Author: dmick89

Math For Dummies

This one Cubs beat reporter continues to say the Cubs have eaten $11.5 million when they released Carlos Silva. I’m assuming you have all figured out this beat reporter is Paul Sullivan because, who the hell else could it be? There’s a problem with what Sullivan is saying.

First, the Cubs were paid to take Silva from the Mariners. The Cubs were paying $8 million of Silva’s $11.5 million this season with the M’s picking up the rest. The Yankees have since picked him up meaning the Yankees will pay him about $390,000 this season. So the Cubs are on the hood for $7.6 million. That’s what the Cubs are paying Carlos Silva. The rest of the money is coming from two other teams. Simple enough, right?

Sullivan insists the Cubs have eaten all $11.5 million because, get this, they signed Marlon Byrd with some of the money they got from the Mariners. That’s right. To illustrate how iditiotc this is, let’s create a similar situation.

You have only $100 to your name. It’s been a rough year. With that $100 you decide you want to spend some of it in the Obstructed View Store. You’re going to spend $22 on this fabulous shirt.

You’re going to get your son something nice. His favorite color is blue and you see the excellent design by Adam and have to spend $15 on it. A happy son in such rough financial times can go a long way.

Throw in $5 in shipping and you’ve spent $42 of the $100 you had. Simple math means you have $58 remaining. Like most Americans, you’re going to spend it and worry about your financial crisis later, but you’re done with the fantastic Obstructed View merchandise. You spend the rest of the mony on a pair of shoes.

Two months after you get the shirts, your son decides green is his favorite color and wants that shirt out of sight. The good news is that at the same time as you’re discussing this with your son, your out of control dog is chewing up both shirts. Half of each shirt is gone and you decide against sewing them together to make one shirt. You throw them out. $42 down the drain. Obviously your dog goes without dinner because of his behavior. That’s a given. Your wife has left you and taken son and the dog with her. It’s not all bad, though. You still have your shoes and you’re loving them.

QUIZ

1. How much money did you receive little or no value from?

A. $22
B. $42
C. $100

2. Did anyone other than Paul Sullivan answer $42?

A. No
B. Nope
C. Nah
D. All of the above

I seriously cannot figure out how Paul Sullivan graduated from college. I don’t even know how he could get into college. How did he graduate middle school? This is simple math.

$11.5 million
-$3 million
-$0.4 million

You don’t add in some random player just to get it back to $11.5 million. The Cubs are paying Marlon Byrd $5.5 million this year. Yes, some of the money they saved they used to sign Byrd, but they didn’t throw Byrd away so you can’t possibly conclude the team threw $11.5 million away.

This is simple addition and subtraction. I know we’re using decimal points, which can really confuse children when they’re first learning math. Perhaps Sullivan is a child? Saying the Cubs threw $11.5 million away is the same as saying you threw $100 away using the above example. Nobody who has ever graduated high school would say that. Nobody!

I know we’ve been advertising the merchandise lately, but I did want to add that the money we do generate from it will help this site run. Adam, Jeff, Tim and I aren’t made of money and although the cost to maintain this site isn’t large and it’s definitely worth every penny of it, a little help is always nice. We know these aren’t the best economic times. We’re not as crazy as Tom Ricketts who asked the state for buckets of money they couldn’t afford. We’re not asking that from any of you. Buying a shirt or a pair of undies isn’t going to put you on our preferred reader’s list because we don’t have one. It won’t give you any special priveleges. You won’t see superior content that others don’t have access to. It’s just the same site, but if you do like some of the merchandise and have a few dollars to spend. we’ll likely put it toward running this site.

Continue reading “Math For Dummies”

The 3rd Annual How Good Has Carlos Zambrano Been In His Career Post

I had thought about doing this again this year, but held off for some reason. After listening to Wrigley Talk Friday this morning I thought I’d finally do it. WTF talks about Carlos Zambrano for awhile to begin the podcast and like Julie, Tim and Adam, I’m as confused as they are. I really do not know why Carlos Zambrano is held to a standard that no other Cubs player in memory has been or likely will be.

