From left to right: Cubs’ Jason McLeod, Jed Hoyer and Theo Epstein.
When Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and Jason McLeod took over the Cubs, they built their longterm business plan around a unique premise. “The really good hitters don’t get to free agency any more,” Epstein says. “When they do, they are outrageously expensive. Bats and offense are rare in this period in baseball for a number of reasons, and we felt the way to build an offensive inventory was to draft and sign young hitters and that pitching could be found.”
That model was a contrast to traditional baseball thinking, especially thinking that had grown out of the offensive/steroids era of 1995-2005, when everything was about finding pitching. Now, after the most offensively-challenged season since the H.W. Bush administration and the $115M marquee signing of
Jon Lester, that model makes sense. And as Rick Hahn has dramatically transformed the White Sox across town, even the most cynical, misanthropic fan in one of the greatest baseball towns has started to peek back at the only three times both Chicago teams have been in first place on July 4 (1967, 1977, 2008).
Meanwhile, back in Boston where so many other bright people who worked with Epstein, Hoyer and McLeod reside, the off-season after the lasttofirsttolast trilogy was similarly framed. “We had to get offense and pitching, we knew that,” says Mike Hazen. “We knew offense was going to be hard to come by, which is why we tried to move quickly on the hitters we signed.”
Pablo Sandoval and
Hanley Ramirez were signed quickly, to build an offensive wall around
David Ortiz,
Mookie Betts,
Dustin Pedroia,
Xander Bogaerts,
Rusney Castillo, et al. Now, with four-fifths of their opening rotation—including Lester—gone, the rebuilding of the pitching is a work in progress. “We all know about those think tanks across the river in Cambridge,” says one general manager. “Now it’s fun to see what comes out of that think tank Theo built in the basement on Lansdowne Street.” A think tank that now has several members of the Dodgers new front office structure.
The Cubs longterm plan (after trading for former Boston draftee
Anthony Rizzo) focused on
Kris Bryant,
Jorge Soler, Alberto Almora,
Addison Russell,
Kyle Schwarber, et al, then slowly built the pitching inventory. They traded for
Jake Arrieta from the Orioles in 2013; in 27 starts last year Arrieta was 5
th in the league in pitchers’ WAR. When
Ryan Dempster chose Texas as a possible trade destination, they got
Kyle Hendricks, and he was one of the best rookies in the league.
Through trades and the Rule V Draft, they got
Hector Rondon,
Pedro Strop and
Neil Ramirez for the bullpen; 158 inning, 187 strikeouts, all sub-2.43 ERAs. They built one of the league’s best bullpen’s from scraps. Now, with a winning season on the horizon, they gave the $115M to Lester and brought back
Jason Hammel, have a pitching staff they believe can at least make a run in a division where Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Cincinnati have all made the playoffs in the last two seasons.
The Cubs will continue to dredge for pitching, and while the Lester signing was a clear message to a franchise rebuilding its base with the Wrigley renovations, the area building and modernizing of its media that these can be the good new days, there is the reality that it may take a year or two for Bryant, Soler, maybe
Javier Baez, Almora, Russell, et al to develop, especially at a point in time when the strike zone, travel, shifting, relief pitching and game-planning make the jump from the minors to the majors often seem like a January knockabout sail from the McCormick Center to Sault St. Marie.
The longterm business plan was always in place, whether Lester signed with the Giants, or the Cubs. But his signing symbolized a rising, not to mention the personal and professional model around whom Arrieta, Hendricks,
C.J. Edwards and other young pitchers can follow.
The Red Sox remain part of the long view Epstein, Ben Cherington, Hazen, Amiel Sawdaye and the Red Sox have long held, especially when faced with the last drafts under the old rules in 2010-11 they shut out the drone of the slot suggestion and signed
Matt Barnes,
Blake Swihart, Betts,
Jackie Bradley,
Henry Owens,
Garin Cecchini,
Anthony Ranaudo and others above what the Commissioner’s Office “suggested.”
