Anthony Rizzo, one year later

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of Anthony Rizzo's debut with the Cubs. So how have things worked out for the guy they extended through 2019 with club options through 2021?

He's had his ups and downs, hot streaks and cold, but averaged out, the overall numbers look good. His day off last Wednesday was his first of the year, and with one day off last season after his callup, he's played exactly 162 games going into today's action. A nice, "round" number in baseball terms.

So here are the totals: 622 at-bats, 84 runs, 169 hits, 37 doubles, 2 triples, 27 home runs, 94 RBIs, 60 walks, 8 stolen bases in 13 attempts with a slash line of .272/.342/.468 as a Cub. That's a lot of run production for a team that's struggled offensively.

His numbers are comparable to Prince Fielder's first full season with the Brewers, with slight upticks in runs scored, extra base hits and steals, and with four fewer errors and 13 more RBIs. Fielder had a couple of spike years in terms of home runs and RBIs, and quickly learned to draw a lot of walks - as has Rizzo in the past month, with 18 through 22 games in June - but his career averages of 36 homers and 108 RBIs with 33 doubles, 91 runs scored and a .286 average don't seem at all out of the realm of possibility for Rizzo, and Fielder is signed to a nine-year deal worth $214 million.

Meanwhile, Yonder Alonso, the guy whom the Padres thought made Rizzo expendable, has only 15 home runs, 91 RBIs and 69 runs scored for San Diego after more than 200 games.

So far, so good.

Marmol, Stewart say goodbye

The Cubs designated Carlos Marmol for assignment today, marking an end of the longest tenure in the organization. Marmol was signed in 1999 as a catcher/outfielder and was converted to a pitcher beginning in 2002.

The Cubs tried to fix what wasn't broken in Marmol, turning an all-star setup man into a shaky closer, and he never really recovered. I'm confident he'll turn things around, though once you lose the fans in Chicago, winning them back is no simple task, so it's best for both parties that he do it elsewhere.

He leaves with a career ERA of 3.50, with high totals in strikeouts and walks but holding opponents to a .185 batting average and .301 slugging percentage over eight seasons. Like Mariano Rivera, the numbers are inflated by a few starts early in his career. As a reliever, despite the rocky outings that punched his ticket out of town, he had an ERA of 3.15 while batters hit .176 and slugged .273 against him. Not too shabby.


Former Astros outfielder Brian Bogusevic got the call to fill Marmol's roster spot after batting .319 with 10 homers at Iowa. Despite the numbers, I don't see a major role for him unless the Cubs are looking to move an outfielder. Even with David DeJesus on the DL with a separated shoulder, his addition gives the North Siders six outfielders on the active roster. That's a lot of outfielders when none of them can fill in at first or third.

I was less disappointed to read that Ian Stewart was given his unconditional release. Stewart wasn't expected to fill the shoes of Aramis Ramirez at third, but Tyler Colvin wasn't going to turn things around with the Cubs and D.J. LeMahieu wasn't slated to be a starter anyway. I can't blame the Cubs for rolling the dice with Stewart even if it just didn't work out. He didn't win a roster spot out of spring training and was batting .168 at Iowa after hitting .201 last season.

So who's next? I keep hearing Scott Feldman's name in trade rumors, and I'd rather see them extend his one-year deal than send him packing. I'd rather see Matt Garza go if they have to deal a starter. There's no question of Garza's stuff or his makeup, or his trade value and potential upside for that matter, but if the Cubs' chances rely on him getting 32 starts a year, that's a big risk.

Meanwhile, based on the big names in the farm system, I don't see any outfielders on the active roster whom I consider part of the big picture. Nate Schierholtz is having the best season of his career, and that could bring a basket of goodies from the right team. Maybe with one-plus seasons left on his deal, this is the year somebody takes a chance on Alfonso Soriano.

In any case, changes are coming.

Cubs make "safe" pick in 3B Bryant at #2 over highly-touted pitchers

The Cubs used their #2 overall pick in the first-year player draft Thursday to take 6’5” third baseman Kris Bryant from San Diego State. Reports call him the best hitter in the draft, and his 31 home runs this year – in only 62 games - were ten more than anyone else in Division I and more than something like 200 entire teams hit.

Harold Reynolds called it the safest pick in the draft, and I agree. With half the Cub infield locked into long-term deals, no need to futz with Darwin Barney’s hold on second base and a pair of their top minor league prospects being outfielders, it’s a happy coincidence that the top power hitter in the draft plays the position that was the organization’s biggest question mark.

Beyond the home runs, he drove in 62, scored 80 times and drew 66 walks while batting .329 with an OBP of .493. Either he has good plate discipline, pitchers were afraid of him, or both. I'll take that. If Bryant really is the top position player in the draft, by playing a position where the Cubs aren't committed for the long haul, it was a good call. I like when players can jump straight to the majors, which doesn’t happen often and I wouldn’t expect it, but I do expect Bryant to be fast-tracked, and Dale Sveum said he expects to see him at Wrigley before too long. A player who dominates like that at a major university is wasting his time in Rookie ball facing the same kind of players he’s already outclassed.

