Over the last two seasons Koyie Hill has posted a 51 wRC+ (weighted runs created, adjusted so that 100 is average like ERA+ and OPS+). wRC+, you may remember, uses wOBA. Oddly enough, it’s only 11th worst over those two seasons among players with 200 or more PA. It’s bad. It’s downright terrible, but he is a catcher so he’s …
NL Central Preview: Cincinnati Reds
Last Year: The Reds surprised many by winning the division over the heavily favored Cardinals. My memory stinks, but from what I remember BPro had them as a slight favorite going into the season and I thought they were insane. The Reds vindicated BP, posting the best offense in the NL (.339 wOBA) with below-average pitching (4.29 FIP, 12th in …
Tom Ricketts’ Easiest Interview Ever
I don’t read a ton of articles by Toni Ginnetti, so I can’t say whether she was just having a bad day or if this is the result of Tom Ricketts being particularly oily, but I had a hard time reading her interview with Tom today. Tom Ricketts smiles at the question: Would winning the World Series help the Cubs accelerate …
11 Scandalous Predictions for the 2011 Cubs
By scandalous, of course I mean stupid. Earlier in the offseason I made 103 predictions that won’t happen in 2011. That was pure nonsense whereas this is pure speculation. Huge difference. Some of these could actually come true. And they’re not all optimistic. 11. Brett Jackson will see the majors by June. I don’t know why. I only added this at …
Quade realizes the Cubs have no speed, backs off aggressive baserunning talk
It’s nice to see the team back off from another dumb policy. At the beginning of spring training (and IIRC the offseason) Quade said that the Cubs were going to be more aggressive on the basepaths. Via the hobbit: “I almost feel like we’re forcing something that we shouldn’t,” Quade said. “It goes against everything (I believe) — ‘We’re going …
Getting to Know: Andrew Cashner
Name: Andrew Cashner Position: Starting Pitcher Bats/Throws: Right/Right Opening Day age: 24 Uniform Number: 48 Does he celebrate on September 11th every year?: Well, it IS his birthday, so I would imagine so. Wouldn’t you? Where Does He Rank Among National League Fifth Starters?: 9th The good news is that Beyond the Box Score has him rated above every other …
NL Central Questions & Answers: Houston Astros
Prior to the start of the season we’re going to be previeing the other NL Central teams in two ways. First, Berselius will post the team’s projections for 2011 and then later in the day we’re going to post an interview with one of the team’s bloggers. Today’s Q&A is with Timothy DeBlock of Crawfish Boxes. Obstructed View: There are …
Mike Quade Has Tiger Blood. Hooray?
There are two basic schools of thought about Mike Quade’s recent comments on Carlos Silva: 1) Mike Quade is the greatest, toughest, smartest son of a gun in baseball; 2) Mike Quade is a verbose, no good, sucker-punching fool. There is no in between. Of course there is still only one school of thought on Carlos Silva: he’s fat ugly, …
NL Central preview: Houston Astros
Last Year: The Astros started off the year with eight straight losses, and were sitting at 17 games below .500 at the all-star break. However, they turned things around somewhat in the second half of the season, going 40-33 despite trading co-faces of the franchise Lance Berkman and Roy Oswalt at the trade deadline. Much like the Pirates the Astros …
The Stats We Use: wOBA
Several people on Another Cubs Blog had asked us to write something that explained some of the stats that we often reference in articles and comments. It was always something that I wanted to do, but never got around to it. Since several have asked before and now that we’ve created a new blog with Tim and Adam, it seems …