View Post

Alfonso Soriano is overpaid

In Commentary And Analysis by dmick8939 Comments

The other day The Hardball Times wrote that Alfonso Soriano is not overpaid. I'm a big fan of anyone who doesn't talk about Soriano in a way that makes him seem like he's a lazy, overpaid player. However, THT relied on fWAR, which uses UZR as its defensive metric. His 2007 UZR is so high that my iPad probably won't …

Darwin Barney defensive highlights

In Commentary And Analysis by dmick8914 Comments

Since Darwin Barney set the single season record for an errorless streak at 2nd base last night, I figured we might look back at some of his best plays. Thanks to mlb.com we can do that. As I was looking through these last night I was surprised at two things: there weren't as many outstanding defensive players as I thought …

Cubs upset Alfonso Soriano won’t waive no-trade clause

In aside by dmick897 Comments

This is getting old. Cubs personnel are disappointed that Alfonso Soriano won’t waive his 10-and-5 rights to go to the Giants.  The outfielder doesn't want to play in a colder climate that could adversely affect his hitting. If this is true, why can't the Cubs just shut up about it? Sure, they'd probably try to trade him, but what fucking …

View Post

Worst Cubs offense ever?

In Commentary And Analysis by dmick89114 Comments

I was checking out Starlin Castro's disappointing offensive season on Fangraphs and thought I'd check to see where the Cubs rank offensively as a team. I didn't realize it had gotten so ugly. Their 77 wRC+ is dead last behind the Mariners at 81. The two offense's may actually be equal if we eliminated the pitcher in the NL, but …

View Post

Let’s play “What if”

In Commentary And Analysis by dmick8981 Comments

Starlin Castro has established himself at the big league level and he's going to get better. How much so? Who really knows, but even if he never got any better, he's still an above average shortstop currently making league minimum.  Anthony Rizzo hasn't established himself as Castro has, but he's more than shown in his first couple months with the …

View Post

Handling Starlin Castro

In Commentary And Analysis by dmick8999 Comments

The other day in San Francisco Starlin Castro lost track of the number of outs and failed to complete the second half of what may or may not have been a double play. As you'd expect, Dale Sveum was quite unhappy about it. "It's something that's obviously unacceptable at any time," Sveum said. "Whether we could have turned the double …