Daily Facepalm 3.26.12

Anything interesting happen over the weekend?

Eh. Dempster was knocked around in a minor league game yesterday, but who knows if he was working on something. I missed yesterday's game, but apparently Joe Mather had a Johnsonian/Fuldian incredible catch in CF.

Is there a Cubs game today?

It's going on right now, apparently. The Cubs are playing the Padres. Len and Mick have the call on mlb.com. Bryan LaHair just doubled in Starlin Castro for the Cubs first run.

MLBTR Cubs offseason in review

Tim Dierkes over at MLBTR just posted his offseason in review piece for the Cubs. They break down the moves that impact the 2012 roster, but there's not much to say about it. This team is going to stink. The biggest move by far was snagging the Superfriends, and we're just waiting to see everything pay dividends down the road. Money quote:

It'll be interesting to see how they react this summer or in the 2012-13 offseason if the Cubs are better than expected this season. When Hoyer's Padres exceeded expectations in 2010, he didn't deviate from his long-term plan, avoiding trading top prospects at the deadline and following through on the Adrian Gonzalez trade after the season. I expect something similar from the Cubs, who still have a few decent trade chips.

Recent mostly meaningless transactions

The Cubs released Trever Miller.
Andy Sonnanstine chose to become a free agent rather than go to Iowa.
Rule 5 pick Ryan Flaherty is probably sticking with the Orioles

Possibly slightly less meaningless transaction

The Cubs signed Shawn Camp to a minor league deal. Camp recently released by the Mariners, who said they wanted to get younger. Camp has been a solid reliever for the past few years in the AL East. He's a ground ball pitcher with a career 4.12 FIP (3.99 xFIP), probably better than most of the scrubs the Cubs have competing for those spots. It might be too late in the spring but I'm hoping he lands a spot.

The Cubs lineup is nightmare fuel for Dale Sveum

Dale Sveum says he's losing sleep over lineup construction. In the end lineup construction is relatively meaningleess, provided your pitcher isn't batting first, but it's an unenviable position to decide in which order to put all of the Cubs square pegs into the round holes of the lineup. A quote from this article also prompted a thread at Tango's blog about the fragile egos of players with respect to lineup positioning.

Rotation, most of bullpen set, then not set

Dale Sveum said during an interview with Jim Bowden early this weekend that Chris Volstad had one a rotation spot, then backed off the comments later that day. It looks like the rotation is going to be Dempster, Garza, then Samardzija, Volstad, and Maholm in some order. Marmol, Wood, Russell, and Dolis seem to be locked into the bullpen, and also implied Coleman is probably headed to the pen as well. The process of elimination says Randy Wells will probably get the long relief role for now, and the last spot could go to Lendy Castillo. Camp was signed since that report came out, and he's probably a better pitcher than everyone on this list except Marmol.

Tempering Kerry Wood expectations even further

Muskat has a blog post up about Kerry Wood's spring. He's only made four appearances, pitching 3 2/3 innings. He's slowed it down this spring, and has mentioned havign back spasms already. Everyone is bending over backwards to say the back stuff isn't the reason for this. On the less pessimistic side, a vet like Kerry Wood shouldn't need much time to get ready. It sounds like he's been pitching plenty on the side and just needs a little more work on his breaking ball. Given his role it's not like they need to stretch him out, or work on more than those two pitches.

Image of the day

"Minor League Guy" is the Cards #2 prospect, apparently.

Daily Facepalm 3.23.12 – Too many DUIs edition

Practice game recap

The Cubs pounded the rangers 11-4. Soriano, Mather, Jackson, and Ian Stewart all homered. Matt Garza threw 81 pitches in five innings, but could have gone deeper had Darwin Barney not committed two errors in the fourth inning. Marcos Mateo left the game with an injury and there's no word on how serious it could be. They were looking at his elbow though, so it's probably not good.

Is there a Cubs game today?

Indeed. Jeff Samardzija gets the start against the Rockies today at 3pm. Len and Mick have the call on Gameday. From what I've gathered from the interwebs, Keith Law should be there to see Samardzija pitch today.

Today in horrifying news

This news about former number one pick Matt Bush is horrible. He was driving drunk and hit a 72-year old man on a motorcycle and fled the scene. When the police later apprehended him he blew a .180. According to the local NBC affiliate, Bush's SUV ran over the victim's head, and he only survived because he was wearing a helmet. (Side point – everytime I see someone on a motorcycle not wearing a helmet or in shorts, I just want to Force-push them over for being fucking idiots).

Not to be outdone, Sox of various colors reliever Bobby Jenks was also arrested for a DUI hit-and-run last night.

