Author: myles

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 case is this year’s Colts; they scored fewer points than they allowed yet carried an 11-5 record. It’s a part of baseball and life that sometimes things don’t turn out the way statistics say they should (and in fact, it’s much more interesting that the better team doesn’t always win, or that the Orioles are allowed to make the playoffs once a decade). 

There are many attempts to synthesize a more accurate rating system for a team. You’ve likely heard of Pythagorean W-L, in which a teams runs are taken to some exponent and divided by that same number plus that team’s runs allowed to the same exponent.

Pythagorean

This is generally a pretty good way to get closer to a team’s true W-L record. Clay Davenport has done some good work on this subject in the past. However, my problem with the stat is that it just isn’t intuitive. It makes sense from an esoteric standpoint, but there don’t seem to be baseball reasons why 1.73 is a better exponent to use than 1.78, except from a baseball fit standpoint.

There are also regression models that one can use: for instance; the formula for a team’s winning percentage last year was .500057 + .098455*RDPG (Run Difference Per Game) (current to 07/26 of last year, I gave up after the Cubs were so awful. Suffice to say, it does not change much). The Adjusted R-square for this formula was .732398. This is around as accurate a formula as I’ve found (I do the regressions in excel), but it’s actually more esoteric.

Eventually, I decided to come at it from a different angle. I asked myself what would happen if I compared the Cubs’ run total game by game with how many runs they allowed in every game?

First, an obvious caveat. What happens in game 52 is more-or-less dependent on what has already happened in game 52. While a bunt/sac fly is clearly not optimal in every case, in some cases it is more optimal then others, and so it may not be fair to compare game 52’s 4 runs with game 107’s 5 runs allowed (as those runs may have been reached in much different ways). 

That being said, I think it does a pretty good job of telling you what a team’s true talent level is. Essentially, you record the number of times a team has scored and allowed each number of runs. You then compare the two columns to see how often each run total would have won or lost. Then, once you have a winning percentage based on how many times each run total exceeded the number of runs allowed (in ties, you win 50% of the time), you calculate expected wins from the number of times each scenario actually occured. 

For example:

2012 Cubs Scored Allowed Win% EffWins
0 16 9 0.028 0.4
1 24 19 0.114 2.7
2 16 20 0.235 3.8
3 25 23 0.367 9.2
4 25 16 0.488 12.2
5 24 17 0.590 14.1
6 8 8 0.667 5.3
7 8 18 0.747 6.0
8 7 10 0.833 5.8
9 2 9 0.892 1.8
10 1 7 0.941 0.9
11 1 3 0.972 1.0
12 3 1 0.985 3.0
13 1   0.988 1.0
14 1   0.988 1.0
15   1 0.991 0.0
16     0.994 0.0
17   1 0.997 0.0
  162 162   68.2

The Cubs scored 0 runs a staggering 16 times. They obviously could only win a game in which their opponent scored 0 as well: that happened 9 times, so they win 4.5 of those games. 4.5/162 is a winning percentage of 2.8% (5.6% of the time your opponent will score 0 runs at the “end of regulation,” and 50% of the time you win those games if you score 0 runs too), and 2.8% * 16 (the number of times this scenario occured) is ~ 0.4 Effective Wins.

When the Cubs score 1 run, they usually don’t win…but they would have any time they allowed 0 (and again, half of the times they allowed 1). The 24 times they scored 1 run resulted in around 2.7 Effective Wins.

When you’ve solved that for every total the Cubs reached this year, you add up all the Effective Wins and get a reconstituted record. In this case, the Cubs were 68.2 and 93.8. That means they were unlucky last year, to the tune of 7.2 wins.

This is where that caveat comes in. First, it’s difficult to attribute all of those 7.2 wins to luck, because in many cases (where close games are concerned) bullpens and other circumstances have a much greater leverage than they would otherwise: in those cases, it might be disingenuous to assume each team wins half of their ties, for instance, or even win games in which they are 1 run ahead or behind at the same rate. Perhaps that team loses (or wins) as many as 55% of those close games (this seems EXTREMELY unlikely, but not unthinkable). In that case, you can perform a similar action to see how many of these games occur:

