Tag: joe mather

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".

 

 

Series Preview: Atlanta Braves (18-11) at Chicago Cubs (11-17)

The Cubs just managed to take 2 of 3 from the NL's best team and now face another one of the best teams in the Atlanta Braves. The Braves are a half game behind the Nationals in the NL East, but have won 3 in a row.

Pitching Matchups

Monday, May 7, 7:05 PM CT, WCIU

Tommy Hanson, RHP (3.74 ERA, 3.22 FIP, 3.29 ZiPS FIP): Hanson has allowed a career BABIP of .282, but this year it's at .330. However, his GB% is up over 47% (career 41.1%). It still shouldn't be that high and will come down a bit, but if the GB rate remains so high he will have a higher than usual BABIP. After only 6 starts and 33.2 innings, his strikeouts are down by about 1.5 per 9 innings. They're still at 8.3, which is just under his career 8.4 K/9. His walk rate is also slightly worse, but still a respectable 3.7 per 9. The reason his FIP so much lower than the ERA is the home run rate is at a career low for him and will see some regression as we move deeper into the season. He's worked deeper than 6 innings only twice (7 innings both times) and it appears the Braves are still taking it easy on him as far as pitch count goes. His last start was his worst of the season as he didn't make it out of the 4th inning. Overall though, Hanson has had 4 pretty good starts and 2 bad ones. His fastball velocity was 92.2 his rookie season and 92.7 in 2010. It then dropped to 91.1 and this year it's at 89.6. At his age and usage the Braves have to be concerned about a 3 mph loss of velocity over 2 seasons.

Jeff Samardzija (3.41 ERA, 2.29 FIP, 3.93 ZiPS FIP): Whatever I could say about Samardzija here I wrote about the other day.

Tuesday, May 8, 7:05 PM CT, WGN

Randall Delgado, RHP (5.14 ERA, 3.99 FIP, 4.52 ZiPS FIP): Last season Delgado was ranked as the 35th best prospect in baseball at the age of 21. This year he fell to 46th and made the opening day roster for the Braves. In the minor leagues he struck out 9.5 batters per 9 innings and last year in his 7 appearances it was under 5. This year it's up to 8.4 K/9. His last start was the best start of his young career as he went 8 innings and allowed 2 runs. He struckout 5 and walked none. He had a pretty good start to open the season and 3 not so good starts prior to his last one. Last season he threw primarily a 4-seamer, but this year it's his 2-seamer. His velocity is 91.8 on the 4-seamer and 90.4 on the 2-seamer. Nearly 70% of his pitches are the 2-seamer and 4-seamer. 18.3% of the time he throws a changeup.

Ryan Dempster, RHP (0.95 ERA, 2.32 FIP, 3.85 ZiPS FIP): Dempster is off to a terrific start. He leads the league with that silly ERA and has been helped by a BABIP under .200, as well as stranding a lot more runners than you'd expect. It's still been a great start for Dempster who is in the final year of his contract. Dempster made his 4th start of the season after returning from the DL and had his best start of the season. He threw 8 innings, allowed only 3 hits, walked 1 and struckout 5. According to game score, Dempster had only 1 start last season in which he was better than his last time out. He had an 81 last time and last year's best was 83. He had just 1 start better than that in 2010 and none in 2009. He was better twice in 2008. His last start was the 5th best start in a Cubs uniform for Dempster.

Wednesday, May 9, 1:20 PM CT, CSN

Tim Hudson, RHP (6.55 ERA, 3.59 FIP, 3.82 ZiPS FIP): Hudson's FIP is right in line with what we expect from him, but his ERA is ridiculously high. This is becasue 25% of the fly balls hit against him have been home runs. His LOB% is 54.2% compared to a career 74%. He's only made 2 starts and thrown 11 innings so it's not really a surprise to see numbers like this. In his first start back from the DL he was pretty good and in his next start he was terrible. Tim Hudson is still Tim Hudson even though he's now 36 years old. I don't know how much longer Hudson can pitch or how much longer he wants to, but if he could stick around for a few more years he's a borderline Hall of Fame candidate. He's not what he once was, but few players 36 are what they were when they were younger.