I know it's not baseball's job to tell these guys what to do when they're not actively doing baseball job related things, but Jesus.

Opening Day starter to be announced today

I suspect that whoever it is, his name will rhyme with Brian Hempster.

Keith Law on various Cubs prospects

Keith Law has seen a Cubs game or two in the past week, and chatted about Cubs prospects. The highlights

Vogelbach has lost 20-25 pounds, and looked overmatched, with a slow bat and poor recognition of off-speed pitches. I don't know who he was facing though, he's young enough that he's going to be way down in the system so I'm not too concerned yet. Everyone knows he still has a long way to go
Klaw loves Jeimer Candelario. He doesn't have great bat speed but his swing is "simple" and has a good feel for hitting
Klaw thinks the current CBA changes wrt international players will be in place as long as Selig and Reinsdorf are around. I don't think they're going anywhere even after they've departed this plane.
Hayden Simpson couldn't even hit 90 on the gun earlier this week. Klaw thinks he's donezo, and that his velocity spike that led to the Cubs drafting him was a fluke.
Klaw on Samardzija: "Have heard it's been an unbelievable transformation – like the light bulb just went on. It's just spring, but I've seen him in past springs where I wouldn't have given him a snowball's chance of big league value, so there's at least something different there."
He lists Baez (who he's very high on), Candelario, Dunston Jr., and Cuban OF Yasiel Balaguer as players to be excited about in the low minors. He thinks Baez ends up as a 3B, though he won't rule out SS

40-man roster update

Andy Sonnanstine was outrighted to AAA yesterday, so the Cubs have two roster spots open. They'll probably go to DeWitt and Mather.

Is there Wrigley Talk Friday today?

Oh, indeed. If could be at either 1 or 2 pm today. Those crafty WTFers like to keep us on our toes.

Today is Wire Quote Day

Cool Lester Smooth says to leave your favorites in the comments.

Daily Facepalm 3.19.12 – Weekend of Samardzija

Playing Time Projections

Please take a few moments to fill out the 2012 Cubs playing time projections. It's as simple as possible.

Weekend practice game roundup

Geovany Soto homered, doubled, and walked in Saturday's game, so it looks like he's feeling better from his groin injury. Steve Clevenger, Adrian Cardenas, and Joe Mather also homered this weekend. Tony Campana broke his hitless streak with a hit or two but is probably out of a spot on the roster at this point.

On the pitching side, both Jeff Samardzija (more on him later) and Chris Volstad both had yet another solid outing. Maholm got into trouble in his outing thanks to a Josh Vitters error extending the inning, but largely did Maholm things. Casey Coleman pitched three scoreless innings (put him in the rotation!!!1!), and Andy Sonnanstine likely pitched himself into being released. James Russell also had a lousy outing, quieting the ridiculous talk that he could step in for Sean Marshall. He's a good LOOGY, not a shutdown setup man.

Is there a Cubs game today?

The Cubs play the Mariners at 3:05 PM CT. Travis Wood will start for the Cubs. Len and Mick will have the call on mlb.com gameday. Randy Wells is also starting an even less official "B" game against the Indians.

MO's nightmare ends

Mercurial Outfielder was last seen clutching a bottle of quadruple-hopped IPA and muttering "the horror….the horror". Hopefully someone will tell him that

The bunting tournament is over, and leadoff hitter David DeJesus is the last player standing.

Roster taking shape

In case you missed all the consternation yesterday, Dale Sveum says that Samardzija is "close" to locking up a rotation spot. The rest of the non-bullpen roster seems to be taking shape as well. Joe Mather and Blake DeWitt seem to have taken a big lead for the last two position player spots, and Rafael Dolis has a vote of confidence to replace Samardzija in the 7th inning role.

News in Maddicies

Mike Maddux said that if he had come to manage the Cubs, his brother would have come along as the pitching coach.

Or not, as both brothers backtracked on the comments the next day, and Mike Maddux says he never withdrew his name from consideration either. No hard feelings, he thinks that Sveum more than deserved the job.

Cubs did make a credible offer for Cespedes

6/36 – same money, but two more years than what he got from the A's

A look at how the scouting department is shaking up

Phil Rogers wrote a profile of Jason McLeod and the changes he's bringing to the Cubs scouting organization. One thing they're trying to do is make sure that every scout they have has a video camera to send video along with their reports to the Hall of Justice.

An outside perspective on the Cubs

Tom Loxas at Cubs Den interviewed a NL scout on what he saw in Cubs camp. He likes what he sees from the Cubs coaching staff and think that they could make a difference on Castro's defense. He's also very down on Bryan LaHair.