2012 Cubs Scored Allowed Win% EffWins “Close”% Eclose
0 16 9 0.028 0.4 0.2 2.8
1 24 19 0.114 2.7 0.3 7.1
2 16 20 0.235 3.8 0.4 6.1
3 25 23 0.367 9.2 0.4 9.1
4 25 16 0.488 12.2 0.3 8.6
5 24 17 0.590 14.1 0.3 6.1
6 8 8 0.667 5.3 0.3 2.1
7 8 18 0.747 6.0 0.2 1.8
8 7 10 0.833 5.8 0.2 1.6
9 2 9 0.892 1.8 0.2 0.3
10 1 7 0.941 0.9 0.1 0.1
11 1 3 0.972 1.0 0.1 0.1
12 3 1 0.985 3.0 0.0 0.1
13 1   0.988 1.0 0.0 0.0
14 1   0.988 1.0 0.0 0.0
15   1 0.991 0.0 0.0 0.0
16     0.994 0.0 0.0 0.0
17   1 0.997 0.0 1.0 0.0
  162 162   68.2 3.9 45.9

As you can see, the Cubs played in 45.9 effective games where the score difference was -1 to 1. If instead of winning “50%” of those games (which this model does not believe; it is not centered about any win percentage in games decided by precisely 1 run in either direction), you could theoretically argue up to some number 45-55% of the time. That would give you a “margin of error” of around 2.25 wins. This won’t always be the case (and there isn’t necessarily a good reason to believe the 45-55% number), but it’s good enough for this exercise. 

Bringing it all back to the Cubs, I’d say that the Cubs “deserved” to win 68.2 games, with a +/- of 2.3 taking bullpen considerations and some nebulous clutchiness into account. For reference, the Cubs had a Pythagenpat (a further developed Pyth W/L) record of 65.2-96.8 and an actual record of 61-101. I’m not certain if my system is more or less accurate than the more refined methods out there, but it DOES seem intuitive to me, and it is almost certainly better than W/L. 

This is a rating system that seems pretty new to me, so it’s not well-tested or even necessarily well-thought out. If you’ve heard of this before, please let me know, along with any critiques of the system you might have. Hopefully this has been entertaining.

 Update: Full list here.

Team Recon Wins Diff
CHC 68.2 61 7.2
HOU 61.2 55 6.2
BOS 73.7 69 4.7
KCR 76.5 72 4.5
NYM 77.8 74 3.8
COL 66.9 64 2.9
STL 90.8 88 2.8
DET 90.7 88 2.7
TBR 92.5 90 2.5
TOR 75.0 73 2.0
ARI 82.7 81 1.7
CHW 86.7 85 1.7
MIA 70.6 69 1.6
MIL 84.5 83 1.5
NYY 95.3 95 0.3
SEA 74.8 75 -0.2
LAD 85.6 86 -0.4
PIT 78.5 79 -0.5
LAA 88.2 89 -0.8
PHI 80.1 81 -0.9
SDP 74.6 76 -1.4
TEX 90.0 93 -3.0
WSN 94.6 98 -3.4
MIN 61.7 66 -4.3
ATL 89.6 94 -4.4
CLE 63.4 68 -4.6
SFG 88.7 94 -5.3
CIN 91.6 97 -5.4
OAK 88.2 94 -5.8
BAL 84.3 93 -8.7

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 rule have started. I'd like to go through the arguments for the DH and tell why I don't particularly love them.

1. Pitchers are terrible hitters.

This is one of the first things that any article espousing the DH rule will be quick to point out. Traditionally, pitchers are terrible hitters, and for some reason people think this either lessens the prestige of the game or is less entertaining. I think this is a pretty awful argument. Just because most pitchers aren't very good at the plate, that doesn't mean that they all are. People are always looking to sabermetrics to find "the new market inefficiency." That inefficiency could very well be pitchers hitting. 

It's also not like pitchers didn't grow up hitting the baseball anyway. There is no DH in little league, or in high school. Traditionally, your best player was your pitcher or your shortstop, and that guy hit like .600/.600/1.800. There is at least some skill there. I understand that the more time a pitcher spends in the cage is less time he spends refining his repertoire, but I very much suspect that the marginal benefit of spending an extra 2 hours taking batting instruction from world class hitting coaches could outweigh the marginal cost of the 49th and 50th hour working on mechanics/long tossing/whatever professional pitchers are doing.

One last thing. If you can't be bothered with pitchers batting, just use the double switch! You can essentially skip over your pitcher in many circumstances when replacing him, so many times your pitcher only has 3 PA in a single game. That's 3 opportunities to knock in that 7th or 8th hitter that gets on base 28-31% of the time.

