The $8M Win

Let's take a quick look at the Cubs 2004 pitching staff pre-Maddux and then with him. We'll just pro-rate 2003 Win Shares by Innings Pitched, with the goal of adding up to about 1,460 IP (Cubs total in 2003). Basically, a pitcher who was credited with 5 win shares for 100 innings of work will get credit for 10 win shares over 200 innings of work. (Thanks to BaseballGraphs for the 2003 Win Share data)

Cubs before they added Maddux:

	2003 IP	2004 IP	Pro-rated 2003 Win Shares
Mark Prior	211.3	211.3	22.5
Kerry Wood	214.0	214.0	17.6
Carlos Zambrano	211.0	211.0	17.6
Joe Borowski	68.3	68.3	14.0
LaTroy Hawkins	77.3	77.3	13.2
Matt Clement	201.7	201.7	10.5
Kyle Farnsworth	76.3	76.3	7.2
Kent Mercker	55.3	55.3	5.9
Mike Remlinger	69.0	69.0	5.9
Gary Glover	62.7	62.7	3.0
Hector Carrasco	25.3	25.3	1.6
Jamey Wright	38.3	38.3	1.5
Juan Cruz	61.0	61.0	0.4
Ryan Dempster	115.7	75.0	0.0
Sergio Mitre	8.7	8.7	0.0
Total		1455.3	121

Cubs after adding Maddux:

	2003 IP	2004 IP	Pro-rated 2003 Win Shares
Mark Prior	211.3	211.3	22.5
Carlos Zambrano	214.0	214.0	17.6
Kerry Wood	211.0	211.0	17.6
Joe Borowski	68.3	68.3	14.0
LaTroy Hawkins	77.3	77.3	13.2
Matt Clement	201.7	201.7	10.5
Greg Maddux	218.3	180.0	8.9
Kyle Farnsworth	76.3	76.3	7.2
Kent Mercker	55.3	55.3	5.9
Mike Remlinger	69.0	69.0	5.9
Gary Glover	62.7	35.0	1.6
Juan Cruz	61.0	61.0	0.4
Total		1460.3	125

Adding Maddux only adds 4 Win Shares, which is equal to one-and-a-third wins (3 win shares = 1 win). At eight million dollars, that's one expensive win.

I'm working on using this same approach for every team in order to make a (wildly inaccurate!) set of predictions for the 2004 season. My predictions will likely show that the Cubs are out in front of the NL Central pack by about 5-6 games, making the additional $8M Maddux win unnecessary. Of course, the Maddux signing does add depth, a potential mentor, maybe some additional revenue(?) and a chance for the Cubs to partially redeem their past failure to keep Maddux. I'm not arguing that the deal is all bad, just that it's not going to improve the Cubs by a whole lot.

The Baseball Savant agrees that Maddux isn't going to dramatically improve the Cubs, but he disagrees with my prediction for the division. He thinks the Astros will take the NL Central. Read both of the Savant's posts. Well written and interesting - hard to complain about that. Seems like Savant, however, overlooks the contributions from the bullpens and benches of the various NL Central contenders. Maybe that's why our projections are so different.