“ Statistics are no substitute for judgment.
”
—
Henry Clay
The Chicago honeymoon for the Boy Genius from Boston may be wearing thin.
Recently, there has been a web debate on whether Theo Epstein's grand plan is all that grand.
Recall first, that the move of signing Epstein was heralded as a massive stroke of good fortune. Epstein had piloted the Red Sox to two World Series championships. He was a moneyballer, a stat man, a planner and a winner. He could do no wrong.
But one has to realize that the "core" of the Red Sox championships were not Esptein's work, but that of the previous general manager, Dan Duquette. But as is often the case, the man in charge when good things happens gets the glory. It is also interesting to note that after Esptein left, the Red Sox went through an ugly swoon with snarky bitterness most often reserved for pitched divorce battles.
The Cubs were a muddling middle of the pack pretender rather than contender when Epstein came to town. Even though owner Tom Ricketts kept saying the team was only one or two players away from a championship, those one or two players never materialized. Instead, Epstein nuked to whole roster to create his vision of rebuilding: high OBP hitters, good defenders, and a mass quantity of pitching prospects.
Then the CBA changed which hurt Epstein's Boston Way. In Boston, he was allowed to overspend on free agents and June draft choices because ownership wanted to win over and over again. No longer could he draft a first round talent with signability issues in the 12th round and pay him first round bonus money. The hard bonus pool cap narrowed the ability to overpay for talent in later rounds.
Further, the new CBA put in place for the first time a cap on international player bonus pool money. No longer could a team go out and buy all the talent in the Dominican.
After two years of operations, people are now seeing what the front office has been doing:
1. Play the numbers game. Draft as many pitchers as possible. Get as many total prospects by draft and trades to fill your system with new talent. Then, as statistics bear out, maybe three to five percent of all those prospects will pan out. In a system of a 100 players, maybe 3 to 5 will be impact players.
This is a pure mathematician's formula.
2. Use the major league roster as a livestock pen for trade bait. The Cubs have been signing injured-rehabbing free agents who need to work their way back onto a major league roster. The Cubs roster is built as a Class AAAA team. The majority of players on the roster have little future with the Cubs. They are role players, journeymen and questionable arms who may blossom into valuable assets at the trade deadline. Scott Feldman is a prime example of this gambit working; Scott Baker is a prime example when this gambit fails.
3. The front office does not care about winning games now, it is all "about the process." The series of actions taken today is motivated to get as high a draft choice as possible next June (which affects the amateur draft bonus pool figure) and come in low enough in the standings to have a larger than average international bonus pool budget. This year, the Cubs overspent their draft budget by more than $500,000 (to incur some tax penalties). However, what got some fans to think hard about the process was the international signings. At first glance people thought the Cubs found a "loophole" to overspend on international free agents - - - acquire international bonus slot money from other teams by trade. The Cubs got some extra money from Houston and Baltimore, but then had to give some back in the Marmol trade to LA. Then things stalled on the money acquisition trade. Perhaps other teams caught wind of this game, or decided that they would rather keep their slots and not allow other competitors "overspend" their budgets. Whatever the case, it now appears that the Cubs painted themselves into a corner.
Some people believe that the Cubs had verbally committed to several of the top 10 international players before they could officially sign them July 2. The thought is that the Cubs were going to acquire a boatload of cash to cover these verbal commitments but the plan fell short in getting enough slot money from other teams.
The team has signed four players ranked in MLB's Top 30 International Players list, including No. 1 Eloy Jimenez and No. 3 Gleyber Torres. and touted Taiwanese right-handed pitcher Jen-Ho Tseng for a $1.625
million bonus.
With those signings, plus others, the Cubs will face a penalty for
exceeding their spending pool by 10 to 15 percent. But president of
baseball operations Theo Epstein told Cubs.com they were prepared for that.
Because the Cubs had the second-largest amount of pool money --
determined by how the team finished in 2012 -- they wanted to take
advantage of their position.
The penalty for surpassing their bonus allotment would be a 100
percent tax on the overage as well as restrictions on 2014-15 spending.
Because teams cannot acquire more than 50 percent of their initial
international bonus pool, the maximum bonus pool for the Cubs was $6.836
million. With the addition of Tseng, the Cubs have committed $7.895
million to international prospects.
"We budgeted for it with respect to the 100 percent tax," Epstein
said. "Next year, we'll spread our money around with some pitching
instead of going after the large investments. We like the large
investments this year. That [international] market, you're talking $1 million here, $1
million there, and that's the type of thing we can afford," Epstein
said. "Right now, we're not in a position to throw around hundreds of
millions of dollars in free agency, but we can do it in that
[international] market and try to monopolize it as much as we can."
However, besides the 100 percent tax penalty for going over the spending cap, the Cubs are penalized for 2014-2015 by restricting their ability to spend no more than $250,000 on any international player.
The Cubs have justified the penalties going forward because they liked this year's crop of teenagers more than next year's class.
But even some pro-Theo fans began to scratch their heads. The Cubs reasoning for overspending on the foreign player pool makes no sense in the overall rebuilding plan. In fact, it seems counterproductive when one realizes that the Cubs have handcuffed themselves for the next two years in signing any international player because the team signed Tseng, the 18-year-old Taiwanese right-handed pitcher was ranked
29th on MLB.com's Top 30 International Prospects rankings. He was the
youngest player named to the Chinese Taipei World Baseball Classic
roster. Tseng also was part of the 2012 World Junior Championship, and
he played in the 2012 Asian Baseball Championship for the national team
for Chinese Taipei. His fastball has hit 95 mph. He sports an above-average fastball, ranging from 89-96 mph, and a
real good slider in the mid- to upper-80s, Tseng has been used as a
closer and a starter. He also has an above-average changeup, which is
unique for a prepster, and a very good curveball.
To put it another way, none of the Cubs top international players signed this season would be attainable under the bonus pool restrictions next season. Why would you take yourself out of next's year international player pool?
A logical conclusion is that the Cubs miscalculated their acquisition of bonus pool money and were trapped into the huge penalties based upon their commitments to these prospects. But the front office would never admit such a mistake. And this would be a major dent in Theo's shiny armor.
In rationalizing the talent signings, Epstein let slip that his free spending days are over when he said "$1 million here, $1
million there, and that's the type of thing we can afford. Right now, we're not in a position to throw around hundreds of
millions of dollars in free agency. The gushing oil well for talent acquisition has run dry. Common sense dictates that Ricketts is going to divert all the resources at hand to build his Rickettsland real estate project, so that means no big budget foreign player signings and no premium major league free agent contracts. For those who thought the Cubs would take a run at a Robinson Cano, Jacob Ellsbury, Shin-Soo Choo or a Hunter Pence can forget about it.
But even by spending what money was at hand this year, does not mean that it was money well spent. The foreign players may have limited stats which equate to a large upside ceiling, but they are more likely to fail than succeed compared to American high school and college players. There are so many intangibles to consider when selecting baseball talent beyond pure statistics. That is why the best scouts still rely upon their gut instincts and experience when reviewing prospects.
People are coming around to the viewpoint that Theo's plan is to have a mountain of statistical prospects with the hope that minor league instructors can somehow mine a few golden nuggets in the next five years.
