The Cubs were in the midst of a mid-season bullpen make over, highlighted by the trades of Carlos Marmol and Scott Feldman. The Cubs were adding power arms with a recent history of control issues, like Henry Rodruiguez from the Nationals and Jake Arrieta & Pedro Strop of the Orioles.
So it was odd that the Cubs designated for assignment Rodruiguez after just five appearances in order to claim and activate off waivers former Giant outfielder Cole Gillespie.
Rodriguez, 26, pitched 5 games for the Cubs. His record was 0-0 in 4 IP, giving up 6 hits, 4 runs, 2 earned runs, 4.50 ERA, 2.500 WHIP. For 2013, his record was 0-1, 4.09 ERA, 1.818 WHIP in 22 games. He was actually worse with the Cubs than the Nationals.
So the Cubs cut Rodriguez in order to continue the Iowa pitching shuffle, with Michael Bowden replacing Brooks Raley.
Gillespie is a 29 year old outfielder who only played in three games for the Giants this season. He batted .000. He had a negative 0.3 WAR. In the minors, he hit .277, 9 HR, 31 RBI. He was an average fielder. He does not project as a prospect or an everyday player.
The Cubs have plenty of AAA outfielders on the roster already. Why add another one?
One thing Ryan Sweeney, Brian Bogusevic, Nate Schierholtz and Gillespie have in common are they are tall, lanky, non-speedy bench to AAA outfielders. It seems Hoyer likes to collect these type of players like former general manager Jim Hendry collected scrappy but no good second basemen.
Gillespie is not the future for the Cubs team. Most would consider him not even a bench warmer. It was not that the Cubs needed an outfielder to replace someone with an injury. It is not even necessary to add an outfielder if the team is on the cusp of trading a starting outfielder.
It also means that the front office has no confidence in any of the Iowa outfield corps: Jae-Hoon Ha, AWOL Brett Jackson, Darnell McDonald or Ty Wright.
It also shows that the Cubs coaching staff could not correct Rodriguez's mechanics or mental aspect of the game because he was worse with the Cubs than with his prior team. If the Cubs continue to gather discarded pitchers with control problems but cannot fix them, what is the point in that futile exercise? Does it indict pitching coach Chris Bosio skills? Adding a line of broken pitchers to the bullpen is not going to win games for the team.
But what these transactions do show is that the Cubs management still wants to sit on the fence to push off the idea of being a good team as long as possible. After the Cardinal series split, the team is a surprising 42-51 .452 15 GB. This projects to a 73 win team, or a 12 win improvement over last season.
This season's success was built upon the quality starting pitching which the team wants to dismantle by the trading deadline. Ownership is more fixated on real estate development projects than baseball. And management is more fixated on gathering up more prospects and journeymen projects than building a competitive baseball team right now.
