Daily, er, Monthly Facepalm – 5.31.12

Cubs slip from last place

The Cubs sweep of the Padres puts them one game behind in the race for the #1 pick. The Cubs are tied with the Twins for the second pick.

Buried in this Hobbitton Times article about the sweep was a nugget about Ryan Dempster putting a hole in the wall next to his locker after his poor start. ZOMG, he's so emotional and out of control. Time to start concern trolling him about needing a psychologist, right Paul?

Sveum ♥ Mather

Dale Sveum continues to bat Joe Mather third in the order. Joe Mather. 

"I thought I'd put somebody in there that might juice the team with a home run, or a three-run homer or two-run double, something like that. Just going to see if he can spark the team now and do some things," Sveum said. "Since I've put him in there, he's pretty much had a quality at-bats, hit some balls really hard right at people."

Mather has the second highest SLG on the team. Arranging a Cubs lineup this season is pretty much just deckchair rearranging, but Joe Mather's hot tear to start the season has only managed to drag up his wOBA projection to .300, just a hair behind Darwin Barney. I think he should definitely be in the lineup against LHP, but ugh. (via Muskat + Kruth)

Tweets from the other day

Is that like saying cause/effect?

So many levels. That a guy who was DFA'd in spring training is our MVP, that the offense sucks, and that Dale Sveum thinks a middle reliever is the most valuable pitcher on the team.

Phil Rogers suggests a Soriano landing spot

Apparently Travis Hafner is injured again. It's probably only news at this point if Hafner is *not* injured. Cleveland is playing well in a division that was supposed to be dominated by the Tigers and could be interested in a "suddenly" power hitting DH. This isn't that much of a surprise though, aside from his defensive resurgance pretty much all that's left of Soriano's game is his power. Offensively he's the reverse of the empty batting average hitter – instead of a zillion singles with no walks and xbh, most of his (small) offensive value is just hitting HRs. I do wonder how much DHing could help him at the plate though – he's clearly been hurting for weeks now in the OF without getting any relief.

Is there a Cubs game today?

No.

Cubs work out possible first round pick

Carlos Correa worked out at Wrigley yesterday. He's a 17 year old SS from Puerto Rico. I bet he and Geovany Soto know each other, since it's just a small island and everyone knows each other /GROTA Rob. Sveum himself threw BP to Correa. He might not drop to the Cubs – Klaw thinks the O's will grab him at 4.

Anthony Rizzo back soon

According to Brett at Bleacher Nation, Rizzo is expected to return from his sore wrist today.

Jason McLeod spoke to the media yesterday

Brett was all over it. Summary of his summary: the Cubs are looking for pitching, Rizzo is in "finishing stages".

 

 

112 thoughts on “Daily, er, Monthly Facepalm – 5.31.12”

  8. I wish I could remember my password for my account. Oh well, I just was going to say that I saw Castro’s head first slide into first and he actually did it properly. He dove super late so he stayed in the air until his hand touched the base, which is why he overslid the bag by like 3 feet. In that situation he actually does save a fraction of a second. The reason sliding usually slows you down is obviously the friction. In this case he didn’t have any, but he was able to essentially lean forward to touch the bag quicker.

    I doubt Castro planned it like that, but either way I felt like it was worth mentioning.

    EDIT: Sweet! The password reset worked this time.

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  9. You forgot to add “That we have to actually think for a moment if he might be right” as a reason why Sveum’s statement sums up the team.

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  12. Berselius wrote:

    He’s like early career Ryan Theriot, minus the inept baserunning and obsession with hearing his own voice

    Also minus the bobblehead in a boat:

    bbb

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  13. http://muskat.mlblogs.com/2012/05/31/531-cubs-sign-lindsay/

    The Cubs signed free agent pitcher Shane Lindsay and assigned him to Triple-A Iowa. The Cubs also have released pitcher Nate Robertson, and he is now a free agent. In December, Lindsay signed with the Dodgers as a Minor League free agent and was a non-roster invite to Spring Training. He was 0-1 with a 5.00 ERA in eight games for the Albuquerque Isotopes from April 27-May 19, before getting released. Last season, Lindsay was 2-2 with a 1.98 ERA and four saves in 45 games for Triple-A Charlotte and was named to the International League All-Star team. He was called up by the White Sox on Sept. 2 and made four appearances for his first big league action. Lindsay originally signed with the Rockies in 2003 as a non-drafted free agent out of his native Australia. He missed the entire 2007 season due to shoulder surgery. Entering this season, Lindsay was 22-17 with a 3.37 ERA and six saves in 169 career Minor League games (46 starts) with the Rockies (2004-10), Yankees (’10), Indians (’10), and White Sox (’11). Robertson was 0-2 with an 8.10 ERA in 14 games with Iowa.