2. Games are better with more scoring.

This is a subjective argument. You might enjoy games with more offense – that doesn't make games with more offense objectively better. If high-scoring games are way better than low-scoring ones, why do people seem to remember shutouts and nail-biting 2-1 and 1-0 games better than 10-7 or 9-8 affairs? I love baseball; low-scoring games, high-scoring games, because they are all baseball games. 

I think the real argument people are furthering here is that games are better when their team is scoring more often. I'm not sure that's objectively true, either, even if it feels good. There's also another way for games to be higher-scoring: help pitchers hit better.

3. Pitchers could get injured while batting.

That's not a road you want to start walking down. Do you know what's tremendously more dangerous to a pitcher than swinging a baseball bat? (warning: first two links are violent) This. Or this. Or this. Getting hit by line drives has literally killed coaches before. If we are talking about making sure pitchers (who, by the way, are supposed to be excellent physical specimens) don't get injured, we should be talking about making sure all infielders wear helmets or use batting practice guards, not preventing pitchers from swinging a fucking bat or running to first base half-heartedly.

4. It's unfair to the National League to not have a DH.

Is it more unfair to the National League to not have a DH, or for the American League to have to put Adam Dunn at 1B and sit Konerko when they play the Cubs? Or put Dunn in LF? The cut runs both ways: the DH shortens American League benches for National League games (if the DH truly cannot field). It might be easier for the AL to adjust to not having a DH than it is for the NL to adjust in the other direction, but I seriously doubt it. It isn't like the NL bench bats couldn't use the extra ABs during interleague play. 

A side point in this direction is "this would create more high paying jobs, so the players secretly want this to happen." I feel like this is a poor argument. It's not like there are so many DHs in the league right that some are just dying for work. Guess how many "DHs" qualified for the batting title this year? That would be 6 (50% or more games at DH). Two of them (Delmon Young, Jesus Montero) weren't even league-average hitters last year. People actually want to add 15 more DHs to baseball, so the "pure hitters" that don't exist for even half of the teams eligible to field one can find work?

Adding DHs won't increase the talent pool in baseball; it'll dilute it. You aren't going to pull more league-average hitters into the majors; you're going to to pull your worst fielder into the DH role and replace that guy with a AAA guy (Soriano to DH, replaced by Tony Campana. Woooooooo). Opening the DH just widens the fringe.

As you can tell, I come pretty heavily on the side of letting the pitcher bat. I don't think there are any really compelling reasons as to why the change should be made, and I have a few reasons why it shouldn't.

1. Playing shortstop takes a tremendous physical toll on your body. It's a different type of fatigue than a pitcher faces, no doubt, but I'd imagine that on the whole, it takes a much greater physical toll to play SS 162 games a year than it does to pitch in 32. There are also many poor hitting shortstops in baseball. Where are the calls for designated hitters for these guys? Why are the players who have to field every day forced to hit every day while the pitchers get away scott free?

This is obviously an insane argument. This line of thinking would rationalize 9 designated hitters, and no one would both field and hit. I don't believe for a second that we should have designated fielders, and I don't think anyone else does either… but it makes more sense to me than designated hitters for just pitchers (from a physical standpoint). Is there any position that would not benefit from not having to worry about hitting the baseball?

2. The game of baseball is getting tighter and tighter. After the A's played Moneyball, everything changed. Instead of going with your gut first and the numbers second, teams utilize both scouting and statistical analysis. Especially with the rising costs of competitive baseball (that would likely slightly increase with the introduction of the DH, but that's not a huge issue), and the rising intelligence of even the very bad teams, teams are looking for every edge they can get. Here's one:

On 15 teams, there currently is a collection of about 5 guys who hit pretty poorly. If you developed each of them to where they hit just .200/.250/.300, you'd double their productivity (essentially) and provide a benefit to your team that almost no other team in your league has. Of course, that's the pitcher in the National League. Owings and Zambrano and Leake and Hamels and Jackson and Wood have all shown that pitchers don't have to be terrible at hitting; they just are, usually. The pitchers that make a concerted effort to improve in that area usually do so (and the teams that field these pitchers reap the rewards). I don't think the answer to "pitchers hit poorly right now" is "don't make them hit." I think it's "teach them how to hit, because hitting is part of their job."

There's a hidden point I'm making here (that isn't so hidden). The Cubs have always had a better hitting staff than normal. 2 of the top 10 hitting pitchers last year either played for the Cubs last year (Travis Wood) or will play for them this year (Edwin Jackson). The gap between the best and worst hitting pitchers is huge, also. That means that there is a ton of room for improvement in this area that any team that wants to divert resources to hitting instruction can take advantage of. 

