"I’m not sure I’d say he’s even the best starter on the Cubs at this point, but Wood’s ridiculous start to the year can’t be ignored. And, as I pointed out previously in the Bullets, it isn’t just the start of this season: Wood has been outstanding since he began his tenure with the Cubs."

and he follows it up with the necessary caveat:

"In fairness, any conversation of how good Travis Wood has been this year needs to include a conversation of what the advanced stats say. In short, they say he’s been far more lucky than good. A .198 BABIP against and an 80.7% LOB make him the polar opposite of Edwin Jackson, which is to say fortune may be smiling on Wood (his xFIP is just 4.19, even though his ERA is 2.33). In total, I believe Wood remains a very nice 3/4/5 type, and probably more of a 4/5 on a good team. Best starter in baseball? Nah. But that’s not an insult."

I'm not trying to misinterpret Mr. Taylor; he knows that Travis Wood is not dominance given flesh. The assumption that Travis has been anything more than average, though, is really interesting to me. I can't remember ever thinking "man, I'm glad we've got Travis Wood on our team" last year, and he's been tremendously lucky this year. Still, it bears looking at. How good has Travis Wood been this year (and for the Cubs)?

First, let's look at his regular stats. As a Cub, has pitched 202.1 innings for the Cubs in 33 starts, so basically exactly a full season. In that season, he's allowed 86 earned runs (93 total) off of 29 HR, and he's struck out 153 while walking 68. That's good for a 3.83 ERA and a 1.137 WHIP. Those numbers are good for a 106 ERA+, which is indicative of a slightly above-average pitcher (and his 2012 ERA+ was 96). 

Last year, his ERA was 4.27; however, his FIP was 4.84 and his xFIP was 4.62. His tERA (which is derived from batted ball rates) was 5.58, primarily due to his huge HR number (an inordinate amount of flyballs from Travis were home runs last year). Essentially all advanced stats had Wood as a below-average to well below-average player last year. 

What's changed from 2012 to 2013? For starters, his line drives allowed have been much less; they've all become groundballs. I'm not sure how sustainable a 5% drop in LD and an associated 6% increase in GB is, but I'm willing to believe it's extremely unlikely. I will say that Bosio has done some sort of magic to increase the GB rate across the board on our team. Suffice to say, the more GB (as opposed to LD), the better.

Wood has also been "luckier" in his HR/FB rate. Last year, it was 12.7%, which is atypical for him. In the previous years, it was around 6.5%, and it's returned somewhat to normalcy. These two changes have brought his tERA to 3.62 from 5.58, which is more in line with an average pitcher. 

It's hard to understate how lucky Wood has been this year, though. The average strand rate in baseball this year is 73.3%; Wood's is 80.7%. That's 28th in the league right now. His BABIP of .198 is 5th. BABIP normalizes around .280-.320 for pitchers (who can control it, perhaps, but only minutely) so that's going to go up. 

Something else to note is that Wood's opponent's contact rate is way, way down this year. Normally, it's right at 84.5%. This year, it's 81.5%. That doesn't seem like a big deal, but is. The swing rate in baseball is around 45%. That means that opponents will swing, on average, at about 45-50 offerings Wood throws each game. The difference of 3% in contact on those is an extra swing-and-miss or two a game. Depending on where those misses come, that could mean either a strikeout or just a worse count for your opponent (keeping in mind that a swing and miss isn't a foul ball and thus always changes the game state). If Wood keeps that up, it's a huge bonus; one of Wood's biggest obstacles is the fact that opponents have always made contact against him (the league average hovers around 77%, so this gain is not incredibly difficult to continue realizing).

So, we've established that batters are hitting grounders more, have a lower BABIP (which is some indication of poor contact), and missing bats more often (all great things). Why can this be this year? 

It's probably explainable with the pitches he's throwing. Wood has been using his cutter more often than in previous years. This is a good thing, because it's also moving a bit more (over 2 inches of vertical movement extra). Thus far, that's yielded a higher number of ground balls and a lower number of line drives. 

