If the Moneyball stat men in the Cubs front office look objectively at their final season roster, there should be a wood chipper party of roster turnover this off season.
Baseball-Reference.com tells us a full season with 0 to 2 WAR indicates a bench-quality major-league player. A WAR of 2-plus indicates a starter, 5-plus is an All-Star
Valuable Player range.
Of the 56 players used by the Cubs last season, only 11 had a season WAR of above 1.0.
The Cubs best position player was Wellington Castillo at 4.4 WAR. And he ended the season with sore knees. Dioner Navarro got more attention for his home runs, and his WAR of 2.0 was good for a back up catcher. As such, free agent Navarro will be a starter on another team next year.
Rizzo was the second best position player at 2.6 WAR. His batting average and sub-par fielding at first base need improvement in order to be considered a "core" building block for the Cubs.
Luis Valbuena was next with a 1.6 WAR. He is a career utility infielder, and his WAR indicates that is what he will be in the future after he was given third base for most of the season.
Nate Schierholtz had a disappointing 1.4 WAR. He was signed to be the full time RF. However, he platooned more often than not. He had a career high in HRs, but overall he reverted to his career mean of being a bench player.
David DeJesus had a 1.6 WAR but he was traded away. Donnie Murphy, picked off the scrap heap, had a lot of early dingers, but finished with a 1.0 WAR. Starlin Castro had a negative 0.6 WAR, which is below AAA replacement talent. To say Castro regressed this season is an understatement.
The best pitcher on the staff was not Jeff Samardzija (1.0 WAR). The Shark got to a career high in innings pitched, but that was about it. He was very inconsistent and annoyed by the Cubs management decisions that past two years. His arbitration hearing this off season will be interesting decision for both sides.
Travis Wood was the best pitcher with a 4.4 WAR. He did have the consistency most of the season (excluding that final dumb one inning disaster which put his season ERA over 3.00). Wood has improved this year and would appear to be a solid rotation starter in the future.
The next best pitcher was Matt Garza (1.5 WAR) but he was traded for prospects. The next best pitcher was long reliever Carlos Villaneuva at 1.4 WAR.
So the Cubs only have these "starters" on their roster:
1. W. Castillo, c
2. T. Wood, sp
3. Rizzo, 1b
Just three players qualify as starting material going forward in roster construction for 2014. In fact, every position could be upgraded in some form. It also shows that 88 percent of last year's roster was filled with bench and AAA level players.
