Cubs sign Aaron Miles 2yr/$4.9 million; DeRosa traded to Indians for 3 pitching prospects

[Ennder]

Eckstein was a better hitter and fielder than Miles and plays a tougher position.

 

The Cubs are probably 1-2 games worse than the team they fielded last year. They downgraded the bullpen, downgraded the lineup and to be honest I won't be surprised if the rotation isn't as good as last year with Zambrano's injury concerns and Dempster not that likely to repeat. If Harden manages to stay healthy the entire year it will probably still be an upgrade over last season but if he goes down I think they are worse than last year in every aspect of the game except fielding. Add in the fact it is an old team and will probably lose a little OPS here and there and I just don't see the Cubs being world series favorites.

 

They will be a good team, will probably win the division and then in the playoffs anything can happen.

[endaround]

While it is possible that the Cubs are clearing room to add a higher priced player, it's also possible that they are clearing room because their ownership just went bankrupt and they're looking to sell the Cubs in a down economy.

 

DeRosa's a good player. Replacing him with Miles made the team worse.

 

Trading for Peavy would easily make them World Series favorites, so I hope that doesn't happen.

 

Milton Bradley has been left to walk from every team he's ever played on. I know the stat-guys don't think attitude matters, but for some reason the teams he's played with haven't wanted him back. One of the things that impressed me about the Cubs last year was how much they came together as a team. One example is when they saw Fukudome in ST and decided as a group that they'd work the count more, and everyone took more pitches and the team OBP went up. I almost hope they acquire Bradley. He'll disrupt team chemistry, play horrible CF defense and get hurt enough to throw any continuity out the window.

 

If the Cubs have this team cohesion then adding Bradley to a team that features Zambrano, Soriano and Ramirez isn't really something to worry about

[GAME05]

just like the past three years, what the Cubs do or don't do hasn't really mattered to us making or missing the playoffs.

 

in the short-term, they've got a powerhouse team. but in the long-run, they could have some serious issues with their players getting older and slower, egos in the clubhouse and and wasteland of a farm system.

 

i think to worry that the Brewers haven't done anything yet is still somewhat premature. either MA can't add payroll or DM is trying to catch some last-minute bargains. heck, a month ago Giambi and Abreu were looking at three-year contracts, and now the talk is that they'd take a one-year deal. plus maybe some of our players will be worth more in trades once the remaining FAs are off the market.

[twobrewers]

in the short-term, they've got a powerhouse team. but in the long-run, they could have some serious issues with their players getting older and slower, egos in the clubhouse and and wasteland of a farm system.

They have their entire nucleus on long term deals - with most of them overpaid. They have (well, assuming they sign Bradley - which appears to be the case) two major players with significant injury histories. (Bradley and Harden) And they have a combustible clubhouse with Soriano, Zambrano, Bradley etc.

That is a perfect recipe for an October disaster.

DeRosa was the type of player who held the Cubs together. On that team, I think DeRosa is more valuable than Bradley.

 

Everyone can forget about the Peavy trade talks. It sounds like the Cubs have turned their attention 100% to Bradley. That will eliminate any real chance of adding Peavy's contract.

 

[LouisEly]

DeRosa just got traded to the Indians, too - only thing that makes this series of moves by the Cubs sane is if the package of players they get back for DeRosa gets added to Fontenot/Cedeno + a few prospects in a trade for Peavy. If the move is a straight salary dump - replace DeRosa with Miles or Fontenot/Cedeno at 2nd, the Cubs just got worse.

 

Bingo. Unless they expect contributions from the pitching they got for DeRosa, or to flip them for other Major League talent, they got worse by replacing DeRosa for Miles.

[TooLiveBrew]

If Harden manages to stay healthy the entire year it will probably still be an upgrade over last season

 

That Harden/Gaudin pickup was a great trade imo. Sure, Harden has injury concerns, but no pitcher doesn't (even if his are stronger than most). When he's healthy, he's an awesome performer.

[rluzinski]

If the Cubs signing Miles justifies yet another round of complaining about Brewer inactivity this off season, we are in for a great 3 months at BF.net.

[davemakovec]

I love this move. Mark Derosa really seemed to be one of those guys who never got a shot to play full time, and when he did, he turned out to be awesome. Seriously, the last two seasons have been career years for this guy, and they just shipped him to make room for Aaron Miles.

 

Harden, by the way, is not just another injury risk. He pitched as many innings in a Cubs uniform (71) as had in the two previous seasons (72 1/3) combined. His innings pitched in 2008 were equal to almost 75% of his innings since 2005. Seriously, this guy's innings high is 189 once, then 148, then such grand totals as 128, 46, and 25. This guy makes Ben Sheets look like CC Sabathia, innings-wise.

