Apparently, CF isn't as loaded as I thought (for my purposes, Soler is a RF, not a CF). There's at least one top 3-5 teamwide prospect in here, and a few ok-ish prospects as well, but it's not a surplus of value like I thought when I started. Last Year 2013 Career Name Age AVG OBP …
Interview with Tom Tango (aka tangotiger)
As most of you probably know, Tom Tango now exclusively consults with the Cubs. This is incredible news: Tom Tango, also knows as tangotiger, is one of the greatest baseball minds in the game today. Many of the foundational statistics that we have today come from The Book, the spiritual successor to The Hidden Game of Baseball. Mr. Tango has …
Assume the Position: First Base
First base looks to be quite a bit rosier for the Cubs than catcher does. They Cubs have a budding star at the top and some very intriguing options at the bottom. Last Year 2013 Career Name Age AVG OBP SLG wOBA pwOBA AVG OBP SLG wOBA MLB Rizzo 22 0.285 0.342 0.463 0.349 0.368 0.245 …
Assume the Position: Catcher
We are getting very close to catchers and pitchers reporting. We might have one or two moves of significance until that point, but I'm going to assume that our team is essentially what we have in front of us. That being said, I'm going to take a broad look at every position to seem what we have there, both now …
When is a win worth more?
I was thinking about Michael Bourn this morning, because I need psychiatric help. It kind of struck me that the Cubs could use Bourn more than most other teams… but taking a common approach to free agency, we shouldn’t be offering him more money than any other team (Bourn’s worth is more or less a constant), especially because we are …
Reconstituted Record
This is a fairly stat-heavy post, so please feel free to ignore it if that’s not your bag. If you don’t want to learn about stats, but still want to learn, this is a really cool site. This defies description. I trust that most people have realized at this point that a team’s W-L record doesn’t tell the whole story. A great …
Should the NL adopt the DH rule?
Starting this season, the NL and the AL are going to play interleague games in a fashion quite unlike before; namely, year-round interleague play. With this new development (making it very unfeasible to call up a Quad A guy to be your DH for the 2 weeks you play at AL stadiums), the calls for the NL to adopt the DH …
Fixing the 2013 Cubs
In my last post, I detailed the 10 places (what a high number!) that the Cubs could stand to upgrade by merely getting an average player. Those 10 places were: 1. Centerfielder2. Third baseman3. Ace Pitcher4. Rightfielder5. Ace reliever (closer)6. #2 pitcher7. #3 pitcher8. Fireman reliever9. Utility infielder10. Utility outfielderWhat have the Cubs done to fix these positions?1. CenterfielderLast year, the …
Anatomy of the 2012 Cubs
C 2.0 [1.2]1B 2.0 [1.8]2B 2.5 [2.5]SS 2.5 [3.3]3B 2.8 [0.9]RF 2.7 [1.7]CF 3.0 [1.0]LF 2.5 [4.0]C2 [0.5] [0.5]O4 [0.5] [0.6]O5 [0.5] [-2.1]I5 [0.5] [0.7]I6 [0.5] [0.0]Position: 22.5 [16.0] SP 4.5 [3.3]SP 2.7 [2.1]SP 2.0 [1.4]SP 1.3 [1.2]SP 0.6 [0.7]RP 1.5 [0.7]RP …
Anatomy of an Average Team
In FanGraphs, a “replacement-level” team would win 43 games. That is to say, a team that is only comprised of AAA fodder, talent freely available to any team, would expect to win that amount. I wondered, then, how a team could take that and be average. I looked at the FanGraphs leaders at each position this year and took adjusted …