On Monday we took a rambling tour of the Cubs pitching staff for 2013 and with the season starting for realsies on Monday, I’d better run through their awesome (cough, cough, gag, cough) offense today.

Let’s face it, this offense was shitty last year, and this year it’s basically the same shit with a slightly different smell.  They have two good, young hitters, an old, streaky one, and…David DeJesus.  Look out Cincinnati and St. Louis, HERE COME THE CUBS!

Starlin Castro had, for him, a rough season last year.  For the first time in his long, storied, three year career he didn’t hit .300.  His strikeouts went up, his on base average dropped (and it wasn’t so great to begin with) and he led the league with 13 caught stealings.

And yet, he’s a better player for it.  The main reason his average dropped was the Cubs forced him to start taking pitches.  Dale Sveum told him it was time to stop putting the first pitch he could get to into play and start working counts and picking out pitches he could really hammer.  It’s not as easy as it sounds, and Castro struggled with the approach.  He got off to a good start.  He hit .333 in April, then .304 in May, but the May numbers were pretty hollow.  His on base average was only .311, and that’s about the time the Cubs tried to get him to change his approach.

He hit .264 in June, then .235 in July.  To that point he’d only walked 16 times in more than 400 at bats.  His average crept up to .252 in August, but with 11 walks in that month alone, then nine more in September, when he finally looked comfortable again and he hit .311 with a .368 on base.  His power spiked in September, too, and he hit 10 doubles and a couple of homers and slugged .475.  Now THAT’s Starlin Castro.  He’s hit about .380 in the spring (not that it really matters) with only six strikeouts in almost 50 at bats.  Offense isn’t going to be his problem.

His problem, as the baseball experts like to tell us, is his defense.  Here’s what Starlin has to say to them:

He led the league in errors at shortstop (27) again.  Proof that he’s a shitty shortstop and he should move to third or center or the bullpen, right?  Well what does the fact that he also led NL shortstops in putouts and assists say about him?

He had a birthday on Sunday.  He’s 23.  Twenty-three!  He has 529 career hits.  That seems like a lot, is that a lot?

Speaking of young guys who are pretty good, the Cubs have an old man at first, Anthony Rizzo, who turned 23 last August.  I know, he’s positively ancient.  Remember the angst last year when the Cubs were struggling to score runs, and Rizzo was in Iowa hitting nine homers a night?  WHY DON’T THEY WANT TO WIN?  CALL HIM UP HE’S ROY HOBBS ONLY YOUNGER AND WITH LESS BULLET HOLES!

As you may have learned by now, these Cubs have a plan, and it doesn’t involve starting young players’ contract clocks before their time.  The Cubs were going to be shitty with or without Anthony, and so the team waited until June 23 to bring him up.  The extra time in Iowa did a few things for Anthony:

a) Destroying the Pacific Coast League for three months helped erase the sting of his overmatched run in 2011 as a 21 year old Padres rookie.
b) Helped him work more on plate discipline.
c) It got him out of the state just a couple weeks before he’d have been pressured into detasseling corn several days a week.

Rizzo’s a dream come true for the Cubs.  He’s a lefthanded hitter with a smooth stroke and power, he’s a plus defender at first base, he’s the right size for the position, and he’s by all accounts an awesome guy.  To get that for Andrew Cashner?  Holy crap.

Hey, it’s not that I don’t like Cashner, it’s just that it was pretty apparent at the time of the trade, and seems to be even more apparent now, that his arm will not allow him to be a starting pitcher.  He’ll be a dominant reliever, when healthy, and that’s certainly worth something, but you’d rather have the everyday masher at first.

I need to clear up a misconception about Darwin Barney.  People think I don’t like him, and that’s just not true.  It’s hard not to like an awesome defensive player, who is a very smart player, a very good baserunner, and who always says the right things.  Darwin just “gets it.”  What I don’t like is that Cubs fans think he’s not a complete pile of uselessness at home plate.  Darwin has almost no power, he posted a sub .300 on base average last year (and it wasn’t much better in 2011 (.313.))  Good defense anywhere has a value, but it needs to come with more offense at second.  Barney said in the spring that he looks at the guys the Cubs have in the system behind him and Starlin, guys like Javy Baez, Junior Lake, Arismendy Alcantara, etc. and that unless the Cubs employ a unique, several shortstops defense that he’s playing long term for a spot on somebody else’s team.

At third, the Cubs have a couple of exciting options.  While they wait for Ian Stewart‘s quad to heal before he can hit .209 with a billion strikeouts, we get to see Luis Valbuena play incredible defense and put up triple crown caliber offensive numbers.  Seriously, his batting average, homers and RBI will likely resemble that of what a thoroughbred horse might do if you gave him a bat.