The tale is similar with his normal fastball. It's dropping 11.2 inches now as opposed to 9.8 on average and 8.8 last year. A fairly flat fastball (which he had last year) going to a fairly active fastball (which he has this year) is going to do wonders to a player's confidence. Curiously enough, he's still had bad luck with the long ball in his fastball offerings; however, he's cut his walks with the pitch in half (possibly an artifact of not throwing it later in counts), maintaing a lower BABIP (and his slash line with the fastball is .190/.244/.381), and inducing a TON more grounders (39.3%, 28.4% career average). All told, his fastball has gone from a mediocre pitch to an average to above-average one. 

I'd expect that as long as Wood has the extra downward movement on his two primary offerings, he's going to have some success going forward. Pitchers that can induce groundballs are going to have some success barring really bad pitch placement or bad luck. As Wood's balls starting falling in for hits, his numbers are going to look quite a bit worse. I'd imagine he'll settle into the 3.50-3.75 range when it's all said and done (EDIT: at the end of the year, he'll be in the 3.50 to 3.75 range, if I'm not clear), but with a distinct possibility of a low-3 average should he maintain his newfound movement and swing/miss action. His K% and BB% are essentially identical to his career numbers, so the gains are going to have to come this way. Travis Wood might not be "outstanding," but he has been genuinely good.

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That was good enough to garner a 1-year, 2.25 million dollar contract. In 2012, he was strictly used as the dominant half of a platoon and it showed: Nate had an .826 OPS against righties but a putrid .444 against lefthanders. It's important to note that he only received 269 PA, though. His split in 2011 was similarly severe: he hit .801 against righthanders and .562 against southpaws (again, OPS). What's interesting about that harsh split is that it's a recent development, though. His career numbers are .739/.703, so the past two years have basically made the entirety of the difference.

When the Cubs signed him, they made sure to go out and get someone to hit lefties to platoon with him (Scott Hairston). This season, the goal with Nate is clear: start him against righties whenever possible, and spin him into long-term assets at the trade deadline (The Giants traded Schierholtz + at the deadline for Hunter Pence last year). We'll see whether or not that ends up happening, but the plan itself is sound.

Offense

As noted, Schierholtz has a harsh platoon in recent years. The last time he hit a HR of a lefthander was in 2009 (when he actually had a reverse platoon split). Generally speaking, though, Schierholtz is going to provide a .260/.320/.420 line from RF. That's the equivalent, funny enough, of a Hunter Pence or Will Venable. These aren't guys we would consider all-stars at RF, or even average; I'd agree with that consensus. Schierholtz, even when platooned correctly, just isn't an offensive force. His career ISO is .141; David DeJesus' last year was .140. He doesn't draw a considerable amount of walks; his 6.2% mark is firmly well below the MLB average of 8.5%.

Schierholtz makes contact at a rate higher than the average MLB player, but he also swings more often. This would normally have the unfortunate effect of abbreviating his P/PA; however, he fouls off a much greater percentage of balls than the average player (32% to 27%). This helps drive up P/PA: his last 3 full seasons have had marks of 3.87, 3.97, and 4.00, all higher than the MLB average of 3.81. Nate has a tendency to chase pitches out of the zone, but also swings at pitches inside the zone with a pretty great frequency (the average is around 62%; his average is around 70%). All of these things point to a guy who is likely not walking a lot or striking out a lot. This means, of course, that BABIP is the supreme arbiter of the quality of his seasons. He's looked good this year, but his BABIP has been .353.

Schierholtz enjoys hitting changeups and cut fastballs and that's about it. Pitchf/x rates him as essentially average or worse against every other pitch save the knuckler.

Defense

From most accounts, Nate is a good defensive right fielder. Fans rate him as having a strong, accurate arm, and he has shown a high UZR/150 in right over his career. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like he could play CF. he was tried there for a week or so last year and rated poorly (and I remember him not having the instincts or spped for it). Even if Nate is a strong defensive RF, it doesn't provide much in the sense of surplus value, due to both the relative unimportance of defense at the position and the fact there is very little room in RF for any venturing outfielder to make plays. For what it's worth, Schierholtz has an essentially average range factor at RF; this is the primary driver of his miniscule (but not negative) defensive value.

