This is The Beer List. It’s an opportunity, once every two weeks or so, for the staff here at BP Wrigleyville to get together (virtually, of course) and debate one small, usually quite open-ended, question. Despite the strenuous efforts of certain members of the crew to make it so, it has nothing to do with beer and is therefore agnostic between, for random example, Miller Light and Daisy Cutter. This week’s question is this: What is the Cubs’ biggest area of need this offseason, and how should they go about addressing it?
We’ll start the discussion with Cat Garcia, who argues that the Cubs need to continue to add veteran leadership to support and mentor their young core.
In baseball, we love numbers. Numbers give us the means to precisely describe the deepest depths and most complicated situations within the game, which in turn helps us to see things on a much larger scale than we would otherwise be able to. They predict outcomes based on past knowledge and patterns—helping us project how volatile a player may become, and how valuable he is projected to be. But beyond the numbers—as I myself and many of us here at BP Wrigleyville have pointed out—is integrity, human nature, and facets of the game and of life that numbers, simply stated, have no say in.
Many obstacles arise when you try to pull together a club full of young fresh faces. Inexperience, youth, and developing maturity are all uncharted territory. Many of the young players we see on the Cubs roster right now, even the so called “veterans,” are well under the age of 30, haven’t been playing the game for more than a handful of years at the professional level and until recently, had never experienced the clear October evenings where most of their boyhood dreams likely came to be.
There are tools certain players bring to the table for their teams, and reasons why said teams choose those players, even though we may have our own thoughts that grow from the outside looking in. “His OBP is low.” “His baserunning is sub-par.” “His peripherals have suffered over the last few seasons.” But there are other reasons these players are chosen that many fans of the game fail to recognize, simply because their most valued qualities don’t show up on the baseball diamond for all the world to see—at least not to the naked eye. They’re instead manifested through everything we see happening off the field, and even through that which we cannot see.
I know that many Cubs fans are reluctant about the idea of David Ross returning for the 2016 season. Or are confused as to why the Cubs would be interested in signing a pitcher like John Lackey, age 37, to a multi-year deal. Or why Jon Lester’s $155 million contract was still worth the money in the long run no matter if you thought he was below expectations in 2015 or not.
Right now the Cubs have infused a small amount of veteran leadership into this club, via players who have postseason stories to tell the youngsters as they sit on the dugout bench, or experience with failure, or success, or just experience dealing with many different types of clubhouses, coaches, and personalities over the years. Could one or two more players like that hurt? I doubt it. This isn’t to say that the Cubs should go out and sign any old vet they can find regardless of his ability to produce on the field, but it is saying that they should, and most likely are, willing to forgo top-tier talent where it isn’t necessarily needed in order to find a balance between being a viable contributor on the field and being one in the clubhouse. That’s not to say they shouldn’t pursue improvements across their roster—as Isaac, Stan, and Carlos argue below—just that veteran leadership is a worthy goal to aim for.
Stan Croussett, meanwhile, has a more specific idea in mind:
During the 2015 season, the Cubs’ lineup seemed to be dependent on catchers’ production—and really, I mean Miguel Montero’s production—to go from a strong top half to a deep nightmare for opposing pitchers. It’s one thing for the lineup to be potent from Dexter Fowler in the leadoff spot to a productive Starlin Castro hitting fifth, but when we include Montero’s power and patience combo, the lineup turns over and crooked numbers go up on the scoreboard. The 2016 lineup, like its predecessor, will be dependent on some production from the catchers’ spots to avoid giving up two outs in the back end.
I’m a pretty big fan of Miguel Montero. I was clamoring for his acquisition prior to the 2015 season because of his ability to put the ball in play, take his walks, and provide some left-handed power behind Anthony Rizzo. So that 25 percent strikeout rate in 2015 sure surprised me. And it’s not just that: Montero looked bad on many swings late in the season. Was it fatigue? Was it the thumb injury that sidelined him in July? I don’t know. What I do know is that it was enough to make me wary about the 32-year-old catcher’s offensive production going forward. We can’t count on David Ross offensively, so here’s hoping either Kyle Schwarber improves his receiving quickly, or Willson Contreras repeats his breakout 2015 at Triple-A, and therefore gets a taste of MLB late in 2016.
Carlos Portocarrero, for his part, thinks the Cubs need to focus on consistent production up and down their lineup:
“Something (Anthony) Rizzo has told me is the great hitters minimize their bad days. Maybe not going 0-for-5, maybe getting a walk or a hit by a pitch. I take that to heart.” That’s something Kris Bryant said to Jesse Rogers during the 2015 season. And he’s right. The end of the Cubs’ 2015 season was a stark reminder that this was a very inconsistent team offensively.
Only the New York Mets scored more runs than the Cubs in the second half of 2015. In the first half, however, they were fifth from the bottom and endured some stretches where it seemed as if they simply could not score any runs at all. At the same time, they were 34-21 in one-run games, 13-5 in extra innings, and had 13 memorable walk-off victories. While I’m all for exciting finishes, that’s not something the Cubs should count on again next year, and that’s why consistency is something they need to improve on moving forward. More specifically, the Cubs need to address how they score runs as a group.
The offensive inconsistency in 2015 was understandable—to a degree. It felt like every other week the Cubs were bringing up a top prospect and relying on him heavily right away. And without fail, they each came in and pulled their own weight in one way or another. Bryant and Kyle Schwarber hit for power and struck out a ton. Addison Russell did his best Gold Glove impersonation and struck out a ton. It’s a testament to their individual talents and to Joe Maddon’s skill that he was able to take this influx of top talent, work it into the lineup, win with it, and somehow keep everyone happy.