[crewcrazy]

Saying they're shipping him off for Aaron Miles probably isn't accurate. The Cubs thought that they were too right-handed, and DeRosa was one of the few right-handed guys they could move this season (Lee, Ramirez, Soriano, and Soto certainly aren't going anywhere). I'd be surprised if they play Miles more than Mike Fontenot -- at the very least, there's going to be a Fontenot/Miles platoon, but it's more likely that Fontenot's the full-time guy at second base now. Still a downgrade from DeRosa, but it's not as bad as having Aaron Miles in your starting infield.

[Tbadder]

Why do we talk about the Cubs? Right now they're 10 games better than the Crew. We're not going to make up those ten games, so what gives? We should be concentrating on the Cards, which I assmue Melvin is doing.

[Thurston Fluff]

That Harden/Gaudin pickup was a great trade imo. Sure, Harden has injury concerns, but no pitcher doesn't (even if his are stronger than most). When he's healthy, he's an awesome performer.

 

He is an awesome performer for about 5 innings. The one knock on him, other than the injuries, is he rarely goes deep in games. In fact if you look at 08 he went 5.92 which was the inning/game rate since 04 when he averaged just over 6 innings over 31 games. 04 Was the only time he went 31 games with an ERA of 3.99. Add in the fact that he spent more time on IR than the field the next several years and it seems apparent he can not be reasonably expected to pitch an average of six innings ever again in his career. At this point it seems the best you can expect is 5ish inning and maybe he can go all year. Great pitcher to me means one who can ptich at a high level and eat innings. As long as you have a good bullpen behind him he's certainly one you can win with. But greatness to me are guys who can reasonable be expected to finish what they start a fair amount of time.

[3Putt]

Miles has solid defensive numbers and a decent OBP. Looks like a prototypical utility infielder to me. I'd rather have him than Counsell plus he does seem to kill the Brewers. If he's being signed as a back up then it's a good signing. Didn't we pay Counsell $3 mil a year? I'd take this deal over that anytime.

[Thurston Fluff]

The reason I think the Counsell signing and the Miles signing are not comparable is because of the makeup of the rest of the roster. Right or wrong Melvin signed Counsell to help the young core of players learn how to handle a pennant race all season long. The Cubs have a roster full of veterans, most of whom have several years of play of experience. Miles was singed for his on field performance alone. Counsell was for both on field and off field reasons.

[brewjihad]

Miles has solid defensive numbers and a decent OBP

 

He doesn't really have either of these things, though. His career OBP is .329, last year's .355 was fueled by an unsustainable line drive rate and a really high BABIP. If he hits .280-.290 like he should, he'll be right at .320 OBP again.

 

I don't know what you're referencing for "solid defensive numbers". UZR says he's about -3 runs at second and quite a bit worse at shortstop. PRM didn't like him last year at all: 93 ratio.

[3Putt]

Not sure why you'd use older data and assume it's more accurate than recent data.

[TooLiveBrew]

Because 2008 was a fluke for Miles. That's what he tried to explain in that post.

[3Putt]

Got it, thanks. From which site do you pull your data? It seems like a reasonable stat for a short term but not for a full season as the sampling size would be quite high.

[endaround]

A full season isn't that much and Miles only had 408 PAs, about 2/3s a season. Fangraphs basically has everything now.

[Ennder]

Harden, by the way, is not just another injury risk. He pitched as many innings in a Cubs uniform (71) as had in the two previous seasons (72 1/3) combined. His innings pitched in 2008 were equal to almost 75% of his innings since 2005. Seriously, this guy's innings high is 189 once, then 148, then such grand totals as 128, 46, and 25. This guy makes Ben Sheets look like CC Sabathia, innings-wise.

 

To add to this he hasn't just had one recurring problem either. Harden has something like 5-6 different points of injury on his arm/shoulder. The odds of him staying healthy for even half a season are really low. They might get lucky of course but most likely you are looking at 100 IP or so out of him.

 

The reason the Miles signing is bad was because they had plenty of mediocre MI with more upside than Miles. Fontenot, DeRosa, Theriot, Cedeno. Trading DeRosa for prospects to make room for Miles is a clear downgrade unless those prospects can help this year and I don't think they were expected to.

[Thurston Fluff]

They are owned by a cash strapped entity that has just filed for bankruptcy and they are trying to sell the team in a tough environment. Just prior to putting the team on the market they added a huge amount of payroll with Soriano, Marquis and Lilly along with huge bumps in salary for some of their own guys. Adding a bunch of overhead that inhibits the new owner from remaking the team as he sees fit does not help sell a team. Put all that together it's hard to claim trading DeRosa for what they did is anything other than a salary dump. I'm not sure if it was done to add flexibility to sign someone else for that money or just a way to trim the payroll. Either way it seems they are not going to be adding payroll.