Right field ought to be an easy position to decide what to do with. The Cubs should be standing pat. Milton Bradley had a down year but was still worth most of his salary, according to Fangraphs, which values his contribution in 2009 at $5.2 million. And it doesn’t make sense to try to trade a player you know is good when he’s coming off a down year - I believe they call that “selling low.” And it especially doesn’t make any sense when you have nobody close as good as him to replace him.

But it’s apparent that that’s what the Cubs intend to do. After suspending Bradley, Jim Hendry has no leverage in trading him, and the Cubs will no doubt pay a large portion of his salary for him to play for another team. This is in spite of the fact that for all the talk about chemistry surrounding this team, Piniella said on ESPN 1000 yesterday that the most important thing for clubhouse atmosphere is winning. (Listen to the sound clip, starting from about 14:00.)

So it seems odd that the Cubs will squander resources to send Bradley to play for another team. Not that there aren’t good options for the corner outfield spots out there. Matt Holliday and Jason Bay are free agents-to-be, and Manny Ramirez may opt out of his contract.

The problem with all three players is money - they’re all going to cost a lot more than Bradley did, and when you factor in the portion of Bradley’s salary the Cubs are going to have to pick up, to sign any of them the Cubs are going to have to invest close to $30 million into right field to pick up any of those players.

So the list actually looks a lot slimmer. In fact, it looks like Kosuke Fukudome moving back to right field (where his bat doesn’t play as well but he’s a great defender) or some unholy combination of Micah Hoffpauir, Jake Fox, Sam Fuld and possibly Reed Johnson. It’s not exactly appealing, and it makes me wonder: if winning breeds chemistry, aren’t the Cubs setting themselves up for more bad chemistry here?

Chris De Luca writes in today’s Sun Times about what went wrong this season. He traces this season’s problems back to the Cubs’ postseason loss to the Dodgers. Specifically, he says, Lou’s desire to get a more left-handed team was the problem. He says that the roster moves made to get more left-handed - getting rid of Henry Blanco and Mark DeRosa - hurt the team’s chemistry and hurt their offense. He also suggests they should have kept Jim Edmonds around. He then concludes by saying the loss to the Dodgers “was no reason to overreact and tear up a 97-victory team that could’ve been just as dangerous in 2009.”

Now, I’m not going to accuse De Luca of being a hypocrite. After all, it’s totally fair of him to accuse the Cubs of overreacting by seeking to get more left-handed even though he wrote on October 31, 2008, “The Cubs and White Sox reached the playoffs, but October only exposed their most glaring needs. For the Cubs, that is a speedy leadoff hitter, preferably one who’s a switch hitter or bats left-handed — anything that would allow them to move Alfonso Soriano out of the top spot.” The Sun Times’ Web site doesn’t allow you to view that far back in the archives, but believe me, I didn’t make that up.

But really, what did the Cubs tear up, anyway? Three Cubs hitters got more than 150 plate appearances and did not return this year: DeRosa, Edmonds and Ronny Cedeno. Nobody is seriously suggesting the Cubs would be better with Cedeno this season. So that leaves Edmonds and DeRosa. Edmonds is out of baseball, and the fact that nobody was interested in him as a 39-year-old center fielder tells me something. He was good last year, but keeping him would have been a Gary Gaetti-esque situation where you pull a fading veteran off the shelf and he gives you a few good months so you make the mistake of trying to get even more out of him.

So that leaves, in spite of De Luca’s protestations that he’s not beating this drum yet again, DeRosa. DeRosa would have been primarily playing  right field for the Cubs if he’d stayed, so he couldn’t have offset Mike Fontenot’s disappointing production and he couldn’t have played third every day when Ramirez was injured, at least without making Reed Johnson an every-day player, and given how Johnson’s played this year, you wouldn’t want that. DeRosa is hitting .256/.323/.456 this year. Part of that is due to an injury he’s playing through. His replacement, Milton Bradley, is hitting .261/.395/.399. Bradley is hitting for less power than DeRosa, but you might notice that his numbers are actually better than the guy he replaced.

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Over at Goat Riders of the Apocalypse, ajwalsh wrote a couple of days ago about how the Cubs’ window is closing. Even if the Cubs don’t win a thing this year, I don’t think the concept of a “window” really applies to this team.

