Matt Garza is Not Your Savior, Cubs Fans. Sorry.

The Chicago Sun Times is reporting that the Cubs are close to acquiring Matt Garza from the Tampa Bay Rays.  Jordan Campbell of Cubbies Crib thinks this is a move that makes the Cubs serious contenders again in the NL Central.  I caution all Cubs fans against such enthusiasm.

Here's the good news.  Garza is a pitcher in his prime.  He'll be 27-year-old for the duration of the 2011 season and 27 is often a magical age for baseball players.  Garza is a premium talent.  He was a first-round draft pick in 2005 and several times over the course of his young career he has put together dominant stretches.  In '08 he was so good against Boston that he won the ALCS MVP.  He's been quite durable thusfar as well, pitching over 200 inning in each of the past two seasons.  He has yet to make a trip to the disabled list since he was permanently promoted by the Twins in 2007.  Though he's already eligible for some sizable awards in arbitration, he'll be under Chicago's control for three more seasons before he reaches free agency, so this is no one-year rental.  And, finally, of course, he's a pitcher from the AL East coming to the NL Central.  That move should be good for at least half a run dip in ERA and possibly even greater improvements across the board.  Last season, for instance, Garza had to make nine starts against the Red Sox and Yankees in which he went 2-3 with an ERA well over 6.00.

It hasn't yet been reported who the Cubs are giving up in order to retain Garza's services, but so long as the package doesn't include Starlin Castro, it's probably not an unreasonable bounty.  A solid starting pitcher with considerable upside who won't be a free agent until 2014 represents considerable leverage.  And I'm not opposed to this trade because it provides a potential rotational lynchpin for several seasons to come.  However, I urge Cubs fans to temper their expectation for 2011.  Matt Garza is no Zack Greinke.  And, even if he does take a long-anticipated step forward to become a true front-of-the-rotation type starter, it may not be enough to surge Chicago past the other, much deeper teams in their division.

Garza is coming off a disappointing season and his overall numbers (15-10, 3.91 ERA, etc.) don't actually tell the full story.  From May 26 to September 20, a span of 21 starts, Garza posted a rather dismal 4.86 ERA.  Worse yet, for a guy whose promise is tied largely to his durability, he left 10 of those games without surviving six innings, including four straight short outings in September.  Now, Garza did conclude his season with two dominant starts, but they were against the Mariners and the Royals, arguably the two worst offenses in the American League.  More compelling for Cubs GM, Jim Hendry, is the fact that Garza pitched very well against Texas in the Division Series, though he ended up taking a hard loss.  My point is, too many Cubs fans will see his basic statline, which includes career highs in wins and innings, and think he's clearly on the verge of a becoming a true Ace.  That could be true.  Maybe his 2010 campaign will be character building, but there are also serious causes for concern.  His strikeout rate dropped dramatically (8.4 K/9 to 6.6 K/9).  He gave up a career high in homers (28), hits (193), and wild pitches (12).  According to Baseball Reference's ERA+ stat, Garza was basically a league-average pitcher in 2010 (101 ERA+, 100 is Average).  There's certainly nothing wrong with adding a league-average pitcher, especially one with Garza's potential to develop, but unless that development happens extremely rapidly, it's highly unlikely such a move can get the Cubs back into the playoff picture.

Again, none of this is meant to deny that Garza is a decent investment for the franchise long-term.  In fact, coming off his 2010 performance, Tampa Bay, a franchise committed to tightening its pursestrings in 2011, might actually be undervaluing Garza.  He just isn't a difference-making pitcher like Greinke or Cliff Lee or Roy Halladay.

More importantly, although there is certainly no such thing as "too much pitching" and the Cubs did need a replacement for Ted Lilly, the Cubs real problems do not lie in their rotation.  Prior to Lilly's departure last August, Chicago's rotation was, in fact, among the best in the National League, and even after that, when the front office had thrown in the towel and were experimenting with young arms, the Cubs starters remains better than average.  Their relievers, on the other hand, posted the second worst ERA (4.72) and Winning Percentage (.357) in the National League, despite having one of the league's best closers, Carlos Marmol, and a premium set-up man, Sean Marshall.  Hendry's solution to this problem is Kerry Wood.  Is that really a solution?  Maybe, maybe not.  On offense, the Cubs had the league's worst strikeout-to-walk rate, were last in stolen bases, and were near the bottom in batting average and on-base percentage.  Replacing Derrek Lee with Carlos Pena does nothing to remedy those shortcomings.  In fact, it probably exacerbates them.

Yes, the Cubs suffered some season-changing losses in 2010, especially Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Zambrano, but unfortunately, I think the acquisition of Garza represents, at best, a chance to get back to something like the 83-win team they had in '09.  Meanwhile, all the other NL Central contenders have moved forward.  Most notably, the Brewers added Greinke and bullpen depth.  The Cardinals added Jake Westbrook and Lance Berkman.  The Reds, built around young players who could still be developing (hazard the thought), retained all the important pieces of their 2010 division-winning roster.

I wish I could say differently, but for Cubs fans willing to be honest with themselves, Matt Garza represents, at best, hope for 2012.

UPDATE: The title of this post may be appropriate on a couple levels.  MLB.com, ESPN, and WGN have all alleged that negotiation between Chicago and Tampa Bay are not as close to fruition as the Sun Times suggested.

