With the news that Darwin Barney is now headed to the DL, I thought it would be “fun” to see if the Cubs could field an entire squad of players who have been on the DL this season.
SS Darwin Barney
2B Jeff Baker
C Geovany Soto
1B Alfonso Soriano
LF Marlon Byrd
RF Reed Johnson
CF Brett Jackson
SP Matt Garza
SP Randy Wells
SP Andrew Cashner
SP Trey McNutt
SP Jay Jackson
SP/RP Bob Whitenack
CL Kerry Wood
All we’re missing is a third baseman. You’re next, Aramis Ramirez!
The Cubs are 8.5 games out of first place and it’s just the first of June. Their pythagorean record is even worse than their actual 23-30 record. Pythag has them at 22-31. The only team with a worse Pythag than the Cubs is the Houston Astros at 22-33. Minnesota is worse in the AL at 17-36, but no other team has fewer Pythag wins than the Cubs. Three teams have 22, but needless to say, that’s pretty damn bad. (click the link below to read more)
Fellow Cubs blogger Doc Blume opined in the comments to today’s article at LOHO that part of the Cubs injury issues stem from the roster being filled with players with questionable medical histories, as the Cubs had no money to spend on better players. The lack of payroll room the past few offseasons pushed the Cubs towards signing/acquiring marginal, injury prone players. My gut reaction to this is that it should be demonstrably false. Let’s run down the list of Cubs players that have hit the DL this year. (NB: another part of the Cubs injury woes have occured in the minor leagues, e.g. McNutt’s blisters, Whitenack’s arm issue, whatever is going on with Jay Jackson, Brett Jackson‘s hand injury, etc., etc. But since these guys weren’t signed or otherwise acquired on the market I won’t include them).
Players DLed or otherwise affected by injuries, in order of age
P Andrew Cashner – He’s had no injury history leading up to this. Young pitchers get injured. He wasn’t signed/traded for though so it doesn’t quite fit the mold of the hypothesis.
P Matt Garza – Garza has pitched five seasons in the majors and had only one short DL stint in the beginning of 2008 with an elbow injury. He’s in the prime of his career so it is reasonable to expect him to pile up innings (as much as you can expect it of any pitcher)
P Randy Wells – Wells had a stress fracture in his arm at the end of 2008, but no other red flags are popping up for me. Again, he came up through the system so he also doesn’t fit the mold
C Geovany Soto – Geo has had several DL stints, but its not especially surprising given how catchers get banged up. He was a late bloomer so his age could be a part of it. He’s another one coming up through the org (though the last such player on this list)
2b Jeff Baker – Baker had a major DL stint a few years back due to a hand injury. He hasn’t been on the DL since but has had several minor complaints that have kept him out of the lineup the last few years. He’s on the wrong side of 28 so seeing more injuries isn’t too unusual. They picked him up from the Rockies for basically nothing (relief pitcher Al Albuquerque).
CF Marlon Byrd – I’m not going to bother looking up his injury history, since being hit in the face with a baseball doesn’t have much to do with age or injury-proneness. Just shitty luck
1B Carlos Pena – Pena had issues with his thumb early in the season and it may have been an accomplice in his April power outage. He’s had several DL stints, including a hand injury in 2009, the recovery from which may have led to his poor 2010 numbers. Given his past injuries and his age it’s not unreasonable to see him continue to accrue injuries.
CF Reed Johnson – This injury isn’t surprising at all. Given Reed’s age and the fact that he’s been on the DL four separate times in the past four seasons for back problems. However, Reed’s role going into the season was that of a 5th outfielder so given his diminished role I don’t think his injury history isn’t that big of a deal.
LF Alfonso Soriano – Well, he’s been injured for a while now. There’s an inherent risk to signing *any* player to a long term deal in their thirties and you can feel free to blame Hendry for that, but at the time of the signing Soriano was quite healthy and an incredible athlete, rather than the shell of his former self that he is now (cue Carl Crawford axe grinding). We’ve argued for the Soriano signing enough times here though so I won’t beat that dead horse. Anyway, the Soriano signing happened when the Cubs were on a spending spree so the payroll hypothesis doesn’t really apply here either.
Overall, I don’t the theory does not hold up. The only starter it applies to is Pena, whose injury was relatively minor but could easily be injured again later this year.
Some other theories that were posited were whether some blame should go to the strength/conditioning coach or the shape of Wrigley’s crappy facilities. These things aren’t exactly new, so I don’t think there could be a particularly strong correlation there either. Just some shitty luck.
