In Which I Try To Be Even-Handed

November 8, 2005 by Brian C

The Cubs have signed Neifi Perez to a two-year extension.

Let me be very clear on something; Neifi Perez had a perfectly good year last year filling in for Nomar. All things considered, he played far better than we had any right to expect.

However, this was obscured by the fact that Dusty messed up pretty badly by batting him at the top of the order for most of the year. Neifi hit first or second for 382 of his 572 AB for the year, despite a .298 OBP. And he was only 8 of 12 in the stolen base department, so it's not like that .298 OBP came with any kind of hidden extra value. Nonetheless, he's excellent defensively, and he hit well enough to make himself valuable as a backup shortstop.

So with that obligatory bit of fairness out of the way, let me point out two things. First, the key word in that previous sentence is backup. With that being the case, it's extremely hard to justify giving multi-year deals to players that just flat-out aren't starters.

Which brings me to my second point, which is that it's especially hard to justify giving multi-year deals to players that just flat-out aren't starters, especially when the player has just had a career year in his thirties after a career of mediocrity. Even though Neifi had a reasonably good year in 2005, he'll be 33 next year, and he's coming off a season that was far better than anything else he's done outside of Coors Field. And even last year, he was below-average offensively.

I'll also repeat what a point I made about the Glendon Rusch signing. Like Rusch, Perez was acquired by the Cubs as an in-season minor league free agent. In other words, he was a guy off the street, and like Rusch, it's hard to believe that he can't be replaced by another guy off the street. As such, besides being a waste of resources, this kind of signing calls into question the priorities of Jim Hendry. By rewarding a mediocre player for one good season, Hendry effectively says to me that last season is more important to the club than next season, and that's not the kind of outlook that inspires confidence.

Along those lines, the other question raised by this contract is, what happens to Ronny Cedeno? According to team shill Carrie Muskat, the Cubs "are high" on Cedeno, but it seems to me that they're clearly not "high" on him playing short, especially if they're going to pursue Furcal as Muskat implies. Todd Walker's option has already been picked up for next year, so it seems that the best that Cedeno can hope for is the backup middle infielder role. Given Dusty's tendencies, that means a spot on the bench; not exactly a way to show a player you have confidence in him.

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