Fantastic Thoughts: "Trade for Aaron Harang. No, seriously."

With approximated 20% of the season in the books, it's time to start sizing up your fantasy roster.  Many owners, at this juncture, make one of two mistakes:

1.) Because they are sitting at the bottom of the table, they decide to punt, either completely abandoning their team or, in keeper leagues, starting to play exclusively for next year.

2.) Because they've gotten off to a hot start, they superstitiously sit on their roster, denying any potential for improvement.

With so much season left, it's pretty much guaranteed that you've got a hot streak and a cold streak still in front of you, perhaps a prolonged one.  If you do get hot after a bad start and you end up finishing in second or third place, you're going to really regret unloading Placido Polanco for a prospect in May or sitting on Chris Davis when you could've picked up Brennan Boesch.  Similarly, if you blow that double-digit lead, your decision to stubbornly stick with Ben Sheets could really burn you.

At this point, you're looking for the classic "buy low, sell high" candidates.  Below, I'll provide you with some of my favorites, but first let me offer some strategies for identifying your own:

BABIP:
Batting Average on Balls in Play is the Hansel of statistics.  It's so hot right now.  It's main benefit is identifying "luck" on both sides of the ball.  If a hitter has a BABIP way higher than his career norms, he's finding holes at an unsustainable rate.  Everything is dropping in.  If his BABIP is unusually low, he's probably hit his fair share of "at 'em" balls and could be due for a hot streak.  For pitchers, the opposite applies.  High BABIP suggests bad luck, low BABIP suggests the potential for regression.

FIP:
Fielder Independent Pitching measures outcomes that a pitcher can "control."  That is, strikeouts, walks, and homers.  The resulting number looks like a standard ERA.  So, what we can do is compare the FIP, which judges exclusively the pitcher, to the ERA, which is effected by several other factors.  Over time, these numbers will tend to move toward each other.  In 2009, no team had a separation between ERA and FIP of more than half a run.  So, when you see disjunctions of a run or more, you can assume that pitcher is getting burned either by bad defense or bad luck.

Game Logs:  
This is the most effective, but also the most time-consuming method for analyzing players.  At this point in the season, one bad week for a hitter or one bad outing for a pitcher can have a dramatic effect on their ratio statistics (AVG, OPS, ERA, WHIP, etc.).  It's impossible to check these for every player, but for those who you're considering adding, dropping, or trading, it's a must.

HR/FB:
Another stat that goes both ways.  HR/FB works best for veteran players having out of character years because, like BABIP, it's most effective when judged against career norms.  For a hitter, a significantly higher HR/FB rate might suggest inflated power numbers, gained either by playing in homer-friendly parks or just catching some breaks down the lines.  For pitcher, a high HR/FB rate suggests, again, some bad luck or, perhaps, a flurry of unfavorable matchups.

K/BB:
As those who visit the Hippeaux consistently are probably already aware, this is probably my favorite catch-all statistic on both sides of the ball.  In the early going, a particularly high strikeout rate (for a hitter) worries me, because it means he has much less chance for positive outcomes (because getting lucky pretty much requires that you at least put the ball in play) and is thus more susceptible to extended cold streaks.  A low walk rate, although not as detrimental, also limits the opportunity for things like runs and stolen bases, so I'm particularly aware of it in relation to top of the order/speed type players.  On the flip side, a low strikeout rate limits a pitcher's ability to get out of tough situations and makes him more enslaved to his defense.  Therefore, it you're considering a low strikeout rate pitcher (there are plenty of good ones), you should pay close attention to the team behind him.  A high walk rate, particularly in combination with a low strikeout rate, makes run-scoring situations significantly more frequent.

Now, for the cast of the Bi-Lo All-Stars...

A Soulful Soriano September

Amid accusations of being selfish, lazy, overrated, and overpaid, Alfonso Soriano is quietly carrying the Chicago Cubs through the season's final month. With two homers this afternoon, Soriano has an even dozen with seven September games remaining.

Sure, he refused to relinquish the leadoff spot to Ryan Theriot when he returned from a quadriceps injury which is still clearly affecting his running, but he is demonstrating those skills which give him the hutzpah to make such demands. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a Cubs fan who'd want to change a single thing about Soriano these last couple weeks. He's scored 19 runs and driven in 23 since returning from his injury on August 28th. No, he hasn't stolen a base during that span, assuring that he will fall well short of his third straight 30/30 season, but his production is hard to argue with.

Morover, he seems to have jump-started a Cubs lineup that sputtered at times during his absence. Since August 28, Aramis Ramirez is batting .335 with 8 HR and 21 RBI, Derrek Lee is batting .351, and the Cubs are on pace to have by far their best offensive month at the time when it matters most, something which north-siders certainly aren't accustomed to. All in all, the Cubs are 16-10 since Soriano's return, and perhaps most importantly, 7-2 in 1-run games.

Despite an extended stay on the disabled list, Soriano has accumulated 31 HR this season, has a good chance of scoring 100 runs for the third year in a row and the fifth time in his career, and has his best batting average (.297) since 2002. We'd all like to see those numbers go up in a fully healthy season next year, but down the stretch he's already looking very much like a $100 Million man.