At Home Plate - Anything Goes: Woe Be with the Cubs

At Home Plate

Written by Adam Adkins (Contact & Archive) on July 01, 2009

The primary differences between the 2009 Chicago Cubs and the 2008 incarnation? How about this: the 2008 Cubs had a team OPS+ of 103 and the 2009 club is right in the ballpark...just a minor 18 points lower. That is evidence of the injuries and regression this team has faced, and it may not be easily fixed.

The wonderful resource Baseball-Reference lists the Cubs’ 2009 defensive alignment as follows (based off most Plate Appearances played at a particular position, and with OPS+ in parentheses beside the name):

The Cubs had a lot of bad swings at the plate this year.

Photo by celikins, used under creative commons license.

Catcher, Geovany Soto (83)
First Base, Derrek Lee (116)
Second Base, Aaron Miles (30)
Third Base, Mike Fontenot (71)
Short Stop, Ryan Theriot (96)
Left Field, Alfonso Soriano (85)
Center Field, Kosuke Fukudome (107)
Right Field, Milton Bradley (89)

Folks, no team with six of their eight non-pitcher batters with an under-100 OPS+ is competing. Just not happening. But let’s remember, Aramis Ramirez will be back soon, and he’s a marked improvement over whatever Mike Fontenot claims to be. (No offense, Mike, but it doesn’t appear you are a regular starter in the Majors.) Also, I doubt Soto will continue to stink, and Soriano ought to pick up some batting average.

But what about Milton Bradley? I don’t know if Jim Hendry realized this, but the Cubs already had two big bowls of crazy in the dugout last year, those being manager Lou Piniella and ‘ace’ Carlos Zambrano. I realize that Bradley is a great hitter, but he had an undeniable career year in 2008, and the Cubs pounced. He’s regressing to the mean, but by no means is he a below average hitter.

I don’t often write about chemistry in baseball, because there’s evidence that it’s irrelevant. How many fights did the 1977 Yankees get into? Enough to win a championship. The Bronx Zoo wasn’t just a nickname, folks, those players were all crazy and Billy Martin was the fuse.

It’s not necessarily the craziness, but the accountability. I thought it was funny when Piniella tossed Bradley out of the game for throwing a tantrum. Hello Kettle, meet Pot. Can Piniella honestly sit in front of reporters and speak about being mature and calm, when he’s liable to run onto the field during a game, kick some dirt on another grown man and maybe, if he’s feeling frisky, just rip a base out from the ground and fling it a couple feet?

Moving on, back to my specialty, the on-field performance. We’ve discussed the hitting, and it’s not pretty. But the pitching isn’t great either.

Let’s ignore the numbers for a second. Only one of these pitchers has true dominance potential, and that’s Rich Harden, and he’s never going to be around for the dance. Is it Carlos Zambrano? You can’t ignore the walk totals or the meltdowns. Ryan Dempster is a LAIM. Ted Lilly is a fine mid-rotation starter, but not an ace.

It appears the Cubs lack a shutdown starter. Look at their competition for the NL pennant this year. We’ve got the Dodgers and Chad Billingsley, who’d easily be the best pitcher in Cubbie blue. The Mets have Johan Santana, the Phillies have Cole Hamels. The Brewers have Yovani Gallardo, who is secretly having a monster year. Even the somewhat hapless Reds have Johnny Cueto (all BABIP related jokes aside).

The bullpen isn’t bad, though. If you can find some junk to place around Carlos Marmol and Kevin Gregg, you’ll be fine.

But will the Cubs as a whole be fine? The offense will improve...but how much? The pitching probably is what it is.

Right now, June 30th, the Cubs are still my pick to win the NL Central, but that’s got a lot more to do with the crappiness of the division than the quality of the North-Siders.

It might be 101 years, Cub fans.

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