The Cubs payroll presently stands at $138 million, according to Cot’s MLB Contracts’ spreadsheet. Most of this year’s team is going to be back next year; Kevin Gregg, Reed Johnson and Rich Harden are the only main contributors on this team that aren’t under club control for next season. A few players become arbitration-eligible and their price tags will go up, but right now the Cubs are obligated to pay out $120 million next season. They could conceivably sign a couple of pieces in free agency if they need to without increasing their payroll from this year, or even decreasing it slightly.

Pretty much everything that could go wrong has gone wrong for this year’s team. Harden has been lousy. Dempster has a broken toe and is out a month. Zambrano went on the disabled list. Aramis Ramirez was on the disabled list for a long time. Bradley, Soriano, and Fontenot have all been very bad. Lee looked washed up for a month before he started hitting. Soto fell off a cliff and then when he started to come around, got hurt. And in spite of all of those things, the team is a little bit over .500 and competing for a bad division.

I suppose the question one needs to ask is, is what happened to all these players representative of their talent levels as they age, or is it a fluke? For Bradley, Soriano, Lee, and Ramirez, the answer is probably a little of both. They’re all getting older and are going to miss time and their skills will decline. But the declines we’ve seen from Bradley and Soriano strike me as fluky. Both of them will finish with disappointing numbers on the season, and everyone will revise their expectations next season down somewhat as a result. But Bradley will be 32 next season and Soriano will be 34. Neither’s career is over just yet. They won’t necessarily be as good as they have been in their careers, but they probably won’t be as bad as they have been, either.

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“I understand what I’m doing wrong. I looked at my tape from last year. I feel it now. So when I tell you I’m back, I’m back. You can mark it down. I’ll be hitting for the rest of the year. I’m back.”

–Milton Bradley, July 12, 2009

Milton Bradley capped off a tumultuous first half of the season by promising Cubs fans a monster second half. He may be able to deliver, he may not. But most of his game has been “back” for a while, and what he really needs to do is find his power.

Bradley is now hitting .243/.379/.381 on the season. Obviously that’s not what the Cubs hoped to get out of him — the on-base numbers are nice, but they expected those, or better, with some power to go along with them. But that number is seriously depressed by an awful start. Bradley’s .118/.333/.294 April pulls all three of those numbers down a bit.

Still, the lack of slugging is a little worrisome. Here’s a chart of Bradley’s average, OBP, Slugging and OPS over the course of the season. All of them are trending generally upward, but over the last twenty games or so his average and slugging have basically been flat or actually trending downward. He’s taking his walks, but most of his hits are singles and they’re not coming that much more frequently.

Over the last 28 days, Bradley was hitting .275/.457/.377. In a way, when a player is getting on base 46 percent of the time over a span, it doesn’t matter what those other two numbers are — I don’t think it’s possible to get on base that much and not help your team immensely.

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In spite of a 4-1 win last night against the Pirates and a 2-1 series win, the Cubs offense continues to struggle - they scored seven runs in three games against Pittsburgh and managed to get shut out by Russ Ohlendorf. It’s time to examine some of the culprits.

One of the better ways to do this is through Weighted On Base Average. If you don’t know wOBA, you can check out that link for an explanation. But in short, it attempts to assign a value in runs to everything a player does at the plate, and then gives you an average of that number per plate appearance. The whole thing is then multiplied by a coefficient so that the stat works on about the same scale as on-base percentage.

So here’s a table of the wOBAs of all Cubs hitters with 100 PA or more. I’ve included, in red, the 2008 national league average, and a rough estimate of what “replacement level” is. The idea behind replacement level is that any given team probably has a player who can perform at about this level just hanging out at AAA - basically that’s about level of production you would expect in the long term from a career minor-leaguer. A team full of replacement-level players would be historically bad.

Not a lot of surprises at the top or the bottom. Derrek Lee has been the best regular for the team this season, having completely made up for his slow start and then some. Aaron Miles has been positively awful. Fukudome has fallen off as the year has gone on, but his cumulative numbers are still solid. Reed Johnson has been very good, although he’s on the disabled list right now. Theriot has been about average - which isn’t actually bad at all for a shortstop, who are often below average.