On Another Cubs Blog we wrote it about it frequently and finally realized that the hardest W for him to ever come by is going to be with the fans and media. In fact, he simply cannot win with the fans and media. It’s not going to happen.

Some of this was talked about on the podcast, but I’ll go over it briefly. Fans want players to run out every ground ball. Think about how many times you’ve heard announcers, journalists and fans criticize a player for not running out a ground ball. Zambrano runs them out as hard as he can and people complain. Fans want their players to love the city they play for. Zambrano loves the United States enough that he got his citizenship here and he loves Chicago. He absolutely loves the city, the fans, the atmosphere around the city. Everything. Fans ignore it. Fans want their players to be human beings and divulge some personal information. Zambrano does it all the time and fans tell him he needs to shut up. Fans want players to be good husbands and fathers. Zambrano, from everything we’ve ever read is. Fans criticize him for playing catch with his children in the park. Fans want players who care about winning. I’ve watched few players in my life who cared about winning as much as Zambrano does. Fans complain. Fans want players to show some emotion because if they don’t, they’re lazy. Zambrano shows as much emotion as we’ve seen and fans think it’s a problem. Zambrano saved an infant from a burning apartment firefighters were too frightened to enter. Fans complained. The last one didn’t happen of course, but if it ever did, the fans would complain. It doesn’t matter what he does. Everything is wrong. Nothing is good enough. That’s where these articles have come from.

The first article has a rundown of where Zambrano ranked among all starting pitchers and among all Cubs starting pitchers midway through the 2009 season. Last February I took another look at it and I’ll now take a look at it again through the early part of the 2011 season.

The goal was to look at stats that the average person accepts and uses regularly. Advanced metrics are fantastic and far better, but you’re not going to convince the average man by throwing weird acronyms at him. We will look at advanced metrics, but we’re going to start with much simpler ones. 

Wins is a pitching statistic that is mostly useless, but fans love them some wins. I used a cutoff of 1950 since pitchers prior to that finished many of the games they started. That was true in the 50s, 60s and even 70s, but I didn’t want to break it down into just 20 or 25 years. Zambrano has won 118 games in his career between the ages of 20 and 30. Among 20-30 year olds since 1950 only 65 pitchers have won more games than Zambrano over those years. Many of those pitchers were from the 50s and 60s. Since 1980 only 22 have won more games than Zambrano between those ages.

Not only has Z won a lot of games, he hasn’t lost that many. His career winning percentage is .615. Since 1901 only 54 starting pitchers with 1000 or more innings pitched in their careers have a higher winning percentage than Zambrano. That’s nearly the entire history of the game.

Wins among starting pitchers for the Cubs since 1980 (ages 20-30) has Z at the top (23 more wins than Maddux). That 46 more wins than the pitcher in 3rd (Kerry Wood), 58 more than Steve Trachsel (4th), and 71 more than Frank Castillo who sits 5th. There’s not even a Cubs pitcher who is even close to Zambrano in wins from the same age that Zambrano has been since 1980. Since 1950, Fergie is at the top by a wide margin, but Zambrano is 2nd. Since 1901, only Fergie Jenkins and Ed Reulback have more wins for the Cubs than Zambrano does (age 20-30 seasons). Since 1876, Zambrano ranks 16th in wins for the Cubs and his career isn’t over. As much as fans say they like wins, it’s hard to argue with someone who has put together more wins for the Cubs than all but 15 pitchers in its entire history.

Z’s .615 career winning percentage ranks 9th on the Cubs all time among starting pitchers. The latest year one in front of him began his career was 1906. Nobody that began their career after 1906 has a higher career winning percentage (among starters of course) than Carlos freaking Zambrano.

Fans like wins. Fans still complain about Zambrano even though they’ve not seen anybody with a higher winning percentage for the Cubs.

ERA is still a stat many fans like. ERA is relatively useless when trying to compare one era to another, but ERA+ can do that. Since 1950 Carlos Zambrano‘s 126 ERA+ ranks 18th among pitchers who started at least 60% of their appearances and threw 1000 or more innings in their career (equivalent of about 5 full seasons these days). 18th! He trails Kevin Brown, Matt Cain and Tim Hudson by 1. He’s tied with Bret Saberhagen, Sal Magile, and Jim Palmer. He’s 1 ahead of John Smoltz and John Tudor and 2 ahead of CC Sabathia.