UPDATE
jstunami pointed out that I should have included Milton Bradley and Carlos Silva, so let’s move this back through 2009-2010 as well since the Cubs had payroll contraints those years.
RF Milton Bradley – Aside from his various pyschological issues, saying that MB had a tough time staying healthy is an understatement (just check out this laundry list of documented injuries). It’s a fair point. Given the other guys that were also on the market at the time (Ibanez, Abreu) I still think the Cubs made the right move going after a guy like Bradley (how they handled him afterwords, that’s another story). If they had more money I don’t know who they would have spent it on anyway – those three were the three biggest OF free agents that year.
P Carlos Silva – the booby prize in dumping Bradley, the Cubs didn’t really care who they got just so long as they got salary relief. The $8m or so they got along with the deal was what they were trading for, anything they got from Silva was gravy.
2B Aaron Miles – utility player
P John Grabow – Not really a budget-related signing, so much as a dumb one.
2B Ryan Freel – utility player
1B Chad Tracy – utlility
If you guys can think of anyone else who was injured, expected to get significant playing time, and signed on the cheap, let me know. This was all I could come up with
Continue reading “Which types of players have been injured? (UPDATED)”
I have always wanted to write more about the minor leagues, but whenever I start to do so I have failed to keep it up. As a result, I’ve mostly stopped writing articles about minor league players unless it’s relevant to the big league team. I know there are at least a few of you who closely follow the Cubs minor league system and we’d be appreciative of the occasional post on Unobstructed Views about minor league performances. Any registered user has access to publish their own content. It doesn’t take a great deal of time for those of you who are paying attention. (click the link below to read more)
Continue reading “Checking up on the Cubs top prospects”
Dodgers team stats (NL rank in parens):
wOBA: .310 (11th)
UZR: -2.9 (10th)
DRS: -11 (11th)
SP FIP: 3.77 (8th)
SP xFIP: 3.64 (5th)
RP FIP: 4.52 (16th)
RP xFIP: 4.09 (12th)
Batters:
| Player | wOBA | ZiPS wOBA |
| 2B Aaron Miles | .270 | .272 |
| LF Jerry Sands | .252 | .326 |
| RF Andre Ethier | .430 | .374 |
| CF Matt Kemp | .460 | .356 |
| 3B Juan Uribe | .305 | .322 |
| 1B James Loney | .205 | .315 |
| C Rod Barajas | .272 | .311 |
| SS Jamey Carroll | .330 | .306 |
The Dodgers are sorely missing the left side of their infield (Furcal and Blake), as it has meant many PAs taken by the likes of Aaron Miles and Jamey Carroll. It’s even more the case than when the Cubs last faced the Dodgers that their entire offense consists of Ethier and Kemp. Loney especially has been even more crappy than usual. I can’t believe he’s on a MLB roster. Of course now that I say this he’ll hit a HR or two and half a hundred singles in this series.
Pitchers:
| Player | ERA | FIP | ZiPS FIP |
| LHP Clayton Kershaw | 3.52 | 3.71 | 3.07 |
| RHP Chad Billingsley | 4.46 | 3.30 | 3.03 |
| LHP Ted Lilly | 4.45 | 3.32 | 3.52 |
| RHP Hiroki Kuroda | 3.10 | 3.69 | 3.39 |
| RHP Jon Garland | 3.81 | 4.40 | 4.26 |
| RHP Vincente Padilla | 2.25 | 4.23 | 3.99 |
| RHP Jonathan Broxton | 4.76 | 5.54 | 2.87 |
Broxton is no longer the “primary closer”, whatever that means, and the spot is now shared between him, Padilla, and Hong-Chi Kuo. The two of them might not be much better as they’re knocking the rust off DL stints. The idea is that Padilla will work righties and Kuo will work lefties, and Broxton will be the quasi-setup man.
The Cubs are running into a buzzsaw, the best three pitchers in a very good staff. ERA, FIP, xFIP, and ZiPS FIP given below.
Monday: James Russell, LOL (8.31, 8.75, 4.73, 5.85) vs Clayton Kershaw, LHP (3.52, 3.71, 3.27, 3.07), 9:10 PM CT
James Russell continues to take one for the team this week. The good news is that it looks like Cashner and Wells are ahead of schedule. Len and Bob mentioned yesterday that they rejoined the team in AZ, where they were rehabbing in extended spring training. They were supposed to stay there to keep working, but the training staff were impressed enough with their progress that they’ll travel with the team instead. We’ve been complaining about how the Cubs have no better options for this spot as Russell was 8th on the SP depth chart but three pitchers got injured at the same time. Jay Jackson is on his way back from an injury and could have made this start but the Cubs decided to hold him back. He might do better than Russell but we shouldn’t expect him to blow us away at this point. Why dump a bunch of extra pressure on the guy? As Colin Wyers pointed out the other day on twitter, why didn’t the Cubs just move Marshall into the rotation for a month? He wasn’t stretched out, but it’s not like Russell was that stretched out either (or going very deep into games). I can’t believe I haven’t seen more chatter about this. How quickly we all forget (myself included) that he was a decent starter.
