The Cubs are 8.5 games out of first place and it’s just the first of June. Their pythagorean record is even worse than their actual 23-30 record. Pythag has them at 22-31. The only team with a worse Pythag than the Cubs is the Houston Astros at 22-33. Minnesota is worse in the AL at 17-36, but no other team has fewer Pythag wins than the Cubs. Three teams have 22, but needless to say, that’s pretty damn bad. (click the link below to read more)
Author: dmick89
Trade Value: Carlos Pena
The first of June is tomorrow and while no significant trades are likely to be made in the first few weeks of June, the Cubs do find themselves to be far from contenders at this point. The Cubs will likely trade a few players near the deadline for prospects so it seems a good time to start talking about the trade value the players have. It’s actually fairly simple to calculate. A win (WAR) is worth $4.5 million. I’m going to assume all trades are made on July 31st so the player would have two months remaining. I’m also going to use the current ZiPS projection and will update these later on to reflect talent changes.
Along with knowing the value of the win, we have a reasonable projection for each player and know how much he’s likely to contribute over the final two months of the season. If we multiply those numbers we find how much the player is worth above a replacement level player making league minimum. Then we just factor in the contract. Two-thirds of the season is gone by that point so only a third of the contract remains to be paid.
We also have a good idea of how much draft picks are worth for players who may be eligible for arbitration. One additional draft pick is worth $2.5 million. A type B free agent would bring one draft pick if the club offers arbitration. A type A free agent brings two draft picks so his value in draft picks is $5 million. Furthermore, we know the value of rated prospects based on how similarly rated prospects have performed at the big league level. Combining all of this we get a reasonable idea of how much we should expect in return for the players.
There’s a lot of error obviously. A player may be playing on a bad leg and his projection moving forward isn’t actually as good as ZiPS thinks it is. Maybe the team trading for the player only wants to use the guy in limited action making his value a bit lower to the team trading for him. There are all kinds of other examples so don’t take these numbers for anything more than what they are: a reasonable expectation for return if the player is traded.
Over the next couple months we’ll cover all the players on the roster unless the team suddenly finds itself in contention. At that point we’ll change gears and look at what the Cubs can acquire to improve the team and how much they’d have to give up in terms of prospects. That seems unlikely at this point, but it’s still possible.
Carlos Pena‘s updated ZiPS is a .371 wOBA. Over two months we’d expect him to get 200 or so plate appearances. I’m ignoring defense because of how unreliable it is even over the course of one season, but over the course of a couple months it’s useless. A .371 wOBA over 200 plate appearances is .8 WAR. That’s a value of $3.8 million. Pena’s contract is a little bit odd.
He’s being paid $5 million this season and $5 million next year even though it’s only a one-year contract. It’s unlikely any team is going to pick up the payment for next season so the Cubs are on the hook for that. Over the final two months this season he’d be paid $1.7 million. It’s probably OK to think he’ll be a type B free agent, which is another $2.5 million in value. His surplus trade value is $4.7 million (after rounding). A top 10 hitting prospect is worth just over $36 million so obviously the Cubs won’t get anything close to that in return. Grade B hitters are worth $5.5 million and two Grade C pitchers, 22 and younger would be worth a combined $4.2 million. You can look at the grades for the Cubs prospects to get an idea of what the Cubs could get in return for Pena.
The additional $5 million the Cubs will have to spent next season also needs to be factored in somehow, but I’m not really sure how to include it. It’s possible the Cubs could just write that off as an expense and not include it in his value. It’s even possible the Cubs convince the other team to pay it, which would net them nothing in return except freeing up some payroll, which may be more valuable than you think.
UPDATE: After Carlos Pena hit a home run agains the Yankees, his trade value is basically the same as the above.
Soriano to miss some time and more weather blaming
No word on the MRI for Soriano, but he’s going to miss at least a few days. Blake DeWitt will start in LF in his absence and Paul Sullivan mentions Tyler Colvin and Brett Jackson as potential replacements if he’s out for awhile.
You know how the Cubs have blamed the cold weather all season long? Yeah, now it’s the hot weather.