Since 1901 (same parameters as above), he ranks 37th. ERA isn’t a great stat at all to evaluate pitching, but the fans love it. Only 36 pitchers since 1901 have a higher ERA+. He ranks 43rd if we go all the way back to 1876. Think about that a moment. Have you ever done anything in your life that ranks as the 43rd highest in over 130 years? Me neither. It is important to note that Zambrano’s career is not over and players get worse as they age so his numbers are likely to go down, but so far that’s where he ranks all-time.

Among Cubs pitchers (60% starts, 1000 or more innings) in the the entire history of the organization, only the following players have a higher ERA+ than Z’s 126: Mordecai Brown (153), John Clarkson (151), Jack Pfiester (139), Orval Overall (135), Lon Warneke (131), Pete Alexander (131), Cark Griffith (129) and Larry Corcoran (128). Only one of them started their career after 1906. That was Lon Warneke who began his career in 1930. Think about that one for a moment. No player who began his career with the Cubs in 80 years has a better ERA+ than Carlos freaking Zambrano!

Fans like ERA. They still complain about Zambrano.

People say Z is too inconsistent. Game Score is a relatively simple formula that has been around for awhile thanks to Bill James. It measures how well one does in each start by assigning a singular number to it. Z’s average game score in his career is 55. Since 1950, that’s tied for 63rd with Dan Haren, Tim Hudson, CC Sabathia, Justin Verlander, Mike Mussina, Dwight Gooden, Dave Steib, Phil Neikro and several others. Game score only goes back to 1919, but Zambrano sits in the same spot if we go back that far. Among Cubs starting pitchers with 1000 or more innings, only Fergie Jenkins and Kerry Wood have a better average game score. That’s it.

Similar to the above, we can use quality start percentage (QS%) to also see how consistent a pitcher was. It’s far from perfect, but no stat is (especially the traditional ones). Since 1950 he’s 54th. He ranks right behind Nolan Ryan and ahead of John Smoltz. He ranks 51st if we go back to 1919 (as far back as they have the stat). Only 50 pitchers have had a higher percentage of their starts be quality starts. Among Cubs players since 1919, only Bill Hands (.634), Fergie Jenkins (.628) and Kerry Wood (.624) have a higher QS% than Zambrano.

Moving on to some of the advanced metrics. Since 1950 (60% starts, 1000 innings), Z’s 31.1 WAR ranks 37th among for players through the age of 29 (Zambrano turns 30 later this season). Only 36 starting pitchers since 1950 have been better than Zambrano through the age 29 season. Since 1901 he ranks 53rd and in the entire history of baseball only 79 were more valuable than Zambrano. Since 1950, only Fergie Jenkins and Rick Reuschel were more valuable Cubs pitchers (same parameters) than  Zambrano. He’s also 3rd most valuable since 1901 and since 1876 he’s 5th (John Clarkson 2nd, Clark Griffith 4th).

Among all pitchers since 1950 (60% starts, 1000 or more innings), Z’s 31.1 WAR ranks 99th. WAR is a counting stat so it will continue to rise. Since 1901 he ranks 164th and 197th in the entire history of the game. Think about that one for a moment too. In the entire history of baseball, more than 130 years, not even 200 have been better than Carlos Zambrano. So far. There are hundreds of pitchers each and every season.

Since 1950, no age limit, only 4 Cubs starting pitchers have been more valuable than Zambrano. Only 7 have been since 1901 and he ranks 11th since 1876. Bill Hutchinson, Clark Griffitch and John Clarkson all pitches in the 1880s when baseball was such a different game than it is today. They’re just ahead of Zambrano. How many people who attended a Cubs game this season saw those guys pitch? How many of them saw Mordecai Brown, Pete Alexander or Hippo Vaughn pitch? For that matter, how many of them even saw Bob Rush, Fergie Jenkins or Rick Reuschel pitch? There are only 3 pitchers on the list above Zambrano that I saw: Jenkins, Reuschel and Maddux. I was -2 years old when Reuschel began his Cubs career and -6 when Jenkins did. Each had long enough careers that I remember watching them when I was a child. Maddux is still my favorite player ever and I remember not only his Cubs days well, but also his days in a Braves uniform. It would be silly to sit here and say Zambrano is as good as Maddux, because it’s not even close, but in a Cubs uniform he wasn’t much less valuable.

