The Cubs’ pseudo-$100MM+ signing this year

In Uncategorized by myles60 Comments

This season, the Cubs’ biggest free agent signing is probably Daniel Descalso. That isn’t what people expected from this front office, which has been a major player in every off-season that followed a competitive season. While it’s perhaps not realistic to expect a 9-figure free agent every off-season, the fact of the matter is that is what Cubs fans have become accustomed to. They have ranged from the brilliant (Jon Lester) to the terrible (Jason Heyward), but they’ve actually occurred…until this season.

Last year’s big FA purchase was Yu Darvish. He signed a 6 year, $126M deal last offseason and basically didn’t pitch for the Cubs last year. His season amounted to 40 innings of replacement-level baseball (in reality, he was a touch better, but it was close enough for our purposes). Last year’s second big FA purchase was Tyler Chatwood. He signed a too many year, $too much money deal last offseason and basically didn’t succeed for the Cubs last year. In fact, if you add Darvish and Chatwood together, you get the following monstrosity:

Tyuler Charvish: 143.2 IP, 28 GS, 5.21 ERA, 8.5 K/9, 7.3 BB/9, -0.3 fWAR

For all intents and purposes, the Cubs did not make a FA signing last year. They set $37.5M on fire and received such little production for it that they had to get Cole Hamels at the deadline just to have a warm body in the rotation (and he turned out to be a revelation). This season, Chatwood won’t be anywhere near the rotation and Darvish is presumably healthy (if “best shape of his life” stories are to be believed). In a way, you can pretend that Yu Darvish was signed to a 5-year, $101M dollar deal this offseason.

This isn’t entirely genuine. Not only are there dozens of examples of pitchers getting injured and never recovering, it isn’t even the first time Darvish has missed most or all of a season with a calamitous injury. This season was perhaps the worst way to miss a bunch of time – Darvish, as you know, tried to rehab the injury, altered his throwing motion to eliminate pain, made it to rehab starts, and re-injured himself when he tried to get to in-game deliveries. One also should note that the projection systems all peg Darvish to put up the worst season of his entire career (2.6 fWAR, or thereabouts). Darvish simply isn’t likely to be the player the Cubs thought they were getting when they signed him.

On the positive side, Darvish has comparatively fewer miles on his arm than the other pitchers in his cohort. He has 3,624 batters faced in the last 6 seasons. On average, about 85 players a year face more batters each season than he has. His “arm” is relatively young for a 32-year old. I’m too lazy to pull up a study (if one even exists), but if you believe that “arm age” is a thing, which does seem intuitively correct, that’s a point in Darvish’s favor. Another is that Darvish has so many different pitches that he at least has fall-back options should something not be working. If Hendricks’ changeup suddenly deteriorated, he’s out of baseball. If Darvish’s slider suddenly deteriorated, he could at least get outs with another offering while he works through his issues. Darvish might be more likely to “reinvent” himself if a reinvention is necessary.

It really does suck that the NL Central is simulataneously very competitive and yet there for the taking, with free agents in their prime years at positions of need for this team available for just money. It seems horrible that the Cubs are seemingly not in play for either Machado or Harper. Hopefully, the return of a full-strength Darvish (and a full-strength Bryant) can act as a de facto FA signing and provide the Cubs with the necessary firepower to win the division. Lest we forget, the Cubs’ big free-agent loss this year was rent-a-swingman Jesse Chavez on the pitching side and rent-a-homophobe Daniel Murphy on the hitting side. The core of a 95-win team is still intact. The cavalry isn’t coming with a real $100M+ signing. A fake one will have to do.

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  1. Ryno

    Myles: I finally unfollowed him a couple months ago. I enjoyed a lot of his baseball work, but I just got SO TIRED of his fucking…and my life is definitely marginally improved without his presence inside it.

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  7. mobile dave

    dmick89:
    Myles,

    I still follow him, but I mostly don’t check out my main timeline. I have some bookmarks on my phone of a bunch of people I really like to read and each day I visit those pages. Sometimes I see Nate quoted and Uncle Dave has no problem attacking him for the stupid shit Nate says.

    A bold move on my part, what with my locked account and all.

    538’s stuff seems to have gotten far more subjective of late. That’s fine if you take it for what it is, but as a social science guy I find the misuse of big data a bit grating. They’re definitely culprits.

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  15. mobile dave

    Thanks, all. Did Franklin’s last time out, will def. try Salt Lick. And gonna hit Kerby Lane for brunch, or whatever you call a meal at 10 on a Tuesday morning…

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  23. Ryno

    The Chicago Cubs and Sinclair broadcasting will announce today the formation of Marquee regional sports network. This will be the exclusive home for all Chicago Cub TV games beginning in Feb 2020.

    — Bruce Levine (@MLBBruceLevine) February 13, 2019

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  30. Perkins

    WaLi,

    I’d say there’s a difference between ordinary media company issues and “making a bunch of anchors recite demonstrably false propaganda.” Your mileage may vary.

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  35. SK

    Careful with the old digital valentines you guys. I came thisclose to sending a quaintly romantic valentines screencap to the guy who’s fixing our washing machine today.

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  36. andcounting

    SK:
    BREAKING: Tyler Chatwood has made a slight mechanical delivery change you guys

    Like, not throwing? Because that might work.

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  41. dmick89

    SK,

    I don’t think the Cubs are very good, but last place? Really? I’m kind of expecting a 3rd place finish at best, but I don’t think they’re close to the worst in the division.

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  51. dmick89

    myles,

    I’m in the “don’t really care” camp. I’ve never been as high on Edwards as a lot of people have been. The guy can’t throw strikes so he may as well try something. It probably can’t make him any worse.

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