Paul Maholm, LHP (5.13 ERA, 5.61 FIP, 4.11 ZiPS FIP): Like Hudson, Maholm has been bitten by an unusually large HR/FB rate (18.5%). His xFIP is 4.54, which isn't too much higher than his career 4.21. What's odd is that so far he's allowed only a .221 BABIP, but has given up so many runs due to the home runs. His strikeouts are at a career low 4.8, but his walks are also at a career low 2.1. The strikeouts won't increase much, but the walks will probably increase more than the strikeouts. Maholm had 2 terrible starts to begin the season and over his last 3 starts he's allowed only 3 runs in 18.1 innings.

Batting

Nobody has been hitting the ball close to as well as the Cardinals have in the NL, but the Braves are 2nd with a team .333 wOBA (110 wRC+). The Rockies have hit 34 home runs and the Braves and Brewers are tied for 2nd with 33. The Cubs have hit 15, which actually isn't last at this point.

Chipper Jones is doing Chipper Jones things (5 HR, .404 wOBA). Jason Heyward has a .369 wOBA and Freddie Freemon's is .362. Even Michael Bourn's is .357. The Braves bench has been awesome. Eric Hinske (.425), Matt Diaz (.402), and David Ross (.393) are all crushing the ball. Tyler Pastornicky is the only Brave hitter with more than 38 PA to have a wRC+ below 100.

As a team the Cubs are at a .291 wOBA. Bryan LaHair has an impressive .515 wOBA and Steve Clevenger, on the DL for the time being, is even higher at .536. Joe Mather has been excellent as a bench player with a .380 wOBA and Tony Campana (.359) has filled in nicely for Marlon Byrd. Other than Starlin Castro (.359) the next best is David DeJesus at .302. Jeff Baker (.289) and Darwin Barney (.281) are fighting for the next spot. The Cubs have a few who have been pretty good, but most have been rather terrible. Here are some of the starters for the Cubs: Ian Stewart (.258), Alfonso Soriano (.239, not even slugging .300) and Geovany Soto (.235).

Fielding and Baserunning

The Braves have a team 2.6 UZR while the Cubs are 4.0. The Braves are -7 in total zone and the Cubs are 2nd in baseball at 38. The Braves have 2 DRS and the Cubs -4. Overall the Cubs appear to have the better defensive team. Alfonso Soriano has 7.7 of that UZR for the Cubs while Michael Bourn has been the Braves best at 4.4.

The Cubs are 3rd in the league in BsR with 3.2 and the Braves are 5th at 2.7. David DeJesus has been the Cubs best with 1.5 BsR and Ian Stewart the worst with -0.5. No surprise to see Michael Bourn at the top for the Braves with 1.5 BsR. Cody Ross is the worst on the Braves at -0.5.

I predict the Cubs win the middle game of the series while the Braves take the other two.

Where We Stand Now 5.1.12 – Batters

Now that a month has passed, let's take a look back at what's gone wrong (and a few things that have gone right). First, a look at the batters. Here are the regulars' current slash lines, wOBA, BABIP, and preseason projected wOBAs. I'm only doing Johnson and Mather because they've picked up the most PAs of the bench guys, and because I'm lazy.

Player AVG OBP SLG wOBA BABIP Projected wOBA
C Geovany Soto .135 .224 .250 .210 .154 .338
1B Bryan LaHair .382 .470 .727 .489 .607 .341
2B Darwin Barney .266 .310 .367 .299 .299 .296
SS Starlin Castro .326 .344 .430 .344 .364 .334
3B Ian Stewart .160 .222 .253 .209 .196 .317
LF Alfonso Soriano .236 .250 .250 .212 .304 .321
CF Marlon Byrd .070 .149 .070 .093 .091 .322
CF Tony Campana .435 .458 .435 .461 .556 .289
RF David DeJesus .254 .361 .310 .304 .327 .326
UT Reed Johnson .226 .250 .419 .285 .318 .308
UT Joe Mather .292 .414 .458 .397 .333 .289

The Good

Bryan LaHair, Castro….that's about it.