Everything above is where Zambrano ranks in various eras and various statistics. I didn’t cherry pick any of them. I looked for some stats that I know the average fan still loves. I looked for stats that fans have specifically criticized Zambrano for.

Continue reading “The 3rd Annual How Good Has Carlos Zambrano Been In His Career Post”

Matt Garza is not this bad or this good

The start to Matt Garza‘s career as a Cub has not gone as planned. After giving up Chris Archer, Robinson Chirinos, Hak-Ju Lee, Brandon Guyer and Super Sam Fuld, the Cubs Cubs were expecting big things from Garza. He’d been a very good pitcher for a few years now and was moving from the AL East to the NL Central. He was the supposed top of the rotation starter the Cubs have lacked in recent years.  A closer look at his stats revealed a pitcher who was quite similar in value to Ryan Dempster, Carlos Zambrano and even Randy Wells.
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I just checked and Barry Bonds is still the home run leader

As you all know by now, Barry Bonds was convicted two days ago for hitting too many home runs. It’s a serious offense in modern America. Punishment has not yet been handed down and no precedent exists. It’s believed Bonds will be get a spanking for each of the 13 home runs he hit above Babe Ruth. There’s still much debate concerning passing Hank Aaron in career home runs, but experts believe that Bonds will be sent to bed without dessert for 3 weeks.

Prosecutors are exploring the idea of requesting Bonds be executed, but are likely to insist instead he be permanently detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Said the prosecutor, “there are many others wrongfully detained in Guantanamo Bay so it only seems appropriate Bonds be one of them.” In response to the statement, the American people quickly threw their support behind the prosecution releasing a written statement reading, “That cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater finally gets what’s coming to him. Amerika, Fuck Yeah!”

Although there are surely some spankings and dessertless nights ahead for Bonds, I quickly took a look to see who the new home run leaders were. Turns out, it’s still Barry Bonds. Don’t believe me?

Single Season home run leaderboard
Career home run leaderboard

Told ya.

Continue reading “I just checked and Barry Bonds is still the home run leader”

Cubs offense as bad as we thought despite Albert Pujols leading off every inning

Through 11 games the Cubs have scored 45 runs. It should be understood that this is a small sample size. That being said, the Cubs have played eight games against pretty bad teams and only three games against a team anyone thinks will come close to finishing at .500 or above. Nearly five of those games have come against the two teams expected to finish at the very bottom of the NL Central and the Diamondbacks are thought to be bad enough to finish in last in the NL West. The Cubs have had a very easy schedule so far.
Continue reading “Cubs offense as bad as we thought despite Albert Pujols leading off every inning”

Cubs to sign Doug Davis

The Cubs are reportedly close to signing Doug Davis to a minor league deal. Davis has been considerably better throughout his career than most people realize. Baseball Reference uses Rally’s WAR calculation and has him at nearly 22 rWAR. Fangraphs has him at 23.5 fWAR. Last season he threw only 38.1 innings in the big leagues for the Brewers. He threw a small number of innings in the minor leagues as well, but had to miss most of the year because of a condition with his heart. He also had surgery on his elbow.

This is only a minor league deal and the truth is that if Doug Davis can return to the form he showed from 2003 to 2009, he’s a pretty good pick up for this team. His career FIP is basically league average (4.43). The ERA is also about league average and the same with xFIP. This is his age 35 season and he’s coming back from surgery and complications with his heart so even expecting him to be average is a stretch.

Marcel and ZiPS each projected a 4.42 FIP from Davis this season. If Wells and Cashner return on time, Davis is nothing more than depth. If one has a setback, Davis could see action with the Cubs. I know I’ve underrated Davis over the years and still have trouble figuring out how the ridiculously boring and time consuming Davis has given the Cubs so much trouble over the years. Only the A’s and Nationals have hit Davis worse than the Cubs have over his career. The A’s and Nationals faced Davis 9 different times while the Cubs have faced him 18 different times in the regular season.

