Baseball

Diamond Eyes and Rocket Skates: Rick Hahn’s Off-Season

By Andy Jonathan 1739 0

Well that was a fun few months, wasn’t it?

Honestly if you had asked me back at the end of October what my hopes were for a good White Sox off season I would have told you I would’ve been satisfied with the team adding somewhere in the neighborhood of 5-8 WAR by plugging up the Black Hole of Sadness that was RF, DH and the 5th starter positions.

After the past few winters and the lack of anything that could be described as “remotely exciting,” my expectations were not enormous, despite this off season looming as the type that could be critical to make the last step from “rebuilding” to “competing” a reality. Which is understandable, as you can only watch guys like AJ Reed and Dylan Covey so long before your soul becomes jaded and calloused.

So when the Sox blew the market open just before Thanksgiving by signing the best (switch hitting) catcher on the market in Yasmani Grandal to a 4-year, $73 million dollar deal I nearly drove off the road and through the razor wire-covered fence separating me from the Air National Guard base in Atlantic City. Thankfully that didn’t happen, because then I would’ve missed out on the Sox hot pursuit of Zack Wheeler. While not ultimately successful, the rumors of the contract offered to Wheeler showed that Rick Hahn truly was not going to be fucking around this winter.

The Sox also traded for Nomar Mazara to play in a potential platoon in RF this season, which hopefully assures positive production out of the right field position for the first time in what feels like decades. The trade itself initially didn’t move the needle very much for me, but after reading between the lines of what Rick Hahn has said about Mazara’s potential and how little the Sox committed to the position financially makes me think there might be bigger things down the road for that spot in the OF (man George Springer would look good out there).

Lest anyone think Hahn was done, he then went and solved the 5th starter spot by welcoming back Gio Gonzalez to the South Side for a 3rd time on a 1 year deal. It doesn’t really need to be said, but Gio compared to the dreck that had been oozing out there every 5th day is a drastic upgrade to the staff. A few days later, Hahn put an end to the narrative that the Sox would never deal with a Scott Boras client by inking Dallas Keuchel to what is essentially a 4-year deal with club options. Keuchel isn’t Zack Wheeler, but he’s not exactly Jamie Navarro either.

At this point most of us figured that Hahn was about finished with signing people, and the majority of fans out there would have considered this winter to be a success. Yet Hahnta Claus had a few more gifts to deliver, the first showing up on Christmas day with the signing of Edwin Encarnacion to a 1 year deal worth $13 million with a club option for 2021.

Encarnacion is not the same player he was when he was batting .280 for the Blue Jays with 80 HR and 200 RBI. That being said he’s far from a league average player. While missing some games last season split in-between the Indians and Yankees due to a wrist fracture, Encarnacion was still able to mash 34 taters and knock in 89 RBI, all while maintaining a .344 OBP and ending the year with a 129 wRC+ rating. While his K rate has risen by about 4% in the last 2 seasons, his walk rate has stayed the same, which is what you’d expect from a player entering his age 37 season. If he can keep both at about 20 and 10% respectively there’s no reason to expect anything less than a 2.5 WAR season from him.

This is a sneaky-solid signing for the Sox, as Encarnacion has essentially been the same player for the last 8 years. Never less than 30 home runs in a season, and always right around an .875 OPS. His splits work pretty much the same against pitchers of either handedness, which solves some issues the Sox had against right handed pitching last season.

This also creates a hydra option at DH for Ricky Renteria, as you now have Encarnacion, Jose Abreu, Yasmani Grandal and James McCann available for the position. Managing Abreu and Encarnacion’s workload this season should be fairly simple work and keep both of them fresh throughout the year. It’s also an enormous upgrade at DH, and Encarnacion has the distinct chance to become the best hitter the Sox have played there since Jim Thome got run off because Ozzie and Kenny Williams fucking hated each other.