LaHair has had *just* a bit of BABIP luck so far this year, but he's hitting the ball with enough authority not to worry so much about it.

Tony Campana is going to be a guy who crushes in the BABIP department due to his speed, but a run like this obviously won't as long. I like seeing him batting second, because he's the prototypical two-hole hitter who actually has speed as opposed to the prototypical two-hole hitter that plays in the middle infield but has average speed.

The Bad

DeJesus has disappointed thus far, mostly in the power department. He is getting on base at a good clip though.

Darwin Barney is doing Darwin Barney things. He probbaly shouldn't be doing them in the second spot in the order, but his bulked-up transformation hasn't paid much in the way of dividends so far

The Ugly

Geovany Soto has just done nothing at the plate this year, and is already threatened by additional playing time by Clevenger/Castillo. There's a lot to be optimistic about in his line, however. For one, the .153 BABIP says he's suffered from some bad luck. His walk rate is right on with his career numbers, and he's actually striking out less than he has over the course of his career.

Soriano has been pants this month, collecting only two extra base hits following a scorching hot spring. Soriano is a streaky hitter so he will probably have one good month in him this year, but that's about it. He has looked significantly better on defense using the eyeball metric, but his past performance is a pretty low bar to clear. Unlike Geo there isn't a lot to read into his line, he's just sucked. We just have to wait for his power to come back.

I liked what I saw from Ian Stewart for the first week or so of the season, but things aren't looking so great now. At least with Soriano you have some hope for his power returning, while Stewart has looked like just as much of a mess as he was last year in Colorado. His admitting that his wrist is still bothering him is a worrisome sign. Joe Mather and Jeff Baker could be sneaking more PAs away from him before long. Unlike Soriano he doesn't have as much of a skillset to back up on – when he was helthy he was only a ~1.5 win player.

Marlon Byrd is gone. What a putrid line – I don't think I've ever seen a non-pitcher post a BABIP that low before. Since going to the Red Sox the hits have been falling in, but he's still yet to record and XBH this year.

Nationals at Cubs Game Thread

Matt Garza and Gio Gonzalez are today's starting pitchers. Garza is trying to duplicate the season he had last year, which won't be easy. The Cubs will have their work cut out for them again today as Gonzalez is a pretty good pitcher. He's been worth more than 9 rWAR over the last 2 seasons.

The Cubs stacked their lineup with righties as David DeJesus and Ian Stewart get the day off. In their place is Joe Mather and Reed Johnson. The game starts a little after 12 CT and is on CSN.

Gameday, Baseball Reference Preview

Cubs Lineup

I like that Barney has been moved down and Soto up, but you'd think you'd if you're going to hit Barney high in the order it would be against lefties and not against righties. Barney shouldn't even be on the field when a righty is on the mound. Oh well. Baby steps.

Daily Facepalm – 4.6.12

Cubs game recap

The Cubs lost 2-1 to the Nationals yesterday. Ryan Dempster had an incredible start, striking out ten batters in 7.2 innings. Unfortunately, after he was relieved in the 8th inning Kerry Wood walked three straight batters to tie the game. Carlos Marmol gave up a double in the 9th to Cubs Legend Chad Tracy followed by a bloop single by Ian Desmond. Ian Stewart just missed a HR off Brad Lidge in the ninth, and pinch runner Joe Mather was thrown out at home in the next at bat. To Dempster's credit, he got the strikeouts but the Cubs best defender yesterday was the wind blowing hard in from center field. Stewart's ball wasn't the only hard-hit one that would have gone out on an average day at Wrigley.

Wood had a lousy day but I still think he should be the primary set-up man. He's not as good as he once was but I don't think there's much case to say that any of the other non-Marmol relievers are better than he is right now unless he's injured.

Dempster's start was the best by game score (78) for a Cubs opener since Bill Bonham in 1974 (87).

Yesterday's TOOTBLANS

Alfonso Soriano was thrown out stealing third base in the fourth inning. Marlon Byrd later singled in Stewart, who was behind Soriano on the basepaths, for the Cubs only run.