“The situation with the roster in flux and all the things going on here made it tougher,” Quade said. “To make your debut, pitching in these conditions, is tough here at Wrigley.”
It’s just comical at this point. The Cubs lose because it’s cold and because it’s hot. I guess this team was built to play in 72 degree weather with 8 mph winds.
I’ve heard the Cubs, the managers, and the executives complain about weather before, but I’ve never heard them complain as much as they have this year. It’s embarrassing.
Continue reading “Soriano to miss some time and more weather blaming”
The emptiest batting averages
Colin Wyers looks at batting average and BP’s True Average to find the players with the emptiest batting averages. Starlin Castro and Darwin Barney at the top 2 and former Cubs Ryan Theriot and Aaron Miles are next. Jeff Baker is 7th and Marlon Byrd is 10th.
As Colin notes, you can be a good hitter and still make the list (Castro and Jose Reyes) so it doesn’t mean you’re a bad hitter. It’s just something we often talk about. So and do has an empty batting average, which means he hits a lot of singles and those don’t do as much damage as extra-base hits.
I looked at wOBA and batting average earlier this week.
Series Preview: Pittsburgh Pirates (22-26) @ Chicago Cubs (22-26)
The Cubs have gotten off to a good start on this 9-game home stand. They need to get as close to .500 as they can during this stretch because June is a very tough month for the Cubs. The Cubs have the right teams coming to town in the Pirates and Astros, but the Cubs have also had their troubles with those teams.
Team Overview
Team stats with respective league rankings
| Pirates | Cubs | |
| wRC+ | 86, 13 | 98, 4 |
| UBR | -2, 12 | -7.7, 16 |
| UZR | 3.1, 6 | -9.1, 13 |
| DRS | -4, 8 | -35, 16 |
| SP FIP | 4.19, 14 | 4.06, 10 |
| RP FIP | 3.47, 5 | 3.73, 10 |
The Pirates have gotten no production at all from Pedro Alvarez and Lyle Overbay. Alvarez is currently on the disabled list along with pitchers Ross Ohlendorf and Mike Crotta.
Pirates batters
| wOBA | ZiPS wOBA | |
| Andrew McCutchen, CF | .355 | .364 |
| Jose Tabata, LF | .336 | .333 |
| Garrett Jones, RF | .355 | .335 |
| Neil Walker, 2B | .337 | .338 |
| Lyle Overbay, 1B | .295 | .324 |
| Ryan Doumit, C | .342 | .334 |
| Brandon Wood, 3B | .247 | .287 |
| Ronny Cedeno, SS | .273 | .296 |
You wouldn’t think you could get worse after Alvarez’s .271 wOBA, but the Pirates added a guy who has hit only .247 this season and is projected to hit only .287. Alvarez is much better than he’s played so far this season. The Pirates offense is a lot like the Cubs with one exception: they don’t have the holes in their lineup like the Pirates have. The best hitters in the Pirates lineup have projected wOBA’s similar to the Cubs best. When the Cubs have Koyie Hill in the linup it’s similar up and down the lineup.
Pirates pitchers
| ERA | FIP | xFIP | ZiPS FIP | |
| Kevin Correia, RHP | 3.84 | 4.09 | 4.10 | 4.21 |
| Paul Maholm, LHP | 3.65 | 3.58 | 3.72 | 3.81 |
| Jeff Karstens, RHP | 3.57 | 4.81 | 3.18 | 4.60 |
The Cubs do miss Charlie Morton this series, which is probably good considering how well he’s pitched this season.
Pitching Matchups
ERA, FIP, xFIP, and ZiPS projected FIP in parantheses for the Cubs
Friday: Kevin Correia, RHP vs Doug Davis, LHP (8.31, 2.21, 3.53, 4.25), 1:20 PM CT, WGN
Correia has struckout just under 4 batters per 9 innings this season, which is well below his career average. He’s walked under 2 so his K/BB ratio is still pretty decent. He’s allowed a .270 BABIP and stranded many more runners than you’d expect. His FIP and xFIP are about average and ZiPS considers him an average starter. After a couple rough starts vs the Dodgers and then the Brewers, Correia pitched well last time out agains the Tigers.