Summary

Nate Schierholtz was brought in by Hoyer to do one thing; hit right-handed pitching. There's no reason he shouldn't be able to do that with a passable level of success. If he can do that, he can be valuable. A $2.25 million dollar contract isn't a hindrance to any team, and to be a success he'd have to provide maybe a single WAR. He's already been worth 0.4 this season, the same mark as his output last season. Schierholtz stands to get 400 or so PA on the Cubs this year and I'd expect him to have a wOBA of .330 or so. That's a valuable piece at the trade deadline; maybe not as a primary offensive upgrade, but as a very serviceable injury replacement. All told, this is a low-risk, medium-reward move that a good GM should be proud to make.

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Brett Jackson was drafted in the 1st round of the 2009 draft, at 31st overall. He worked his way up many prospect lists in the ensuing few years, putting up .400 wOBAs essentially in every year in the minors. Jackson displayed great plate discipline every year (he walked from 10 to 16% each season) and blossoming power (8/12/20 HR), and maintained a slugging percentage of around .490 every year.

The only problem with his game was his strikeouts, which hovered around 25% a year. The year he finally got called up, he had been striking out roughly 1/3 of the time, and he wasn't exactly tearing up the minors, either. In the majors, his strikeouts ballooned to a comical 41.5%. That's not a sustainable approach to the plate. Jackson is going to have to evolve as a hitter, most likely, to stick as an everyday player.

Offense

I've already outlined Jackson's basically stellar minor league numbers, but I'll give another quick rundown. He climbed a level in every season, and finished his AAA career at a .269/.353/.502 line. In AAA, he walked 12% of the time and struck out around 31%. I've never seen him in person (in the minors), but his admittedly small sample of major professional baseball gives us some additional insights.

First, he struck out 59 times in 142 plate appearances, "good" for 41.5% of the time. Using a sample size calculator, that 41.5% mark is anywhere from 30.8 to 52.2 as a "true" rate of strikeouts (99% certainty). Even at the extreme low end, that's a really high mark for someone of Jackson's skillset (only 14 players last year had a rate of 30% or higher, min. 250 PA). 

That being said, it's relatively easy to diagnose Jackson's issues. He swings at the right pitches: he only offers at 23.9% of pitches outside the zone (league average: 29%). He swings at roughly the same percentage of in-zone pitches; however, he doesn't make contact with many of either. The league contact average is 79.7%. His contact percentage of 64.2 is the third lowest among players with 100 PA or more last year. There are two ways to be successful with a contact percentage that low: be Josh Hamilton and swing at 59% of the pitches with prodigious power, or only offer at pitches in the zone with a great amount of power. Jackson doesn't have the power to get pitchers to respect him, so he'll have to learn to make better contact. If he just became merely bad at it, his profile would rise from 4th OF to pretty good CF quickly. Hopefully his new swing helps out with that.

Defense

Jackson has always profiled as an above-average CF. He doesn't have great footspeed, but he does have good speed and he makes great jumps on the ball. He has just an average arm but throws with accuracy and will make most baserunners respect his ability to get the ball in.

Summary

I'm going to put two players side by side.

As you can see, contact in the zone (and the lack of power) is what separates Jackson from successful high-K major leaguers. Every other part of Jackson's game is major-league ready, and that includes his plate discipline. For all of Jackson's problems, he still got on base at a higher clip than Darwin Barney last year, with a wOBA greater than one Luis Valbuena. I remain very, very skeptical of the ability to retool a swing in one off-season, but if Jackson can do it (or just find some more success with his old one), he's got the ability to be a productive major-league CF for a decade to come.

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Offense

Soler doesn't have a great batting stance, from what I've seen. He's sort of straight up, and his swing seems really hard on his lower back. That being said, he's got prototypical power from RF. He could hit 25-30 HR as long as his hit tool progresses like it should. He didn't strike out that much and walked well enough for the lower levels. His bat speed (it's great) should allow him to make decent contact, and hopefully he won't strike out a ton. Soler has pretty good speed so he should be able to maintain a higher-than-average BABIP and provide some value on the basepaths. He likes to steal bases (12/1 last year in 149 PA and 35 chances), so look for that to be a part of his game in the future as well.

Defense

Some scouts say that Soler's arm is his best tool. He has a consensus cannon from RF, and the speed to play the position very well. Soler should be a plus defender in the big leagues; however, I wonder why he isn't tried out at CF (probably because he doesn't have plus speed). Scouts also say he has poor routes; I expect that to be fixed by the minor league coaching.

