Projecting the 2012 Cubs: 1st Basemen

Bryan LaHair turned 29 years old in November and he's set to take over 1st base for the Cubs in 2012. LaHair was drafted in the 39th round of the 2002 Draft. Until a few years ago teams could do what they called draft and follow which meant they could draft a player, not sign him, but they retained his rights up until the next draft. The Mariners did just that with LaHair. They signed him in May of 2003. Five years later he made his big league debut and he hit .250/.315/.346. That was a .292 wOBA and a 77 wRC+.

In 2009 he was sent back to AAA and that's when he began to hit the ball very well. He hit .289/.354/.530 (.375 wOBA, 124 wRC+). He became a minor league free agent and the Cubs picked him up. He was even better then. He hit .308/.385/.557 (.402 wOBA, 136 wRC+) and followed that up last year by hitting .331/.405/.664 (.443 wOBA, 155 wRC+).

He set an I-Cubs record by passing Joe Hicks as he hit 38 of them. He led the PCL in wOBA, wRC+, OPS, OPS+, SLG, and HR. Mat Gamel finished in second with 28 home runs. LaHair has played in AAA for all or parts of 6 seasons and has nearly 3000 plate appearances there so the numbers are inflated, but that's a damn fine season.

After being called up last season he had 69 plate appearances and hit .288/.377/.508 (.381 wOBA, 138 wRC+). He won't hit that well over a full season, but based on his previous few seasons in AAA we should expect he can hit well enough to play at the big league level. Below are various 2012 projections for LaHair.

Projection PA H 2B 3B HR BB SO AVG OBP SLG wOBA
CAIRO 368 86 18 1 14 32 85 .261 .327 .450 .337
Guru  143  33  7  1  3  11  32 .251 .309 .397 .309
ZiPS 550 132 30 1 24 47 129 .262 .324 .469 .343
PECOTA 350 84 17 1 15 32 88 .263 .329 .463 .341
Oliver 311 74 16 0 14 29 76 .265 .335 .484 .352
Bill James 316 79 19 0 13 27 72 .273 .335 .474 .350
RotoChamp 436 98 29 5 12 56 114 .258 .353 .455 .354
Average 353 84 19 1 14 33 85 .262 .330 .456 .341

 

I'm going to guess that Jeff Baker gets a decent amount of playing time at 1st base against righties. Baker didn't have a very good season last year. From 2008 through 2010 Baker had wRC+'s of 96, 99 and 96. Baker got too many plate appearances last year vs right handed pitchers. I'd be surprised if we see that again. Baker's projections are shown below.

Projection PA H 2B 3B HR BB SO AVG OBP SLG wOBA
CAIRO 228 56 13 1 5 16 49 .267 .320 .408 .319
Guru  222  52  10  1  3  12  45 .251 .293 .355 .286
ZiPS 248 58 13 2 4 16 55 .250 .299 .375 .297
PECOTA 366 87 18 2 8 25 87 .256 .310 .390 .306
Oliver 242 58 12 1 3 15 49 .261 .308 .379 .303
Bill James 176 46 11 1 4 12 35 .280 .333 .433 .333
RotoChamp 213 53 12 1 4 13 48 .265 .310 .395 .310
Average 242 59 13 1 4 16 53 .261 .310 .391 .308

 

At some point next season the hope is that Anthony Rizzo will take over at 1st and be there for a long time to come. Rizzo had a disappointing MLB debut last year, but was dominating after returning to AAA. He wasn't too far behind LaHair among the league leaders in most offensive categories. Unfortunately I don't have access to his splits at AAA, but my guess is he started hitting lefties better than he previous had. Maybe not. It's entirely possible he did almost all the damage against righties.

If there's a concern for Rizzo it's that he hasn't been particularly good against lefties. Through 2010 he had hit about .300/.375/.510 against righties, but only .250/.310/.380 against lefties. That was only 339 PA against lefties so it's a small sample, but whatever damage Rizzo had done through 2010 it had primarily been against righties. He'd been an easy out otherwise. He was an easy out against both lefties and righties at the big league level.