    – Carrie Muskat

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  15. waitwaitwait. so Barney has posted an NL-leading dWAR of 1.4 this year to bring his rWAR up to 2.4 — though last year he posted a dWAR of 0.6 in three times as many chances — and he is now a little praiseworthy?

    don’t get me wrong, i know we’re without legitimate objects of veneration, bully for him on the just-one-error and all that, and at $500k he’s value if he repeats last year — but praise? for Darwin Barney? i’m not sure i can follow you guys there.

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  18. @ gaius marius:

    Defensive metrics are a pile of shit, especially in part of a single season. You can look no further than Castro’s 1.3 dWAR for evidence of that. That said I do think that Barney is a very good defender at 2B and a useful, though not particularly great player. At least he’s not batting second anymore.

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  19. gaius marius wrote:

    but praise? for Darwin Barney? i’m not sure i can follow you guys there.

    I’m not sure likening Barney to Theriot should be considered praise.

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  20. Even taking the defense out of it, Barney is on pace for a 4 oWAR season. I’m not ready to build a statue to the guy, but even if he gave us 2.5 oWAR plus 1 dWAR over the season for practically league minimum, you’d have to be pretty happy with that and he could reasonably beat both those numbers.

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  22. Though I still find it hilarious that offense in the NL is so bad that a .274/.318/.386 line from a 2B is right around 2 oWAR (dying laughing).

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  23. @ Berselius:
    Replacement level is that low eh?

    I think the Cubs own the tiebreaker against the Padres but lose to the Twins due to previous season records re: the draft race. As long as they stay in the top 5-10 I am okay. If they drop out of the top 10 spots then I hope it meant that they made it into the postseason (dying laughing)

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  27. Aisle424 wrote:

    I’m not ready to build a statue to the guy

    yeah, i don’t mean to imply that anyone’s gone yellon on Barney. maybe it’s more about my reflexive inability to praise a Cub without a mountain of evidence to force me to.

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  29. (dying laughing), USA Today reporting all the Cubs players are available for trades except…..
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    Jeff Samardzija.

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  30. @ jtsunami:
    A player who plays a traditionally overvalued position (where trades are concerned), a position fraught with risk of injury, and who is having a statistically aberrant season would be the first guy I would try to trade, not the last. But I guess that’s why Theo is where he is and I am where I am.

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  37. @ Berselius:
    That doesn’t seem like such a big deal, assuming everything was consensual. Some people actually like to be tied up (even all day). And there’s no way to know, the husband may have known about it and consented. It’s unfortunate that if they were operating consensually that they dragged the unwitting hotel staff into it, though, but sometimes the thrill of getting caught is what makes it worth doing.

    Dan Savage’d

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  40. @ Berselius:
    He’s definitely one of the more colorful players right now. Wait, isn’t Manny back from retirement? I’m expecting big things from Manny this go round. He’s got a lot to outdo.

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  45. I know we have mocked Jeff Samardzija’s TRANSFORMATION, but seriously, at what point do we start to view his current performance (2.99 FIP) as the norm, and his bad previous stats as the aberration?

    He’s cut his BB/9 in half since last year, he’s striking out more guys per 9 than ever (unless you count 1 season in AAA), and his BABIP is .304, which suggests he’s been a bit unlucky on top of it all.

    By the end of this season, he should have as many (and probably more) innings post-TRANSFORMATION as pre-TRANSFORMATION.

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  47. @ Aisle424:
    For me personally, I need to see him keep pitching well all season. I’m not sure what constitutes a reliable sample for him since his innings are split between bullpen and starting. But I think at this point, we can say he’s pitching very, very well–and fairly consistently–but the numbers he’s putting up are not what we would expect from someone with his career peripherals. There’s no reason we can’t say both those things at once.

