Posted by Rob McQuown on Wednesday, June 3, 2009 at 6:13 pm

More Cubs material this week, as there’s a lot of topic fodder these days. The question on the table for today is whether the Cubs’ “window” is closing. Now, it may not be clear what “window” is under discussion. This author, for one, has heard that expression used for all sorts of sports situations.

1. Sometimes, a window closing will be obvious, such as the case in San Francisco, where the player who put up the best hitting stats since Ted Williams (and maybe ever) was over 40, and still being relied upon for a big chunk of the offense. This could be called a “Bondsian” window, and not the sort 007 jumps out of to escape “Bastardo” or whatever other villain he’s facing.
2. The next-most-common expression of concern about windows is when a team has players reaching free-agency, and won’t be able to retain the core talent which is contributing.
3. Sometimes, fans of a team will suggest a window is closing just because they want to see a team they care about win N-O-W, and the future doesn’t matter. To defend such sentiment, people will make axiomatically true statements such as, “(Some player) isn’t getting any younger.” And in Chicago, there’s a lot of this going on, likely as recoil from years of being told to, “Wait ’til next year.”
4. Often, the lack of young superstars is perceived as a “closing window”, even if the team’s core talent isn’t in any imminent danger of falling apart. The additional missed playing time, compounding the reduced performance, adds to the sense of desperation. Sort of a cumulative worry about “Nobody important is getting any better.”

Taking a look at a spreadsheet excerpt with the approximate salaries of the Cubs (rounded to nearest $million – courtesy of Cot’s Baseball Contracts), along with their 2009 seasonal ages, some things jump out…

How about Window Definitions #1 and #2? Who are the Cubs losing soon? The red highlighted cells are contracts which are done after the 2009 season:

• Rich Harden
• Ryan Freel
• Kevin Gregg
• Aaron Heilman
• Neal Cotts

And three more are done after 2010:

• Derrek Lee
• Ted Lilly
• Aaron Miles

For the record, in this author’s opinion, it would be a huge blow to Cubs playoff chances were they to lose Rich Harden. WARP3 suggests that he’s +19 wins already in his short (656.3 IP) career. And VORP and WARP have some serious problems with undervaluing starting pitchers. But, even taking the undervalued WARP3 at face value, that’s 0.4 WARP per 14 innings – 2 starts in a playoff series. In contrast, Bonds was worth 0.07 WARP per 4.5 PA (about 1 game), so he’d have about the same WARP in 6 playoff games as Harden amasses in 2 (obviously, he might get a 7th game in some series permutations too). It’s not too much of a stretch to call Harden’s possible departure a “Bondsian” window…. except that he’s just 27 years old, and GM Jim Hendry has shown a willingness to pay him a good salary with the expectation of getting “25 games” from him during the regular season.

The other 2009 expiring contracts all belong to guys who most Cubs fans would happily trade for an Ernie Banks commemorative bobblehead. Or maybe they’d even give up their bobblehead to have some other team take those guys! In short, the problem with the other post-2009 departees is due to their performances, not their windows.

After 2010, a couple key players are going to see their contracts expire. The hope has to be that the farm system will be able to replace Lilly, and Lee isn’t really contributing $13mil worth of value these days anyway (BP projected $5mil in value in 2009, while fangraphs.com shows that he was worth $14mil in free-agency dollars in 2008, and $1.1mil so far in his lousy 2009 season). The Cubs should be able to add comparable – or better – value with the money Lee’s expiring contract frees up. And removing a righty bat will help their balance. Lilly’s starts will be harder to fill, but he’ll be less of an age risk than Lee, if they choose to re-sign him after 2010.

Every other Cub is under team control through 2011 already. Now, it’s known that these guys “aren’t getting any younger”, but how much of a problem is that? The starting 8 average 30.5 years of age (averaging seasonal ages). In the 2011 season, they will average 32.0 years of age, presuming Hoffpauir replaces Lee (not suggesting it, but he’s already on the payroll). Fukudome will be 34, and Soriano will be 35. PECOTA predicts that Soriano’s Age-35 batting line will be .273/.341/.517. Fukudome was predicted (pre-season) to be at .286/.382/.442 in 2011.

