In the past several years, the Cubs have gone from an under-spending team to the team with the third highest payroll in 2009.  The change was good and needed.  For years, the Cubs, a big market, high revenue team, were spending enough to field a team, but not enough to field a winning team.

Today, considering the Cubs payroll, the team should be a perennial playoff contender.  However, the money the team is spending is not being reflected in the talent level of the players they have on their roster.

Here’s my hypothisis:  The Cubs payroll is appropriate.  They should be one of the top payroll teams in baseball.  In return for spending the type of money being spent, the Cubs should be expected to have one of the top players in the game at just about every position.  However, it’s my feeling that is not happening.

In this series of articles, I’m examining each starting player from the Cubs 2009 roster and comparing that player to the players at the same position on the other five highest payroll teams to see how the Cubs roster stacks up.  In addition, I’m taking a look at the very best players at each position and comparing them to the Cubs players to see if the Cubs players are among the best in Major League Baseball.

To read about the methodology I’ll be using, or to read my analysis of other players and positions, click on the links below:

• What Can You Get For $140 Million? (Introduction and Methodology)
• What Can You Get For $140 Million?: First Base
• What Can You Get For $140 Million?: Second Base
• What Can You Get For $140 Million?: Shortstop
• What Can You Get For $140 Million?: Third Base
• What Can You Get For $140 Million?: Catcher
• What Can You Get For $140 Million?: Left Field
• What Can You Get For $140 Million?: Center Field

Today, I’d like to look at right field.  Here are the players we will be looking at:

• Xavier Nady (Yankees)
• Ryan Church (Mets)
• Milton Bradley (Cubs)
• Magglio Ordonez (Tigers)
• Jayson Werth (Phillies)
• J.D. Drew (Red Sox)

Here’s how the players ranked based on 2009 salary:

1. Magglio Ordonez ($18 million)
2. J.D. Drew ($14 million)
3. Milton Bradley ($9 million)
4. Xavier Nady ($6.5 million)
5. Ryan Church ($2.8 million)
6. Jayson Werth ($2.0 million)

If you’ve been following along up until now, you know that I like to start be looking at the stats from 2008.  It gives us an idea of what the player was doing the year before the year we are interested in (2009) and it helps to understand why the player was in the opening day lineup for one of the highest payroll teams in baseball.

To begin, let look at how the players ranked based on 2008 WAR:

1. Jason Werth (WAR 5.3)
2. Milton Bradley (WAR 4.5)
3. J.D. Drew (WAR 4.2)
4. Xavier Nady (WAR 4.0)
5. Magglio Ordonez (WAR 3.0)
6. Ryan Church (WAR 1.6)

Looking a little more at 2008, let’s see how the players compare based on OPS+:

1. Milton Bradley (OPS+ 161)
2. J.D. Drew (OPS+ 137)
3. Xavier Nady (OPS+ 127)
4. Magglio Ordonez (OPS+ 126)
5. Jayson Werth (OPS+ 121)
6. Ryan Church (OPS+ 106)

I’m struck by how well every right fielder in the survey did in 2008.  Ryan Church was just slightly above average, but everyone else did extremely well. 

Milton Bradley in particular had a great 2008 while with the Texas Rangers.  In fact, he led the AL in OBP and his 2008 performance helped earn him a three-year contract with the Cubs.

Next, let’s look at the same statistics, but for 2009.  Let’s start with WAR:

1. J.D. Drew (WAR 4.7)
2. Jayson Werth (WAR 4.7)
3. Magglio Ordonez (WAR 1.8)
4. Milton Bradley (WAR 1.0)
5. Ryan Church (WAR 1.0)
6. Xavier Nady (WAR-0.1)

Nady scored so low because he was injured during the second week of the season and did not return to the lineup for the Yankess for the remainder of the season.  WAR considers how much a player actually plays, so the statistic values players who stay healthy and in the lineup higher than it does players who spend time on the DL.  Church’s WAR score was also effected by the time he was out of the lineup.

How do these players compare based on 2009 OPS+?  Let’s have a look:

1. J.D. Drew (OPS+ 129)
2. Jayson Werth (OPS+ 128)
3. Magglio Ordonez (OPS+ 109)
4. Milton Bradley (OPS+ 99)
5. Xavier Nady (OPS+ 95)
6. Ryan Church (OPS+ 92)

As a group, the right fielders we are looking at had a much worse year in 2009 than they did in 2008.  Drew and Werth were the exception, but everyone else saw their production fall off significantly.

In particular, Milton Bradley had a very poor 2009.  He went from being one of the hitting stars in all of baseball in 2008 to being below average in 2009.   Off the field, 2009 was also pretty bad for Bradley.  Entire volumes have been written about Bradley’s behavior problems during his one year with the Cubs, so I won’t rehash them here, other than to point out that his behavior issues made Bradley an even less valuable player than his numbers alone would suggest.

Taking into consideration the stats we’ve looked at here, as well as other considerations like fielding, age, career stats, etc., let’s see how the six right fielders compare to one another.

• J.D. Drew (Red Sox)
• Jayson Werth (Phillies)
• Magglio Ordonez (Tigers)
• Milton Bradley (Cubs)
• Xavier Nady (Yankees)
• Ryan Church (Mets)

I think an argument can be made that Nady should be ahead of Bradley.  However, I’m of the opinion that Nady is overrated.  Over their careers, Bradley has been the superior hitter.  Of course, Bradley’s personality always has to be taken into consideration.  After his display in Chicago in 2009, there’s no way I would ever want Bradley on my team, no matter how well he hits.  But I do think it’s fair to say that he is a better player than either Nady or Church.

Of the top payroll teams in baseball, I would definitely rank Drew, Werth and Ordonez ahead of Bradley.  Opening up the rankings to all of the other right fielders in baseball, I would include Ichiro, Justin Upton, Bobby Abreu, Michael Cuddyer, Andre Ethier, and host of others ahead of Bradley.  It’s pretty clear that Bradley is not one of the top right fielders in the game.

Botton Line:  Milton Bradley had a career year in 2008 and it earned him a multi-year contract with the Cubs.  Jim Hendry’s limited view of Bradley’s career bought the Cubs a right fielder with a high OBP, a lack of real production, and an apparent personality disorder.  It also added a right fielder to the Cubs roster that clearly is not one of the best in the game.

It’s hard to seperate the player’s performance from his personality (at least in Bradley’s case), but if I could, I would see a player who has a good batting eye and has shown an ability to draw a walk over the course of his career.  However, I wouldn’t have to look very far to realize that Bradley is not much of a power hitter nor is he much of a run producer, the very thing the Cubs said they hired him to do. 

It was a monumental fail on Hendry’s part to bring Bradley into the fold.  He was signed to be a middle-of-the-order run producing bat, but there was nothing in Bradley’s history to gave the indication that he was that type of player.

On top of having to ignore Bradley’s past on-the-field performance in order to hire him to do a job he wasn’t cut out to do, Hendry had to ignore Bradley’s past history of behavior problems.  Bradley had shown an inability to control his emotions at almost every stop he made during his MLB career.  Just as he did by giving the starting second base job to Mike Fontenot, Hendry was guilty of wishful thinking when he signed Bradley to play right field.  Signing Milton Bradley was just another example of the Cubs inability to distinguish a middle-of-the-road player from one of the top players in the game.