If we're being completely honest, I don't hate the designated hitter. I think it's pretty dumb, but I'm not calling for it's repeal from the AL. Frankly, I could care less; it's been around longer than I have. I just don't think there is any compelling reason to change it now. 

Better Know a Cub: Christian Villanueva

Christian Villanueva was acquired by the Cubs for Ryan Dempster at the trade deadline in 2012. He wasn't the top prospect we all wanted (Randall Delgado), but I was fairly excited by the pickup. I almost always prefer positional prospects to pitchers; partly due to TINSTAAP, but mostly because successful position players are (on the whole) usually more beneficial to a team than pitchers. If we're getting a lottery ticket, I'll take the lottery position player almost every time.

A cursory glance of Villaneuva's minor league stats leaves a good amount to be desired. 20-year old prospects should clean up A-ball, and Villanueva only hit the league for a .278/.338/.465 line. He did show a good amount of power, though; 30 doubles and 17 home runs in 529 PA isn't at all shabby, and adding 32 SB (with 6 CS) he earned himself a fringe top-100 spot on Baseball America's list. 

I don't think he did enough to stay on that list in 2012. Instead of moving to AA at some point in his age-21 season, Villanueva played A+ leagues exclusively (Carolina League to Florida League). He outplayed both leagues, but barely: the average line in the Carolina League (where he spent the majority of the year) is .257/.327/.390 (and the average age is 22.5); he hit .285/.356/.421. He only walked 34 times in 520 PA, though, which is pretty depressing. 

Offense

I don't have access to advanced metrics, so I'm going to work off scouting reports mostly and what I can glisten from his stat sheet. Sickels praises his gap power (a claim evidenced by his high doubles total). Other reports I've seen say he has an average hit tool and about average power. He's got room to grow, though: a 5'11", 160 lb frame screams room to bulk up and put some hurt on the baseball.

From the youtube clips I've seen, he's got a pretty tight swing without a ton of excess motion. It almost looks like he's got a hitch to his swing, though. He's not the fastest player, either. One of the cheesecake scouting reports gushed about his speed, but looking at him, I don't see it.

Defense

The scouting reports are all pretty unanimous in praise of his 3B defense. There are even whispers of a toolkit that would enable him to play 2B (in which case he becomes a much, much better prospect). I don't care a ton about the errors at the lower levels. If Villaneuva can be even an average 2B, his bat makes him a pretty legitimate threat there. If he ends up being an above-average defensive 3B, he'll get by too.

Summary

Villanueva should start the season at AA. That means either Cerda is moving up to AAA to play 3B behind Vitters Cerda was taken in the Rule V draft (h/t to GW), so he's essentially got the job to himself unless Lake stays in AA (which would be a bad sign). If Villaneuva hits the Southern League like he hit the Florida League (I'm looking for a wOBA around .360 – .365), he'll be right on track. If not, he's got a pretty dim future. In the best case, Villanueva is agressively promoted to AAA when Vitters leaves and he gets 200-300 PA there. Christian is a player I'll be watching closely in 2013. 

Derrek Lee: The Joe DiMaggio of Doubles

While fiddling around in Baseball-Reference (my Christmas gift to myself was a subscription to Play Index), I came across something very curious: 

Derrek Lee is the all-time record holder in consecutive games with at least 1 double.

I'm not saying that the streak (which is 8 – there are a hundred or so 7 game streaks) is as untouchable as 56 consecutive games with a hit, but it's a pretty interesting bit of trivia nonetheless. It wasn't as if Derrek Lee hit an incredible number of doubles, either; he had 9 seasons with 30 doubles or more (the same total as Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano).

One last thing – when I think of really great doubles hitters, I think of Craig Biggio, but Biggio never had a streak of more than 5. 

(This is only the 1993-2012 list. BRef chokes when you feed it larger pools of data.)