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In a somewhat surprising turn of events, the Cubs won a game on Friday. It was exciting, thanks to some good hitting by both teams and some lousy pitching by Carlos Marmol. What most people will remember about the game won’t be the score, or the wild Marmol, or Geo420’s home run. Not even the (mostly) quality pitching of Randy Wells and Jose Contreras. It will be the shot fired across Milton Bradley’s bow.

After another poor at bat, Bradley reportedly blew up in the dugout before being sent to the clubhouse by Lou Piniella. Lou didn’t just dismiss Bradley, he had some very angry words for him. Bradley was seen leaving the parking lot before the game ended. Lou sent him home.

Is the End or the Beginning?

Bradley’s reputation for getting angry with himself for failing seems to be a realistic assessment. His outbursts have come in the midst of several others by the Cubs in 2009, including Big Z’s epic meltdown.

While the whole lot of them have worn Lou out, he snapped on Bradley today. Milton has done enough strange stuff to drive a manager crazy, and I’m just about done supporting the guy. Not done yet, but I’m getting close.

I’m gradually allowing myself to consume and speculate on innuendo about Bradley. Frankly, I’m surprised his first few months have been so eventful. A lot of folks saw this coming. While I’m still not convinced he’s a bad guy, I’m starting to realize he’s not a good guy. If his outbursts have reached the point of being sent home by a manager who has been rather placid lately, well, I think that speaks for itself.

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I think a lot of folks may be coming around on some of these points, but there are a few things about the Cubs that I’d like to talk a little about.  My perception of the prevailing attitude, or conventional wisdom, may not be yours.  So my statements may be straw man arguments for you.

Milton Bradley is awesome. A bunt single to start a rally?  Thank you very much.  An uncanny awareness of the strike zone?  Maybe a little less of that could be in order, sure, but his zone judgment is phenomenal.  He plays the game with a 17 inch plate. Umpires are rated on a 21 inch plate. The league seems to play with a 24 inch plate. Respect Milton’s eye, it’s as good as any in the game since Barry Bonds.

Bradley he plays as hard as he can all the time, and wants to win, win and win. He also shows something a lot of folks lack - maturity. He owns up to his mistakes instead of offering faux-apologies. He’s showing a self-awareness he lacked as a younger man. Join the club, Milt.

David Patton was a good pick-up. Considering he’s made the jump from A-ball, even the limited success he’s had is impressive in that context. His breaking ball is impressive, but he needs to be more consistent with his fastball.  He’s got a long way to go, and when he shakes off a sign, I cringe. But he’s got a good looking short-arm delivery and could be a valuable bullpen member in the future. Ride the Rule 5 wave a while longer, folks.

Lou Piniella is in control of this team. The cry for him to lock down on his out of control players is silly. Ted Lilly has a long track record of being a hothead, shocker. Gatorade machines were made to be beat to a pulp. The out of control Cubs, led by Milton Bradley, is a figment of the media’s imagination. Big Z did lose his mind for a few minutes, though. That’s no one’s fault other than his own.

The Cubs do not need Mark DeRosa. Please, he was no one’s savior, and, for once, the Cubs traded someone when he had some value. The pitchers they got from Cleveland aren’t sure things, but they may not be far off from the Majors.

Kevin Gregg is more than adequate at closer. It’s hard for me to get revved about closers. He’s pitched well in a key role, and is far less scary than former fan favorites Joe Borowski and Rod Beck. RIP Shooter, my heart rate found new highs during your time as a Cub, but it was fun. Cut Gregg some slack. He may not have the blue collar panache of Joe and Rod, but he’s got the goggles and good enough stuff to close games.

That’s all, back to baseball….

Thanks to Lou Piniella’s advice or to Milton Bradley’s borrowed bat, Ryan Theriot has managed to show a little power this season. Unquestionably, that’s changed him. My only concern is that it hasn’t changed him enough.

Alfonso Soriano led off the fifth inning of yesterday’s game with a double. The Cubs were unable to get him home, though — Theriot sacrificed him over to third, and then Milton Bradley flied out, but not deep enough to score, and Derrek Lee grounded out to end the scoring chance. The Cubs would have been in a better position to win the game if Theriot had just swung away.

