The Cubs rotation now has 27 quality starts. However, the Cubs have only won 11 of those quality starts. The team has a staff ERA of 3.67, ranking 7th in the NL. The starters have a combined ERA of 3.58.
One must give credit to the front office for putting together a patch work starting staff of Samardzija, Villaneuva, Wood, Feldman and E. Jackson. The Cubs re-tooled their rotation in the off season but did it with a band-aid approach of signing several players on short term deals in the hope of flipping them at the trade deadline for more low level prospects. The only pitcher the front office has committed to long term is Jackson, who has turned out to be the worst pitcher of the bunch.
But at what point does the team stop being the league M*A*S*H unit by signing rehabbing pitchers and flipping them in less than a year? In the past several months, the tone of when the Cubs will be competitive has turned quietly vague as all the attention has been diverted to the Ricketts real estate development project. Most of the touted prospects are in Class A ball which means that any big league promotion is more than three seasons away. Help is not on its way.
The Cubs have won 40.7 percent of the quality starts pitched by the staff. The Cubs winning percentage as a team is 41.9 percent. The Cubs team batting average is .249, ranked 8th in the NL. The Cubs have only scored 173 runs, which ranks 11th in the NL. The problem is not pitching but the offense.
The Cubs have four home runs and 16 RBIs from the ninth spot in their
lineup. Some people have compared T. Wood to Babe Ruth after his long home run yesterday's loss. In comparison, the clean-up spot has delivered five home runs
and and only 15 RBIs.
This should not be surprising since the Cubs only signed bench players in the off-season to fill the majority of playing time in the field.
Again, the Cubs batting prospects are 3.5 years away from a major league debut. This time frame is too long a gap to go out and sign second tier free agents to four year contracts to attempt to become "competitive" year after year. This time frame is too long to sign a major free agent because the first four years of those mega deals are supposed to be the most productive. If you are going to field a bad team, that is a waste of resources (something apparent in the fact that Ricketts and the business people refuse to answer the question when, or if, any new revenue streams will go back into the baseball operations and free agency acquisitions).
If the Cubs had been trading for and drafting young players to re-stock their minor league system AND beefed up their major league roster with legitimate position players (starters with a WAR of 2.0+) then the Cubs would have not painted themselves into their current corner: the only assets to trade are quality arms for which the Cubs as a prospect list are in short supply. It may be better to extend pitchers like Feldman, T. Wood and Villaneuva because they have shown what they can do at the major league level than trading them for Class A pitching prospects. This is the paradox that the Cubs themselves have created in their rebuild model. If you put together a core of experienced starting pitchers, then you can draft college position players who will be ready within a year (example, third baseman Kris Bryant). The team would become competitive faster in the short term.
The only other potential pieces to trade in July would be closer Gregg, DeJesus if a contender is looking for a 4th outfielder, and an excess catcher. None of those chips will yield a great prospect.
The Cubs went "all in" on a scratch tear-down and slow rebuilding process. The reality is that history tells us that only four prospects in any major league team will make a major league roster. That is only half of the position player slots in the next four years. The Cubs could be flush with cash by then with the new Wrigley Field and the new television deals, but that is doubtful because of the debt load required to do the redevelopment. There may not be any money to sign four high quality starters.
At this moment, the only 2016 "core" Cubs we know about are Castro, Rizzo and E. Jackson. Three players cannot carry a major league team.
