Cubs Bring Back Pitching For Lee
Although word has been out for much of the day that Derrek Lee was on the way to Atlanta in a waiver deal, the deal wasn’t made official until 5:25 Eastern Time, according to Fox Sports’s Ken Rosenthal. We now know, as well, that the Cubs will be sending cash along with Derrek Lee to the Braves, and the Braves will send back three minor league pitchers. The pitchers are right handers Robinson Lopez and Tyrelle Harris as well as left hander Jeffrey Lorick.
The real get here is Lopez. The 19-year-old from the Dominican Republic just missed out on Baseball America‘s organizational top 10 prospects list for Atlanta and ranked exactly 10th in Baseball Prospectus’s pre-season look at the Braves’ system. Lopez has a fastball that reaches as high as 96, an extremely projectable frame, and at 19, that’s a player with a ton of potential. If his secondary pitches don’t develop, he will probably be limited to the bullpen. To date, he has thrown 110 innings as a starter and 33 as a reliever, and, naturally, Lopez has performed much better in the bullpen. However, I would not limit a player with Lopez’ potential to the bullpen at such an early stage in his career.
Lorick and Harris are exclusively relievers, which inherently makes their value much lower than that of Lopez, as does the fact that both were, at least at some point this season, teammates with Lopez at low-A Rome despite being 22 and 23, respectively. That doesn’t mean that Lorick and Harris don’t have some value, though, as both have performed well in the minors in their careers and have shown the potential to make up the back-end of a bullpen. Harris has struck out 84 batters in 68 minor league innings, and Lorick has struck out 85 in 86 innings. Both have a tendency toward ground balls, as well – Lorick in particular. Both are far enough away from the majors that they are anything but a sure thing, but it’s not like these players are throw-ins. They definitely supplement the value brought in with Lopez.
The Cubs are a team with plenty of money and a large fanbase, so they really shouldn’t need to perform salary dump deals with players like Derrek Lee. Lee was making roughly $3.25 million for the rest of the season, a number that likely has little impact on the Cubs’ finances for this year or in the future. Instead of dumping Lee’s salary and getting little in return, the Cubs were aggressive, and threw cash into the deal to help coax some legitimate value out of this deal. Jim Hendry deserves major credit for this trade, as instead of spending his money on an aging first baseman on a fifth place team, he now has three more solid pitching prospects to load into his system. This is just an excellent overall pickup for Chicago.
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So I’m sure this has been mentioned somewhere and I just missed it, but did Derrek Lee clear waivers or did the Braves claim him and then they worked out a trade??
Lee cleared.
As a Braves fan, I am rather ambivalent about this deal. On one hand, Lee is a clear upgrade over an obviously injured Glaus both offensively and defensively. That said, the Cubs are only paying half of the $3.4 mil owed to Lee, and the Braves gave up legitimate minor league arms in what originally seemed like a pure salary dump.
Come on dude really? I pay alot of attention to the Braves minor leagues and the only guy I’d ever heard of is Robinson Lopez. And he’s a 19 year old in A Ball with a plus fastball – a lottery ticket in other words. We still got Teheran, Minor, Vizcaino, and Delgado who are all much closer to the majors and all have a higher ceiling… Besides D Lee JUST LAST YEAR had a .306/.393/.579 triple slash (.412wOBA).
This was an awesome move by the Braves and in fact its just one of many so far this calender year for Frank Wren and the organization
I agree that this is a winner for the Braves. As a braves fan, I was scared silly when I saw the ESPN headline that the Braves acquired Lee for “3 minor league prospects”. However, when I clicked on the article, I was relieved that I only recognized one name out of the three, and even that name was more of a vague recollection. I was afraid I’d see names like Freeman or the pitchers you mentioned.
The Cubs had absolutely no chance of getting any of those players for 6 weeks of a Derrek Lee who’s past his prime. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice acquisition by the Braves but the Cubs did well to get Robinson Lopez and two solid relief prospects. It’s great value under the circumstances. It’s a good deal, both teams got what they wanted.
/goggles
People actually thought Freeman would be going the other way? Not that I’d have shunned that ever as a Cubs fan, but it was pretty obvious this was to be a salary dump-type deal.
I’m thrilled with this for the pure fact we some something for less than half a year of D-Lee and his bulging disc. I liked Lee for most of him time here, and I like him even more now that he’s netted us some prospects. Remember the last deal to feature two relievers and a teenage SP for an aging vet the Cubs made? It turned out pretty good (Guab, Stevens, Archer… all 3 took a jump in value once arriving in Chicago).
I’m glad for both sides. I hope the Braves win it all this year for Cox and that’d be nice for Lee, and I’m glad the Cubs got something out of it.
trade seems fair
Amazing that Cub fans are so ho-hum about this (at least on talk radio). They seem to attribute all the failures to Lee, even though he’s been a monster in the reg ssn and an even bigger monster in the playoffs.
I guess that’s what he gets for being a very good player on teams that were expected to win. Cub players become legends by being good players on horrible teams.
