(Pre)season of Discontent

I had a long post with stats and links but another tab decided to crash Firefox and I lost everything because I didn't save it. GRRRR. Anyway, the Cubs have really pissed me off lately and I just want to get this off my chest before the weekend.

My feelings about a potential Todd Walker trade for Luis Matos? Sickening. I've been living with blinders for the past week or so (read: finals) and I've been a bit behind on sports news and rumors but apparently this deal almost went through were it not for Baltimore getting greedy (they're the clear winner in this deal) and asking the Cubs for some cash to offset Walker's contract. WHAT!?!

The Cubs were willing to trade a dependable bat for what? A guy who most likely will loose his job to Corey Patterson if he stays in Baltimore, hits lefties worse than Jacque Jones, and will almost certainly take at bats away from Matt Murton who has done well this spring and replace him at 2B with Jerry Harriston Jr. or Nefi MF'ing Perez. This is supposedly all because the Cubs feel Walker doesn't turn the double play as well as Nefi or Harriston. Did I blackout and wake up in Crazytown?

Here is a comparison of each player's career fielding and hitting stats:

Cubs 2B Fielding Comparison (Career)

Player	Field%	lgField%	RangeFactor	lgRangeFactor^
Walker	.981	.981	.437	.429
Perez	.988	.981	.457	.434
Harriston Jr.	.980	.981	.497	.438

^- off due to numbers of games played in different leagues

Cubs 2B Batting Comparison (Career)

Player	BA	OBP	SLG	RC/27*
Walker	.290	.348	.441	5.53
Perez	.270	.301	.380	4.01
Harriston Jr.	.261	.334	.371	3.98
Matos	.260	.316	.379	3.99

*- Runs created per 27 outs. See here for further explanation.

I threw Matos into the batting comparison, not to depress you, but to illustrate how dumb this is. The Cubs would be giving up the 1.5 more runs Walker is worth over Perez and Harriston Jr. for marginally better fielding at second base and adding what amounts to another bat with the same below average numbers to the bench. So instead of having three second basemen with one above average bat in the field and two subpar bats on the bench, the Cubs will have 2 second basemen with 1 subpar bat in the field and 2 subpar bats on the bench.

(Insert slow clap here)

Genius guys, real genius.

Filed in: sports mlb cubs