Davis doesn’t turn this team into contenders, but for a team that thinks they are, this is about as solid a pick-up the team could have made for presumably little money.

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11 Cubs Sure To Disappoint

I should have written this about ten days ago, but I didn’t so I’m going to do it now. Early season stats mean absolutely nothing to me so there’s no risk of them influencing this list.

10. Blake DeWitt

Why he’s here: The Cubs got Blake DeWitt from the Dodgers last summer in return for Ted Lilly. Lilly was a very good pitcher for the Cubs for 3+ seasons and with only two months remaining on his contract, the lefty simply didn’t have much value. The Cubs did get Blake DeWitt and a couple minor leaguers who may actually make an impact this season, but Cubs fans wanted more than DeWitt. It didn’t bother them so much last year since it was the end of the season, but with a full season ahead of him, an inability to high lefties or righties, Cubs fans will begin complaining about DeWitt since that’s all they got for Lilly.

Why he might not be here: The Cubs go to a strict DeWitt/Baker platoon and each of them performs better in that split statistic. The 2nd base job for the Cubs produces more than expected and people begin to forget about Mark DeRosa

9. Sean Marshall

Why he’s here: The lefty reliever had a breakout season last year, but he’s actually been quite good as a reliever for awhile now. He posted a 3.74 FIP in 2009 and his ERA as a reliever prior to 2010 was about 3.20. The reason Marshall’s not looked as good as those numbers is because of the starts he’s gotten in the big leagues. His FIP in 2010 was nearly 1 run less than his career FIP as a reliever. It was roughly 1.5 runs worse than his FIP in 2009. Marshall also picked up a modest two-year contract, but with the increased money and increased level of performance, expectations are really high.

Why he might not be here: Maybe he really improved that much. I won’t believe until I see it, but it’s always possible. His curveball is a lot of fun to watch even if Marshall is Trachsel-esque on the mound.

8. Carlos Marmol

Why he’s here: Ridiculously good season in 2010 and that led to a three year contract. It’s almost impossible that Marmol will have another season as good as his 2010 season and the media and fans always compare players to the performance they posted the year they their contracts.

Why he might not be here: If he can show improved command and/or the offense performs better than expected, which would lead to a higher saves total. The media and fans love that.

7. Kerry Wood

Why he’s here: Yeah, all three of the relievers at the back end of the Cubs bullpen make the list and are right next to one another. Cubs fans remember 1998 Kerry Wood. Some also remember 2003 Wood and some also even remember 2008 Kerry Wood. Since he left the Cubs his numbers as a reliever have not been especially impressive (league average actually, which isn’t good for a reliever). His dominating 2008 as a reliever was helped out significantly by Wood walking 2 batters fewer per 9 innings. Since then the walks have increased to career high levels. His unsustainable home run rate in 2008 has also increased to his career average rate.

Why he might not be here: He struckout 20 batters in a game in 1998. Every single Cubs fans, even ones who weren’t yet alive, remember that game. He’s an icon in Chicago and he took $1.5 million to come back to Chicago when he could have earned millions more elsewhere. If he’s judged on his performance, Cubs fans will be disappointed. It’s likely one of those where fans end up being a bit of both and they’ll want the Cubs to re-sign him after the season is over.

6. Carlos Pena

Why he’s here: Coming off an awful season in Tampa Bay and joining a team in which the beat writers still think batting average is the tell-all statistic. Pena will hit for a low average. He’ll probably get on base and hit for some power too, but come August when fans take note of his .220ish batting average, the media and fans will wonder why on earth Jim Hendry signed a guy who hit below .200 last year.

Why he might not be here: Like Adam Dunn, Pena is more than capable of driving in a lot of runs and that’s another statistic that’s looked at too often as an evaluation tool. That will be hard to do since he doesn’t hit lefties especially well and unlike Dunn, isn’t going to hit in the middle of the order all the time. Against lefties, he’ll hit lower.

