Jacque Squat
The Cubs signed outfielder Jacque Jones to a three year, $16 million dollar contract. He presumably will play Right Field. I really, really don't like this deal. Let's break Jones down into two categories:
What does Jacque Jones do well? He plays solid defense, has a decent arm, and hits right-handers to a tune of .294/.341/.488 for his career. That's pretty good.
What does Jacque Jones do poorly? Hit left-handed pitching. For his career, he's hit a meager .227/.277/.339 against southpaws. That's Paul Bako numbers. And “Paul” is going to start in right field 2-3 times per week.
I suppose Jones would have been OK for a one-year deal. After all, he's better than John Mabry and there aren't a whole lot of other options right now. But as an every day player, the most optimistic prediction has him matching Jeromy Burnitz's numbers from last season. And he's now under contract for three years. At this rate, I'd have rather picked up Burnitz's 7 million dollar option for this season. That would only have hurt for one season, and we'd always be able to upgrade at a later date.
There is one way for this move to work. In a perfect world, he'd platoon with a right-hander that could mash lefties. Then we'd have something. But I highly doubt that Dusty Baker is a progressive enough manager to recognize something like a platoon split, nor do I think the Cubs shelled out 16 million for a part-time outfielder. So that's pretty much out the window.
As it stands now, the Cubs opening day lineup will look something like this:
CF Juan Pierre
2B Todd Walker Neifi Perez
1B Derrek Lee
3B Aramis Ramirez
RF Jacque Jones
LF Matt Murton
C Michael Barrett
SS Ronny Cedeno (Neifi Perez)
Does that lineup scare anybody? Me neither.
Update: It's even worse than I thought. I heard Hendry was shopping Todd Walker around, and if he were to land a decent slugger and/or shortstop upgrade I wouldn't have minded. But today's Sun-Times lists Walker THIRD on the depth chart at second behind Neifi Perez and Jerry Hairston. I feel like throwing up.