The Cubs Chronicle

Before the season began, The Cub Reporter held a Cubs Blog Army roundtable Q&A, in which The Cubs Chronicle participated. The following is a review of my part in that roundtable. This is part 1 of the review, which focuses on pitching. See Part II. (Note: The idea for this column comes from the Cubs Pundit, who reviewed his spring training comments a while ago.)

Q: Most pundits agree that the Cubs have one of the best rotations in baseball. Will the rotation live up to the hype? If so, which pitcher will have the best year? If not, who will falter, and will the team be able to overcome it?

The rotation will be very good, but it won’t live up to the hype, because the hype right now is “best rotation in baseball.” The Red Sox, Yankees, Astros, and A’s all have just a good of chance at having the best rotation as the Cubs do. Most likely, one of those teams will out-shine the Cubs. Mark Prior will have the best year, though everything is dependant on health. I don’t know who it will be, but someone will falter. But it won’t matter because Juan Cruz is going to get a significant number of starts this year, and do fantastic.

I was wrong about Prior (due to his being injured) and Cruz (due to his not getting any opportunities to start, which I had expected), but correct about the Cubs not having the best starting staff in baseball.

Or was I? Despite injuries to Prior and Wood, and the disappearance of Matt Clement’s effectiveness down the stretch, the Cubs’ starting staff led the NL in ERA, in a year in which Wrigley Field played as a hitter’s park for the first time since 1999. The Cubs’ starters finished a third of a run better than the Astros’ starters in 87 more innings.

As for the AL teams, it is difficult to compare an AL team’s ERA with an NL team’s ERA because of the DH (and there’s nothing I can see on Baseball Prospectus’s advanced stats page that would allow me to do so, at least not without some extensive work). Minnesota—a team I didn’t list in response to The Cub Reporter’s question—led the AL in starters’ ERA, followed by Oakland and Boston. The Yankees were more middle of the pack. I can say this: The Twins bested the median AL starters’ ERA by 16.1%. The Cubs bested the median NL starters’ ERA by 11.6%. So it appears the Twins had the best starting staff in baseball in 2004, thanks almost completely to two guys—Johan Santana and Brad Radke.

Q: Which, if any, of the Cubs pitching prospects will make an impact on the team this year?

The way Mercker and Remlinger have battled injury problems already this year, I look for a lefty like Felix Sanchez to have a nice impact on the team this year. He’s started more games than he’s relieved in the minors and so could be more than just a LOOGY, if Dusty Baker will allow it.

Sanchez’s impact was reserved for acquiring minor league pitcher Jon Connolly from the Detroit Tigers at the end of April. Connolly, who turned 21 in August, put up a 2.40 ERA in 131 innings for high-A Daytona last year (following a 1.41 ERA in low-A the year before). He also had a 4.2 K/BB ratio for Daytona. Connolly then made one start for Double-A West Tennessee, going 6 innings and giving up just 1 run on 4 hits and walk, while striking out 8.

As for Sanchez, he must have gotten injured. He only pitched in 14 games (13.2 innings) for Detroit’s double-A club, posting a 7.24 ERA. In November, he was removed from the Tigers’ 40-man roster.

As if the trade wasn’t lopsided enough, the Cubs also acquired lefty Eric Eckenstahler as the player to be named later in the trade. Eckenstahler is 28, but has a very lively arm. Too lively, in fact, as his control is terrible. But he’s struck out more than a batter an inning throughout his professional career, so you never know, something might eventually click. In any event, the Connolly for Sanchez trade makes up at least in part the Cubs being ripped off in the Andy Pratt-Juan Cruz trade.

Q: What should be done with Juan Cruz?

Cruz should be awarded the 6th bullpen spot and shown all the confidence in the world, because the Cubs will more than likely need him to start some games for them.

Who needs Juan Cruz to fill-in as a starter, when you have Glendon Rusch?

Q: How much better is the Cubs bullpen this season than it was in 2003?

The Cubs bullpen finished 19th last year in Baseball Prospectus’s Adjusted Runs Prevented. Gone is the biggest drag—Antonio Alfonseca—and two others that stuggled out of the pen last year—Todd Wellemeyer and Juan Cruz—can be expected to be much better this year. Most importantly, instead of having just two dominant righties—Kyle Farnsworth and Joe Borowski—one of whom was stuck only pitching the 9th inning, the Cubs now have three dominant righties with the addition of LaTroy Hawkins. While one of the three will still be stuck just pitching 9th innings again, having two solid righthanded setup men is a big improvement over last year. I’m hoping for a top 10 bullpen this year.

Borowski got injured and did I call Farnsworth dominant? (Farnsworth is the Bret Saberhagen of our time, only a reliever, and in need of a shave and looser pants. 2005 is an odd year. I expect Farnsworth to be quite good, as he was in 2001 and 2003.) Cruz was traded, and Wellemeyer was also injured part of the year and didn’t show much improvement during the time he did pitch. Hawkins, while having a very fine year, was inexplicably unable to hold one-run leads in the 9th. In the end, the bullpen was a disappointment. The Cubs finished 9th in the NL in relief ERA.