Joe Mather was thrown out at the plate in the bottom of the ninth after running on contact. I think he was out either way, since that ball was hit pretty hard to the third baseman. I'd chalk it up to bad luck, but the TOOTBLAN definition is a harsh mistress.

Is there a Cubs game today?

Gio Gonzalez and Matt Garza face off tomorrow at noon.

Maybe Bill Murray should stop throwing out the first pitch

Ryan Dempster accidentally used the ceremonial first pitch ball for the first actual pitch of the game. Bill Murray had signed it and added "good luck, Ryan". Ian Desmond hit a single on Dempster's first pitch.

Pictures from opening day

Fellow Cubs bloggers Doc Blume and Julie DiCaro attended the game and took many pictures. Consensus all around the blog/tweet-osphere is that the new videoboard was a positive addition to the park.

Cubs interested in John Lannan

You can never have too many slightly above replacement level pitchers that are paid more than league minimum. Though maybe the best way to improve the pen is to pick up a ton on fringy starters and make them setup men. It worked wonders for Sean Marshall.

Media waiting to pile on Cubs "culture"

For some reason Cubs players are "tired of the perception that failure is institutionalized in the organization". I wonder what's perpetuating that perception?

Wait, what? moment

During yesterday's game WGN had a shot of someone wearing a "Sveamus Catuli" t-shirt. That doesn't even make sense, and was way too complicated to explain to someone who didn't get the reference. Still better than Pujols mows my lawn, though.

Ad campaign of the day

It looks like some of these ads are showing up in our sidebar too.

Random Opening Day Thoughts

This current roster couldn't even bring a smile to an easily excitable child. If you look at the lineup we'll see most frequently it's a little depressing. Darwin Barney. Bryan LaHair. Ian Stewart. Marlon Byrd. David DeJesus. Some of them have some value, but who is going to watch a game to see those guys in action? I'm a half glass full kinda guy so I actually think there's some reason to be excited.

Take the lineup and add Brett Jackson and Anthony Rizzo to it. You've got Jackson leading off (maybe not right away), Starlin Castro batting 2nd and you can slot Rizzo in the 4th or 5th spot. The top half of the Cubs order is potentially very good, quite young and definitely something worth being excited about.

The rotation is even less exciting than the lineup. Other than Matt Garza there's no pitcher you feel you have to tune into. Ryan Dempster is still good, but he's not that good. Paul Maholm? There's just something about an 87 mph fastball that makes you want to do something else. Unless that pitcher has incredible secondary stuff, it's just boring watching a guy throw the ball 87 mph. Chris Volstad was once a top 50 prospect. Prior to the 2007 season he was considered one of the better starters in the minor leagues. He dropped some the following year, but was still 58th. After a good rookie season (2.3 rWAR), he's been worth 1 rWAR over the last 3 seasons. The projections have him striking out about 6 per 9 innings so that's certainly not very exciting. 

Speaking of strikeouts, does anybody miss Larry Rothschild? He's one of the better pitching coaches in the game. You can look at how pitchers improved while working with him and it's quite clear that Larry understood the value of adding strikeouts and even reducing walks. This led to high pitch counts, which angered fans, but the more strikeouts you have the better a pitcher you are. The fewer walks, the better you are. Pitchers improved under Rothschild. They also struck a shitload of batters out. I can't remember the manager or even the team the Cubs were playing back in 2001, but he commented after an extra inning game about how brutal it was facing all the Cubs relievers. You take one guy who throws 95 out and most of the time you're feeling better. Then you see he's replaced by a guy throwing 97 he said.

Enough has been said about Jeff Samardzija to last a lifetime. Seriously, I think more has been written about him here in recent weeks than will probably be written about him over the rest of his career. That kind of says it all.

That's all the starters? Garza, Dempster, Maholm, Volstad and Samardzija? Definitely worse than the bad lineup we're going to see regularly.

Defense? It might be improved, but it's still bad. Bad defense is no fun to watch.