1 Derrek Lee 2007-04-23 2007-05-02 8 37 6 20 10 0 1 8 6 2 0 1 .541 .564 .892 1.456 CHC
                                         
2 Brian Roberts 2004-08-09 2004-08-15 7 32 10 17 8 0 0 4 5 3 0 1 .531 .571 .781 1.353 BAL
3 Carlos Delgado 2000-07-22 2000-07-29 7 27 3 12 10 0 0 5 4 4 0 0 .444 .516 .815 1.331 TOR
4 Jeff Kent 1999-04-22 1999-04-29 7 29 6 8 7 0 0 0 9 4 2 0 .276 .382 .517 .900 SFG
5 Gary Disarcina 1998-08-19 1998-08-26 7 28 8 11 7 0 0 7 2 0 0 0 .393 .393 .643 1.036 ANA
6 Todd Walker 1998-04-22 1998-05-02 7 28 5 14 7 0 0 5 2 3 2 0 .500 .531 .750 1.281 MIN
                                         
7 Andrew McCutchen 2011-06-30 2011-07-04 6 24 6 11 6 1 1 6 1 2 0 0 .458 .500 .917 1.417 PIT
8 Conor Jackson 2010-05-19 2010-05-25 6 24 5 6 6 0 0 2 3 3 1 0 .250 .333 .500 .833 ARI
9 Martin Prado 2009-06-30 2009-07-05 6 26 8 15 8 0 1 6 0 3 0 0 .577 .621 1.000 1.621 ATL
10 Kendrys Morales 2009-06-12 2009-06-19 6 23 5 8 6 0 2 2 6 2 0 0 .348 .400 .870 1.270 LAA
11 Lyle Overbay 2009-05-29 2009-06-06 6 19 4 8 6 0 1 8 5 4 0 0 .421 .522 .895 1.416 TOR
12 Justin Morneau 2008-08-24 2008-08-29 6 26 5 13 7 0 1 5 0 0 0 0 .500 .481 .885 1.366 MIN
13 Albert Pujols 2007-09-05 2007-09-10 6 22 3 10 6 1 0 5 0 5 0 0 .455 .556 .818 1.374 STL
14 Conor Jackson 2007-05-28 2007-06-05 6 27 4 10 6 0 1 8 2 1 0 0 .370 .393 .704 1.097 ARI
15 Conor Jackson 2006-05-01 2006-05-07 6 24 7 9 7 0 0 4 1 2 0 0 .375 .423 .667 1.090 ARI
16 Maicer Izturis 2005-06-29 2005-07-04 6 25 2 9 6 0 0 6 1 0 0 0 .360 .360 .600 .960 LAA
17 Jason Varitek 2004-08-21 2004-09-01 6 24 6 12 6 0 2 4 2 3 0 1 .500 .556 1.000 1.556 BOS
18 Magglio Ordonez 2003-07-20 2003-07-25 6 23 7 15 6 0 2 9 3 4 0 1 .652 .704 1.174 1.878 CHW
19 Mike Sweeney 2001-05-10 2001-05-15 6 27 7 12 9 0 0 6 3 1 1 0 .444 .464 .778 1.242 KCR
20 Richard Hidalgo 2000-09-03 2000-09-08 6 24 8 10 6 0 0 9 2 1 0 0 .417 .407 .667 1.074 HOU
21 Bobby Abreu 2000-06-23 2000-06-29 6 26 5 11 7 0 0 4 6 3 0 0 .423 .483 .692 1.175 PHI
22 Wade Boggs 1997-09-07 1997-09-14 6 22 11 12 7 0 1 6 3 4 0 0 .545 .593 1.000 1.593 NYY
23 Ed Sprague 1997-04-05 1997-04-14 6 22 3 7 6 0 0 3 3 1 0 0 .318 .375 .591 .966 TOR
24 Edgar Martinez 1996-05-23 1996-05-29 6 25 5 10 8 0 2 9 4 2 0 0 .400 .444 .960 1.404 SEA
25 Kenny Lofton 1994-06-17 1994-06-22 6 23 8 13 7 1 0 5 0 5 3 1 .565 .643 .957 1.599 CLE

Goodnight, Lovie

After 9 years and 3 playoff wins, the Bears have fired Lovie Smith.

To start, I'd like to say that I don't think Lovie Smith is a terrible coach. Smith led the Bears to a record of 81-63 from 2004 to 2012, and a winning percentage of .563 is 9th of 32 franchises during his tenure. He was also 9-3 in MNF games, for what it's worth (little). There's no doubt in my mind that Lovie Smith will be a head coach in the NFL again, and likely be a successful one. He is a fine defensive mind, and if given an offense wherever he lands, he may even have some postseason success.

However, there was a reason he was fired, and it was his complete inability to cultivate an offense.

Here is a sampling of stats from the Lovie Smith Era:

Bears were 7th in games with 14 or fewer points scored, with 49.

