The Curse of Wrigley Field

The Cubs signed Oakland Athletics outfielder David DeJesus to a two year and he’ll most likely end up as the team’s starting right fielder in 2012.  He’ll earn $4.25 million in each of the next two years and then there’s a third year team option that would pay him $6.5 million with a $1.5 million buy out.

I like this deal.  DeJesus was never the batting champion everyone thought he’d be as a prospect and while there’s have been some durability issues the past couple of years, he’s put up some solid numbers and he has a good eye at the plate.  He has a career .815 OPS against right handed pitching and that goes down to .690 against lefties but that just means we might see DeJesus taking a spell now and then when a left hander is on the mound.  It’s not a lot of money so that’s nice and he’s what you’d call a professional hitter.

The Cubs offered arbitration to two of their sluggers.  Carlos Pena and Aramis Ramirez were both offered arbitration and it’s expected that both will decline it.  With both being Type B free agents, that means the Cubs will pick up a couple of sandwich picks when another team scoops them up.

Kerry Wood was the odd man out.  He wasn’t offered arbitration but the Cubs are expected to be where Wood lands.  They’ll just take it outside of the system and hope they can strike a better deal, and brush off potential suitors, better then if they went the arbitration route.

The Cubs have a lot of work to do and there’s a lot of holes.  Throw in the sub-par 2011 season and it’s obvious that Theo Epstein has his work cut out for him.  Still, we all knew this wouldn’t happen overnight so we’ll have to see how it all plays out.