Summary

Soler is very, very raw. He didn't have much competition in Cuba, and the level of competition he faced is maybe comparable to Low-A. He's going to work through the minors as slowly as a normal high-school prospect. He'll need to learn how to hit good pitches, and he'll probably have to clean up his stance a little bit. On the plus side, he's got plenty of tools in the toolbox. He's got legit plus power and a plus arm. He's got more than enough speed to be a great RF and the bat speed to be competitive in the majors. There is significant risk to Jorge Soler, but the upside is huge.

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A cursory glance of Villaneuva's minor league stats leaves a good amount to be desired. 20-year old prospects should clean up A-ball, and Villanueva only hit the league for a .278/.338/.465 line. He did show a good amount of power, though; 30 doubles and 17 home runs in 529 PA isn't at all shabby, and adding 32 SB (with 6 CS) he earned himself a fringe top-100 spot on Baseball America's list. 

I don't think he did enough to stay on that list in 2012. Instead of moving to AA at some point in his age-21 season, Villanueva played A+ leagues exclusively (Carolina League to Florida League). He outplayed both leagues, but barely: the average line in the Carolina League (where he spent the majority of the year) is .257/.327/.390 (and the average age is 22.5); he hit .285/.356/.421. He only walked 34 times in 520 PA, though, which is pretty depressing. 

Offense

I don't have access to advanced metrics, so I'm going to work off scouting reports mostly and what I can glisten from his stat sheet. Sickels praises his gap power (a claim evidenced by his high doubles total). Other reports I've seen say he has an average hit tool and about average power. He's got room to grow, though: a 5'11", 160 lb frame screams room to bulk up and put some hurt on the baseball.

From the youtube clips I've seen, he's got a pretty tight swing without a ton of excess motion. It almost looks like he's got a hitch to his swing, though. He's not the fastest player, either. One of the cheesecake scouting reports gushed about his speed, but looking at him, I don't see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bJk9KPDLkU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-wG-PdgEZY

Defense

The scouting reports are all pretty unanimous in praise of his 3B defense. There are even whispers of a toolkit that would enable him to play 2B (in which case he becomes a much, much better prospect). I don't care a ton about the errors at the lower levels. If Villaneuva can be even an average 2B, his bat makes him a pretty legitimate threat there. If he ends up being an above-average defensive 3B, he'll get by too.

Summary

Villanueva should start the season at AA. That means either Cerda is moving up to AAA to play 3B behind Vitters Cerda was taken in the Rule V draft (h/t to GW), so he's essentially got the job to himself unless Lake stays in AA (which would be a bad sign). If Villaneuva hits the Southern League like he hit the Florida League (I'm looking for a wOBA around .360 – .365), he'll be right on track. If not, he's got a pretty dim future. In the best case, Villanueva is agressively promoted to AAA when Vitters leaves and he gets 200-300 PA there. Christian is a player I'll be watching closely in 2013. 

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Getting his first taste of the bigs in  2003 (as a 19-year old, no less), Jackson had a huge reputation to live up to early on in his career. For a long, long time, he never lived up to it.

This is an auspicious start to a career, to be sure. It's important to keep in mind a few things, though:

a) 24.2, 28.2, and 36.1 are essentially meaningless sample sizes.

b) The average 22-year old pitching prospect is getting ready to finish AA.

The thing that really pops out to me is the hellacious WHIP, here. You can't pitch in the bigs with a whip over 1.4; it just isn't going to happen.

Jackson would be traded as a 22-year old, a 24-year old, a 25-year old, a 26-year old, and as a 27-year old TWICE. That's insanity.

As Jackson aged, he looked more and more like a journeyman 5th starter. It wasn't until 2010 until he really started to break through; I'll show you why I think that is.

Pitch Selection

Jackson has 3 primary offerings. His main pitch is a 93-94 mph fastball that he throws 60% of the time. As you'd expect from a guy with a primary-pitch fastball, it hovers around -.6 runs per 100, which is obviously below average but relatively fine for a pitch you're throwing in the worst counts. Edwin also throws an 86 mph slidepiece (30%) that has consistently been a plus pitch over his career. After that, Jackson throws an awful changeup at 86 mph; he also throws maybe 2 curveballs a game.