Bears were 1st in games with under 150 passing yards, with 57. Second place was miles away, with 50 (Jets).

Bears were 4th in games with 5 or more sacks allowed, with 21. There were, comically, 5 games in the LSE where the QBs were sacked 7 times or more.

Bears were 1st in the league in games with 3 or more turnovers, with 46. They were merely 2nd in the league in turnovers, total, with 280.

There are definitely complaints with the talent his teams has been given. I'm not going to argue that he's failed with great offensive units. I will say, though, that Lovie's offenses have consistently been either the worst or very close to the worst units in his 9 years. He's had exclusively awful offensive coordinators. His offensive units have never improved. Jay Cutler is seemingly the only quarterback who has to wait until 15 seconds are left on the play clock to get a play in. There are myriad reasons why the Bears have been abysmal offensively, and Lovie Smith is the first one. You've got to field at-least a below-average offensive squad to have serious hopes at a deep playoff run, and many years Smith has failed to do that.

The Bears have essentially squandered one of the best defensive runs in NFL history. They lead the league in takeaways during his era by a comical margin (310 to 283 – the distance between 1 and 2 is greater than the distance between 2 and 8) and games with 3 or more takeaways (again, 49 to 42, the distance between 2 and 15). To hear that a team that had a defense as good as the Bears did only won 3 playoff games (including a team that finished the regular season 7-9 and beating a dome team at home) in 9 years makes it pretty clear that something had to change. Today, something finally did.

Lovie Smith will be a head coach again. He'd be a fantastic defensive coordinator if he'd take the demotion. It's best for Smith and for the Bears to part ways.

 

 

Week 17: Chicago at Detroit

The Bears enter Week 17 with everything to play for. Win against the Lions, and the dream of losing in the first round of the playoffs is still alive. Lose, and the McCaskeys will have to find an inventive way to rationalize keeping Lovie "3 playoff wins in 9 years with the best defense of the decade" Smith for another year.

Bears Run Offense vs. Lions Run Defense

The Bears will attempt to run the ball down the Lions' throat this game. The Lions have shown they can be run on, with the 7th highest yards per attempt in the league this year (4.53 ypc). In fact, the Bears ran for 172 yards in Week 7 of the regular season. Forte is probable for the game, so you know he'll go. Armando Allen is questionable (knee); if he doesn't go, get ready for Kahlil Bell running left to right before falling forward for one yard a dozen times this game.

Bears Pass Offense vs. Lions Pass Defense

Jay Cutler had a pretty pedestrian game against the Lions earlier this season.  However, Cutler has dominated the Lions in his 8 starts against them (6-2, 11/1 TD/INT ratio, 100.9 rating). The obvious target is going to be Brandon Marshall, but expect Kellen Davis to drop his share of passes, and maybe (if we're lucky) he'll have a fumble or two. Alshon Jeffery will probably contribute an OPI or two as well.

A short aside: Kellen Davis is the worst TE in football, and it's not particularly close. The average TE catches around 65% of passes thrown his way. Davis has a league-worst (and it's not even close) 44% catch rate. That's just one reason why Davis has an impressive -51 Yards Above Replacement, so he's the Rafael Dolis of TE.

Bears Pass Defense vs. Lions Pass Offense

Stafford is having a fine year, and his #1 WR is the best in the world. Calvin Johnson has set the single-season yardage record. That being said, he's had only 2 bad games this year and one of them was when he lined up against Tillman all game. Tillman is expected to play (probable), but I don't imagine he'll hold Megatron to 34 rec yds again. I'd expect a decent game from Calvin. Tillman should erase the Lions #2: Young had a nice game when they matched up last year, but he's on IR, as is his backup (Ryan Broyles). Nate Burleson does not strike fear into the heart of Tim Jennings.

Melton is back for this game, so I imagine that the Bears' DL will be getting a good amount of pressure on the quarterback this game. Stafford has shown an ability to fold like a lawn chair, and in fact Peppers and Stafford have a history.

Also, you know I said Davis is the Dolis of TE? Pettigrew is the Joe Mather, with an incredible, inexplicable -128 DYAR. He somehow is worse than the next 2 TE in the league combined! To be fair to him, he's actually slightly better than Davis, he just gets targeted 3 times more often a game.