So at this point Hahn had solved the issues in RF, DH, 4SP and 5SP. Fuck it, may as well avoid the service time questions about Luis Robert by signing him to what amounts to an 8 year deal and buying him out of all his arbitration years. This deal at it’s core is very similar to the ones Hahn signed Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Timmy Anderson and Eloy Jiminez to. By betting heavily on what is essentially your future, the Sox get cost certainty for their payroll and potentially room to expand it the next two seasons.

This also all but guarantees that Robert will be the starting CF for the Sox on opening day, which makes the potential starting outfield look like Eloy/Robert/Mazara which is infinitely more palatable than what last year’s Eloy/Engel/A Department Store Mannequin.

With the starting outfield now pretty much set, Hahn added a solid bullpen arm in Steve Cishek on a one year deal for $5.25 million with a team option $6.75 million. Cishek had two good years with the Cubs, taking on a pretty hefty workload with the dumpster fire state of their bullpen. He racked up 134 innings in two seasons with a 2.55 ERA. He held righties to a minuscule .183/.260/.293, and his numbers against lefties weren’t to the point where he’s a specialist (.217/.367/.361).

While his peripherals sound a few alarm bells with a 4.54 FIP, some of that can be attributed to the sheer amount of work he was forced into with the Cubs. His strand rate was in line with his career averages, as were his BB and K rates, so the hope is with more workload management he can stave off any regression in the Sox bullpen.

So as it stands right now, the Sox opening day roster looks something like this:

C: Grandal/McCann

1B: Abreu/Encarnacion/Grandal

2B: Garcia

SS: Anderson

3B: Moncada

LF: Jimenez

CF: Robert

RF: Mazara

DH: Encarnacion/Abreu/Grandal

SP1: Giolito

SP2: Keuchel

SP3: Cease

SP4: Gonzalez

SP5: Lopez/Kopech/Rodon?

CP: Colome

RP: Marshall

RP: Herrera

RP: Cishek

RP: Bummer

 

Now that’s a lineup that will not only put some butts in seats (glares at Kenny Williams), but will give the Twins and Indians notice that the Central division is no longer a two horse race. For the first time in what feels like forever, hope blooms on the corner of 35th and Shields. How long that will last will depend on whether the Sox horrible injury luck persists into the 2020 season, and whether or not Hahn has the flexibility to trade or sign for the last few pieces needed for that final leap. It’s time to have fun watching Sox baseball again, and it couldn’t have happened at a better time considering the state of the other sports teams in Chicago. Game on!

 

 

Hockey

Game #47 – Hawks vs. Senators Preview: Ottawa…I Don’t Think So

By Sam Fels 1521 0

vs.

RECORDS: Hawks 20-20-6    Senators 16-22-7

PUCK DROP: 6:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

BULWORTHS: Silver Seven Sens

The Hawks get to remain in the remedial class after their win against the Ducks tonight, and arguably tomorrow, as they’ll head for the Eastern Canada swing. They kick it off tonight against the equally-rebuilding-as-the-Ducks Senators, before decamping east into La Belle Province to face another floundering O6 team in Montreal on Wednesday. But first things first, a contest out in the middle of nowhere Ontario. Even though basically Ontario is nowhere, and deep down even Ontario knows that.

The Senators aren’t quite as bad as they were supposed to be. This was supposed to be a Wings-like outfit, with a sad little point total as they raced to the #1 pick in June. And the Senators certainly aren’t good, but they haven’t redefined stink as we know it like the Motor City cadre. Still, they’re tied for the second-fewest regulation wins in the league with the just-conquered Ducks and two ahead of the Wings. Perhaps they just couldn’t anticipate just how bad the Wings would be. Who could?

Not that the Sens do anything well. They’re bottom-five in both goals-for and goals-against in the league. Their metrics aren’t much better, though they’re a little weird. They give up a ton of attempts, and have one of the worst Corsi-shares around. But their expected-goals marks are basically middle fo the pack, in that they don’t give up a ton of great chances. They’re not a great defensive team by any sense of the word, and they don’t have nearly enough firepower to make any team capable of breathing sweat. But they do limit the kinds of things they give up, which is more than you can say for the Hawks. In fact, if they were getting any kind of goaltending, they might barely be on the fringes of they playoff picture.

