The Chicago Cubs missed out on Jordan Zimmermann. Then they whiffed on David Price. Now they need to go hard after Zack Greinke, right?
They just returned to relevance with a trip to the National League Championship Series, after all, and could use another starter (at least) to push them over the long-awaited championship hump. Heck, they proved their willingness to spend big on pitching last winter by handing a six-year, $155 million deal to Jon Lester.
"We'd love to have him," Cubs ace Jake Arrieta said of Greinke—the man he bested for NL Cy Young honors, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times.
Titillating as a Greinke signing is, however, the Cubs appear to be out of the running along with 28 other clubs, according to USA Today's Bob Nightengale:
The Cubs could still gallop in as a dark horse. But they might be better off spreading their resources around and grabbing a couple of arms from the second tier of this deep free-agent pitching pool.
There are multiple options, but here's an intriguing duo: Jeff Samardzija and John Lackey.
Let's start with Samardzija, who wore a Cubs uniform not so long ago. That'd be 2014, precisely, when the right-hander put up easily his best season.
In 219.2 innings that year between the Cubs and Oakland A's, Samardzija posed a 2.99 ERA and 1.065 WHIP with 202 strikeouts.
Then the A's, who'd acquired him at the trade deadline for their ultimately doomed postseason push, shipped him back to the Windy City—this time to the White Sox.
Pitching for a payday, Samardzija mostly bombed on the South side, as he led all of baseball in hits (228) and earned runs (118) allowed.
It's tempting to look at that and conclude 2014 was an anomalous blip. But there are mitigating factors. The White Sox's home yard, U.S. Cellular Field, is hitter-friendly. But so is Wrigley Field, so that's mostly mitigated.
What can't be ignored is the utter clunkiness of the Sox's gloves. They were the worst defensive team is baseball last year, according to FanGraphs, while the Cubs were the second-best.
That doesn't mean Samardzija would return to the Cubbies and be automatically cured. But a resurgence is possible, especially considering Samardzija's velocity remained consistent, per FanGraphs, and he's put less stress on his arm, as ESPN's Buster Olney noted:
Samardzija, recall, didn't become a regular starter until 2012. Injuries are tricky, fickle things, but he's more likely than some to have ample gas left in the tank entering his age-31 season.
The gauge may be running a bit lower on Lackey, who's 37 years old and has logged more than 2,400 big league innings.
Lackey, however, cranked back the clock last season with the St. Louis Cardinals, posting a career-best 2.77 ERA in 218 innings and finishing in the top 10 in Cy Young Award balloting.
Snatching the veteran right-hander away from their hated division rivals should add motivation for the Cubs, but Lackey makes sense regardless. And Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe suggested a Chicago/Lackey marriage is "not out of the realm of possibility."
"It was [Cubs president of baseball operations] Theo Epstein who signed him as a free agent in Boston," Cafardo noted. "Lackey is also a close friend of Jon Lester, who will push Epstein in that direction."
Lackey played for the league minimum, plus incentives, last season, but will command much more in what might be his final major league contract.
Still, his and Samardzija's price tag isn't likely to approach the $31 million average annual value the Boston Red Sox gave Price, per Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal. Greinke, meanwhile, might match or even exceed that figure if the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers are truly in a bidding war.
Imagine a rotation fronted by Arrieta and Lester and rounded out by Samardzija, Lackey and either Jason Hammel or Kyle Hendricks. That's a deep, balanced, high-upside group. Add the Cubs' burgeoning, playoff-tested lineup and you've got the makings of a billy-goat-curse-busting bunch.
Price or Zimmermann would have been a shiny prize. And Greinke to Chicago would grab headlines—no argument there. But, as Epstein acutely understands, building a winner is about being prudent as well as splashy.
A Lackey/Samardzija tandem would be a little bit of both.
All statistics and contract information current as of Dec. 2 and courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.
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