It will be interesting to see when (if) Stewart is healthy just how much his bad wrist had affected him the last couple of years.  He’s a talented player, but rarely have those talents accomplished much for him.  Valbuena’s destined for a long career as a utility player, given that he’s a lefty bat and can play second, short and third.  It would behoove the Cubs to hurry up and find a third baseman for him to utility behind.

Wellington Castillo’s splits last year were ridiculous.  He crushed lefthanded pitching, to the tune of .476/.532/.667, but was crushed by righthanders .195/.223/.336.  Ouch.  Defensively, Welington is more than solid, and has a chance to be a pretty nice player.  It seems like he’s been around forever, but he’s only 26.

His backup, Dioner Navarro has been around forever.  But he’s only 28.  He just looks older because he’s so fat.  He’s not a bad choice for a backup catcher, unless, of course he gets in another slap fight with Matt Garza.

The outfield is a little…bad.  Alfonso Soriano had a suprisingly good year, last year.  His average wasn’t great (.262) but he hit 32 homers and drove in 108 runs and somehow made it on the field for 151 games.  Soriano’s a misunderstood player, and the meatiest of all meatheaded Cubs fans blame him for pretty much everything that’s gone wrong since 2007.  Soriano said he felt unappreciated by the Hendry regime, and while I could give a crap about that, part of his success last year was that the Cubs had no other options than to bat him cleanup.  Amazingly he was up to it.  They’ll spend this year trying to trade him, now that he only has two years left on his neverending contract.  I for one, don’t care if they trade him.  He’s not blocking anybody who needs playing time, the Cubs are going to have to eat most of his salary, and will likely have a hard time getting much value back for him, given his age, history and strikeout history.  He’s a good guy in the clubhouse, he is a hardworker and he sets the tone for young players.  You expect a lot more from a guy making $18 million, but in the end you have to take what you get.

One guy who will be traded is David DeJesus.  He’s still a good player (nothing more), who can play passable right or left field, he’s a lefty bat who gets on base and his wife has amazing cans.  The Royals, his original team, are said to be hot to reacquire him, so maybe something productive will come of that.  He’s in center to start the season, and if Brett Jackson shows anything in AAA that even hints that his new swing might cut down his strikeouts a little, the Cubs will move David to create a spot.

In right, it’s a platoon of underwhelming guys.  Nate Schierholtz is the lefty, and Scott Hairston is the righty in this buddy comedy gone wrong.  Hairston’s career was pretty “meh” until last year with the Mets when he hit 20 homers and everything else was “meh.”  He’s 33, so it’s not like there’s any development left. He is what he is.  He’s Jerry the Lesser’s little brother.  Oof.  Schierholtz was probably worth a flyer.  He’s long been a prospect, but his stints in San Francisco were marred by Bruce Bochy’s Dusty-like apprehension about playing youngsters, and the fact that any lefty not named Barry Bonds gets eaten alive by Pac Bell/PNC/Whatever Park.  His trade last year to the Phillies looked like a great chance for him.  But he only got 66 ABs with the Phils and only hit one homer and drove in five.  He’ll get at bats this year.  What he does with them is anybody’s guess.  But don’t expect too much.

The Cubs have taken a sensible approach to their bench.  It’s not a place for young players or prospects.  It’s for bums like Brent Lillibridge, Dave Sappelt and Steve Clevenger.  That sounds harsh, but really it’s for versatile players who you don’t care aren’t getting consistent at bats.  That’s those three (and Dioner Navarro).  The Cubs are going to use Clevenger as the backup at first and third until (if) Stewart comes back, or they find a live body on the waiver wire.  Lillibridge exists mostly to annoy White Sox fans who think he was actually good (he wasn’t) for them from 2010 until early last year.  Sappelt’s an interesting guy. He’s still young (26), but he’s not quite fast enough to be an everyday centerfielder, and he’s tiny (5’9) so he doesn’t project in a corner long term.  But he has always hit (for average, not power, though) in the minors, and hit well in almost 70 at bats with the Cubs last September.  He’s a fifth outfielder, probably, and if the Cubs had real faith in him, they probably wouldn’t have spent money on Scott Hairston.  Though, if Sappelt shows flashes in the time he does get, it might lead to a real shot late in the year, as Hairston figures to be shopped at the deadline.

So that’s it.  I told you there wasn’t much there.

Shallow starting pitching, an improved, but still bad bullpen, a top heavy offense and no depth.  Whoo!  Catch the fever!

So it’ll be year two of “We have no idea if Dale Sveum is any good or not” at Wrigley.  Best we distract ourselves with the absurd demands of the “roofies” trying to keep the Cubs from putting up signage, than actually pay attention to the shitstorm on the field.

Ugh.