But the thing is, Craig Anderson is now three days older than water and Anders Nilsson is the very definition of “replacement level goalie.” So this is what you get.

The Sens have gotten breakout seasons from Anthony Duclair (spotlighted earlier) and Jean-Gabriel Pageau, the latter of which figures to be a pretty valuable commodity around the deadline. He’s cheap now at $3M and will make a decent 2-3 center for some contender down the stretch. He also is an impending UFA, so he’s going to get a major raise which probably isn’t in the interest of the Senators.

The only pieces that figure to be around whenever this thing turns in Ottawa is whichever garbage Tkachuk son resides there and Thomas Chabot. You may have heard about Chabot playing 37 minutes in a game recently and averaging about 27 minutes per night the past couple months. I mean, why not play your future pieces into dust now while you suck raw sewage, eh? I suppose names like Filip Chlapik, or Rudolfs Balcers (which sounds like a gastrointestinal problem), or Drake Batherson (which definitely was a character in Knives Out) could make the list before the year is out but they have some work to do. The road is long for the Sens, let’s just say that.

For the Hawks, Robin Lehner gets his “revenge” game or whatever as a former Senator before Corey Crawford gets the hometown start in Montreal tomorrow, where he generally has flourished. Thanks to the demotion of  John Quenneville, which was done because the Hawks actually feared putting him on waivers, means that Dylan Sikura gets back in the lineup. Zack Smith also has this as a homecoming, having spent his entire career in Ottawa before moving south.

Neither the Senators or Canadiens are any damn good, so the Hawks might want to gobble up these points before seeing a rejuvenated, if not beat up, Leafs squad on Hockey Night. They’re getting close to the bye, which generally has seen them turn the motor off. And that’s fine if they’ve scratched this season. If they’re still planning on making something of it, these are games you have to have. Well, they have to have them all but we know how they do against other teams actually competing for playoff spots, but you know how this goes.

Hockey

Game #47 – Hawks vs. Senators Spotlight: I Do Duclair

By Sam Fels 1357 0

You don’t need more ammo to hang the Hawks front office out to dry these days. We even feel slightly guilty about doing so. Piling on and all that. But we can’t help ourselves. Anthony Duclair might go down as another one they missed on. It’s getting to be a very long list.

It’s hard to believe Duclair is still only 24, as this is his sixth season in the NHL. And he’s having what anyone would call a breakout season, with 21 goals already and 32 points in 44 games. The former mark is already a career-high and the second is only 12 points short of another one. It’s all resulted in his first All-Star appearance.

Now, whenever you see a spike like this from a player that hadn’t before approached these kinds of numbers, you are tempted to dismiss it as a shooting-percentage binge and just the way of the things sometimes, and that the player will soon return to the herd safety of anonymity. And yes, Duclair is shooting 16.7%, a career-mark. But it’s not that far above his career-mark of 13.9%. To put it another way, if Duclair were potting goals at his normal rate amongst his shots, he’d still have 17 goals. It would be enough to make you notice.

There’s an old corollary in hockey, which is used to lower the accomplishments of players on bad teams, that “someone has to score the goals.” And surely Duclair is benefitting from getting top six minutes that never came to him in Arizona or Chicago or even Columbus. He’s getting 12 minutes per night at even-strength, the most he’s seen. And he’s seeing nearly three minutes of power play time, which is nearly double what’s gone on in previous seasons. So the five goals and 12 points on the man-advantage are boosting the totals a bit.

Still, Duclair is doing more than just puttering along with more time. His shots, chances, and expected goals per 60 are all way up, and you couldn’t argue he’s benefitting from better teammates. Unless Jean-Gabriel Pageau really does something for you. And hey, we’re not here to kink-shame. He’s just getting to better areas more often and firing more, which is a good way to score, and then to open up space for others. “Making yourself dangerous,” Hawk.