In case you wanted to know everything about the Cubs 40-man roster and rules thereof

TCR has a breakdown of the roster, as well as everyone's options status. To call this exhaustive would be a vast understatement. (h/t @AJWalsh)

Obstructed View Bracket Challenge update

WaLi and Mish are tied for first place in the Bracket challenge, with 440 points each. WaLi also has the most possible points remaining in his bracket with 1280, thanks to an entirely intact elite eight. GBTS is in last place.

Revenue sharing and college football conferences

MB21 wrote a post on DailyBigTen (where former Cubs blogger and TOOTBLAN progenitor wrigleyville23 now writes) about revenue sharing and the Big Ten vs the SEC. It's a good read.

Nerd video of the day

Just because I watched a ton of it yesterday. Season two is less than two weeks away! Even better, Game of Thrones set all sorts of sales records for HBO dvds, so this series isn't going away anytime soon.

Daily Facepalm 3.15.12 – Calling in Sick with March Madness

Practice Game recap

Travis Wood probably punched his ticket to Iowa yesterday, giving up six runs while only recording one out. Bullpen/tenth starter hopeful Casey Coleman also had a rough day, giving up four runs in less than two innings. The only particularly positive result of the day was that Randy Wells had three scoreless innings, allowing two hits and getting six grounders. He didn't strike anyone out, but it's certainly going to help his cause for the rotation.

Today's practice game(s)

A Cubs split squad takes on the Diamondbacks today at 3 ET, if you can pry yourself away from March Madness for that long. Pat and Zonk have the call. Here's the lineup

RF Johnson

CF Byrd

SS Castro

LF Soriano

1B Baker

C Soto

2B Barney

3B Vitters

P Dempster

The other split squad heads to play the Rockies, also at 3 CT. This game only has Rockies coverage. Lineup for this game

RF DeJesus

2B DeWitt

3B Cardenas

1B LaHair

CF Mather

LF Jackson

C Castillo

SS Lake

P Lopez

Paul Maholm and Andy Sonnanstine draw the short straw

They're starting split squad games this weekend in Arizona while the rest of the squad heads to Vegas.

Brett Jackson to start season in AAA

Not that much of a surprise. He's "blocked" by players who are being paid more than him, but probably aren't better players than him at this point. I think he'll be up by June once the Cubs can guarantee the extra year of service time.

Cubs to change minor league affiliate?

Brett from Bleacher Nation finds confirmation of a info heard a while ago about the Cubs A-ball team moving from Peoria to South Bend. Brett also mentions that it might be tough for them to move out of Peoria for political reasons (shaking down Illinois/Chicago for stadium $) but I don't think it would be a huge deal. Besides, doing a favor for the oh so sainted Golden Domers sycophants certainly wouldn't hurt in the Chicagoland area. Just put Jeff Samardzija out in front of the move.

March Madness starts today!

Brackets lock at the tipoff of the first game, which should be in half an hour or so. Give your Final Four in the comments, if you want to. I have Kentucky, Ohio State, Marquette, Kansas

Daily Facepalm 3.14.12

Practice Game recap

Chris Volstad pitched three strong inninngs yesterday, extending his spring training scoreless streak to six innings. As with Samardzija and the other starter candidates, small sample size abounds, but I think he's got a good shot making the rotation. Tom Ricketts seemed to think so too during his brief time in the booth with Len and Mick. Former top prospect Jay Jackson also pitched yesterday, surprisingly for three innings. Jackson completely fell off the radar after his disastrous 2010 season in Iowa. Jackson gave up one run and struck out one. Long man/pitching depth candidate Andy Sonnanstine had a rough outing, giving up three runs and nearly the lead in the eighth inning.

Offensively the star was Anthony Rizzo, who crushed a mammoth HR off of Giants reliever Sergio Romo. Josh Vitters hit an RBI triple earlier in the game. Starlin Castro managed to avoid a TOOTBLAN thanks to the stat's originator.

Is there a Cubs game today?

Indeed. Randy Wells takes the mound against the Brewers at HoHoKam today at 3 pm CT. Travis Wood and Casey Coleman are also pitching. Coleman pitching again so soon seems to point to the Cubs bullpenning him this year. Len and Mick have the call, and Randy Wolf will start for the Brewers.

Lineup:

RF DeJesus

CF Byrd

SS Castro

3B Stewart

2B Baker

C Soto

LF Johnson

1B Rizzo

P Wells

Is it just me, or are the Cubs regulars getting a lot more starts than they have in years past?

Great piece about baseball on the radio by wpbc

Worth a read.

