can hand the ball to and expect that he will step up and be better than the other guys best. In his career Peavy has consistently stepped it up when its the other teams ace on the mound recording a .702 winning percentage for his career in those situations, better than his overall win percentage of .581.
THAT is the ultimate thing you look for in a playoff pitcher, the ability to step it up and consistently be better than the other teams best pitcher.
Late in games Peavy has been good too. Career he he has a 3.86 ERA after pitch 90 & 4.58 after pitch 105. In 2008 he was even better with a 3.24 era after the 90th pitch.
Peavy has averaged 30.33 starts since 2003 when first he started the season in the ML. In 2008 the Padres held him out only because the team was already so far back in in the standings in late May. According to news reports in the San Diego Union Tribune at the time, Peavy didn't feel he needed to go on the DL, but the team erred on the side of caution because the team was playing so poorly.
You can count on him taking the ball. He has a warrior mentality and he does better when the competition is better.
Those are the reasons the Cubs NEED Jake Peavy if they are going to make a run at winning a World Series in 2009.
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