The Cubs have “reached an agreement” with Cuban pitcher Juan Yasser Serrano, although the deal is not expected to be finalized for about a month.  That, according to Carrie Muskat of MLB.com.

Serrano defected from Cuba in April 2009 after being arrested in Cuba in January 2009 for attempted illegal departure.  At least we know he’s persistent.  The right-hander began pitching in the Cuban professional baseball league at the age of 16.  He is believed to be 20 or 21-years old, although MLB Trade Rumors is now saying he may be 22.

Oddly, it has been reported that Serrano threw two simulated innings for Cubs scouts, striking out four and giving up one run on an infield hit, but Muskat reports that a “baseball source” (what does that mean?) denied the report. 

Although Muskat’s article didn’t mention money, the website CubanBallPlayers.com says that Serrano will be paid $250,000 by the Cubs.  Muskat’s article does say that Serrano still must take a physical and there is additional paperwork that must be completed before the deal is finalized.

It will be interesting to see where Serrano slots in with the Cubs.  I would think a guy who has been pitching for five years in the Cuban Serie Nacional would be able to go directly to Double-A or Triple-A, but that remains to be seen.

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Yesterday, I wrote a post about the true value of on-base percentage.  I’m very accepting of advanced statistics, but I think they need to be viewed in the proper perspective.  Baseball is a relatively complex game and expecting to look at a set of numbers (or worse yet, just one number) in order to understand the game is unrealistic (Not to mention that it takes some of the fun out of the game).

Paul Sullivan with the Chicago Tribune recently wrote an article talking about how the Cubs’ front office is beginning to look more and more at statistics in their evaluation of players.  I thought the story painted a pretty amatuerish picture of the Cubs front office.  Jim Hendry is quoted in the article saying he and his staff have always done more statistical analysis than people thought.  He also pointed out that the Cubs have had a “numbers cruncher” (i.e. Director of Baseball Information) on the staff for the past seven years.  Even so, Sullivan made it sound like the Cubs had just heard about advanced statistics.

 Rob Neyer at ESPN.com then had to jumped on the story.  Neyer’s article, entitled Cubs Threaten to Join 21st Century, was kind of snarky.  Neyer, a guy who has made a career out of analyzing baseball statistics, seemed almost personally offended that a professional baseball team in this day and age would not have the same type of religious fervor over statistics that he has.  Neyer was especially snarky when he wrote, “But Jim Hendry admits that he’ll ‘always be a scouting guy first.’ I wonder if the Cubs would be better if he just went back to being a scout, period.”  That was kind of mean.

I like Neyer and I appreciate his statistical perspective on the game.  But sometimes he (and others) become almost apoplectic when anyone suggests that baseball can be viewed through something other than a statistical lens.  Jim Hendry is not Bill James.  Okay, we get it.  Is it really necessary to suggest he should lose his job because he doesn’t worship baseball statistics the way some others (I’m not naming names) do?  That seems a tad bit harsh to me.

By the way, Jim Hendry probably should lose his job, but it’s not because he doesn’t take baseball statistics as seriously as Rob Neyer.

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This next bit of information is almost too weird to believe.  As you know, all of the teams in the Cactus League (other than the Cubs) are opposed to the funding plan proposed in the Arizona House of Representatives.  The proposal calls for an additional dollar of tax on rental cars and an 8% tax on tickets to all Cactus League Spring Training games.  I think the opposition is silly, short-sighted, and will eventually come back to bite the other teams, but what do I know?

Anyway, the Cactus League held their annual kickoff breakfast this past Tuesday at HoHoKam Stadium in Mesa, Spring Training home of your Chicago Cubs.  The breakfast is an annual league affair designed to give teams the opportunity to thank their host cities shortly before the Cactus League season begins.  

Because the event was being hosted in Mesa (the host rotates each year), four Cactus League teams decided to boycott the breakfast in protest over the proposed legislation that would be used to build a new spring Training home for the Cubs.

According to a report on the Arizona Republic website, the White Sox, Angels, Dodgers, and Reds were the four teams who refused to participate. 

“In a nutshell, we continue to feel it’s fundamentally wrong to implement a tax on loyal baseball fans,” Angels spokesman Tim Mead said, acknowledging that his team stayed away for that reason. “We just fundamentally disagree.”

If it’s “wrong to implement a tax on loyal baseball fans,” then who should be taxed?  If you’re going to tax someone so you can build a baseball stadium, doesn’t it make sense to tax someone or something that has to do with baseball?  Apparently, it’s not “fundamentally wrong” to tax people who rent cars in Arizona.  At least Angels spokesman Tim Mead didn’t say he thought it was wrong.

Josh Rawitch of the Dodgers had this to say:

“The Dodgers and White Sox simply feel it is wrong to ask fans coming to Camelback Ranch to pay for another team’s new stadium with a surcharge on their tickets.”

But who paid for the Dodgers new stadium, Josh?  Wasn’t it the fans of other teams, as well as people who couldn’t care less about baseball? 

It’s important to remember that the four teams who boycotted the kick-off breakfast in Mesa all have benefitted from taxpayer funding for their stadiums.  It was taxpayer funding that lured the White Sox, Dodgers and Reds away from Florida into the Cactus League.  It was also taxpayer funding that build Camelback Ranch and lured the White Sox out of Tucson, a move that ended up sticking the taxpayers of Tucson with a $30 million bill and no Cactus League team.

Seriously, these teams could not be more hypocritical if they tried.  And even if you oppose a proposed tax, is boycotting a breakfast really the best way to voice your opposition, or is it just a completely classless, immature move?  Arizona House of Representatives Majority Leader John McComish thinks it’s the latter.

“I think it’s a shame to boycott a kickoff breakfast,” McComish said. “That’s what petulant children do. In this case, they already had their turn at bat, they got their stadium.”

In the end, I don’t see this working out well for the other teams in the Cactus League.  If funding can not be found for the Cubs new stadium in Arizona, they’ll likely leave for Florida where funding is already in place and waiting for them.  And when they do, the teams of the Cactus League will lose their biggest draw.  By some estimates, the Cubs generate 40% of the economic impact that the Cactus League has on the Arizona economy.  With fewer Cubs fans, attendance will likely drop across the league, resulting in lower Spring Training revenues for the teams left behind. 

Honestly, the strategy being employed by the owners of the other teams doesn’t seem very well thought out.  Of course, when all is said and done, they’ll still have new stadiums to go back to that someone else has paid for.  So they have that going for them.