While you might not have projected this when he played 23 games for the Hawks two years ago, it also is easy to look back and wonder why he couldn’t have been given another season. You’ll recall his season was ended early after an ankle injury caused by Brad Marchand literally slingblading him in Boston. Duclair’s numbers with the Hawks weren’t very impressive at that point, just two goals and six assists.

Look deeper, though, and you get a little frustrated. Duclair couldn’t buy a bucket here, shooting below 7% for his stay. And his individual metrics–his shots, his chances, were amongst the lowest in his career. But his team-metrics when on the ice were decent enough. +2.2 in Corsi and at the team-rate in expected goals.

You can’t say he wasn’t given a big chances, as his most common linemates that year were Jonathan Toews and Alex DeBrincat. So the eight points in 23 games certainly were a disappointment,

Still, the following season, here is a sampling of forwards the Hawks gave time to instead of giving Duclair another season to see if his SH% could rebound: Chris Kunitz, Brendan Perlini, Drake Caggiula, a deceased Marcus Kruger, Alex Fortin, John Hayden, Andreas Martinsen. Out of all that muck, only Caggiula can claim to be helpful, and that’s really as nothing more than a fourth liner.

Perlini was certainly worth a look to see if you couldn’t get him to care given his skills, and Fortin was at least fast (nothing else though). But the rest, again, were grind-y fourth-line types who checked all the wrong boxes that the Hawks can’t seem to get past. Duclair flashed skill and speed, something they just don’t value nearly high enough beyond anyone in the top six. Duclair wouldn’t save them from the mess they’re in now, but he would have helped in both the past seasons. He was certainly worth a one-year deal more than Kunitz was, we know that for sure. But it still feels that the Hawks feel if you aren’t in the top six, you have to be a foaming shit-beast instead of just having more skill and scoring stocked in the lineup.

The Hawks aren’t alone, of course. The Coyotes aren’t getting anything out of him now, and even Richard Panik moved on (what they received for Duclair). The Jackets got their six weeks out of Ryan Dzingel and now have nothing either. But at some point it would be nice to write about the Hawks actually succeeding on a reclamation project and then keeping that player for long-term benefit. It’s been a while.

Hockey

Game #47 – Hawks vs. Senators: Hedley Lamarr’s Halfwits, Nitwits, Dimwits

By Sam Fels 1288 0

Whichever Garbage Tkachuk Son Is On This Team – We can’t tell them apart and we don’t think there’s any need. This one hasn’t drummed up the same controversy as the other dreaded Laramie, but give him time and he will. As it is with all these Tkachuk’s, and really any son of a former player, it’s hard to take them seriously as some hardened badass when all they are is rich kids who never had to answer for anything given their dad’s status. One wonders what life must’ve been like in the Tkahuk house. Probably Keith making his kids fight in the backyard to see which one gets to eat dinner that night.

Anthony Duclair – Nothing to do with him of course, as he’s having a breakout season. But this was another young player the Hawks didn’t show enough patience with, especially as his short time here was ruined by Brad Marchand. He washed out of other places so the Hawks aren’t alone, but they certainly could have used another forward with speed and skill. Instead, we have Matthew Highmore.

Eugene Melnyk – They don’t come much worse in ownership than this. Crooked, cheap, and blaming the fans for all the problems. When he’s not complaining he’s crying poor. He’d fit perfectly with the Ricketts family.

Hockey

Game #47 – Hawks vs. Senators: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1103 0

Hawks

Notes: Hawks only had an optional skate today so we don’t know what exactly the lines will be. It would make sense to just insert Sikura up top where Quenneville was, as he and Toews had something going last year. More likely, you’ll see Kane up there with Sikura and Nylander flanking Carpenter. Or we could see a return of Sikura-Dach-Kane. But does it really matter?…Koekkoek, shockingly, hasn’t really done anything wrong to see himself out of the lineup, so Gilbert should continue to sit…

Senators

Notes: The Sens only had an optional this morning as well, so we don’t know who is filling out the last forward spot. It’s been Chlapik of late, but he’s not actually listed on their roster at the moment because NHL teams absolutely suck at updating their websites…Chabot hasn’t played less than 27 minutes since the middle of December and has played over 30 minutes in six of the last 10…Anderson has given up 18 goals in his last four starts so it very well may be Nilsson tonight…

Football

Long Journey To The Middle – Chicago Bears Position Review: Linebackers (or So Long, and Thanks for All The Lynch)

By Tony Martin 1494 0

For the purposes of this article, I’ll be considering edge rushers as linebackers.