Baserunning? It's hard to say, but you'd think the team would be better at it (baserunning, not overall!) simply by letting Aramis Ramirez walk. Oddly enough, they seem eager to prove that wrong. Dale Sveum talks about aggressive baserunning like it's the goal to winning games. Here's a goal: don't make outs on the bases. I don't care if the Cubs are aggressive or not. I want the Cubs to make good baserunning decisions. If that can be done while being aggressive, great. If it can't, don't be aggressive.

Should the Cubs even be aggressive on the bases? LaHair, Stewart, Byrd, DeJesus, Soriano, and Soto are guys who should probably not be so aggressive. That's almost the entire lineup. I'm going to go with no, the Cubs should not be aggressive.

Mike Quade realized last spring the Cubs didn't have the players to be aggressive on the bases. He sounded like an idiot early in spring training when he talked about it, but quickly realized this team sucked at running the bases. What's taken Dale Sveum so long? Who knows?

I now have the 2001 Cubs on my mind. That was a fun team. They got off to a 21-13 start. I'm pretty sure they were in first place. In typical Cubs fashion they lost 8 in a row to fall back to mediocrity. Following the losing streak the Cubs won 12 in a row. Probably the best baseball I've seen from this team over a 2 week span in my life. That lineup was kind of like this team with one exception: there is no Sammy Sosa in this lineup. Other than that, the 2001 lineup was just a bunch of mediocre to bad players. Ricky Gutierrez was 2nd on that team in RBI. He had 94 fewer than Sosa. That's not happening this year.

What about Starlin Castro? Will he improve a little bit like he did a year ago? That's all one can hope for in my opinion. Is he going to get arrested for rape? Is it just me or are others thinking that the police must have some credible evidence? I don't know what goes into a rape investigation, but they're usually he said/she said situations. Sometimes there's some physical evidence, but I wouldn't think you'd have to talk to all that many parties about it. Maybe I'm just thinking too much about it.

When was the last middle infield combination the Cubs had that was any good? I immediatley think about Ryne Sandberg and Shawon Dunston, but I've realized as I've gotten older and understand advanced metrics that Dunston wasn't very good. Through age 25 Dunston had OPS's of 87, 83, 62, and 76. That's very similar to another Cubs shortstop who posted the following OPS's in his first 4 full seasons: 71, 92, 83, 71. That SS had an OPS+ of 80 to Dunston's 77.

Ryan Theriot is the shortstop mentioned above. Granted, Dunston did that through age 25 while Theriot was 30 by that time. Theriot had 5.6 career rWAR and Dunston had 10. Dunston had twice as many plate appearances.

So while Sandberg was awesome, Dunston wasn't very good. Ernie Banks was a great SS early in his career, but the Cubs had Gene Baker and a couple other guys at 2nd who weren't very good. It's going to be awhile before the Cubs have a really good middle infield combo.

I'm looking forward to watching Steve Clevenger get some playing time. He's put together some fairly strong offensive seasons for a catcher and has done so under the radar. The Cubs made the right choice here. They told Welington Castillo he was sent down because he's a starter, but they can't be serious, right? Clevenger is only a year older and has been better in the minor leagues. Both of them are back-up catchers.

How many 2nd basemen does a team need on opening day? 4.

The Cubs have almost as many 2nd basemen on their roster as they do relievers. If they wanted, they could set up a rotation for 2nd base. You have your ace, number 2, number 3 and number 4. One more and they can match them up with the starting pitcher. I like that idea. When Matt Garza is on the mound, Blake DeWitt plays 2nd. Jeff Baker plays during Dempster's starts.  Luis Valbuena is teamed up with Paul Maholm. Darwin Barney and Jeff Samardzija are both transformed players so they would naturally be paired together. Joe Mather could probably play some 2B when Volstad pitches.

You could even get fancier than matching them up. When Garza comes out, you bring in your relief 2nd baseman. The Cubs would need a couple more 2nd basemen, but if they wanted they could match those together too. You could have a setup 2nd baseman and a closer if you wanted. I was wrong about this team not being exciting.

Every year someone asks me who is going to win the World Series. Like I fucking have a crystal ball. Want to know who is going to win? The best team has the best odds and more times than not the best team is the Yankees. That's been my go to answer for at least 15 years.

