There’s a prevailing school of thought that players’ effectiveness can be judged solely by the numbers or rather analytics. In today’s game, when players appear to be declining, experts immediately point to the drop in velocity or spin rate (for pitchers) and hard-hit balls for hitters. I’ll agree they are important in some cases, but often the eye test or following trips to the IL can be as effective.
Most fans and media members will agree that pitchers have a limited number of pitches-nobody can predict the limit for each pitcher until after their career ends. So that rules out predictiveness. We can always look at the back of that final baseball card and draw the patent conclusions. I go one step further, believing pitchers-especially relievers have a usefulness with a specific team and am willing to go out on a limb as to when that date will arrive.
Every ML organization is different despite similar structures. I’ve recently been laughing at the organizational specific nomenclature with teams not being able to get out of their own way of using fancy terms to describe simple responsibilities. Teams with inexperienced managers will rely more heavily on the front office to make decisions about when (and if) a player ever reaches his apogee with the given team. Furthermore, they have to figure whether this peak lasts more than a season. Then they have to decide how much to pay the guy and if they’ll be getting anything of value for the last couple of seasons of a long contract.
As a kid I foolishly never considered Tony Perez, a great power hitter because he only hit 30+ homers twice in his 22-year career. At the time, I knew he was an extremely dangerous thorn in the Cubs’ side. I also marveled at his consistency and would consider him one of the most prolific run-producers of the past 50 years. I’m getting to the idea of an extended apogee.
In the eleven seasons (1967-77), Perez drove in 90+ runs every season. In 1980, at age 37, he drove in 105 runs for the Red Sox. His career .279 average and 379 home runs aren’t too shabby either and will measure up favorably with 98% if today’ best “sluggers.”
For the most part during Perez’s career, he was stuck with the Reds and didn’t get to test the free agent market too often and was underpaid by today’s standards. This is relevant as the Cubs try to sort out third base for 2025 and beyond.
The Cubs are counting on rookie (prospect) Matt Shaw to take the position this spring and run with it. Until he hangs up his spikes, nobody knows whether he’ll peak with Chicago or some other team. Should he struggle early, the internal options aren’t so promising. (Vidal Brujan, Jon Berti, Gage Workman, and Nicky Lopez).
In recent years, the Cubs guessed wrong when it came to 3b-1b-of, Patrick Wisdom whose peak really only lasted one season, .231. 28/61 and the drop the following two seasons wasn’t so drastic to warrant moving on. Yet, the productivity didn’t help the team, but his 20+ homers for three seasons, might prove to be a high point of the decade. Unfortunately, the Cubs couldn’t parlay that good first season into a trade for a different commodity. I’m not sure if the numbers suggested he could improve upon that first full season or if they could merely live with a plateaued Wisdom?
The Cubs will be much better if Shaw lives up to the hype and he gets off to a good start, but fans and the media can compare the other options. Unfortunately, what we think has no bearing on who will man the hot corner in 2025.