5. Kosuke Fukudome

Why he’s here: It’s the final year of Fukudome’s 4-year, $42 million contract the Cubs and Fukudome signed following the 2007 season. It’s important to note in my opinion that at the time the media and fans were talking about how Fukudome was going to be the next Cubs superstar. That never made sense to me. Based on his stats in Japan and how other Japanes position players had performed, Fukudome was likely to be about an .800 OPS hitter. Maybe a bit lower or a bit higher. Certainly not bad, but not great. Fukudome got off to an outstanding start and by 2009 Cubs fans were ready to see him go. It’s likely to get uglier than ever this season.

Why he might not be here: So far Fukudome is playing primarily vs righties while Colvin is tasked with the difficult duty of hitting lefties. Fukudome has hit righties well in his career and it’s possible he puts up some big numbers this year in part time duty. Even if that happens, Cubs fans are still probably going to be disappointed in what they got out of Fukudome.

4. Starlin Castro

Why he’s here: Castro set the bar high last year. As a 20-year old he held his own in the big leagues and I think it was even reported over one million times that his batting average was over .300 when the season ended. That’s a flashy number for someone that age. Some of his other numbers weren’t nearly as impressive and he ended up being about league average based on wOBA, but batting average is still king. It’s hard to hit .300 in the big leagues and there’s a very good chance Castro’s sophomore season will be judged on his batting average.

Why he might not be here: Maybe he’s Tony Gwynn who never batted below .300. If Castro can maitain those averages, his defense will become less a focus than it has been.

3. Tyler Colvin

Why he’s here: The lefty slugger had a breakout season a year ago and flashed some legit power. He strikes out a lot and the fans hate strikeouts. He doesn’t get on base that much and his batting average is going to remain low. He’s no longer new to the media and fans so his flaws will stand out more this season.

Why he might not be here: He’s not Kosuke Fukudome.

2. Carlos Zambrano

Why he’s here: When you think back to the 2003 season the Cubs entered the season with a rotation of Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Matt Clement, Shawn Estes and the young Carlos Zambrano. Entering 2004 fans referred to the Cubs rotation as Wood, Prior, Clement and Zambrano. After Clement left it was Wood, Prior and Zambrano. Zambrano fared better than expected for several seasons when he was considered either a back end of the rotation starter or a mid rotation one. Once Wood and Prior went down for good, Zambrano became the top of the rotation and that was during the awful 2006 Cubs season. Fans often talk about how Zambrano has never lived up to the hype. Zambrano was an afterthought in the Cubs rotation for several years and he never lived up to the hype? No, the hype never lived up to Carlos Zambrano. He can’t win with the fans and media. He’s a polarizing athlete and has had enough run-ins to more than wear out his welcome, if we was ever actually welcomed in the first place.

Why he might not be here: Zambrano becomes the so-called good-luck pitcher as the Cubs offense scores bundles with him on the mound. As a result he wins 17 or more games. If that happens, then all we’ll hear is about how the Cubs paid Zambrano $1 million per win so people are just less disappointed. There’s no winning for Zambrano. He ain’t Charlie Sheen.

1b. Mike Quade

Why he’s here: The team won a million games last season after he took over, but the only difference between the team before and during was Carlos Zambrano. The clubhouse chemistry was much talked about, but winning results in good clubhouse chemistry. As this team loses, that clubhouse chemistry gets worse. With a first year manager in the big leagues, it could get bad quickly and Quade may find himself unemployed by August. From the sounds of it, the chemistry may already be an issue and it’s only going to get worse.

Why he might not be here: The same Cubs who stood up for him after the season continue to stand up for him. Based on the history of sports, that’s not usually true, but the history of sports already ended so it doesn’t matter.

1. Alfonso Soriano

Why he’s here: He signed an 8-year, $136 million contract after the 2006 season.

Why he might not be here:

Others who may disappoint: Aramis Ramirez, Matt Garza, Randy Wells and Andrew Cashner.

Continue reading “11 Cubs Sure To Disappoint”

Say with me

There is no such thing as an awesome bullpen entering the season.

There is no such thing as an awesome bullpen entering the season.