Bears Run Defense vs. Lions Run Offense

I am not particularly scared of Mikel Leshoure. He's essentially a replacement back, and while the Bears haven't really stopped the run this year (17th in the league in opp ypc), I'm not particularly convinced that the Bears are going to get shredded by Mikel. Joique Bell is a nice backup, too; in fact, I'd rather him start than Leshoure (if I was a Lions fan).

Special Teams

Olindo Mare has been fine in relief of Gould. The Bears are still a great special teams unit, even if they haven't had the TD to show for it. Detroit has dismal, dismal special teams. I just have a feeling that Hester will get a return TD today.

Summary

The Bears are clearly the better team. The way the Bears could lose this game is by losing the turnover battle, but that's the way most teams lose their games. The Bears haven't lost a game in which they've forced 3 or more TO, and they are 2-6 in the other 8 games. They are also 7-2 in games in which they have 1 TO or less. The Lions have 1 or fewer takeaways in 10 or their 16 games. This should be an easy win.

Bears 24, Lions 13

 

 

 

Better Know a Cub – Edwin Jackson

Edwin Jackson used to be the #4 prospect in baseball.

Getting his first taste of the bigs in  2003 (as a 19-year old, no less), Jackson had a huge reputation to live up to early on in his career. For a long, long time, he never lived up to it.

2004 20 LAD NL 2 1 .667 7.30 8 5 1 0 0 0 24.2 31 20 20 7 11 1 16 0 0 0 113 57 1.703 11.3 2.6 4.0 5.8 1.45  
2005 21 LAD NL 2 2 .500 6.28 7 6 0 0 0 0 28.2 31 22 20 2 17 0 13 1 1 2 134 66 1.674 9.7 0.6 5.3 4.1 0.76  
2006 22 TBD AL 0 0   5.45 23 1 7 0 0 0 36.1 42 27 22 2 25 0 27 1 1 3 174 85 1.844 10.4 0.5 6.2 6.7 1.08  
2007 23 TBD AL 5 15 .250 5.76 32 31 0 1 1 0 161.0 195 116 103 19 88 3 128 4 1 7 755 79 1.758 10.9 1.1 4.9 7.2 1.45  
2008 24 TBR AL 14 11 .560 4.42 32 31 0 0 0 0 183.1 199 91 90 23 77 1 108 2 1 7 792 100 1.505 9.8 1.1 3.8 5.3 1.40

This is an auspicious start to a career, to be sure. It's important to keep in mind a few things, though:

a) 24.2, 28.2, and 36.1 are essentially meaningless sample sizes.

b) The average 22-year old pitching prospect is getting ready to finish AA.

The thing that really pops out to me is the hellacious WHIP, here. You can't pitch in the bigs with a whip over 1.4; it just isn't going to happen.

Jackson would be traded as a 22-year old, a 24-year old, a 25-year old, a 26-year old, and as a 27-year old TWICE. That's insanity.

As Jackson aged, he looked more and more like a journeyman 5th starter. It wasn't until 2010 until he really started to break through; I'll show you why I think that is.

Pitch Selection

Jackson has 3 primary offerings. His main pitch is a 93-94 mph fastball that he throws 60% of the time. As you'd expect from a guy with a primary-pitch fastball, it hovers around -.6 runs per 100, which is obviously below average but relatively fine for a pitch you're throwing in the worst counts. Edwin also throws an 86 mph slidepiece (30%) that has consistently been a plus pitch over his career. After that, Jackson throws an awful changeup at 86 mph; he also throws maybe 2 curveballs a game.

Stuff

Jackson's success of late has been almost entirely predicated on his ability to throw the first pitch for a strike. Until 2010, Jackson's average for F-Strike% was 54%; from 2010 onwards, it is 59%. You may think that's no huge difference; it is. The correlation between throwing your first pitch for a strike and throwing your last pitch for one is pretty high. Really, no peripheral of Jackson's has changed besides K/9 (a modest downturn in BB/9, also attributed to getting the first pitch over for a strike), as far a LD%, HR/FB%, LOB%, yet his performance has been a lot better.

I don't know enough about Jackson to hazard a guess as to why he's throwing more first pitch strikes, but whoever told him to should get a free meal from the Scott Boras.

Summary

Edwin signed a 4/52 contract with the Cubs. As dmick89 pointed out, the Cubs are paying right around the market price. It's important to realize that no every signing is going to be a steal. Teams with financial advantages need to use those advantages, and the Cubs just did. Even if the Cubs don't compete until 2015, they'll still need pitchers that season, and Jackson will be one (even if he's the #4 or #5 on a good team). He doesn't have a NTC, so we can get under the contract for prospects or relief if necessary, and he's as good a bet (for a pitcher) to earn his contract as anyone. Next year's FA class is dogshit, and they'll likely get worse. This is a good signing for a good pitcher.