Davis was hit around by the Red Sox last time out, but he’s struckout a lot of batters so far this season. His peripherals are pretty good, which shows with his 2.21 FIP and 3.53 xFIP. The Pirates have hit a bit worse against lefties than righties so I think we’ll see much better results today than last time out.
Saturday: Paul Maholm, LHP vs Randy Wells, RHP (1.50, 5.07, 3.85, 3.80), 12:05 PM CT, CSN
Maholm has been pretty good this year, but he’s facing a team that has a .353 wOBA vs lefties so I’ll be surprised if he pitches well on Saturday. Maholm has allowed only a .276 BABIP this year and has been lucky with home runs as well. I look for that luck to change on Saturday.
Randy Wells returns to make only his second big league start this season. He didn’t pitch well in his final rehab assignment, or I should say the results weren’t there. Wells is a good pitcher, but I have no idea what to expect from him after missing almost two months. I believe he only threw 70 pitches for the I-Cubs so I’d expect him to be out as soon as he reaches 80 to 85 pitches.
Sunday: Jeff Karstens, RHP vs Ryan Dempster, RHP (6.29, 4.51, 3.41, 3.74), 1:20 PM CT, WGN
19.6% of the fly balls hit against Karsents have left the yard. Considering how unlucky he’s been in that regard, it’s hard to imagine he had just a 3.57 ERA. I understand why his xFIP is so low. Then you look at his LOB% and he’s actually stranded over 81% of the runners who have reached base. That will come down and so will the HR/FB rate.
Dempster’s HR/FB rate has begun to drop finally. His ERA and FIP are still ugly as a result of how many flies left the yard, but his xFIP is actually better than any other year’s he’s been a starting pitcher. Unlike Karstens who has gotten lucky in stranding runners, Dempster has also been unlucky and not stranding runners as often as you’d expect. Dempster has a 2.62 FIP in May as well as a 2.77 xFIP to go along with his much improved 3.09 ERA. He got off to a horrible start in large part due to luck and has regressed toward the mean as we expected.
Continue reading “Series Preview: Pittsburgh Pirates (22-26) @ Chicago Cubs (22-26)”
The All Average wOBA hitters
I was looking on Fangraphs at Starlin Castro‘s stats this morning and couldn’t help but notice that his .357 wOBA was almost entirely batting average (.330). It doesn’t really matter how you accomplish it, but I started to wonder about the difference in wOBA and AVG. I was specifically interested in batters who had hit .300, which is what we usually consider someone being a good hitter. Since 2001 there have been 367 qualified seasons in which a player has batted .300 or higher. Ichiro Suzuki‘s 2004 had the smallest difference between wOBA and AVG. He batted .372 and his wOBA was .379.
Three of the top five and four of the top six belong to Ichiro. Placido Polanco‘s 2001 had the 2nd lowest difference. Starlin Castro batted .300 last season and had a .325 wOBA. The .025 difference is the 13th lowest since 2001. This season’s .027 dfference would rank 18th, tied with 2003 and 2007 Luis Castillo, as well as 2009 Erick Aybar.
Ryan Theriot‘s 2008 ranks 30th and Mark Grudzielanek‘s 2003 ranks 35th. There’s not another Cubs in the top 200. After that we see Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee three times each and towards the bottom we find Sammy Sosa‘s 2001. The hitters who got the most bang for their .300 batting average is no surprise. Barry Bonds has the four top seasons in that regard (2001-2004). Jim Thome, Travis Hafner, Jim Edmonds, and Alex Rodriguez are also up there.
Seeing Ichiro with the smallest difference isn’t too surprising. He’s a ridiculously good hitter, but he doesn’t walk much and doesn’t have great power. I think it’s safe to say at this point that Castro is also a very good hitter, but probably is never going to walk much and likely won’t ever have much power. As pessimistic as you guys probably think I am about Castro, I actually compared Castro to Ichiro after only 6 weeks of big league playing time. That thought has remained there. While I think it’s still way too early to think Castro is going to have an Ichiro-like career, it’s certainly possible.
The two are more similar now than they were a year ago. Castro is probably less a free swinger than Ichiro is, but he also doesn’t have the speed of Ichiro. The similarites are fairly obvious.