There is no such thing as an awesome bullpen entering the season.

Every time you start to think some team has an awesome bullpen in March, repeat those lines ahead. The bullpen is way too inconsistent because of their sample sizes to ever consider one a strength entering the season. Unless Mariano Rivera is your closer, your bullpen has issues. The Cubs bullpen has already blown 2 games and it was considered one of the strengths of the team. One more time.

There is no such thing as an awesome bullpen entering the season.

Does. Not. Exist.

Take the most dominating back end of a bullpen I have ever seen. The 1990 Reds turned games into 6 inning ballgames. If you never got a chance to watch that Reds team play, you really missed out. The end of those games were lights out. You didn’t have a chance.

Entering the 1991 season everybody expected the Reds to have another ridiculously good bullpen. Considering the year before the three combined to post nearly a 190 ERA+, Reds fans and baseball fans all over were thinking it was going to be another 6 inning game vs the Reds. Nope. The three combined for roughly a 120 ERA+ the following season. Still very good, but the idea of that shutdown 7th, 8th and 9th inning releivers was put to rest.

The great bullpen entering the season is a myth. It’s something teams chase like addicts chase the best high of their lives. The end result for both is that they wasted a lot of money on something that doesn’t exist.

Continue reading “Say with me”

Offense So Far

Before we show any numbers at all, it must be stated that the numbers are mostly useless, if not entirely useless. It’s a total of 8 games. Small sample size!

That doesn’t mean we can’t show some team numbers just for fun. That’s all it is at this point.

vs. R: 182 PA, .325 wOBA, 94 wRC+ (100 is average)
vs. L: 118, .304, 83
Low Leverage: 126, .232, 38
Medium Leverage: 136, .399, 142
High Leverage: 38, .298, 80
Bases Empty: 161, .305, 85
Men On Base: 139, .331, 97
Men In Scoring: 78 PA, .289, 78
Overall: .315 wOBA, 88 wRC+

We should see the Cubs numbers vs lefties improve considerably while their numbers vs righties will probably drop a little. We’ll also see the other splits get closer to what the overall team offense does.  Overall, I think we’ll see the Cubs stay about where they are right now. Maybe a bit better. Maybe a bit worse. It’s not a very good offense. They can undoubtedly hit lefties and almost certainly will, but hitting righties is going to be a struggle.

Continue reading “Offense So Far”

Ramirez’s single

“Aramis Ramirez, in typical style, is at first base. I mean, no excuse why a Major Leaguer is not at seconed base on that ball.” — Bill Schroeder, Brewers color commentator

In last night’s 7-4 Cubs victory over the Brewers, Schroeder took a shot at Aramis Ramirez after Rickie Weeks first error of the night. A popup was misjudged by Weeks and Ramirez ended up at 1st base. As I was watching highlights from around MLB this morning, I caught that video and was surprised to hear that from Schroeder. My initial thought was, no way. I wanted to come here and bash him for something silly.

Before I did that though, I wanted to look at a couple other Ramirez doubles to see how quickly he got to 2nd base after making contact. Turns out it took him about 9 seconds to get to 2nd base. After watching a couple videos, I had a general sense of how long it takes Ramirez to go from home to second after making contact. I went back to the Weeks’ errors video and timed it. It was 9 seconds until Nyjer Morgan picked up the baseball.

Yeah, Schroeder has a point. Ramirez definitely should have been at 2nd base. To be fair to Schroeder who I actually enjoy listening to at times, he bashed Rickie Weeks just seconds before doing the same to Aramis Ramirez. Weeks should have caught the pop up. Everybody would agree there’s no excuse not to make that play. I’d like to think that everybody would also agree that Weeks is human and is going to make mistakes in the field. Easy defensive plays are going to be missed. It happens to every player at one point or another. No idea why it happens, but it does.

However, running out of the box really isn’t like the inevitable mistakes that come in the field. You can run hard all the time assuming good health so I understand where Schroeder is coming from and agree with him. There’s no reason that a Major League not named Molina should not be at 2nd base on that one. None.

