Cubs Pitching Projections.

***Note - These are statistical projections that are intended as general guidlines, not gospel. So many variables come into play such as playingtime, injury, etc. The numbers set about are based on past performance and future projection.

I'm writing this piece to take a look at what type of production the Cubs roster could produce. The numbers are taken from Ron Shandler's Baseball Forcaster. Over the past 3 years I have found these projections to be fairly accurate. Of coarse this is not  fool proof. What I have found is that in general it is a good starting point when evaluating players. Are these numbers always accurate? Of coarse not but I have found that Shandler does a real good job at giving you a solid starting point and he does a great job picking potential breakout players as well as identifying players that will not match a past year's production.

Please take this post for what it is. Nothing more then a starting point of what we may be able to expect. I find Ron Shandler's projections to be far more accurate then say Bill James. Is he dead wrong sometimes? Absolutely but sometimes things cannot be forseen such as injury's, trades, and playingtime. And sometimes a player such as Pablo Sandoval just doesn't produce.  These numbers are suposed to be taken in a vaccum. For example he projects Adrian Beltre's numbers yet he has yet to sign anywhere and as we all know park/league can affect a player's numbers. So agian take these number's with a grain of salt.

                                           W     L   SV    IP     SO    ERA   WHIP

SP. Ryan Dempster       13   11    0   203   186   3.96   1.33

SP. Carlos Zambrano     9     9     0   153   133   4.12   1.42

SP. Randy Wells             10   11    0   174   121   4.14   1.37

SP. Carlos Silva              11   13    0   149    96    4.95    1.46

SP. Tom Gorzelanny       10  10    0   160   126   4.40    1.50

SP. Casey Cloeman         7    8     0   116    53     4.50    1.49

Wow after being on this site and repeatly hearing how we were OK with our SP I actually started beleiveing it. Just not the case here. You have Dempster who's solid and to be fair more of a elite #2 on a 1st division team them a true ace. That's not a knock on him just a fact. Consider where he would slot for the elite teams, like 3/4. After him Z is a wild card. Shandler has long been saying he was gonna fall off like this from his early workload. Z is no longer an ace and imo not even a #2. I think the best we can hope for is a solid #3 type. Yes he had a great 2nd half but consider the workload was only a half season and his LOB% was a ridiculously high 89% in his 2nd half surge. That rate is unstusainable or about 17% higher then the league average.

Here is what Shandler had to say about Wells:

As expected, couldn't repeat rookie buzz. But 1H H% partly to blamed CMD growth gives a bit of hope. All that said, he's really just not all that skilled.

Wells is our 3 and really is nothing better then a 4 on a bad team and a 5 on a decent team. For all of those who think that the difference between Wells and Garza is negligable please get into a BA chat, or make that statement to a respected scout via tweet, or make a post on a reputable SBN web page and see what the response is. That's all I'm gonna say. We really need to aquire a Garza type pitcher to have a chance to compete this year.

Gorzo we should just trade for a mid level prospect while he has value. I like Gorzo I just don't see him being on the team making or breaking us when we maybe able to get a usefull piece such as a Scott Sizemore. Silva and Coleman....excuse me while I lean over and puke into my waste paper basket. Shandler basically mirrors my thoughts on Coleman but to be fair I did ask Callis in the BA Cubs chat the other day if he thought Coleman could be a SP long term and his response was:

Jim Callis: Sure. He doesn't have the ceiling of some of the Cubs' other arms, but he really knows how to pitch and does all the little things well. Those guys have a habit of sticking around longer than might be expected. By the way, he didn't make the Top 30 because he exhausted his eligibility once he passed 50 innings in the majors

CL. Carlos Mamol     2   3   33    73  109   3.60  1.30

ST. Kerry Wood         4     4    5    58    65    3.88  1.36

ST. Sean Marshall    5    6     3    80   79     3.50  1.25

I'm not gonna run thorugh any other relievers because at this point the rest of the bullpen will not be defined until ST. I also won't post Cahsners projections because it is geared more twoard him being a RP and I think the Cubs will send him back to AAA to start again. I think our late innings is solid now but getting the ball to them might get real ugly.

Overall outside of Dempster our rotation is pretty dicey and we got some good late inning guys but the rest of the staff is a huge question mark. The line up should be solid with a chance to be pretty good but we just don't have the pitching to really be considered a contender for the division. On the plus side I think after Carpenter's AFL showing he and J.Jackson could help solidify the pen and at some point we should see Archer and Cashner in the rotation. So we do have some optimism for the staff. Oh, and again these are just projection stats and to be used as a baseline so take with a  grain of salt.

Discuss among yourselves.