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  49. I think the Cubs are probably just holding onto Samardzija to see what he does the whole year for evaluation purposes. I forgot if he’s eligible for arbitration but I doubt he gets that much more of a raise either way and GMs would probably be as wary as most of us are in breaking the bank to get a transformed F7. So you let him pitch a bit more to see if A- you have a bona fide ACE and B- increase the return should you decide to trade him. I mean, how much are you honestly going to expect in return for F7 right now?

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  50. @ Aisle424:
    I’ve been impressed. I supported the move, but didn’t expect much to come of it. So maybe the scouts saw something after all? He has earned a chance to pitch the rest of the season, much like Randy Wells did a couple years ago. But I think it’ll be through next year before I’m 100% convinced. He could be having a career year, sign an extension, then turn into a flop. It’s happened before. Still, I’m optimistic, and it’s definitely worth following.

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  51. @ Aisle424:

    He’s got all that minor league info back there too. Though FWIW ZiPS believes in his transformation, last time I looked he was projected around 3.9 FIP. Not what he’s doing now but a more than useful number.

    I’m more curious about him reaching an IP limit at this point than I am about Detransformation

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  53. Mercurial Outfielder wrote:

    But I think at this point, we can say he’s pitching very, very well–and fairly consistently–but the numbers he’s putting up are not what we would expect from someone with his career peripherals.

    Right. I’m looking for the tipping point, and I think I’d agree that it should be after a full season. I think we still consider him in our minds to be a bad pitcher who is pitching well right now, but we would not be shocked to see it go the other way soon.

    But if he manages to pitch like this all season (or even close to it), I think we’d probably enter next season figuring he is a good pitcher that took awhile to figure things out (like throwing strikes is good).But I don’t know. What if he gets rocked next Spring? When guys like Maddux or Halladay or whoever get blown up in the Spring nobody cares, but if Samardzija did next year. We’d all shit our pants all over again.

    I wonder how long it will be for us to have confidence in his abilities instead of sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop.

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  54. @ Aisle424:

    Keep in mind that many of us were having the same conversations about Randy Wells a few years ago.

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  59. @ josh:

    MLB history is littered with guys who had One Good Year and lead someone to believe they had “figured it out.” Baseball can be a cruel sport.

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  60. @ josh:
    I think if he does what he’s doing for another season, at worst he’s an affordable asset and at best he’s traded to some stupid GM for a couple of good prospects. I don’t think it’s such a big deal to keep F7 around because he’s such an unknown, but if the Cubs think they can fleece someone in a trade I think they’ll do it, damn the Untouchables.

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  61. Both Fangraphs and BPro have Starlin leading the team with 1.7 WAR(P). I find that more plausible than Barney.

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  65. @ Rice Cube:
    He was a STAR at Notre Dame or whatever. Unless he wins 20 games or whatever ridiculous milestone people care about, that’s probably right. No one will see him as an ace or anything.

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  66. Let the backpedaling begin!

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  67. @ Aisle424:

    True. My point is that flashes in the pan happen. And I need to see a whole lot more from Samardzija before I’m convinced this isn’t just that. But early returns are certainly promising.

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  68. Mercurial Outfielder wrote:

    MLB history is littered with guys who had One Good Year and lead someone to believe they had “figured it out.” Baseball can be a cruel sport.

    Except that Randy Wells never made us say “Wow, that pitch was nasty.”

    Honestly, his sinker or splitter or whatever the fuck it is is an elite pitch.

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  69. Oh man, I’m looking at pitching leaders for fWAR. Samardzija is tied with Clayton Kershaw and Johan Santana, and ahead of Roy Halladay, Josh Johnson, David Price, CJ Wilson, and James Shields. He’s 0.1 behind Matt Cain and Steve Strasburg.

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  70. @ jtsunami:
    Yeah that splitter is a something. That four-seamer is still arrow-straight and too up in the zone for my tastes, though, too. I’m not denying he’s pitching well; I’m just saying I’m not going to get excited about success in May.

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  71. @ ACT:
    For a guy with his minor league and major league numbers coming into this season, that’s an amazing turnaround.

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  73. Bosio was the second pitcher in Mariners’ history to pitch a no-hitter on April 22, 1993, against the Boston Red Sox. The dramatic last out was made when shortstop Omar Vizquel bare-handed a high chopper over the mound by Ernest Riles and threw him out.