Too much bad news? I'll leave you with some good news: the probability that the Cubs get off to as bad a start this year as they did in 1997 is this: 0.00006103515625. That's if the Cubs were a true .500 team. Let's say they're a true .439 team (based on projections). The odds they start 0-14 are now 0.000009874231009178909. Basically 0%. Rest assured knowing it's an almost certainty that the Cubs will start the season better than 0-14.

Other transformed Cubs

With Jeff Samardzija's "transformation" I thought it would be fun to find other Cubs player who have transformed this spring.

Joe Mather: With a .412/.455/.745 batting line through today, he's established himself as a completely different ballplayer. We know this because he's had 55 plate appearances and that's absolutely enough to know whether or not a transformation has taken place. Some of you are saying right now that he has a career .228/.283/.384 line so we should be cautious. Fuck. That. Now is a time to be optimistic about this young stud the Cubs have for the middle of the order for years to come.

Blake DeWitt: .289/.373/.422. With 51 plate appearance we can safely say there is a 100% chance that DeWitt is now an on-base machine. The type of hitter that the more intelligent teams put atop their batting order so the big guys like Mather can knock them in. Forget about DeWitt's .329 career OBP. That's in the past. New player.

Darwin Barney: He's slugged .639 and has an OPS over 1.000 and while the sample isn't quite as reliable as 50 PA, he's still come to the plate a whopping 40 times. We can see the top of the order taking shape for the Cubs of the future. DeWitt and his on-base skills leading off with Joe Mater and Darwin Barney hitting in the middle of the order. It's gonna be rough on pitchers with all these transformations going on.

Alfredo Amezaga: best Cubs number 2 hitter since Ryne Sandberg. That's what we'll remember Amezaga for. In 40 spring PA he's batted .306/.375/.361. He's young so he should slug more in about 5 or 7 more years. Still, that .375 OBP will fit nicely in the 2-hole and can leadoff when DeWitt is getting the day off.

Rodrigo Lopez: No pitcher in Cubs camp who started more than 1 game held hitters to a lower batting average than Lopez's .213. Among all pitchers who started a game only Randy Wells help opponents to a lower batting average, but he started only 1 game. Paul Mahol, Chris Volstad and Randy Wells were the only 3 who started a game who had a lower ERA than Lopez. We know this is for real because he's thrown 16+ innings.

Transformations don't always work in a way that leads to better production. Take Starlin Castro for example. He's transformed himself into a batter with a .283 OBP. That's in 60 plate appearances so you definitely don't need more information than that. Safe to say, Starlin Castro is the new Alfonso Soriano with less power.

David DeJesus. The following players have a higher slugging percentage than DeJesus's OPS: there's too many to list. Seriously. DeJesus has a sub .600 OPS in a league that has an average OPS of 27.000.

Matt Garza: he allowed 27 baserunners in 16 innings of work. I'd say he's probably going to struggle to remain in the rotation, but then I thought about the rest of the rotation.

There have been other transformations, but none worth commenting on.

Wells and Wood optioned to minors, Clevenger over Castillo

I'd much rather have seen Randy Wells in the Chicago Cubs rotation, but rather than bullpenning him the Cubs have at least done the only other smart thing possible by optioning him to the minors. Good call on that even if it's the result of other poor decisions. I've been saying for awhile that Steve Clevenger is the better catcher and better option to back-up Geovany Soto. He's played better in the minor leagues. He has better projections. He's more versatile. He's just a better player and it's great to see the Cubs pick him over Castillo for the job.

With Wells and Travis Wood optioned to the minors, the Cubs rotation is set with Ryan Dempster pitching opening day. He'll be followed by Matt Garza, Chris Volstad, Jeff Samardzija and Paul Maholm. Maholm is only pitching in the 5th game because he's coming back from injury and the Cubs have taken it easy with him. The final two spots filled in the rotation were Volstad and then Samardzija.

Blake DeWitt and Joe Mather also made the team.

More info on the final roster as it comes.

Did the Cubs really add that much depth?