Stuff

Jackson's success of late has been almost entirely predicated on his ability to throw the first pitch for a strike. Until 2010, Jackson's average for F-Strike% was 54%; from 2010 onwards, it is 59%. You may think that's no huge difference; it is. The correlation between throwing your first pitch for a strike and throwing your last pitch for one is pretty high. Really, no peripheral of Jackson's has changed besides K/9 (a modest downturn in BB/9, also attributed to getting the first pitch over for a strike), as far a LD%, HR/FB%, LOB%, yet his performance has been a lot better.

I don't know enough about Jackson to hazard a guess as to why he's throwing more first pitch strikes, but whoever told him to should get a free meal from the Scott Boras.

Summary

Edwin signed a 4/52 contract with the Cubs. As dmick89 pointed out, the Cubs are paying right around the market price. It's important to realize that no every signing is going to be a steal. Teams with financial advantages need to use those advantages, and the Cubs just did. Even if the Cubs don't compete until 2015, they'll still need pitchers that season, and Jackson will be one (even if he's the #4 or #5 on a good team). He doesn't have a NTC, so we can get under the contract for prospects or relief if necessary, and he's as good a bet (for a pitcher) to earn his contract as anyone. Next year's FA class is dogshit, and they'll likely get worse. This is a good signing for a good pitcher.

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At first, the contract did not look all that terrible. In 2007, Soriano would have long dry-spells where he'd swing at pitches that hadn't even been thrown yet, or pick off attempts to first. Other weeks, though, he'd single-handedly win you 2 or 3 games. He was a boom or bust player, with just enough booms to live by. 

Then, 2008 happened and everything (sort-of) changed. 

Soriano lost another step to another injury. The hop that was endearing to some at first quickly became "how could you not catch that fly ball?" Soriano missed 53 games, and while his numbers were essentially unchanged, people started railing on the leftfielder. It didn't help that he now made 14 million, and was about to make 17. 

2009 was, simply, a disaster. Soriano missed another 45 games and played the rest of the season hurt. His numbers plummeted to .241/.303/.423 off of a .279 BABIP. The times were rare that anyone did anything but boo Soriano.

After 2009, though, Soriano has quietly been pretty productive. Even his 2011 season (.244/.289/.469) wasn't a killer (if not exactly what you want from your LF). I can't begrudge anyone for signing the contract that's put in front of them; take the money out of it and Soriano has been a pretty good leftfielder for the past 6 years, with some definite bumps in the road.

Offense

Soriano is what you would call a "free swinger." He strikes out a lot, and doesn't walk a lot (premium analysis from the new guy). Most of his offensive value is derived from his huge ISO numbers: he was 6th in the league out of qualified leftfielders, and that was the primary driver of his .350 wOBA last year (good for 11th out of qualified LF). A 7.2% walk rate isn't pretty, but keep in mind the league average last year was only 8.0% and he still exceeded the league average in OBP last year (though it was essentially a tie).

To get a better idea of how much Soriano hates to leave the bat on his shoulder, consider the fact that he swung at 36.6% of pitches out of the zone last year, according to PITCH f/x. That was 7.6% more than the league average and 7.3% LESS than his percentage of pitches he swung at outside the zone last year. Predictably, he does not make contact with those pitches and never has; his contact rates are poor even looking at only pitches in the zone. Soriano averages 13.9% swinging strikes in his career; that's 7th most in baseball, along luminaries such as Delmon Young and Josh Hamilton.

As Soriano ages, his speed has regressed considerably, and that part of his game has essentially vanished, but an encouraging trend is his relatively static BABIP. As his speed regresses, you'd expect his BABIP to fall too; it hasn't, and that's most likely because Soriano isn't getting cheap hits (and never really was). As long as Soriano's power continues to hold up (and his HR/FB% rate was pretty high last year, something to look at), Soriano should keep most of his value.

