Cubs Potential Offseason Targets: Randy Winn or Marlon Byrd

I had to take a break from the series last week cause of that annoying paying job that I jeopardize every day spending way too much time here on TCR. So I'm gonna double up the efforts and today we look at some more potential center field candidates. Let's start with Randy Winn.

It's gonna be hard to get excited about a guy with a .262//318/353 slash line last season.  You can't even attribute it to an unlucky BABIP as it was .314 last year. No, his power disappeared hitting just two home runs after a healthy stretch of double digits. He did hit a measly 1.4% of HR/FB which is Ryan Theriot 2007/2008 low, so maybe there's a little bounceback (7.8% in his career albeit steadily declining).

Defensively, his UZR remains excellent over the last few seasons, as does his Rate2 and the Fan's Scouting Report considers him above average. Unfortunately most of that has been in right field and with the declining stolen base numbers you have to think he may not have the range for center, even in the cozy Wrigley Field confines.

While the novelty of a reunion between the player the Rays traded to get Lou Piniella and Lou would be a neat angle for the papers, I  assume the Cubs will pass on the soon-to-be 36 year old. Despite his switch-hitting ability and potential leadoff qualities, his stolen base numbers are merely okay and he only walks 8% of the time and sees well under 4 pitches per plate appearance, so I don't think this would be much of a match for the Cubs.

The rumors flooded the TCR newsroom yesterday (i.e. Google Reader) with the Cubs targeting Marlon Byrd as their potential new center fielder. When I made a cursory list of guys I might look at it in this series, Byrd was on the radar as a potential 4th outfielder, but leave it to Jim Hendry and the Cubs to make him a top priority.

Anyway, Byrd was a top prospect in the Phillies system, one of the top prospects in the game at the time, but fizzled out before the Phillies gave up on him and moved him to the Nationals for Endy Chavez. It didn't go much better for him there, but then Texas gave him a shot and whether it was Rudy Jamarillo or the Ballpark or fate, he bounced back with three solid, albeit unspectacular seasons in Texas.  

2007-2009 splits (courtesy of Baseball Musings Day-by-Database and ESPN.com):

Home: 309/375/522 with a HR every 27.20 AB

Road:  281/321/414 with a HR every 45.60 AB

vs. LHP: 277/336/462 with a HR every 28.93 AB

vs. RHP: 302/359/470 with a HR every 36.89 AB

It isn't like Wrigley isn't friendly as well, but those home/road splits have to be a little worrisome. His lefty vs righty splits aren't too pronounced, actually showing a bit of a reverse split so the Cubs need not worry about matchups too much.

Now one of the things the Cubs are said to be looking for is a run-producer/RBI guy and Byrd did have some decent RBI totals the last 3 years, particularly relative to his plate appearances. That included driving in 17.9% of the runners on base when he got up in 2009 which is an above average mark along with 18.4% in 2007,  but just 12.5% in 2008, so you can see how volatile and unreliable hitting with runners on can be. 

Defensively, he had a UZR/150 of 10.9, 10.9 and -2.8 over the last three years while bouncing around all three outfield spots, so it's tough to say from that if he'll be much of an improvement in center field. BP is kinder to him in LF and RF (109 and 107) then in CF( 95) for his career using Rate2, but it all suffers from small sample size issues as does UZR. The Fan's Scouting Report seemed to consider him as just a bit above average over the last three years.

He did walk an abysmal 5.5% of the time in 2009 which isn't too far off from his 7.5% career mark...both of which are below the standards I'd like to see the Cubs employ. The Cubs pursuit of Byrd shouldn't come as too much of a shock as they tried to acquire him for Matt Murton last season but were rebuffed, so obviously they've believed in skills for awhile. I guess we'll see how this unravels, but I'd probably prefer Mike Cameron on a one year deal (if that is in the cards) over Byrd and a likely multi-year deal, but I don't think we know the market yet for either player.