Chicago Cubs: 10 Cubs Who Should Not Be Back in 2012

Carlos Pena has been a terrific bargain for the 2011 Chicago Cubs. He has saved untold errors for the infield defense, driven the ball well at times and demonstrated what perfect baseball makeup is even during a lost season.

But Pena ought not to be back in 2012. This is one thing about rebuilding a ball club: Sometimes even successful one-year solutions have to remain so. In fact, Pena is just one of perhaps a dozen Cubs who should not be back in 2012. The team needs to start afresh, and while senselessly shoving off talent would be foolish, so, too, would clinging to a non-elite player like Pena during a phase in which he can realistically be of little help to the team.

Here are 10 Cubs that need to be gone by next April.

10. John Grabow

The two-year deal to which Jim Hendry signed Grabow after 2009 may have been the single worst contract handed out by the Cubs during the Hendry era. Grabow makes $4.8 million this season (a year in which both his Win Probability Added and his ERA have been ghastly), and then blessedly comes off the team's ledger. If they re-sign him, the wiser fans will tear Wrigley Field apart brick by brick.

9. Jeff Samardzija

If Grabow's isn't the biggest contractual gaffe of Hendry's tenure, Samardzija's rookie deal (he signed for $10 million spread over a number of years, forsaking baseball) might be the winner. He has burnt out, throwing in a huge number of games this season (as has Grabow) but doing nothing special. His contract expires at season's end, unless the team unimaginably exercises their option on him.

8. Koyie Hill

For the past two years, the Cubs have paid Hill about $1 million more than the league minimum in total for his services as backup catcher. The pattern must stop after 2011, and the Cubs need to give Welington Castillo (or anyone else who saves them $750,000 relative to Hill) his chance behind the dish. Hill is one of the five worst players with a steady big-league roster spot.

7. Jeff Baker

Basher of left-handed pitching and doer of little else, Baker should have been dealt to the Boston Red Sox in July. Instead, the Cubs talked about him as a part of their plan for 2012. That's very frustrating, because Baker really adds nothing that D.J. LeMahieu would not, and comes at roughly four times the 2012 expense of LeMahieu.

6. Blake DeWitt

Second verse, same as the first, but a little bit more left-handed.

DeWitt is to Ryan Flaherty as Baker is to LeMahieu. The veterans in these cases are just more expensive versions of the rookies, yet they seem to have secured roles on the 2012 Cubs. Maybe new blood in the big chair will change that.

5. Carlos Pena

Again, it's not Pena's fault, but he has no real place on next year's team. He signed for $10 million over the winter, and after ratcheting up his season OPS about 50 points thus far, it's tough to see him not getting eight figures or a multi-year commitment somewhere. The Cubs should not be the team giving out that contract.

4. Marlon Byrd

The Cubs have very few movable assets, players other clubs are going to ponder giving up real talent in order to acquire. Byrd could be just such a guy with a strong finish to this season, and if the Cubs get any center field offers for the man who will be their right fielder in 2012, they ought to seriously explore said options.

3. Alfonso Soriano

I say this not because Soriano is beyond his utility as a player—he isn't—but because the Cubs' leverage might never be better if Soriano finishes the season on a hot streak. If a team will take on even a quarter of the $54 million owed Soriano through 2014 and give the Cubs something in return, it would be well worth it to move Soriano and look for ways to move forward. Again, Soriano is underrated these days and a roughly median regular left fielder. He just doesn't fit for the Cubs any longer.

2. Aramis Ramirez

This might seem a stretch, but the smart course would be to exercise Ramirez's club option for $16 million in 2012—and then trade him.

Ramirez is essentially the same hitter he was prior to his 2009 injury right now, albeit with a bit less patience at the plate. He should fetch a fine trade return, and to let that potential asset walk away (even if it saves $14 million) would be a mistake.

1. Carlos Zambrano

It should surprise no one that Zambrano is on the way out the door. He wrote his own exit, and the Cubs will sooner release than retain Zambrano, court ruling or not. I happen to think the incidents in recent years for Zambrano have been a bit overblown, and that clubhouse politics should matter very little to baseball decision makers. But my opinion, as it turns out, doesn't mean anything in the Cubs' clubhouse.