It’s a little cliche to say that the out is the most precious resource in baseball, but it’s still true. You only get 27 outs in a game, and you only get three before you have to let the other team bat again. There are very few times when you should give one away, and a man on second with no outs is definitely not one.

Consider what could have happened in that inning after the Soriano double. He’s reasonably fast, and he’s on second base. There’s no threat of a double play. A single probably scores him and at least gets him to second. A deep fly or a groundout to the right side might move him to third. If Theriot strikes out or fails to advance him, the Cubs are in that same position when Bradley comes up. But if Theriot gets on base, the Cubs are in even better position.

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The Cubs have not played very good baseball since I wrote a post the other day called “encouraging signs,” so I thought maybe a little reverse psychology would work. The good news is that the Cubs pitching was great through most of the Cardinals series. The bad news, of course, is that the Cubs hit terribly. It’s rare that you would go into PETCO to face Jake Peavy and think that the offense would almost have to get better, but it can’t really get any worse.

The truth is, the Cardinals didn’t hit that much better than the Cubs in the series - but they were better, and they hit the ball out and managed to get runs home, and the Cubs scattered most of their hits. So, three Cubs pitchers get losses they didn’t really deserve and the team goes on to San Diego to try to break a four-game losing streak.

The good news is, even though San Diego is at home, their pitching looks familiar - Jake Peavy pitches on Friday, and Chris Young on Sunday. Both can be very good pitchers, but the Cubs managed to hit them well a week ago, so maybe they’ll face them with a little confidence. As for Saturday, Josh Geer will be starting for the Padres. The Cubs missed him last time, but with a 5.61 ERA in spite of playing half his games in PETCO, he hasn’t been too intimidating yet. He’s sort of hit-or-miss, though - although most of his outings have been bad this season, he’s managed two starts where he’s only given up a run and worked seven or eight innings.

Still, the Cubs need to get going offensively. A big part of that is taking walks. When the Cubs offense is at its best, it’s incredibly patient. Fukudome, Bradley, Soto and Fontenot can all show very good patience at times, and Lee is no slouch in that department either. Even when those hitters aren’t hitting well, they can make pitchers work if they’re not throwing strikes. The Cubs didn’t have the opportunity to do this much against the Cardinals - the Cardinals pitchers were just pounding the strike zone, and when that happens there’s not much patience will do for you. But throwing strikes that hitters can’t do much with is hard, and even good pitchers have trouble doing it consistently. If the Cubs don’t press, they ought to be able to break through and take a couple of games against the Padres, who are still the team the Cubs swept last week. Winning two out of four on the road trip wouldn’t be ideal, but it would be a far sight better than dropping five or six.

I turned on the Score yesterday and caught a little bit of Boers and Bernstein. Matt Abbatacola was hosting with Dan Bernstein, and they were discussing the Cubs. The conversation started out, when I tuned in, talking about how the Cubs could use another good-hitting infielder right now, and Mark DeRosa (current line: .242/.313/.729) would solve a lot of problems for the Cubs. But then the conversation took a turn towards “Milton Bradley is a clubhouse cancer.”

Specifically, Abbatacola, who is a Cubs fan, was upset because the Cubs got rid of DeRosa to sign Bradley. He started out by saying “I want a guy here that cares all the time, and I just don’t believe that Milton Bradley is that guy.” And Bradley certainly has said he’ll take himself out of the lineup at times. We can have a discussion about whether that’s unwise, or whether that counts as dogging it, some other day.

But Bernstein, who is not a Cubs fan, and who Abbatacola conceded may have a more objective view of this, pressed him a little, and eventually Abbatacola admitted, I think, what his real problem is:

The guy is a clubhouse jerk and I think he’s just bad for the team. . . . I’m getting things from people that are around the team on a regular basis that just see the experiences of the relationships he’s developing or have developed in the organization. It’s not positive, it’s not good.

I’ll be honest, I don’t care that much whether Bradley’s teammates like him or not. I care a little, because I think that, all other things being equal, it’s better for a team to get along than to hate each other. And I care a little because I would prefer that other people were happy, even if I don’t know them. But I don’t think whether Bradley’s teammates like him or not really affects the Cubs.

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