Roster/PFF Grade/Stats:

Kevin Pierre-Louis (90.5) 27 tackles, 0 sacks
Khalil Mack (86.2) 34 tackles, 9 sacks, 4 forced fumbles
Nick Kwiatkoski (72.6) 51 tackles, 3 sacks, 1 forced fumble, 1 interception
Leonard Floyd (69.8) nice 32 tackles, 3 sacks
Danny Trevathan (61.9) 54 tackles, 1 sack, 1 forced fumble
Isaiah Irving (61.1) 8 tackles
James Vaughters (60.0) 3 tackles
Roquan Smith (52.4) 76 tackles, 2 sacks, 1 interception
Joel Iyiegbuniwe (42.1) 2 tackles
Aaron Lynch (36.0) 2 tackles, 2 sacks

First, let’s parse out the data. Irving and Iyiegbuniwe aren’t on the team next year, Vaughters might be. Aaron Lynch needs to go, though. I can shrug off Irving and Iggy’s small sample size, but Lynch played in every game this year. He logged 244 snaps, about 15 a game, and he sucked. I thought he was only brought here to be part of Vic Fangio’s defense as an old friend from San Francisco, but they kept him around for another season and it was a season too long. As low as I am on Irving, I’d rather see him get some run, or see if James Vaughters can play with the starters for a spell. Lynch has to be gone next year, right? Right?

Roquan Smith started off slow, got hot in the middle of the season, and cooled off before his injury against Dallas in week 14. Opponents caught 75% of the passes he was credited as the primary defender on, which is about right given the amount of swings and dumpoffs he was required to stop. His tackling is still his best quality, and he maintained the same level of dominance there in 2019 as his stellar rookie campaign. His only two sacks both came against Detroit in week 13 against first-time starter David Blough, so take that with a grain of salt too. Chuck Pagano needs to make sure to scheme better for Roquan to move in space. If Danny Trevathan doesn’t come back next year, the pressure will be on Smith to do all the things he does so well while also being the main focus of all the second level blocking on inside runs. For what it’s worth, Smith was rated highly for his block-shedding coming out of college, so at least there’s hope.

If the Bears think they could do okay with replacing Trevathan with Nick Kwiatkoski, it would be Kwit’s excellent last few games that made his resume too much to pass up. He hadn’t played as many snaps as he did in 2019 since his rookie season, and the team and fans saw a kid who has developed from playing behind outstanding veterans and learned how to be a Swiss Army knife. He is a stud on special teams, but if the Bears end up letting Trevathan go and sign the cheaper Kwiatkoski, they might have to find a new replacement inside linebacker that can go make the plays he does on kick coverage. One of these two dudes leaves and is starting in a new uniform Week 1 of next year, it’s just a question of who. I personally think the Bears pay AR12 and let Danny walk, which hurts my heart but it is what it is.

I’m a sucker for Leonard Floyd but I kinda waxed too poetic about him in my team defense review, so I’m gonna skip it now. Just know, I say nice things about his ability to set the edge and I think the Bears should seriously consider re-signing him depending on how this year goes.

Khalil Mack is a hard player to write about because he really reminds me how amateur I am in all ways, even in talking about how awesome he is to watch. So many real journalists have poured over Mack that it almost feels pointless to say anything. His numbers could never truly represent exactly how much shit he ruins and how much his being on the field alters the very concept of the way the game is played. You know whenever any referee apologist says something like “well, there’s holding on every play” they’re right, but it’s kinda hard to focus on long enough to prove? Yeah, Khalil Mack gets chipped, double-teamed, and held on literally every single play. It’s like watching a created player in Madden that you just said “fuck it” on and made everything a 99 overall, but instead of shredding CPU lineman while quarterbacks takes seven-step drops, the AI actually gameplanned to stop Mack and half the time it still didn’t matter. The game would stop every play if they called holding on Khalil Mack the way they do for most other players, which is truly a blessing and a curse.