Cubs Sign Carlos Villanueva

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/12/cubs-to-sign-carlos-villanueva.html

The Cubs have reportedly signed Carlos Villanueva to an undisclosed deal. Barring some unexpected turn of events (like Bob Nightengale involving the Nippon Ham Fighters in some insane bidding war), this appears to be final. What does it mean for the Cubs?

I'm not sure what the contract is, but almost certainly it means that the Cubs are going give him a great chance to start for them, and it's probably 1-year or 1-year with a team option.

Villanueva has a marked difference in peripherals from starting and relieving. His OPS during starts is .804 (that's bad) and during relief stints it's .677 (that's good). I'm not really that jazzed at first glance with his stuff: he doesn't throw over 89mph and doesn't change speeds that well (changeup is 81 mph, though he does throw a curveball 10% of the time). He's got the pitch arsenal of a starter, but has never really put it together for one reason or another. His FIP last year was 4.71, though the 2.65 K/BB rate is pretty encouraging. He was also either very unlucky against the longball last year, or we are all going to suffer through it in 2013. I'm willing to believe it's the latter, unfortunately, as his career HR/9 is 1.31.

If I were a betting man, I'd say this is a one year deal for around $4.5 million, with an option year at $6 or so. That seems reasonable to me for a starter flier, and probably about as much as he could reasonably expect coming off of a decidedly average year. Any less, and I'll be happy. Any more, and I'd be disappointed, but not extremely so.

Edwin Jackson, come on down (please)

Edwin Jackson thinking of how much money Boras is extracting from the CubsNews broke today that the Cubs and the Rangers are the final two suitors in the Edwin Jackson regretstravaganza, after the failed pursuit of Anibal Sanchez last week. Now, reports are indicating that the Rangers will not be the high bid. The reported figures are somewhere in the 4 to 5 year range at around 12 to 13 per. If the Cubs were willing to go 5/75 for Sanchez, they shouldn't really hesitate to go 5/60 for Jackson either.

Sanchez is a better pitcher to be certain, but a cursory glance at the two pitchers does Jackson a real disservice. Sanchez has pitched 195.2 innings on average the past 3 years, and at a FIP of 3.40. That's studly, but also misleading. Sanchez missed time due to injury as recently as spring training this year, and has had more than his share of injuries throughout his career. 

On the other hand, Edwin Jackson has been nothing short of a workhorse. He's averaged 32 starts a season ever since he's had a full season in the big leagues, 6 years ago. While he was no good at all his first couple seasons, you can attribute some of that to his being new. In the past 3 years, Jackson has had a marked improvement in first pitch strikes (from an average of 54% to 59%), and that's allowed him to work out of the zone deeper into the count. Working ahead of the count is a primary driver of getting strikeouts and ground balls (people just want to put it in play at that point), and those are sustainable recipes of success. Over the last 3 seasons, Jackson has thrown an average of 199.2 innings of 3.75 FIP ball. That's demonstrably worse than Sanchez but still very valuable.

A 5-year contract would bring Jackson into his age-33 season, which is not very far from a peak year. As an injury concern, Jackson has to be pretty low on your list of concerns. He's proven (repeatedly) that he has the stuff to consistenly work in the middle of a rotation. I don't set a TON of value by pitching WAR, but it seems to me that Jackson is a very good bet to give you 3 WAR a year on average over the next 5 years. If a win this year is worth 4.5 million (and I'd like to think it's around there), you'd expect a contract of 5/60 to provide you with 14.6 million in surplus value (5% inflation) over the next 5 years. That sounds right around what I'd expect, considering the non-neglible risk of injury and/or regression.

One last point to remember: free agency is only going to get more competitive (as the new CBA closes down avenues to outspend in other ways). We might not get another chance to add a mid-rotation piece this cheaply again. Next year's FA pitching class looks like David Weathers when we consider that most of those big names will get re-signed or extended. The Cubs have money, and their time for contention is sooner than you might think (we might put together a non-embarrassment in 2014, here's to hoping). We should get good players while they are available.

Last note: obviously I'd much rather have Jackson for 4 years/48 million. I don't think that will happen now, though if the rumors are true about where Sanchez might have signed had the Cubs not stepped in, that would have been an easy sign.