The
Chicago Cubs, my baseball team, always have been blind to symbolism when it
comes to spring training in Arizona. Their long-time base in the Phoenix suburb
of Mesa was across the street from a cemetery, a fitting setting for a famously
moribund franchise. Now they have a
spiffy new complex in another part of the same town but, for cash, just named
it Sloan Park, for a company whose main products are toilet valves. Need I say
more?
That’s
one reason I’m resisting being swept up in the hype surrounding the team as it
heads into a new season. After five consecutive last-place finishes in the
National League’s Central Division—the last three on purpose—Cubs’ brass has
signaled the intention of being serious about winning again. During the late off season they pirated
manager Joe Maddon from the Tampa Bay Rays, where he’d made lemonade with
lemons for nine seasons, traded for genuine major leaguers at catcher (Miguel
Montero) and center field (Dexter Fowler), and paid ridiculously big money
($155 million over six years) for stud starting pitcher Jon Lester. With a pipeline filled by prime prospects
accumulated during the latest string of bad years, they have declared
themselves ready to rock and roll.
Most of
the coots and codgers attending the teams’ spring games at Flush Field appear
to be lapping it up, anticipating great things. The fact that the Cubs were winless
after their first seven outings has mattered not a bit, with SRO crowds showing
up for every gate opening. A t-shirt reading “THIS IS NEXT YEAR” summed up the
positive vibe.
By
reasons of temperament and training, though, I’m a harder sell. Even as a kid I
took fandom with a grain of salt, which was a good thing because if I’d lived
and died with the woebegone Cubbies I’d never have made it to my bar mitzvah.
My outlook was further leavened by my stint as a sports writer, during which I
learned that good guys and jerks are about evenly distributed among big-league
rosters in every sport. Thus, I had no trouble complying with the “no cheering
in the press box” rule.
Casting
a beady eye on Cub prospects is easy when it comes to their pitching,
baseball’s most-important element. Lefty
Lester, a rugged and stoic sort in his prime (he’s 31), is their only proven
starter, while the other three gents currently penciled into the team’s rotation
(Jason Hammell, Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks) have question marks after their names. Hammell pitched well
enough for the Cubs last year, but not so well that he wasn’t traded away
before being re-signed in the off season. Arrieta was in and out of the
Baltimore Orioles’ rotation for four seasons before landing in Chicago, and
just once has logged more than 150 innings in a season. Hendricks has had only
13 Major League starts. There is no No. 5 starter yet, and the position
probably will change hands as the season goes on.
The
Cubs’ bullpen is even iffier, composed of a mixed bag of youngsters lacking
proven records and vets coming back from injuries. In that respect the team is no
different from most, the cobbling together of a bullpen being every front office’s
biggest annual challenge. But while the reward for success can be great—witness
the amazing run of last year’s bullpen-driven, American League-champion Kansas
City Royals—the usual result is less auspicious. Spring returns have been less than favorable.
The Cubs
look to be okay at least at four other positions—catcher and center field with
the above-mentioned Montero and Fowler, first base with Anthony Rizzo and
shortstop with Starlin Castro. Rizzo has emerged as a solid if not exceptional
power hitter and, at age 25, looks set for years to come barring injury. Castro
seems to be a more complex sort. The team’s best player since he arrived in
Chicago in 2011 at a tender 21, and still only 25 years old, he has star-level
talent, but his interest in the game at hand often seems to wander and he
attracts off-field problems. The trade rumors that have accompanied his last
couple of seasons attest to the fact that the team might believe he’s not a
long-term fixture.
To succeed
mightily the Cubs will need some of their prospects to bloom. By far the best
of these is Kris Bryant, the No. 2 pick in the 2013 amateur draft. Bryant is
Roy Hobbes come to life, a tall and powerful hitter who has excelled at bat at
every level at which he’s played. He was a college All-American at the U. of
San Diego, MVP in the 2013 Arizona Fall League and Minor League Player of the Year
last season, and he’s kept it up this spring with six home runs and a .450
batting average in his first eight games.
Bryant
is a third baseman, a position requiring quickness at which his height (6-feet-5)
might be a liability. A bigger
short-term obstacle to his promotion seems to be a kink in the MLB contract
system that would reward the team down the road for keeping him in the minors
through April, but if it’s serious about winning it’ll burn that bridge when it
comes to it. A team that hasn’t won a pennant since 1945, or a World Series
since 1908, can’t be playing contract games.
The
Cubs’ other two Great Young Hopes seem a good deal less sure-fire than Bryant.
Jorge Soler was plucked out of Cuba at age 20 in 2012, and did well as the
team’s starting right fielder last September. Tall, broad and lean, his
6-foot-4 physique screams ATH-UH-LETE. The trouble is that despite his youth
and apparent vigor he’s been plagued with leg problems since he arrived on
these shores, suggesting congenital weakness.
Javier
Baez’s problems may be greater. The team’s top amateur pick in 2011, and
currently plugged in at second base, he’s enormously strong, popping eyes with towering
home runs both in the minors and as a late-season Cub. But when he’s not
homering the 22-year-old usually is striking out with swings that cause passing
airliners to wobble. This bespeaks an all-or-nothing mindset that rarely leads
to stardom, and could be tough to change.
Worse,
Baez has a weight problem that last season added 45 pounds to his program
weight of 190. He’s said he’s back down to about 210 pounds now, but let’s face
it, anyone who struggles with his weight at age 22 is doomed by 30. The Cubs
should trade this guy soonest, maybe for a relief pitcher who’s shown he can
get people out. Sans a good bullpen,
finishing much above .500 only will be a dream in 2015.
1 comment:
That said, now, it's all gravy, yeah?
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