What's Next for the Cubs

The Cubs fired their General Manager Jim Hendry today.  He's been the Cubs GM since 2002, a season in which they won 88 games, and made it to the NLCS.  From then on, it's been a mixed bag of terrible, disarray, and disappointment.  There was a good seasons in 2007 and 2008, when they held the best record in the NL with 97 wins, but were swept out of the NLDS in both years.

So what's next for the Cubs?  Well, Randy Bush will take over in the interim, until the Ricketts' family can find someone new.  Bush was assistant GM, and is familiar with the organization, so hopefully he knows what has to be done.  Fire sale.  Everything must go.  The Cubs should be shopping everyone on their roster except for Starlin Castro.  Trading for Matt Garza wasn't a smart move and really depleted their farm system, which was average at best before the move was made.  The fact is that they aren't going to be competitive for a few years.  Anyone who isn't going to be there in a few years should be moved.  In the offseason, the Cubs should look to sell off some of their big names, like Ryan Dempster, Matt Garza, Aramis Ramirez, and Marlon Byrd.  They should look to bring high end hitters, along with as many arms as they can, even if they're only a bunch of type B or C prospects.  Whatever they don't get rid of in the offseason, they should still be looking to sell during next season.  During the season, they'll be able to get more for their bullpen pieces and utility players, like Jeff Baker, Blake DeWitt, and Darwin Barney.

The team needs to gain a new philosophy about acquiring big leaguers, too.  For the last decade, they've been bringing in players who strikeout a lot, never take walks, but can hit homeruns.  This philosophy leads to way too many 1-2-3 innings, batters striking out with a man on third and less than two outs, and solo home runs.  As spring turns to summer, the ball starts to fly out of Wrigley field, and power has never been a problem for them, but they need players who can get on base in front of their sluggers.  Starlin Castro can become a player like that, but his walk rate has dropped this year, to under 4%.  Tyler Colvin could be an emerging slugger for the team as a corner outfielder, but his walk rate has also dropped from last year, and is now at 6.4% for the year.



The Cubs are a big market team, and it's best for baseball when they're competitive.  However, they need to keep their spending in check.  Just because you have money, doesn't mean that you have to spend money.  Giving Carlos Zambrano a big contract extension after he leads the league in walks is not a good way to spend money.  Giving a 31 year old Marlon Byrd a three year deal, even though he's actually been decent so far, isn't generally looked at as being wise.  Generally giving any player a long term deal when they're already on the wrong side of 30 is bad.  It's fine to extend your own players, when you can do it while they're still in their 20's, but teams still like to give players huge contracts when it's obvious that it's going to be dead weight half way through.  It's not just the Cubs either, the Phillies with Ryan Howard, that extension hasn't even kicked in yet.  The Nationals with Jayson Werth.  The Astros with Carlos Lee, who I think is signed until he's 65.

It's going to be rough for the Cubs over the next few years, especially until Alfonso Soriano comes off the books.  I won't say that he is untradeable, because somehow Alex Anthopoulos managed to trade Vernon Wells to Anaheim and actually get a good player back in Mike Napoli.  But that was mostly due to Mike Scioscia's man love for Jeff Mathis and his -1.0 WAR.

I think we'll see what direction the Cubs are going this offseason with Prince Fielder and Albert Pujols.  Prince is younger, but can't play defense at all, and National League teams really shouldn't look at signing him to a long term deal.  I was sure that the old regime over in the north side would lock one of these guys up to a huge deal, but let's see what happens, it would probably be best for the team to just bring back Carlos Pena to another one year deal rather than sign Pujols until he's 40, or guarantee that Starlin Castro leads the league in errors for the next five years if they sign Prince Fielder.