The Iowa express should be quieter in 2016, which in and of itself should give the team some more consistency. The trick will be for Maddon to keep all of his guys healthy and to convince some of them to slightly alter their approach at the plate in certain situations. After all, they hit .236 with runners in scoring position (only the Reds were worst in the NL) and a paltry .211 with runners in scoring position with two outs (the NL average was .230). This is something Maddon can address in Spring Training with a slight tweak in approach. It doesn’t mean you want Kris Bryant impersonating Christian Colon up there, but at least try to focus a bit more on making contact, and doing whatever needs to be done to get that all-important run in. If they can avoid those long dry spells we saw during the season, this offense could be even better. If they want to kick it up a notch, they could trade one of their high-strikeout, high-power players for a higher-contact hitter. Easy, right?
While Carlos focused on the Cubs’ hitting, Isaac Bennett was all about the pitching.
The principle tenets of investing include an idiom that is often misunderstood: buy whatever’s cheap. The idea is that what you purchase matters little: it matters much more what its valuation is relative to where it should be. It sounds simple enough, but the reality is that only a precious minority are capable of exercising the discipline necessary to execute. It takes eschewing what appears safe, standing alone, and straying from the mentality of the crowd. In other words, it’s unpopular.
It is with this in mind that we consider the direction Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer have taken the franchise. The pair has targeted young, predictable hitters in the draft rather than fragile, unpredictable pitching prospects. Now, does that have more to do with the fact that they prefer to focus upon hitting rather than pitching, or does it simply tell us that the market undervalued a commodity, which they then recognized and exploited for value?
Eventually, the balance of every market shifts, and the marketplace finds itself void of the given commodity. This has happened all across the majors, with virtually every team feeling the dearth of potent young offensive players. The Cubs are not such a team. The aforementioned hoarding of offensive talent has left them with a relative glut, and the time has come to capitalize upon an offensively starved league.
As Epstein has made clear that adding pitching depth is a leading organizational priority, the key will be identifying which young hitter(s) to deal in order to pick it up. This is not a simple equation: armchair general managers should be careful to avoid lumping the Cubs’ young hitters into identical categories of value. Trading Jorge Soler does not equal trading Kyle Schwarber, and vice-versa.
While it’s always risky to float particular trade ideas, one stands out to me: a deal with the Atlanta Braves. The Braves’ offense was utterly deplorable this season, finishing dead last in the majors in runs scored by a considerable margin. Their situation is dire, and there is little help coming in the near-future from their minor-league system, as six of their top seven prospects are starting pitchers. Pairing right-handed Soler with left-handed Freddie Freeman in the middle of the order would surely be enticing for team President John Schuerholz and company.
From the Cubs’ perspective, the asset that may now be undervalued is a player they have long admired: starter Julio Teheran. His 2015 walk rate spiked to 3.3 per nine innings, and his home-run rate rose to 1.2 per nine, with his DRA following suit at 4.21—a precipitous rise from his 2014 season tally of 3.37. Traditional stats agreed, as his ERA shot from 2.89 to 4.04. In short, Teheran’s value likely dropped from “untouchable” to “let’s talk”. Meanwhile, he is still just 24 years old, and—thanks to a highly team-friendly contract—he is controlled through 2020 for just 41 million dollars. It’s very possible the best is still yet to come for Teheran, meaning now is the time to get him. And while I don’t believe that Soler alone would net Teheran, he’d be a solid centerpiece for a deal.
To be certain, this specific move is impossible to accurately predict, and would be extremely bold for a team coming off of a 97-win campaign. However, aggressively pursuing areas of need may be exactly the recipe needed to reach the ultimate goal. And after his brilliant playoff run, selling high on Soler is step one.
Lastly, Zack Moser argues that flexibility is necessary:
We’ve been very explicit here at BP Wrigleyville that the Cubs don’t just have positional needs: they also have qualitative needs, in the way of contact hitting and outfield defense (among others). Most expect the Cubs to add an outfielder, and what concerns me the most in that move is the possible “stiffening” of the Cubs’ roster. One of the strengths of the 2015 Cubs was the incredible flexibility offered by most players (especially Chris Coghlan, Javier Baez, and Kris Bryant), and the willingness of Joe Maddon to indulge in some idiosyncratic positional alignments to maximize certain qualities and gain matchup advantages.
With that in mind, it’s imperative that the Cubs maintain that high degree of flexibility while adding players who fit their other desired qualities. A player like Alex Gordon, for example, would check a few boxes—he plays outstanding outfield defense, he’s a good contact hitter—but he can only play the corners, and some doubt that he could play right field as well as he does left. That would still leave center field open, likely force a Baez or Jorge Soler trade, or even push Kris Bryant into full-time center field duty. Many other players on the market would further rigidify the roster with their positional inflexibility.
Jason Heyward and Ben Zobrist, on the other hand, would maximize the Cubs’ positional and lineup versatility. The merits of Zobrist, Utility Man, are well documented, and Heyward would likely fill the center-field gap or offer plus defense at the corners. Either player could lead off, and both fill the contact and defense portions of the front office’s wish list. A pure center fielder like Denard Span would be a more neutral acquisition with regards to flexibility, allowing the Cubs’ multiple-positioned players to remain playing several spots. It’s easy to overlook the advantage the Cubs have in terms of players who can man multiple spots on the field and in the lineup, and focus on contact ability—as Carlos did, above—but I think it’s one of the most important qualities the Cubs should pursue on the free-agent and trade markets this winter.
The Beer List is edited by Rian Watt.