That’s not so much why I’m talking about this specific play. We often hear announcers, the media and fans get on players for a lack of hustle. Fans complain all the time about singles that could have been doubles, doubles that could have been triples, and many other things when it comes to something like hustling. Often times what is ignored is the health of the player, but seven games into the season, I don’t really think health is an issue.

What I want to talk about is the impact that these lapses that players have that result in one less base being taken. It seems to me our emotions toward a player should be directly proportionate to their value. It doesn’t make any sense to treat a player who has no value as if he’s a great player. He still deserves to be treated with respect. The impact of various events in baseball is understood by all baseball fans.

Awhile back I mentioned that some of the non-stats people could look at the weights in wOBA in terms of how excited you get after each one occurs. Fans, in general, do a very good job of measuring the overall value of a player based on positive events, but greatly misunderstand the value of an event which has a negative impact on run scoring. Think about how you excited you are when a single or a double is hit with nobody on base. Don’t even consider the score. Personally, a single draws my attention. Maybe they’ve got something going. Still a long way from scoring. A double and I’m thinking a well placed single is going to score that run. The runner is still a long way from scoring. Maybe for you, a single is just an event and a double is really awesome. I don’t know. I think we do a pretty good job of understanding the run expectation chart without even understanding what it is.

Here’s the run expectancy chart for 1999 through 2002. Offense was up then so it’s probably a bit lower now, but we’re going to use those numbers anyway. It doesn’t really matter what the exact numbers are anyway. We see that 1.189 runs are expected when a runner is on 2nd base with no outs while .953 are expected if he’s on 1st. That’s a difference of .236 runs. With one out, there is a difference of .152 runs and with two outs a difference of .093 runs. The average is .16 runs. The average single with nobody on base is worth .592 runs. Knowing the difference already, we know the average value of that runner being on 2nd with nobody outs and nobody else on base is .753.

It’s the .59 that gets us excited, the .75 that gets us even more excited. So why does -.16 make people so angry? It really does seem to me that for some people failig to reach 2nd base is such an awful thing that it erases all value to them. It does not. Ramirez absolutely should have been at 2nd base last night. Poor baserunning by him. Poor effort. Poor judgment.

Let’s say Ramirez did what he did last night 20 times this season. That’s ridiculously high. A mor realistic number would probably be 5, but we’re going with 20 for a reason. If it happened 20 times, in that situation, it would cost the Cubs 3.2 runs all season long. Since there are different base/out states we should look at them too.

The base/out state is what bases the runners are on and how many outs there are when the batter is at the plate. There’s only 24 of them if you think about it so we can actually figure out how much a single in all situations would cost the team if it were not turned into the easy double it should have been. That value is what is referred to as the run value.

The average run value of the single is .49 runs while the double is .79 runs. Here we see the value of taking that additional base has increased significantly. Rather than the .16 runs when nobody was on base like in last night’s game, it’s doubled in value.

It’s still less than the single by quite a bit and only deserving of an emotional outburst less than what we’d show on the average single, which isn’t much. Even using .3 runs at 20 times per season, it costs the team 6 runs. 6 runs over the course of a season is huge by the way. As much as we complain about lineups, there’s really nothing that can be done in a lineup to generate 6 runs. Not even half as many runs in fact so if he did that 20 times then, yeah, the anger that we see after doing it once would be more than deserved. But he’s not going to do it 20 times.

If you think this is a regular occurrence, I encourage you to count the times he could have made it to 2nd base. Assuming good health, it takes him about 9 seconds to get to 2nd base. Obviously it depends on where the fielder fields the ball, but I assume all of you can guess at how long it would take to get a throw in. It’s usually not very long.

After you’ve counted the number of times it happened, multiply it by .3 and that will tell you how many runs it cost the Cubs during the entire season. Then ask yourself if it’s something that deserves so much outrage from the fans and media.

There’s nothing wrong with pointing out something that should have happened, but blowing it out of proportion does nobody any good. Far too often I see Cubs fans so outraged with a player over this that I just cannot figure out why. It’s not just Cubs fans either. I’m not singling out this fan base. It’s all fan bases, but it’s something that shouldn’t turn so many fans from liking a good player to literally hating his freaking guts.

Continue reading “Ramirez’s single”