Concepcion in camp, "not nervous" about playing here

Cubs blog Ivy Envy got a mini-interview with Concepcion, He's very comfortable in camp and the Cubs have made him feel comfortable. Not sure if he reported it in this interview or earlier, but he says he throws a fastball, a circle change, and a "hard" curveball.

Perils of media access

(via hardballtalk). The Mets blog Amazin Avenue has a good piece up about media access and smear jobs. The whole thing is worth a read, but here's the best part:

Rubin says the press can't be expected to not report a story, even if it's an obvious whisper campaign. But the press can and should be expected to report a story in full. If an item appears to be a hatchet job by Mets brass, then reporters should perform due diligence and at least attempt to get all sides of that story before filing. In this case, that effort was made poorly, if at all. Maybe this happened because of the rush to be first, or the accelerated news cycle of the internet age. Whatever the reason, it happened nonetheless, and it shouldn't have.

The only reason I can come up with as to why this story was put out there unquestioned is because it came straight from ownership. So failing to report the "story" could not only mean getting scooped, but losing access as well. I understand that in journalism access trumps all, but what good is access if all it buys you is closer proximity to lies, half-truths, and axe-grinding? And what is a reporter's job if not to question the "official" story?

Chicago media take note.

Finally final Theo compensation in Red Sox hands

Per Peter Gammons

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Seriously though, Gammons tweeted that the rest of this process is in the Red Sox hands, and will be decided by the end of the month. They get to pick one prospect from a list of three, and choose who to send back to the Cubs.

Sveumquotes

Per Sveum, Marmol's main goal this spring training is to work on locating his fastball. He's not too worried about Marmol's slider, and Marmol hasn't thrown many of them this spring. Not surprisingly Sveum is not considering demoting Marmol.

Sveum also commented on the handedness problem I've brought up a few times when talking about Joe Mather and the Cubs corner infielders. His chances of squeaking by Blake DeWitt or Tony Campana look better than they did yesterday.

Bruce Levine chat recap

Some nuggets from Bruce Levine's chat yesterday

For some reason Bruce doesn't think Maholm has a rotation spot locked down.
Bruce is also down on Wells, calls him "not a favorite" for the rotation. Lots of hedging though, no decisions are going to be made for another week or two.
There's been a lot of teams interested in Marlon Byrd. Once May/June rolls around and the Cubs can get the extra year of control for Brett Jackson, they should have an easy time moving him.
Bruce also says that the smart money is on Mather making the team over Campana, due to the way their options are structured. They can stash Campana in the minors, but Mather can void his deal if he's not in the bigs after the first month or so
On how tough it is for a player to change his approach: "It's difficult to change a player's style once he gets to the majors. Jaramillo did it with DeWitt last spring and it took DeWitt almost four months to absorb all of Rudy's philosophical teachings. It also [cost] DeWitt his job."

Obstructed View bracket challenge

If you haven't joined yet, do so today! Winner gets a free one-week subscription to this blog.

Image of the day

Happy Pi Day

Please ignore any of the fools who go on and on about how "purists" think that tau is a better constant. It doesn't matter.

What’s all this Jeff Samardzija starting crap?

I paid so little attention to Cubs baseball after the first few weeks that it's hard for me to believe that Jeff Samardzija threw 88 innings a year ago. I did know that however many innings he threw that they weren't the typically bad Jeff Samardzija innings. I also knew he got lucky. I probably paid no attention to Samardzija's 88 innings because he's a middle reliever on his best day. And last year was his best day.

Samardzja did strikeout 8.9 per 9 and allowed just 6.5 hits per 9 so you're asking, what's the problem? Well, he walked 5.1 per 9 and it's not like this was unusual. His career BB/9 rate is 5.3. Samardzija's BABIP was under .260 and based on what we know of balls in play, there's every reason to believe that will increase and probably considerably. Including last year, his career BABIP is .279. Only 5.3% of the fly balls he allowed ended up being home runs. That too will increase significantly. HIs sparkling 2.97 ERA looks considerably worse than his FIP (3.66), which looks quite a bit worse than his xFIP (4.27). The latter two are far more predictive of next season's rates than ERA is.

His average projected ERA next year is about 4.3 with an FIP of 4.36. As a reliever, that's worse than replacement level. If he were to start you can add another run to that projection. We're looking at a projected ERA as a starter of 5.3 with an FIP of nearly 5.4. He's a replacement level pitcher. His increase in strikeout rate was an encouraging sign, but his walk rate remained terrible. His HR/FB and BABIP are due for regression.