They gave up a guy who probably wasn’t going to be back. Draft picks are so hit-or-miss they may not have come up with something like Lopez even if Lee was a type-a FA. If Lopez, a 19 year old throwing 96mph develops into a reliable set up man or better than the Cubs did well. If he flames out, they didn’t really lose anything.
The most interesting question to me is how does this deal compare with the Angels deal that Lee vetoed?
Lee would’ve been a type B, I believe.
The Cubs would not have offered him arbitration, either. They’d be too scared he’d accept, and then would have to pay him, at minimum, 90% of what he made this year.
Lee doesn’t qualify for arbitration at this point anyway, as far as I know, so not a concern.
Any potential FA can be offered FA from their club (unless they have a clause in their contract that says they cant), thats how clubs get draft pick compensation
This is basically the Cubs giving Lee a chance to play in a pennant race and the post-season rather than wallowing on the Cubs for the next six weeks. The prospects are gravy.
It kind of cracks me up to see Jack Moore writing that someone has an “extremely projectable frame,” as if that were his own observation and not just lifted straight out of some prospect maven’s scouting report.
I don’t get why that’s funny. Why would he have scouted any of them himself? That wouldn’t really make sense, though if his 6’2″ 190lbs is true, he certainly does have a projectable frame. As… you can easily see muscle being added to that because he’s likely quite skinny given his height/weight. *shrug*
I mean, he also said he has a fastball that touches 96, which I’m sure is lifted directly from a scouting report. That doesn’t make it any less true really.
It’s just such scout lingo that it sounds funny to hear it come from a college kid who blogs about stats but doesn’t have any sort of scouting knowledge.
Looks like a win/win to me.
Saying that Lopez has been better in relief is a little misleading. The only relief he appeared in this season was early on when Rome was doing the tandem starter deal to get their pitchers stretched out. All of his ‘relief’ appearances came April and May.
Nice move Jim Hendry!! Turn some poor producing, aging, first baseman who will NOT be back next year into 3 young pitching prospects. Robinson Lopez sounds like he has some potential. Good trade for the Cubs, maybe Lee can help the Braves reach the playoffs, man has he struggled this year though, Braves fans get ready to see a guy ground into a lot of double plays, thats his specialty.
I’m so sick of seeing people spouting about Lee grounding into double plays when you obviously don’t really know what you are talking about! Lee had one season in 2008 when he hit into 27 dp’s which was ridiculously high but has averaged just 16 dp’s per 162 games over his career. Albert Pujols, who is generally accepted as the best hitter in the game, has averaged 21 dp’s per 162 games.
Lee has been the target of the average Cub fan since his wrist injury shortened 2006 season. He has constantly been blamed for the failures of this team on radio shows and message boards for reasons I just don’t see. He has played stellar defense, saving countless errors on wild throws, and been a solid producer on offense his entire time here. Chicago fans just seem to single out one or two players to be the whipping boys for every bad thing that happens no matter if they are actually at fault.
I hope DLee has a few more good seasons with whoever he ends up playing his last years for and I’m interested to see who will be the new target of Cub fans now that Lee is gone.
Yeah, but he’s “not a leader” (as they fans say).
When I always hear that, in response to Z’s tirades, Milton Bradley outbursts, and a general lack of discipline by the team … I always think “And just what is the manager doing?”
Interesting discussion on the radio about how Cub fans LOVE Andre Dawson, but can’t stand Derrek Lee. Not only did Lee play on better teams, but was FAR more productive, and performed MUCH MUCH better in the playoffs.
Not only that but Lee played very well among the pressure of playing for teams that were expected to take the division. He didn’t just show up and get cheered for every homer or double, while the team lost 95 games.
With Lee gone and Ramirez in a sharp decline (health particularly), my 9yo son (Cub fan) asked me a good question “Who are the Cubs going to have that’s any good?”
All I could think of is “They’ll find out.” Right now the team is too young to really project stardom for either Colvin or Castro. Soto has seemingly forgotten how to play, and Sorinao and Fukudome are what they are, while the pitching just gets “older”.
As they said on the radio show, the fans went nuts when Kerry Wood left, but good riddance to Derrek Lee. Go figure.
WAR since 2004:
Derrek Lee: 19.8
Hee-Seop Choi: 2.2
Cubbies has it right; get ready for some double plays from Lee!
You can look at his numbers all you want, but as a daily Cub watcher for years what I’ve seen is his consistent ability to hit 50 home runs and 80 triples in a game that you were already up by 10 to begin with, yet with 1 out in the 9th and you REALLY need him, it’s pretty much a guaranteed double play.
Not that I don’t like the guy- he’s A+ on defense and is a solid cat to have around, but his heart-crushing double plays are legendary in Chicago.
Plus, he’s just not a hustler in my book. He wants to win, and he is a natural team leader, but he’s just never had the hustle of other guys. Think Marlon Byrd or Mark Derosa.
Oh well. I do think that we could have gotten more than just a couple high school pitchers and a case of Louisville sluggers for Lee though. He is pretty good.
Maybe next year.
Caleb
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