Last season, Betts and Bogaerts were the two youngest position players in the American League, and, like all of the other pre-season Baseball America Top Ten prospects save
Jose Abreu, saw them and Bradley struggle. Now they will have Betts leading off in front of Dustin Pedroia in front of Sandoval, Ortiz, Ramirez and
Mike Napoli as Bogaerts, defensive master
Christian Vazquez and Castillo—about whom Caguas manager
Alex Cora again raved Thursday night—around them.
And they pretty much knew Lester wasn’t coming back. They believe
Joe Kelly, with his athleticism and electric stuff, can blossom, get to the 175-190 innings level and combine his power sinker at the bottom of the zone with enough fastballs and curveballs up to expand eyelines and keep lefthanded batters off the sinkers away. On FanGraphs this past weekend, David Laurila
wrote about the lowering of the strike zone, and since Kelly,
Clay Buchholz,
Justin Masterson,
Rick Porcello and
Wade Miley are all sinkerballers, there was thought that this was part of Cherington’s plan (which might entail growing the grass on the left side of the infield like an Iowan cornfield).
Not so, it turns out. Using the bottom and the top of the strike zone is something the Red Sox have become fixated. This past season, Porcello, at 25, went back to what made him so prized out of high school, using his four-seamer and curveball (which he threw in high school) in conjunction with his two-seamer. Buchholz seemed a far different pitcher with Vazquez and Kelly. When Masterson had his extraordinary year in 2013, he used his 94.5 MPH two-seamer for lefthanded batters, before he tore his oblique in September and had several subsequent physical breakdowns leading to his disappointing 2014.
Incidentally, how good was Masterson?
Check this:
“We have spent a lot of time and effort developing young pitchers,” says Cherington. “We have to start working them in. Ranaudo made tremendous progress this past year. So did Barnes, who certainly has the stuff. We’ll start the season with three really talented lefthanders (Owens,
Brian Johnson,
Eduardo Rodriguez) in Pawtucket, and any or all of them can come up and contribute during the season.” And knuckleballer
Steven Wright may be an important swingman, who, after a winter’s work with
Charlie Hough, is at the age (30) when most knuckleballers historically have blossomed.
Scott Boras still believes the Red Sox, Yankees and Tigers will jump in on
Max Scherzer. Randy Levine reiterated Thursday the Yanks will not, citing the face that they already have two $20 AAV pitchers. The Tigers have been coy. The Red Sox do not plan on jumping in. They believe
James Shields is headed to San Francisco; he’s a Californian, and knows himself, and the analytics show he is a left-centerfield fly ball pitcher who has benefitted by playing in Tampa Bay and Kansas City, where few home runs go to left-center and he had gold glove left fielders in
Carl Crawford and
Alex Gordon.
As of now, nothing is even in the talking stage on
Cole Hamels; the Phils want to start with Betts and Swihart and Boston taking on the $100M and whatever it takes to waive the no-trade, and that isn’t happening. Nothing is going to deter
Jordan Zimmermann from free agency, and the Red Sox aren’t trading three top tier kids for a year, as great as Zimmermann may be.
The bullpen building is in progress;
Craig Breslow, physically recovered, is a strong possibility,
Brandon Workman may tick up back there, one NL scout swears on
Zeke Spruill’s sinker/command…
The Cubs play in a division where the Cardinals and Pirates and maybe the Brewers and Reds can all win 85-95 games. The Red Sox play in a division where, today,
Alex Cobb is probably the best starter, but one where a healthy
Masahiro Tanaka and healthy lineup can put the Yankees into the mid-90’s, where the Blue Jays may hit 250 homers and ride some really good young arms and the Orioles will figure things out and be the team everyone has to beat to get to October.
There are no traditional MapQuest routes to October any more. The Cubs and the Red Sox and the Bowling Alley Thinktank have thoughts on the most practical routes, thoughts that come June or July they each will have enough inventory in terms of young players to alter depending on the traffic before them.
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By winning out, Seattle would be assured of a first-round bye and could also finish as the No. 1 seed. (AP)
