The Book's MGL was on Clubhosue Confidential tonight. I've embedded it here for you to watch. Your browser does not support iframes.
Cubs claim Adrian Cardenas, designate Blake DeWitt
Yesterday the Cubs claimed Adrian Cardenas off of waivers and to make room for him on the 40-man roster they designated Blake DeWitt for assignment. The Cubs signed DeWitt a couple weeks ago to $1.1 million. The Cubs will owe DeWitt $183,333. He wasn't going to provide much or any value to the Cubs this year or next so there …
Pitch F/X Player Cards
Brooks Baseball, with help from The Hardball Times, has created pitch f/x player cards. If you play around with Matt Garza's card you'll see that in his career he's thrown 4-seam fastballs 41% of the time. He threw the same amount in 2011 (40%), but the big difference was in sinker frequency. It's 26% in his career, but only 15% …
Another shitty Cubs season in Review: Matt Garza
Although the Cubs were weren't any good in 2011, Matt Garza was one of the few Cubs who impressed. Acquired in a blockbuster trade last winter, the Cubs, media and the fans had high expectations entering the season. Not only did he live up to those expectations, he surpassed them. The Cubs and Garza exchanged arbitration salaries a few days …
Another shitty Cubs season in review: Geovany Soto
After a sophomore slump in 2009, Geo made progress in putting the Rick Wilkins comparisons behind him by posting a .385 wOBA in 2010, even better than his ROY-winning season in 2008. Unfortunately, 2011 turned out to be more like 2009. Soto was projected to be the best hitter on the team with a .363 wOBA. He finished the year …
Another shitty Cubs season in review: Carlos Pena
Carlos Pena signed a 1-year, $10 million contract with the Cubs last offseason. We knew a few things about Pena: he wasn’t going to hit for average, he would take a lot of walks and have a solid OBP and he would hit for some power. The league batting average last year was .255 and Pena hit .225. Pena’s OBP …
Another shitty Cubs season in review: Jeff Baker
Midway through the 2009 season the Cubs acquired Jeff Baker from the Rockies in exchange for Al Alburquerque. Alburquerque striked out a lot of batters, but walked more than his fair share. He was 23 at the time and at best appeared to be a middle reliever. The Cubs acquired someone with potential who at the very least would be …
Another shitty Cubs season in review: Carlos Zambrano
I was planning to do a few of these a week and I know berselius is going to help, but then Theo-mania started and I got sidetracked. I started thinking about doing them again and my first instinct was to start with some of the back-ups since I’d already done ones for Marlon Byrd, Randy Wells and Alfonso Soriano (player …
The Keltner List and Sammy Sosa
I was reading the most recent article on Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight and he brought up the Keltner List. I had meant to do this for Sammy Sosa a few years, but completely forgot. So I'll do it now. Bill James came up with that back in 1985 and I'll let Wikipedia explain it: The Keltner list is a …
Another shitty Cubs season in review: Marlon Byrd
In 2010 Marlon Byrd had more plate appearances (630) than any other year in his career. He rewarded the Cubs with a .343 wOBA (107 wRC+), nearly 10 runs worth of UZR and was slightly better than average on the bases. His first season with the Cubs was a very good one. He was worth 4.4 fWAR, which was 1.2 …