Rizzo's projections are below.

Projection PA H 2B 3B HR BB SO AVG OBP SLG wOBA
CAIRO 406 83 25 1 11 35 95 .229 .301 .395 .305
Guru  195  29  13  2  3  30  49 .184 .324 .335 .304
PECOTA 280 62 15 0 9 24 71 .243 .310 .418 .315
Oliver 311 69 18 0 11 27 76 .249 .320 .445 .331
Bill James 434 94 31 1 14 41 110 .236 .312 .425 .318
RotoChamp 277 62 14 2 12 27 74 .248 .340 .464 .350
Average 317 67 19 1 10 31 79 .232 .318 .414 .321

 

If we estimate that LaHair gets 350 PA, Baker another 150 PA and Rizzo the final 150 we can get a WAR projection for the position. This gives us a Batting WAR of .7 for LaHair, -.1 for Baker and 0.0 for Rizzo. If we assumed Baker primarily plays against lefties and LaHair against righties then this would increase it to about 1 WAR for the 1st base.

43 thoughts on “Projecting the 2012 Cubs: 1st Basemen”

  2. Rice Cube wrote:

    Sigh. It’s shit like this that makes me hate looking for jobs. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if investment banks see a lot like that one. Mixing up JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley was quite a nice touch though. (dying laughing)

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  3. Bubbles is intrigued by Ben Wells, Vogelbach, and Vitters more than anyone in the system this year.

    Although a nice rebound by McNutt would be really awesome to see

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  4. Hoyer says soriano will likely be with the club in Spring Training. I fully expect he’ll be traded in the next 72 hours.

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  6. @ fang2415:
    Looking for jobs is the worst. I caught that he mixed up JP Morgan/Morgan Stanley too. I wasn’t sure if that was a mistake or not. I can’t tell you how many cover letters I’ve sent out where I forgot to change the company name in a later paragraph.

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  7. bubblesdachimp wrote:

    Bubbles is intrigued by Ben Wells, Vogelbach, and Vitters more than anyone in the system this year.

    Bubble is an odd man. Wells and Vogelbach are so far away from the big leagues that it’s difficult to even take what they do with anything more than a grain of salt. Vitters is a backup corner infielder.

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  8. From Keith laws sleeper prospects:

    I was never a big Reggie Golden fan out of the draft. I saw an athletic kid with poor pitch recognition who could get tied up inside, but he has made adjustments faster than I anticipated, recognizing breaking balls better and playing stronger defense in right field. His main issue going forward will be conditioning, as he has a maintenance body with a low center of gravity, but I’m coming around on his chance to have some impact with the bat. Also keep an eye on center fielder Taiwan Easterling if you like extreme sleepers. He’s a two-sport guy who had more at-bats after signing last June than he did the previous two seasons at Florida State combined.

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  9. @ mb21:
    My thought process is if these guys do well then they can have value to the organization.

    Also what if Vitters drives the ball more. I think he could be useful still. I have not given up hope yet

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  10. @ Rice Cube:
    The real question is how many pull-ups can I do in the same time?

    @ josh:
    There’s so much bullshit involved in most hiring processes it’s ridiculous. There are a few things that have clear qualifications like doctors, lawyers, certain academics, etc, but the rest is just made up and decided based mostly on gut feelings during an interview. The only criterion anybody understands well is having loads of previous experience doing exactly the role that you’re applying for, in an identical organization. This kid is stretching what you’re actually supposed to do, but only slightly, sadly.

    Seriously, the Morgan Stanley thing is probably what got this letter circulated. That would’ve had the traders at JPM howling, especially after all the build-up about how perfect and diligent he is. It’s like saying you have a great eye for detial.

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  11. By the way, right now any captcha errors take you to a separate error page, which makes your browser lose any text you’ve written. I don’t mind too much since I have Lazarus, but if I didn’t I’d have thrown the computer through the window long ago.

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  12. @ josh:
    I’ve probably done the same thing a few times though. That’s why I never put company names in letters anymore. (dying laughing)

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  14. @ bubblesdachimp:
    Any prospect who does well adds value to the organization.