Defense

Soriano's defense is the subject of a ton of debate. I can physically see why people hate Soriano's defense in left. He looks slow, and his stride has never been elegant even when he was very fast. He also does that weird hop thing from time to time. However, Soriano has a perfectly average arm at this point, and UZR has loved his outfield range forever (cue the UZR is bullshit chants). I'm not sure how dWAR is measured, but I also am pretty dubious that Darwin Barney is Brooks Robinson reincarnate so I'm inclined to think that it's a ways off in it's estimate of Soriano. I think the truth is that Soriano is a perfectly average defender and that Sveum (or whoever did defensive alignments in 2012) is a very good manager. That being said, seeing Soriano in 2 years in left is almost certainly going to remind me of Barry Bonds (without the offense, unfortunately). 

Summary

Soriano has value to a lot of teams, including the Cubs. That contract that Hendry gave to him (and let's not forget that Soriano was a part of two divisional champions in the beginning of that contract) is a sunk cost; we can only recoup whatever we don't eat in a trade. If you forget about the contract and market Soriano as a 2/$10 guy, he has a good chunk or surplus value. 

Please forward this article to the Phillies.

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I don’t really get it. 

Scott Feldman is a fair injury risk, missing a good chunk of time essentially every year of the past 6 (the only time he’s had over 165 organizational innings was 2009). Even when he’s healthy, he’s not that great. He sports a career 4.81 ERA gleaned from a 4.56 FIP, and the xFIP shows 4.52 as well. He was worth 2.3 fWAR (0.0 bWAR) last year, but still gave up over 5 runs per 9. In 2012, he was eminently replacement-level.

The Cubs are gambling on Feldman’s health and the changeover from AL West to NL Central. They are also looking for the upside in 32 innings of 2011 ball and 189.2 innings in 2009, which was 3 injuries away. This is a gamble they will likely lose.

Pitch Selection

Feldman is interesting in the sense that he abandoned his fastball in 2010. He doesn’t really throw one anymore, it’s more of a slider. He throws his slider around 35% of the time now, and it sits at 91 mph and frankly isn’t that good. It’s never rated as more than average according to PITCHf/x. Feldman also throws a 90 mph cutter (25%) and a 77 mph curve (25%), and both are average to middling offerings. Feldman will throw the occasional 86 mph change (10%) and 90 mph fastball (5%), but neither are effective or notable.

Stuff

Feldman has very average stuff. He works in the zone a little more than the average pitcher, and as a result batters tend to make a little more contact off of him. He doesn’t induce a lot of swinging strikes, but Feldman takes the tradeoff in the form of a very acceptable walk rate (2.33 per 9 last year). The increased contact also makes the typical Feldman plate appearance take more pitches than average; Feldman isn’t going to get very deep into starts.

Summary

The Feldman signing makes sense with respect to the need to have competent pitching at the back end of a roster. I‘m not sure it makes sense from the standpoint of creating a flippable asset, as I don’t think the market for #4 or #5 starters is going to be positively bare at the trade deadline. In any case, it’s only $6 million, and the Cubs can certainly afford it. I don’t think it’s a low-risk, high-reward situation; it’s more like low-risk, low-reward. Time will tell if Scott #2 proves me wrong.

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DeJesus signed a 2 year, 8.5 million contract with a 2014 team option at 6.5 (1.5 buyout). The reason DeJesus was to be had so cheaply was the appearance of a dwindling skillset: his OBP crashed from .384 to .323 in just one season. That doesn’t tell the whole story, though; the primary driver of that descent was an abnormally high and then low BABIP (.355 in 2010, .274 in 2011). The Cubs were willing to take a gamble on the aberrant nature of DeJesus’ BABIP, and it paid off…kinda.

DeJesus got on base 35% of the time last year, which is a pretty good number and in line with the rest of his career numbers. Unfortunately, the power from 2010 has more or less eroded. A .403 SLG from RF is untenable unless you are a defensive mastermind, which DeJesus is not. For David to have more than just average value, he’ll have to recoup some power or get on base with a greater frequency; home runs might not happen but DeJesus has some gap power.

Offense

DeJesus’ primary value comes from his ability to extend plate appearances and get on base. He sports a career .355 OBP and 8.6% walk rate. That means that while he walks the same as a normal player, he consistently has a BABIP in the .315 range, making his batting average 15 points higher than the league average. If his BABIP were to fall to .300, he’d be essentially league average in every way (save lower power), but after 3305 AB we can be confident that .315 hovers around his true value.