Speaking of decent starters, I guess this Kershaw guy is okay. He’s been knocked around a little in his past few starts so maybe the Cubs can sneak a few by him and lose 9-4 instead of 9-0.
Tuesday: Ryan Dempster, RHP (9.58, 6.53, 4.19, 3.93) vs Chad Billingsley, RHP (4.46, 3.30, 3.53, 3.03), 9:10 PM CT
I was feeling better about Demp after MB’s article before his last start, and then he went ahead and threw up a start that made James Russell’s look good. At least it meant I could find other stuff to do that night and not have to think about the game. The biggest problem is obviously home runs, and he’s giving up an astonishing 23.7% of them on fly balls. Demp has always seemingly been a victim of the Big Inning and this year it’s especially been the case. Aside from crappy HR/FB luck, he’s also having a tougher time finding the plate, hence the 9+ ERA. He’s still having bad luck on balls in play too, as his BABIP is 50 points higher than his LD rate would suggest. There’s plenty of reason to expect Demp’s numbers to fall back to his projected rates when you look at the rest of his peripherals, but goddamn is this crazy.
Billingsley beat the Cubs in his last start, giving up two runs in six and a third innings and simply letting the Cubs put the ball in play after the Dodgers built a big early lead off of Casey Coleman. If Bad Beat Dempster shows up again he’ll get another day to take it even easier than he would against the Cubs punchless lineup.
Wednesday: Carlos Zambrano, RHP (4.91, 3.96, 3.98, 3.66) vs Ted Lilly, LHP (4.45, 3.32, 4.25, 3.52), 2:10 PM CT
Z had a great start against the Padres on 4/18, forgotten by various leprechauns, then followed it up with a stinker against who else, the Dodgers. He allowed a leadoff triple to Aaron Miles, after which the Cubs should have just forfeited the game. The Dodgers eked out half a hundred more hits in the inning, and Z stayed in to eat as many innings as he could. He had a decent start in the desert his last time out, giving up a two run HR in the first inning but settling down to go 6 innings against the snakes. The run numbers were good but the peripherals are not – he walked three while striking out two and gave up a 11 fly balls to only 5 grounders. Not what you expect from Z.
I love that both of the Cubs matchups with Lilly have had him opposite another of the big name Cubs pitchers. He faced Dempster his last time out and despite the fact that the wind was howling out the Cubs somehow managed to hit zero home runs. I’m sure they’ll hit three off him in Chavez Ravine just because (dying laughing). He’s had good luck with HRs this year (4.2% HR/FB) so that should change soon, especially as the weather warms up.
There’s a lot not to like in these matchups. Dodgers win 2 out of three but it’s probably just as likely that they sweep.
“That’s what I don’t know,” Quade said. “If we go in-house, then Russ is going to pitch. But if something else has taken place within the last 24 hours, [Hendry] can bring that to me and we can make a decision. Obviously, anybody who pitched [Friday] night wouldn’t be available. But there could be something else.” — cubs.com
The depth in the Cubs system took a huge hit with so many starters being injured at the same time. It’s a problem every organization would have. Jay Jackson has made just two starts since returning from the DL. While he could probably give you 75 to 80 pitches you don’t really want to add someone to the 40-man roster and promote the guy to make his big league debut after only two starts. The rest of the I-Cubs rotation has sucked. The Smokies rotation hasn’t been any better with the exception of Rafael Dolis. Dolis is on the 40-man, but you don’t really want to start his arbitration clock if Wells and Cashner are going to be back soon enough.
Continue reading “James Russell to start Monday unless someone else does”
After hosting the Cubs last week, the Rockies dropped a series at home vs the Giants and lost 2 of 3 against the Marlins, where they were nearly no-hit on Friday by Anibal Sanchez. They no longer have the best record in baseball (that belongs to the Phillies) but they’re one game off the pace.