Over on Cubs Den (a really good blog), John talks about how the Cubs have quietly built depth to give them trade flexibility. I want to look at his bullets one by one because I just don't agree with the conclusion that John is reaching. John is attributing this depth to Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer too, which is another thing I mostly disagree with. I know some people find the count/counterpoint kind of dickish, but I hope it doesn't come off that way. It's not my intention. I like John's work. I just disagree with him here. And I felt I need to do it this way to stress where I disagreed.

Marlon Byrd:  The Cubs have Brett Jackson to take his place in the very near future, although they could start with Joe Mather and/or Reed Johnson in CF if they feel they want to give Jackson a few more swings in Iowa, where he hasn't played a full season.

Jackson was drafted by the Cubs in the 1st round in 2009. It was the most excited I'd been at any Cubs first round pick since Mark Prior. It was a fantastic selection by a team that had become known for being old school. He developed even better than expected and has become a top 50 prospect. Credit Jim Hendry and staff for this one; not Thoyer.

Joe Mather is the type of player that every team signs leading up to spring training. These are guys that no team wants so I have a very difficult time considering Mather depth. Perhaps he'll perform better than people expect, but until we see that he's nothing more than a below replacement level back-up who wouldn't make two-thirds of the rosters in baseball. The Cubs brought Reed Johnson back last year and the team re-signed him after Reed's excellent season at the plate. This was a no-brainer. The only question was whether Reed would want to play for a team that had a chance to contend. He can play on an every day basis if needed, but you'll get replacement level production from him once he starts facing right handers in nearly 70% of his plate appearances.

The Cubs haven't added any real depth at this position that they didn't already have. Other than Brett Jackson who was in the system before the new regime came along, the Cubs depth has mostly been nothing more than replacement level players. Most here are familiar with the concept, but for those who aren't, a replacement level player is someone is readily available for league minimum. This includes the career AAAA labeled players and players found on the waiver wire.

These players have no real value and every team has them. Every team has easy access to more of them. If Reed Johnson plays everyday, he's basically a replacement level player. Mather? He's probably not even that good. I have a hard time accepting replacement level talent as depth because every team already has those guys and they can add more of them for league minimum if they want.

If replacement level talent counts as depth, we have to consider the depth that a team like the Pirates. If you take away the pitchers batting, few players were below replacement for them last year. Most of the innings pitched were by guys better than replacement level. We could look back over several years and we'll find the same thing. They've been bad, but better than replacement level as a team. Replacement level for a team is 48 to 49 wins.

Randy Wells: The Cubs made building starting rotation depth a priority from day one.  Assuming Chris Volstad and Jeff Samardzija have won the last two spots, Wells is starting pitching depth along with Travis Wood, Casey Coleman, and Rodrigo Lopez.

The Cubs did add some depth here, but is it quality depth? Take a look at the starters any team runs out there in years they have injuries and I'm not sure this group is in any way better than what you'll see from the typical team. I'm not even sure this group is better than the guys the Cubs ran out there last year when players were out with injury. They'll likely perform better than that group, but you could take the same group from last year and that would be equally true.

Let's consider the depth the Cubs had at this position entering last season. They had Ryan Dempster, Matt Garza, Carlos Zambrano, Randy Wells and Andrew Cashner in the opening day rotation. That's significantly better than this year's rotation. They also had Casey Coleman and James Russell. The Cubs top pitching prospect had skyrocketed through the system and already played half a season in AA. He wasn't far from the big leagues and was part of the depth the Cubs had last year. Had he not suffered through blisters early in the season he'd more than likely have made his big league debut no later than the end of May.

The Cubs depth at pitching this year is actually worse. Prior to last season there was a chance Russell could have been a decent starter. I don't mean decent in a way that you'd like someone like that in your rotation, but at the very least he was a replacement level starter. Coleman had some solid numbers in the minors. McNutt was coming off of an excellent season. Jay Jackson was still young enough. The Rorigo Lopez's of the world will fall into your lap this year just as they did a year ago.

The Cubs traded Cashner. McNutt had a season filled with non-pitching related injuries and when he did pitch he was less than impressive. Jay Jackson is older and still hasn't put it together in AAA. Coleman will probably not get another chance to start and neither will Russell. So the Cubs added Volstad, Wood, and Sonnanstine. Sonnanstine is already gone. Wood is ticketed for the minors after a disastrous spring. Rodrigo Lopez hangs around and nobody is sure why.