Samardzija may begin the year in the rotation. If several other options end up injured, it's entirely possible he would beat out someone you haven't yet heard of for a chance to start. Pitchers get injured and although 4 or 5 starters going down in spring training would be unlikely, it could happen. That's how Samardzija ends up in the rotation.

That's the only way. Think about how many spring trainings you've been following this team. Now think about how many imaginary position battles the organization has come up with to try and create some competition in what is mostly a boring time for these athletes. There's a reason the Cubs are holding a contest to see who can hit the ball the shortest distance right now. It's called competition. These guys are insanely competitive. If you let them coast through spring training they're not going to push themselves. If you create a competition, it will lead to other competitions. Matt Garza and Ryan Dempster may decide to place a bet on who throws more innings so each pitcher works on becoming more durable throughout the season. Competition is good. But it doesn't mean all competitions are created equally.

Samardzija is currently so far down the depth chart it's difficult imagining a situation in which he would be given the ball at the start of a game. Regardless of how well he does in spring trailing that is true. Sveum and others can talk the possibility up all they want, but the reality is that Jeff Samardzija is barely good eough to make an MLB bullpen. The Cubs rotation will be unbelievably awful if we're talking about Samardzija getting the ball every 5th game.

Take the idea of this competition for what it's worth. Let's put it this way: Darwin Barney has a significantly greater chance of being the opening day shortstop than Samardzija has of being in the rotation. All that would have to happen for Barney to slide over is for Starlin Castro to get injured. I actually think Samardzija starting has as much chance of happening as Soriano being the opening day CF. If Marlon Byrd, Brett Jackson, David DeJesus, Dave Sappelt and Tony Campana all go down with injury then Soriano just might shift to CF.

If Matt Garza, Ryan Dempster, Randy Wells, Paul Maholm and Chris Volstad go down with injury we could see a rotation Samardzija get a shot. The rotation may look something like Travis Wood, Rodrigo Lopez, Casey Coleman, Trey McNutt and Jeff Samardzija. I guess that's possible. Samardzija just might be good enough to be the team's number 5 starter if the current 5 starters all get hurt. You never know. Then again, that would probably depend on how well Andy Sonnanstine is pitching.

Taking a closer look at the Cubs supersized rotation

The Cubs currently have 6 starting pitchers on the roster*. Those 6 include Matt Garza, Ryan Dempster, Paul Maholm, Travis Wood, Chris Volstad and Randy Wells. Jeff Samardzija is also going to be stretched out in spring training, but may return to the bullpen when the season begins. The Cubs also have Andy Sonnanstine and Casey Coleman. If Trey McNutt gets off to a strong start in 2012 he could see some playing time too.

* Maholm is not yet on the roster as the Cubs are required to make a corresponding roster move as they already have 40 guys on their roster. The most likely candidates, in my opinion, is one of the left-handed relievers. Since Jeff Beliveau was added to the roster this offseason he’s not leaving. Neither is James Russell. That leaves John Gaub or Scott Maine. If Sonnanstine ends up relief the Cubs will have no use for either of them and with Beliveau not far away one of them is expendable. Other candidates could be Alberto Cabrera, Marcos Mateo or less likely Tony Campana.

Obviously the Cubs aren’t going to have a 6-man rotation. The 5 best will be in the rotation with the remaining starters available in case of injury or ineffectiveness. Below are 8 Cubs starters and their Oliver projected ERA and FIP.

Oliver	ERA	FIP
Garza, Matt	3.69	3.70
Wood, Travis	4.12	3.75
Paul Maholm	4.45	4.03
Dempster, Ryan	4.36	4.07
Wells, Randy	4.25	4.36
Volstad, Chris	4.75	4.64
Coleman, Casey	4.70	4.71
Samardzija, Jeff	4.51	4.72

Oliver thinks more highly of Wood than I’m guessing most other projection systems do. Oliver also sees a distinct difference between the top 5 and bottom 3. There is little difference between Volstad, Coleman and Samardzija. This is what the Cubs starters, including some work from Volstad would be worth using WAR:

Pitcher	IP	FIP	WAR
Matt Garza	200	3.70	3.8
Travis Wood	180	3.75	3.3
Paul Maholm	170	4.03	2.5
Ryan Dempster	160	4.07	2.3
Randy Wells	140	4.36	1.5
Chris Volstad	100	4.64	0.8

The IP are my estimates and it’s not based on player projections, but rather starting the number 1 (Garza) at 200 IP and dropping each spot after that. That’s not a bad rotation based on the Oliver projections. CAIRO projects a 4.11 FIP for Wood for what it’s worth.

Continue reading “Taking a closer look at the Cubs supersized rotation”