Pitchers Mark Appel and Jonathan Gray got most of the headlines as the top names in the draft, and Appel was in fact the top overall pick by Houston, but history isn’t on the side of pitchers who go at the top of the draft. I say go ahead and load up on arms further down and hope you strike gold, and the Cubs did that through most of the rest of the draft, but if there's a future Hall of Famer near the top of the draft, it probably isn't a pitcher.

Among players selected among the top-four-overall picks in the draft since its inception in 1965, here’s the list of Hall of Famers: Reggie Jackson (#2, 1966), Robin Yount (#3, 1973), Dave Winfield (#4, 1973), Paul Molitor (#3, 1977), and Barry Larkin (#4, 1985). Ken Griffey (#1, 1987) will soon join them, Chipper Jones (#1, 1990) wouldn’t be a bad bet, and Alex Rodriguez (#1, 1993), well, we’ll have to see how his reputation plays out, but the numbers are there.

That’s not a bad percentage of upper-echelon talent representing 126 picks in the first 29 years of the draft. We’re not talking Veterans’ Committee selections here, Larkin might wind up the only one of the lot who wasn’t inducted on the first ballot, and he didn’t have to wait long. A-Rod’s 2,901 hits so far only ranks fourth among them. Reggie’s 563 homers are good for third. All except Molitor won at least one MVP award, all except Griffey played in a World Series.

And none of them are pitchers.

In fact, not a single pitcher in the Hall was even picked in the first round. Roger Clemens (#19, 1983) is the only eligible first-round pitcher who pitched like a Hall of Famer throughout his career out of at least the first quarter century of the amateur-draft era, and the voters haven’t proven to be too keen on alleged Mitchell List types. Dwight Gooden (#5, 1982) looked like a lead-pipe cinch at 26 with a 132-53 record, but was only 62-59 after that as injuries and his personal demons began to catch up with him.

There isn’t even a second-round pitcher in the Hall. Greg Maddux (2nd round, #31, 1984) would pretty much have to drive over a playground full of children and be found passed out drunk behind the wheel with a trunkload of smack not to snap that streak when he becomes eligible next year, and Tom Glavine (2nd round, #47, 1984) will almost certainly go in with him, but Dennis Eckersley is currently the highest-drafted pitcher to go to Cooperstown, a third-round pick at #50 in 1972.

Think about that. In eighteen years of drafts from 1965-1982 (giving Clemens the benefit of the doubt), through the first 49 picks of each, that gave 851 opportunities for major league scouts to identify a future Hall of Fame pitcher and convince their GM to take a chance on him, and they didn’t find a single one. That doesn't count the old January amateur drafts or supplemental picks, and no Hall of Fame pitchers came from those, either.

Should that really be all that surprising?

How many times have you heard a commentator talk about a pitcher who finally found success when he went from being a thrower to being a pitcher? That’s not something you see in top-rated pitching prospects. If you’re 6’6” and 230 and can rear back and bring the heat at 95 mph against high-school or college kids, you don’t need the same toolbox of skills that you’ll need in the majors. You don’t need to be smart or crafty, you don’t need to mix up your pitch selection and your speeds to get guys out when yours may be the only 95 mph fastball they’ll ever see. Most significantly, if there’s a fundamental flaw in your mechanics, you probably haven’t thrown enough yet to wreck your elbow and/or shoulder.

It’s not the same with non-pitchers. Their livelihood doesn’t depend on repetitive strain on the same muscles and tendons 100 times a day where they’re pushing their bodies to the limit. Yet those are the guys who light up the charts with their stats and get the big press leading up to draft day. Those are the guys where teams don’t want them to fall to someone else first. Kerry Wood (#4, 1995). Mark Prior (#2, 2001). Stephen Strasburg (#1, 2009). Wood had Tommy John surgery after his rookie season, hit the disabled list 14 times in 13 seasons, and made his last start at age 29. Prior made his last major league appearance at 25 and hasn’t thrown more than 25 innings in a season in seven years, still trying to fight his way back. Strasburg, having already had Tommy John surgery and subsequently been shut down in the stretch drive of a pennant race as a precaution, is now back on the disabled list.

That’s not to say the Cubs didn’t benefit by picking Wood and Prior, at least through five games of the 2003 NLCS, but like too many top pitching prospects, they peaked early. Randy Johnson was the #36 pick in 1985, the 17^th pitcher selected, and he didn’t become an impact pitcher until an age where the book was already closed on Prior. Seven pitchers selected ahead of him never made it to the big time, and the best of those who did was Bobby Witt (#3 overall), who wound up at 142-157. Yet in the same draft, ten of the first 14 position players drafted played at least 1,000 games in the majors, including Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro and Will Clark.

So I'm glad the Cubs resisted the temptation to grab Gray. Not just to have a guy who might impact 150+ games a season instead of 32, but to have a better shot for that high-level pick to still be impacting the team ten years down the road.

To Kris Bryant, best of luck, kid. I hope we see you soon, and I'll be following the numbers until we do.