Basically, this linebacker corps has studs in all spots and maybe two quality backups. This offseason is gonna be a tough one, but hopefully the Bears linebackers go into 2020 being their strongest unit once again. That’s a special feeling that makes all Chicagoans do three things: look for that old Bears starter coat in their closet, pretend for one fleeting moment that Mike Ditka wasn’t a hardcore right wing drunken buffoon, and just vibe, baby.

Live From The Five Hole

Live From The Five Hole – In The Thickening Of Fear

By Sam Fels 1393 0

Rose Rankin, Fifth Feather, and Yours Truly discuss Stan Bowman’s puffy-chested press conference, CCYP’s unique morning-skate thoughts, the folly of a Robin Lehner contract, and just how much we all hate both Matthew Tkachuk and Zach Kassian. Enjoy.

Song credit – Suzanne Vega, “Blood Makes Noise”

 

 

Download | Spotify | iTunes | Google Play | Stitcher | RSS

 

 

Football

Long Journey to the Middle – Bears Positional Report Cards: Defensive Line – All Sunshine and Rainbows Until Akiem Hicks is Missing

By Wes French 1161 0

2019 is gone and we’re happy to send a lot of the Bears season with it. That isn’t entire the case when you get to the defensive line. The group started strong and battled through an in-season IR stint from team leader Akeim Hicks to produce one career year and plenty of positives to build on.

The Bears playing out of a 3-4 base and guys like Khalil Mack and Leonard Floyd being considered outside linebackers can make this group a little under-appreciated and overlooked on Sundays, but of all the units we’ve been through/still have to go through the DTs might have the best marks on the season.

I would confidently call this unit the best on the team if not for that eight week Hicks absence, the one that kinda sorta kicked off the mid-season spiral to hell…

The Good

Nick Williams had himself a career year at the old (NFL) age of 29. The fifth year veteran hadn’t even dressed for more than five games in a season since his rookie campaign (and even most of the 14 games from that year came via special teams work), but his 2019 saw him arrive in a big way. Williams entered the season with zero career sacks, zero turnovers or turnovers created, zero passes defended and all of 18 tackles over four seasons. His 2019:

So he nearly quadrupled his total tackles, added his first six sacks and his first two fumble recoveries for his entire career in his fifth season. Williams did his best to keep things churning along as the team dealt with long absences from Hicks and Bilal Nichols, but unfortunately his efforts weren’t enough on their own to save the team from the losing streak that sunk the season. Still, Williams at least did enough to get himself paid after taking the minimum and bouncing around the league for a few years (probably outside of Chicago), and we can all be happy about that.

While the team as a whole struggled to put pressure on opposing QBs all season, the D-Linemen accounted for 10.5 sacks among themselves and that’s with Hicks playing a mere third of the season or so. Toss in another dozen or so tackles for loss and you’ve got yourself a pretty steady, rounded rotation. The problem was not enough of the other groups on defense could match the consistency or

The Bad…and Ugly

Williams having a career year was not simply because he announced himself in training camp and stormed out to rule the season from day one. The Bears saw injuries to Hicks and Nichols very early in the season, forcing Williams into a lot of action starting in Week 2 when Nichols broke his hand. Roy Robertson-Harris (2.5 Sacks, 30 tackles) took advantage of the additional playing time as well, not to the tune of Williams but enough to be noticed early as another possible gem found by Pace along the defensive front.

This all quickly went out the window when Hicks left the Week 5 London game and didn’t return until December. For all the positives this group accounted for and next-man-up abilities, missing Hicks shone brightly. Many of the accolades discussed for Williams and Robertson-Harris came early in the season, as neither standout recorded a sack after Week 10. Eddie Goldman is a fine young nose tackle, the type of guy you hardly notice in a good way, and he was impacted by the Hicks injury with his arguably his worst overall season after signing a nice extension last year. Goldman posted his lowest tackle and tackle for loss total in three years and his lowest sack total (1) in his entire five year career.