    Vitters has to do more than drive the ball, bubbles. He needs to learn how to take a walk. I’ve talked about this numerous times, but his walk rate isn’t just bad. It’s ridiculous. Look at some of the least patient hitters over the last 15 years and they had better walk rates at the same levels as Vitters did.

    For Vitters to ever be even a decent big leaguer he’s going to have to hit about .300 with power. That might give him a line of .300/.325/.475. If he can do that while playing a passable 3rd he could be OK. Once he moves to 1st he’ll be a bench player.

    But why would we believe that’s even at all likely at this point? Over 1666 minor league plate appearances, Vitters has hit .277/.319/.439. I keep hearing about how he’s a pure hitter yet his career batting average is only .277. He’s been young, which is good, but he’s also been a professional for 5 years now. If he was young and had only 1 year of professional experience then I’d think improvement is more possible than it is for Vitters.

    He doesn’t hit for a high enough average to maintain even a poor OBP and he doesn’t hit for enough power to make up for his horrible OBP. To top it off, there are questions about his defense. He’s played some 1st base already, which is not a good sign. He’s very slow so more than likely a terrible baserunner.

    Every year people say it’s a make or break year for Vitters. Every year he underperforms. How many more years does this have to happen before we stop hearing about the potential that this guy simply doesn’t have?

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  18. @ fang2415:
    I don’t know what to say. I think we’d like a site that allows everyone to comment with ease, but then you run into the issue of spam. So we have to make it easiest for those logged in, which makes up 99% of our comments. You’re a one percenter!

    I’d suggest again that you login, but I know you don’t want to.

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  21. @ josh:
    (dying laughing)
    @ josh:
    I hate registering for websites because I browse from a lot of different machines and always clear my cookies, so I have to go to separate login pages every time. I have no probs here though since luckily that cache stuff that MB was talking about luckily doesn’t seem to do anything, and Lazarus takes care of this thing. But if I was a first-time commenter and tried to post after leaving the page open while reading the comments for long enough for the captcha to expire and then lost the text, I’d probably do something along these lines:

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  23. @ mb21:
    Don’t tell me what to not want to do.

    Srs, I don’t mind myself, but it might help out less frequent commenters (you know, those two or so a year who come in and piss on the curtains (dying laughing)). It’s weird for captcha errors to bring you to a new page anyway, on most sites it’ll just give you a pop-up or an x by the captcha or something.

    (dying laughing), forgot the captcha just now and lost the text again. I should really donate to Lazarus. I’ll have to work on my bench press so I can get a job and be able to afford it.

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  29. mb21 wrote:

    Any captcha error seems to bring you to a separate page, but it does seem to happen most often because of timeouts. It says something like “The captcha token file could not be read. Please press back on your browser and try again.” I think that usually happens when I post without refreshing for a while. When I hit back and refresh it works fine, but pressing back clears whatever I wrote.

    If you forget the captcha altogether it says something like “You forgot to fill in the captcha code. Please hit back on your browser and try again.” The errors are no big deal, but being taken to a new page to see them could be rage-inducing to the unprepared.

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  37. @ bubblesdachimp:
    What’s your definition of killing it? In over 600 AA plate appearances he has about a .325 wOBA, which is roughly a 95 wRC+. I hope you’re right, but Vitters would be one of the first to ever show considerable improvement in patience after this long. Vitters is what he is. He’ll have to maintain a super high average to have even a respectable OBP and he’ll have to hit for more power. He’ll have to get better defensively and stay at 3rd base. He’ll have to get faster, which is something no player has ever done.

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  38. mb21 wrote:

    What’s your definition of killing it? In over 600 AA plate appearances he has about a .325 wOBA, which is roughly a 95 wRC+. I hope you’re right, but Vitters would be one of the first to ever show considerable improvement in patience after this long. Vitters is what he is. He’ll have to maintain a super high average to have even a respectable OBP and he’ll have to hit for more power. He’ll have to get better defensively and stay at 3rd base. He’ll have to get faster, which is something no player has ever done.

    Don’t you like anything funsucker?

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