A recent article in the Chicago Tribune suggested that the Chicago Cubs trade their young stud starter, Carlos Zambrano, for superstar shortstop Miguel Tejada.  Using Bill James' Win Shares we can look at the depth of starting pitchers in baseball and do a comparison to shortstops.  Let's start with shortstops.  Here are the top five shortstops in Win Shares in 2005.

 

Name	Team	Win Shares
Young, Michael	Tex	29
Eckstein, David	StL	27
Tejada, Miguel	Bal	26
Jeter, Derek	NYY	26
Furcal, Rafael	Atl	26

 

Clearly, Tejada is one of the best.  Plus he's done this for years, with Win Share seasons of 28, 25, 32, 25, 23 and 20 going backward prior to this past season.

 

But how deep is the shortstop position?  Fifteen Win Shares in a season is a reasonably good season for any player. Given that there are 30 teams in baseball, let's look at the top 30 shortstops overall.   How many of them had 15 or more Win Shares in 2005?  Answer: 15 -- exactly half.

 

Now, let's take a look at the depth of starting pitchers.  Here are the top fifteen starting pitchers last year:

 

Name	Team	Win Shares
Clemens, Roger	Hou	24
Santana, Johan	Min	23
Willis, Dontrelle	Fla	22
Buehrle, Mark	CWS	22
Pettitte, Andy	Hou	21
Oswalt, Roy	Hou	21
Garland, Jon	CWS	20
Carpenter, Chris	Stl	20
Smoltz, John	Atl	19
Martinez, Pedro	NYM	19
Zambrano, Carlos	ChC	18
Colon, Bartolo	LAA	18
Webb, Brandon	Ari	17
Garcia, Freddy	CWS	17
Contreras, Jose	CWS	17

  

Each team needs five starters.  Using 30 teams again let's look at the top 150 starting pitchers.  How many of them had 15 or more Win Shares in 2005?  Answer:  24 -- only 16%.

 

Percentage of Shortstops with 15 or more Win Shares	50%
Percentage of Starting Pitchers with 15 or more Win Shares	16%

 

Clearly, shortstop is a much deeper position than starting pitching.

 

Here's another angle.  How many teams had more than one pitcher with 15 or more Win Shares?

 

World Champion Chicago White Sox	Four starters with 15+ Win Shares
NL Champion Houston Astros	Three starters with 15+ Win Shares
Division Champion Los Angeles Angels	Two starters with 15+ Win Shares

 

No other team had more than one.

 

The most successful teams are those that had the greatest depth at starting pitcher.

 

Most Cub fans would probably say that the Cubs need a shortstop.  However, let me also provide this to chew on.  Neifi Perez had 12 Win Shares for the Cubs last year.  That was slightly below average, but the former Gold-Glover anchors the infield with excellent defense.  But more importantly, the Cubs have one of the best shortstop prospects in all of baseball, Ronny Cedeno, waiting in the wings.  He may be ready this year.  They'll do fine starting with Perez and switching to Cedeno when he's ready.

 

If you're a Cubs fan, hope that this trade idea goes to the circular file under the desk of Jim Hendry.