DeJesus doesn’t strike out all that often; his career rate is 13.6%, 4% less than the league average. The fact that he maintains a low strikeout rate while going deep into at-bats is a huge, hidden bonus on offense and makes him the ideal #2 hitter in a line-up. He swings at less pitches than the average, and makes contact with pitches at a much, much higher rate than normal. That’s the trademark of a hitter that is not only intelligent, but consistent as well. DeJesus will likely be good for longer than is normal.

Defense 

DeJesus plays best, by far, in left field. He doesn’t have a great arm in right, but for some reason he’s always had a good noodle in left, and is range is much improved there is well. He plays a passable centerfield as well, and in another era that’d be where is most useful; right now, there is a glut of talent at CF in the big leagues, so his positional flexibility isn’t as useful per se. He won’t kill you at any spot in the outfield, but as you go from left to right, as a rule he’s less and less useful to a club.

Summary

David DeJesus is a smart, consistent player. I’m a big fan of the guy, and could see him being a hitting coach in the future. His best days are probably behind him, though. His age-33 season is coming up, and he does have value to a team that needs a cheap outfielder with an extra year of team control. The contract is worth 10 million over 2 years, and he should give you 2 WAR each year for the next 2. That’s a similar value to Alfonso Soriano; a back-end of a team’s top 10 prospects or a few live arms. I’d probably hold off on trading DeJesus if you trade Soriano and slot him at left (someone has to play there, right?). He’d make a mighty fine, affordable, midseason trade chip, and I believe that’s what the Cubs will do.

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Originally from the Mariners organization, Luis saw a cup of coffee with Seattle in 2008, until December 11, when he was part of a 3-team trade that involved an astonishing 13 players. Valbuena would spend a good amount of time in 2009 and 2010 with Cleveland, though he could never hit above .250/.298/.416 in either year. The Indians tired of his offensive deficiencies, and kept him in Columbus for the bulk of 2011. The Blue Jays purchased his contract in November of 2011, but they waived him and the Cubs picked him up.

In 2012, Luis spent the first third of the season in AAA, and he hit pretty well there. He earned an injury call-up after Stewart went down for the season, and stayed up the rest of the year, hitting .219/.310/.340, “good” for a .290 wOBA. He played above-average defense at the hot corner en route to contributing 0.9 WAR last year.

The Cubs did not upgrade at 3B this off-season, and Theo & Co. have decided to start Vitters in AAA next season. Valbuena and Stewart will be clashing for the starting spot; the loser will be the backup/utility infielder (if Stewart can handle 2B).

Offense

Valbuena is offensively-challenged in much the same way Darwin Barney is. Luis sports a career .283 wOBA and a .269 BABIP. These numbers suggest a lot of room for improvement, and luckily for Luis, there is some. A .269 BABIP is pretty low, and could easily climb to .290 or .300. Bill James projects a .295 BABIP for Valbuena next year, the primary driver for a wOBA of .320, which I think anyone would take from Valbuena (or 3B in general) at this point.

Valbuena doesn’t have much power, especially from 3B, but he has slightly above-average plate discipline and he doesn’t strike out more than average. He’s not fast an a poor baserunner, but the Cubs’ FO minimizes those parts of the game anyway, so it’s not a complete worry.

Defense

Valbuena played pretty good defense at third last year, but before 2012 he had been known basically as defensively inept. He can play 2B/SS/3B/LF, all fairly badly, but passably enough. If the gains from 2012 are real (and defensive metrics take YEARS to have enough data to show trends), he could carve out a little career as a backup infielder that can draw a walk. If he can’t, he’s a AAAA guy.

Summary

Valbuena has three paths to sticking on a major league roster. Either he can realize his 2012 gains with the glove and stick around as a utility infielder, or he can bring up his offensive numbers to where you can live with his poor defense (still as a backup). Lastly, he can be on the Cubs, where we have no other real options. If Stewart never recovers from his wrist, the job is Valbuenas regardless of talent level. I’m not holding my breath that Valbuena will ever have a wOBA above .300, and I’m not holding my breath that he’s suddenly become a defensive stalwart. Luis is organization filler; unfortunately for us, the hole he’s filling in our organization right now might be “starting 3B.”

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