The 6-man pitching rotation averages under 29 years old now. Lilly is the “old man”, and will be 35 in 2011 if he’s re-signed. PECOTA shows that Lilly will keep his ERA under 5.00 through age 38, though his “comparables” list contains both long-lived pitchers and guys who didn’t last much past 36. It will only matter if Hendry re-signs him, but he’s almost certain to be (roughly) the same pitcher he has been through age 36. Beyond that, it’s dicey.

Summing up Windows #1 and #2: The Cubs don’t have anyone retiring soon. They need to re-sign Harden after 2009 to avoid #2 above. The team can sign or not sign Lilly and Lee following the 2010 season, and it shouldn’t make much difference, as long as the money is spent on quality.

#3 is a real problem with the Cubs. Fans and analysts alike viewed the 2009 season as a stepping stone to the playoffs for the Cubs, sort of like the basketball and hockey playoffs, where as long as the team plane didn’t crash, they were shoo-ins. Of course, the teams in St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati are paying their players tens of millions of dollars to win ballgames, too. And they are taking the task seriously. But, if anything, the risk of bad performance should be reduced by having a more veteran team – a longer track record gives a larger sample size, making predictions much more accurate. Saying, “Alfonso Soriano isn’t getting any younger” may be literally true, but it’s also true that it’s unlikely a casual fan would be able to differentiate the decline in his abilities over the next few years from simple random fluctuations. There will be a point when it’s right to worry about his age and the McDonough/Hendry braintrust pushed the limit on that by signing him through his age-38 season, but that’s 2014. And, while it’s nice to have a team which won’t fall apart in 6 years, any Cubs fan who’s worried about the 2009 “window” because Soriano will be “old” in 2014, is, well, missing something (or 4 years of somethings).

#4 above could apply to the Cubs situation. The closest to having young (pre-27) star power on the team is Geovany Soto, who appears to have forgotten all that he’d learned in 2007 (consolidated into his 2008 ROY campaign). Samardzija and Fox are still far from proving themselves to be “star” quality, and while good things are expected from Marmol, Marshall, and possibly Wells, none screams “build-around player”.

There are many ways to try to compete in a zero-sum system such as a sports league. Since Andy MacPhail’s departure, Jim Hendry has enough payroll that he appears to be willing to take the approach that every year is “winnable”. At one end of the “GM Spectrum” is the way the Yankees were run for a few years, shipping away any and all prospects for marginal upgrades at the major-league level, forcing a situation where the same thing was required every year. The Marlins are obviously on the other end, winning 2 championships in their short history by using a “roller coaster” strategy…. stockpiling young talent until they were close, and then “going for it”, only to sell off the pricy stars after winning. Hendry is trying to steer the Cubs on a course that gets the best of both worlds, and it’s not easy.

Hendry has made some tough calls on giving up formerly top-rated prospects such as Felix Pie and Josh Donaldson, but he’s also held on to some of the promising guys such as Josh Vitters. While his offseason moves were questioned, he made the team younger, going from DeRosa to Bradley, and Wood to Gregg. Meanwhile, he cashed in some “failed” prospects for Aaron Heilman. For the first third of the season, the naysayers look very smart, and Hendry looks awful, as all three of these guys have stunk. Badly. But the point is that he appears to be trying to get younger by degrees to make up for the natural aging process. Sometimes that takes a curious appearance, when young players such as Pie and Cedeno are shipped out, but GM’s have to make the tough decisions on such players, as to whether or not they are good enough (present and potential) to stay on the active (or even 40-man) roster. If they aren’t, they need to be moved for pieces which can help.

“Wait ’til next year” vs. “The window is closing”. It’s so easy to see things as black and white. But, with a $140mil/yr payroll, Cubs fans deserve better than all-or-nothing thinking, and Hendry’s trying to deliver. The expectation that this team can compete every year isn’t unreasonable, given the lower payrolls of their division mates. And, unless a GM is constantly able to make ridiculous deals like Bobby Hill-for-Aramis Ramirez (and Kenny Lofton!), some production has to come from older, “market value” players. No, the window’s not closing. The roster has good young talent and good older talent. And a GM who’s committed to keeping it that way.
Please feel free to leave comments below. Questions for the author may be submitted to Rob McQuown at rmcquown@baseballdigestdaily.com or robmcquown@yahoo.com. Past articles for this author can be found under “Staff Writers” at the Baseball Daily Digest site.