The long and short of this is that Akiem Hicks is a massive force for this defense, and without him the whole system damn near collapses around itself.

Any Hope?

The team will return a hopefully healthy Hicks and Nichols, Goldman, and holds RFA status on Robertson-Harris. Ryan Pace hasn’t ever gone over an original round tender on an RFA (See Cam Meredith and Bryce Callahan), but with Williams surely gone and a few warm bodies left behind him it probably stands to be worth the additional $1.13M to slap a 2nd round tender on Robertson-Harris and ensure a strong severance should someone want to sign him away.

The real key is making sure Hicks and Nichols are healthy and ready to start 2020 and that they stay that way. If we learned anything in 2019, it’s that Hicks stirs this drink on defense. The EDGE rushers are better with him causing chaos in the middle of the line, which  makes life on the ILBs and secondary easier and leads to many more turnover opportunities and so on. Even with strong replacements on the roster, no one is Akiem Hicks, and it turns out that’s something this Bears team really, really needs.

Final Grade: B-

Baseball

Cubs Trade Tony Kemp, Which Shouldn’t Matter, But Kind Of Does, Which Is Sad

By Sam Fels 1658 0

It’s a minor move, and it was hard to figure where Tony Kemp would fit onto this team anyway. In fact, the whole thing with Kemp was weird, as he was received for Martin Maldonado, whom the Cubs only had for a couple of weeks while Contreras was hurt. And they gave up an actual arm for that, even though Mike Montgomery asked out. But he might have been nice to have when the whole bullpen and rotation was burning in September. Like I said, just weird.

Anyway, Kemp was shipped out to Oak-town for Alfonso Rivas today. Rivas is a mid-level 1st base prospect who apparently can’t hit for power, at least not yet. But hey, that carries on a tradition for the Cubs that started with Mark Grace and extended to Hee-Seop Choi, which Grace is still complaining about. Rivas got about eight games above High-A last year, and probably figures to start in AA this year. Nothing more than a lottery ticket.

While Kemp’s production was never going to be anything, and appears to be the second year in a row the Cubs got fascinated with the idea of a pinch runner for playoff games they ended up never playing, it makes the Cubs bench even uglier. And dear reader, it was ugly before. This is the kind of bench that you’d read the names of to punish your children for breaking the rules of the house.

As it stands: Albert Almora, Victor Caratini, Daniel Descalso, Robel Garcia, and Hernan Perez. That’s one glove, a backup catcher who might be good, a backup infielder who isn’t, a switch hitting Pedro Cerano who’s not nearly as fun, and whatever Hernan Perez can do (i.e. not much).

Some of this will be alleviated if Nico Hoerner can make the team out of Arizona and shift David Bote back to a support role. But if that doesn’t happen, the fear is that the Cubs will face a situation where all their regulars are stepping on their tongues come August and can’t finish the season strongly or at all, like we saw with Baez, Bryant, Rizzo, and one or two others last season. And there isn’t anyone out of Iowa who can help solve this right now.

It doesn’t even help the Cubs on the payroll front, as Kemp wasn’t even arb-eligible so the savings are minimal. Most estimates have the Cubs still $2M-$6M over the $208M threshold, which is clearly where they’re aiming to get under. So how they can improve the bench while still cutting payroll is going to be a neat trick. And by “neat” I mean “awful and probably make you feel bad.”

Of course, a simple trade of Quintana while taking no salary back will solve this, except it would weaken the rotation something fierce. But then again, the Cubs don’t seem to care about that kind of thing. Y’know, the thing where you try to win games, and like a lot of them so you can go to the playoffs and possibly win more games and even like, 11 of them. Did you know they give you a trophy for getting under the luxury tax? Yep, gonna fly that flag right out there in right-center field.