- Both have needed a very high BABIP to be as productive as they have been (.352 for Castro, .355 for Ichiro)
- Neither has or will walk much. Ichiro has walked quite a bit more than Castro, but he’s also a lot older.
- Neither player has much power.
- Both of them strikeout relatively little.
- Ichiro’s career GB/FB is 2.33. Castro’s 2011 GB/FB is 2.33 (1.9 career).
- Castro has swung at more pitches out of the zone in his career, but very similar to what Ichiro has done over the last few years.
Ichiro has played tremendous defense in the outfield while Castro has struggled at SS. Their defensive value overall has been somewhat similar when you factor in positional adjustment.
It’s still early in Castro’s career. We only have a year’s worth data for him whereas we have a decade for Ichiro. Please do not think I am saying that Ichiro and Castro are the same or that Castro will be as good as Ichiro. It’s not at all what I’m saying. I’m saying the two are similar and it isn’t hard to believe that Castro could have a similar career. At the same time, you have to be an idiot if you’re expecting a 21 year old to put together a career worthy of the Hall of Fame by the time he’s 30 years old. That’s what Ichiro has done.
Cashner to the bullpen when he returns
No decision has been made on what type of a role he will have long term with us. I will leave all of that up to Dr. Gryzlo and Dr. Yocum who are treating him for his shoulder injury. I will tell you that I think that if he is out for a while it is probably unrealistic to think that he will just go right back into the rotation when he returns. When you miss a few months with an arm injury you cannot just go right back to pitching six innings or more when you return so I would think that he would be in the pen when he does come back this season.” — Jim Hendry
I’m concerned enough about Andrew Casner’s ability to stay healthy in the rotation at this point that this is really the only decision that makes sense to me. Perhaps at some point down the road you revist this, but right now the goal has to be to keep him healthy. It would also be nice if the Cubs could extract some value of their 2009 first round pick and that’s probably not going to come from him as a starter. If the Cubs think his arm is healthy enough to start next season, then I suggest they give him some time in the minor leagues to get stretched out before putting him in the big league rotation.
The Cubs rotation moving forward will be Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano, Matt Garza (assuming he returns on time, which I’m skeptical of), Randy Wells and either Doug Davis or Casey Coleman. Speaking of Davis, a lefty, the Cubs currently have way too many lefties on their team. The Cubs have Sean Marshall, James Russell, John Grabow and Scott Maine currently in the bullpen. How many lefties do you need?
I can’t think of any reason the Cubs shouldn’t send down Maine and release John Grabow. Say what you want about Russell, but he’s dirt cheap. He’s also been effective in the bullpen though it’s a very small sample.
Series Preview: New York Mets (22-24) @ Chicago Cubs (20-25)
Berselius refused to show up for work so that left the rest of us scrambling around to find a replacement. We couldn't find any qualified applicants though we thank you for your interest, so I'm going to go ahead and do his job for him. He has been punished and will not be having dinner anytime soon.
Continue reading “Series Preview: New York Mets (22-24) @ Chicago Cubs (20-25)”
Catcher Interference Skill
Mike Fast looks at the catcher inference leaders (batters, catchers, and even pitchers) since 2007 (subscription required). Carl Crawford, who reached base last night via catcher interference on Welington Castillo, leads the way. The top 15 batters in catcher interference have accounted for 60% of all interference calls (including playoffs and spring training) since 2007. Crawford has 14 and the next highest is 9. 15th on the list is Andres Torres who has never had a catcher interference call in the regular season or postseason, but has had 2 in spring training.
The Cubs just aren’t very good
About a quarter of the 2011 season is in the books and the Cubs have performed about as we expected overall. The pitching, particularly the rotation, has been worse than we thought. Part of that can be explained by the injury to Randy Wells who is an above average starting pitcher. The pitchers they’ve used to fill in for Wells, and Andrew Cashner too, have been horrible. Ryan Dempster has a bloated ERA thanks to more than 20% of his fly balls allowed leaving the yard. Carlos Zambrano has been below average. The only pitcher in the rotation who has been any good is Matt Garza. (click the link below to read more)