Team stats and NL ranks
wOBA: .328 (6th)
UZR: 6.6 (3rd)
DRS: 13 (1st)
SP FIP: 4.43 (11th)
SP xFIP: 4.13 (11th)
RP FIP: 3.23 (5th)
RP xFIP: 3.29 (4th)
Batters:
| Player | wOBA | ZiPS wOBA |
| CF Dexter Fowler | .340 | .346 |
| 2B Jonathan Herrera | .426 | .305 |
| LF Carlos Gonzalez | .279 | .373 |
| SS Troy Tulowitzki | .478 | .394 |
| 1B Todd Helton | .370 | .343 |
| RF Seth Smith | .400 | .369 |
| 3B Ty Wigginton | .269 | .337 |
| C Chris Iannetta | .384 | .358 |
The Rockies nominal starters on opening day, 2b Jose Lopez and 3b Ian Stewart have more or less lost their jobs due to sucking. The rest of the lineup more than made up for their slack. One thing I was reminded of when looking up these numbers was just how good Todd Helton was early in his career. He’s a shell of the player he once was, but from 2000-2005 he posted 41.6 WAR, with a wOBA over .400 every season. His main skill these days are getting on base and playing defense, but some of that power is still there.
Pitchers:
| Player | FIP | ZiPS FIP |
| RHP Ubaldo Jiminez | 6.68 | 3.24 |
| LHP Jorge de la Rosa | 3.17 | 3.77 |
| RHP Jhoulys Chacin | 3.79 | 3.93 |
| RHP Jason Hammel | 4.52 | 3.66 |
| RHP Esmil Rogers | 5.61 | 4.30 |
| RHP Huston Street | 2.82 | 3.05 |
| RHP Rafael Betancourt | 4.33 | 3.30 |
The Cubs just missed Jiminez in the last series, who was coming back from a thumb injury, and will miss him again in this one. The Rockies are also missing worm-killing SP Aaron Cook, who broke a finger in spring training. He’s currently on the 60-day DL and the Cubs won’t see him this season unless they are somehow playing in October.
(ERA, FIP, xFIP, and ZiPS FIP in parens)
Monday: Esmil Rogers, RHP (6.75, 5.61, 4.92, 4.30) vs Matt Garza, RHP (4.74, 1.26, 1.92, 3.91), 7:05 PM CT
Rogers pitched well in his first start against the Pirates, getting plenty of ground balls and striking out seven. In his two following starts, he wasn’t fooling anyone. He only struck out two while walking 4 against the Mets but wasn’t hurt too badly, and he was hammered by the Giants in his last start to the tune of 3 HRs in three innings. He tries to keep the ball on the ground, but he’ll put plenty of players on the bases.
Garza spun a great game against the Padres his last time out, but got no support from the offense. Whatever he’s doing with his pitch mix, it’s working though I don’t think he’ll sustain a 12+ K/9 rate (laughing). Oddly enough he has yet to give up a HR this year. That’s going to end soon too, especially if the wind keeps blowing out this week.
Tuesday: Joge De La Rosa, LHP (3.00, 3.17, 3.99, 3.77) vs James Russell, LHP (8.00, 6.60, 4.34, 5.57), 7:05 PM CT
De La Rosa is a lot like Wandy Rodriguez, in that I saw him stink up the joint early in his career (with the Brewers) and anything he’s done since then can’t shake my initial impression. Since coming to the Rockies he’s posted good but not particularly great numbers. He’s posted surprisingly good strikeout numbers relative to his early career, when he was primarily a reliever, but has trouble with walks.
I’d rather just see the Cubs call up Jay Jackson to start this game, since he’s slated to pitch on Tuesday for the Iowa Cubs anyway, and have Russell relieve him. Why not? It’s going to be a bullpen day anyway.
Wednesday: Jhoulys Chacin, RHP (2.67, 3.79, 3.52, 3.93) vs Casey Coleman, RHP (7.43, 5.90, 5.61, 4.92), 1:20 PM CT
Chacin dominated the Cubs in their last meeting, throwing a complete game shutout at Coors (no easy feat). Aside from that Cubs game, he’s had a tough time getting many strikeouts. It’s not as big of a deal because he’s more of a ground ball pitcher anyway. ZiPS does not like his control, projecting him to a 4.47 BB/9 rate, so it will be extra frustrating every time Byrd or Barney swings at his first pitch.
Coleman was hit hard by the Dodgers in his last start, though somehow no balls left the yard. He’s been a little unlucky with balls in play, but so far he’s looked eminently hittable. So much for the Confidence Aura of Mike Quade helping him out.
The first game should be a good one, but the Rockies have a huge advantage in the last two games. Rockies win 2 out of 3. and break the Cubs streak of hitting all of the X-X .500 records.
Continue reading “Series Preview: Colorado Rockies (14-7) at Chicago Cubs (10-11)”