The depth the Cubs had a year ago has been decimated with injuries and ineffectiveness. In their place the Cubs have added replacement level pitchers.

Jeff Baker: The obvious replacement is Joe Mather.  He is another RH batter who can play the 4 corners, just as Baker does.  Baker has the advantage that he can also play 2B while Mather can play CF.  Baker is the better hitter but Mather may have more pop and speed.

At the big league level over the last two years, Mather has a 53 OPS+ in 147 PA. While that's not a large sample, we have many years of minor league data to look at. He was nothing more than a league average hitter in the friendly PCL each of the last 2 years and below average in 2009. He's been in AAA for several years now. He's had less than 50 plate appearances in spring training. Mather hasn't been better than average in the minors since 2008. Since then he's done nothing but remain in AAA and been unimpressive. At the age of 29 or 30 he's not likely to be anyone's replacement at the big league level.

Sample size and quality of opponents is important to consider here. Mather has only 52 plate appearances this spring. Lorenzo Cain leads the way with an OPS over 1.300. Cain turns 26 in a couple weeks and boasts a minor league OPS under .800. His MLB OPS is under .750. Alex Liddi is above Mather and has a minor league OPS of just over .800. 26 year old Zack Cozart and his career minor league OPS of .753 has a spring OPS of 1.101. Dexter Fowler, an established MLB player, has the worst spring OPS of .330.

The reason these numbers are so considerably different than usual is sample size. Take Joe Mather's .442 OBP. Over 52 plate appearances 1 standard deviation is .074. If the only information we had on Mather was this .442 OBP and the 52 PA, we could use that to calculate a range of true talent. There's a 95% chance it's between .292 and .592. So Mather and his pretty OBP doesn't mean anything over 52 PA. Especially when you have over 3400 professional plate appearances during the regular season (almost all of them in the minor leagues).

Blake DeWitt: The Cubs have a carbon copy, though younger and cheaper version in Adrian Cardenas.  Both offensively oriented LH hitters whose primary role would be as a complement to the defensively oriented, RH hitting Darwin Barney.  I also find it curious that Alfredo Amazega's playing time seems to be increasing lately.  He's the one Cubs utility IF'er who can play a respectable SS.  I think he's a lock for Iowa and perhaps more if the Cubs make a couple of deals.

I would point out here that every team in baseball had a chance to pick DeWitt up after the Cubs took him off their 40-man roster. No team did and Blake was more than happy to just accept a minor league contract and invite to spring training. I have no idea what he's done this month, but if teams didn't want anything to do with him a month ago when they could have had him for nothing, they'll want nothing to do with him now. Spring training stats just aren't as valuable as many people think.

Furthermore, every team had a chance to pick up Cardenas and Amezaga. Every team passed because they already had their own version of them.

Geovanny Soto: The Cubs have two major league ready catchers in Welington Castillo and Steve Clevenger.  Neither is as good as Soto, but they are cheaper and capable of putting up decent numbers between the two of them.

Both players were signed/drafted and developed when Hendry ran this team. There is depth at this position. Castillo and Clevenger both figure to be at least slightly better than replacement, but neither has much of a chance of being a starting catcher for very long.

Of the players listed here, perhaps only the back-up catchers offer real value other than the prospects in CF and 1B. It's possible Volstad improves. The same could be said for Wood, but the rest of these guys are what they are and most of them were in the organization before Thoyer took over.

Regardless of who is responsible, the Cubs lack depth at all postions except catcher, center field and first base. Hendry was responsible for the depth at the first two and this group traded former top prospect Andrew Cashner to acquire depth at 1st base.

The Cubs have made baby steps so far. Some might even question that. They're not better in any noticeable way this year than they otherwise would have been.

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Correction: Brett pointed out that every team did not have a chance to acquire Cardenas. Only the AL teams and the Astros (worse record than the Cubs in the NL) had a chance.

Daily Facepalm 3.26.12

Obstructed View Daily Facepalm

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

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.