We've already published the projections for some of the backups along the way. Jeff Baker's was posted with the infield backups and the two possible back-up catchers were published in another article. Without commentary, the others are below. Projection Name PA H HR BB SO avg obp slg wOBA Guru Blake DeWitt 351 82 5 26 55 .256 .313 .376 …
Some thoughts on opening day starter and Brett Jackson
Dale Sveum decided to go with Ryan Dempster on opening day. There's little doubt that Matt Garza is the superior pitcher, but Dempster is still pretty good himself and it's not like Garza is awesome unless we look only at last season. Even if we do that, he only looks awesome when we look at his defense independent pitching stats. …
Cherry Picking
In the final 14 appearances one season, he threw 74 innings, allowed only 50 hits and posted a sparkling ERA under 2. After the season fans were excited about what this pitcher could do the following year. Ignored in those 74 innings was 1) he walked a lot of guys, 2) was considerably lucky in that his BABIP and HR/FB …
Discredited Draft Review
Last night was our second annual Discredited Fantasy Baseball draft. I'm posting the results here for people to vote on who drafted the best. I'm particularly interested because of the twelve teams, six were drafted by robots. We'll see if teams drafted with the heart and grit only possessed by humans are better than ones drafted by cold and heartless …
Projecting the 2012 Cubs: Right Field
The Cubs signed DeJesus on November 30th to a 2-year guaranteed contract with a 3rd year option. He's guaranteed $10.5 million over the contract. I think a couple of the reasons the Cubs chose DeJesus is quite simple and I mentioned them in that article. DeJesus played RF for 116 games last season and played 8 games in CF. He’s …
OV’s Projected Playing Time for the 2012 Cubs
On Saturday I published this year's playing time survey and more than 50 of you took the time to fill it out. Thanks for taking the time. I'm going to go ahead and publish the results here. I didn't make any adjustments to the batters because you guys pretty much nailed it as far as position and team totals go. …
Big Ten Revenue Sharing Isn’t Working
I have an article up on the former WV23's new website, The Daily Big Ten, about revenue sharing in the Big Ten and SEC.
Jeff Samardzija close to locking down spot in rotation
Dale Sveum says Jeff Samardzija is close to locking down a spot in the rotation. “Obviously, that lock’s getting a little closer and closer to being finalized,” Dale Sveum said Sunday, one day after Samardzija’s four innings against the Rangers. The right-hander gave up one run on three hits. He has not walked a batter over six innings this spring. …
2012 Cubs Playing Time Projections
Many of you who have been reading this blog or ACB before it are familiar with the playing time projections we've set up each year. Back in 2008 and 2009 we had a lot of people filling the surveys out. There was a lot of excitement among Cubs fans before each of those seasons and it led to many more …
Position Battles: Back-up Catcher
The Cubs roster is mostly set with a few exceptions. Welington Castillo and Steve Clevenger are battling it out for the back-up catcher spot. There's been this invented competition for the rotation, which I think is mostly nonsense. You've got Matt Garza, Ryan Dempster and Paul Maholm who are guaranteed spots in the rotation. Certainly deserving of a spot is …