    Holy shit is Omar Vizquel old.

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  74. Mercurial Outfielder wrote:

    Keep in mind that many of us were having the same conversations about Randy Wells a few years ago.

    Did Rick Sutcliffe ever draft Randy Wells in a Franchise Fantasy Draft? Ummmm, no.

    Shut you right up.

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  79. Mercurial Outfielder wrote:

    MLB history is littered with guys who had One Good Year and lead someone to believe they had “figured it out.” Baseball can be a cruel sport.

    Yeah, it’s certainly not easy putting together a really good season in the big leagues, but it’s not uncommon for mediocre or even below average players to do just that. One season just isn’t close to enough to use as an estimate of true talent.

    As for 424’s question, the best I can do is give some examples so people don’t say I’m being pessimistic about F7 because I didn’t think he was any good entering the season.

    I was excited Zambrano was named to the rotation in 2003. I had higher expectations than most for him and wasn’t even that surprised by how good he was. At the same time, I was very hesitant to say he was a good pitcher based on that. Entering 2004 I was again optimistic, but thought he’d more than likely be closer to league average. Even entering 2005 I wasn’t completely sold yet. This is a guy I was high on in the Cubs minor leagues who I felt was overlooked by those who rank prospects. I was excited about this guy, his potential and obviously what he was doing at the big league level, but it wasn’t until the 2005 season I was comfortable saying that Carlos Zambrano was a really good pitcher.

    When the Cubs put Ryan Dempster in the rotation in the 2008 season I thought it was downright stupid. You had a guy who had a lot of potential when he was younger and even had a good season or two. He was injured and was probably a bit better than your average closer. I didn’t think he’d be any good in the rotation. After his excellent 2008 season all I was comfortable saying is that Dempster has proven he can start. I wasn’t ready to call him a good starting pitcher yet. That wouldn’t come until early in the 2010 season. Dempster has become one of my favorite players because he’s one of the few players I’ve seen on the Cubs who had truly transformed his talent level. i’m always impressed by that.

    Rich Hill earned a spot in the Cubs rotation and had a very good season. He was coming off two impressive seasons in the minor leagues totaling over 200 innings combined so not many were surprised. I was. Those two seasons just weren’t enough for me. I expected more than I did before the improvement, but I wasn’t sold yet and I wasn’t the least bit surprised when he lost his job in 2008.

    It takes a long time to convince me and that’s not going to change for Samardzija. You have to be impressed so far, but you also have to expect him to regress a bit too. ZiPS rest of season projects a 4.08 FIP, which is about league average or a bit worse. I’m not yet that optimistic and all I’m comfortable saying is the Cubs made a fine decision in giving him a shot. Calling him untouchable, which I don’t believe for a second the Cubs would do, would not be though. If someone offers you something really nice for someone like F7 who has less than half a season of good baseball under his belt you make that trade. I don’t give two fucks what the scouting reports say. If you get a good offer for a pitcher who has little MLB time in which he’s been valuable you make the fucking deal every time. F7 will be a free agent by the time this team contends anyway. So will Castro. I’d trade anybody and everybody on this team. I’d probably hold off on both LaHair and F7 because I don’t think you’re going to get a decent offer for either of them right now and if you wait you might get more down the road. Other than that, deal ’em all.

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  83. I can’t seem to find the post regarding when the Cubs can bring up Rizzo and avoid early free agency and/or super two status. Anyone know off hand?

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  87. @ josh:

    It depends. Still way too early to decide. Right now Cashner is an RP and Rizzo is hitting well in a hitter’s league. Rumors are that SD will move Cashner to the rotation soon, and Rizzo will be up probably around the same time.

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  89. @ Mercurial Outfielder:
    I guess to me it seems fairly even in terms of talent level, but a good young pitcher with starter capability seems to be more what the club needs going forward than a 1B. That’s just my gut instinct on it. Obviously they thought differently.

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  90. @ josh:
    Yeah, I can see that. I just think power hitters at corner positions are better build around than pitchers. Pitchers just break too easily.

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  102. @ GBTS:
    Few people know this is just an extension of the Italian Absurdist sketch begun at ACB.

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