Cubs Sign Marquis to 3/21

[EastonBlues22]

sweet, 4.98 ERA zips projection for marquis. kinda sad that i am glad its under five though...

 

And the Cubs already had 8 candidates for the back of the rotation with similar ZIPS projections:

 

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/oracle/discussion/cubs_signed_marquis/

 

Do we have any figures that ZiPS is an accurate predictor?

THIS might be of interest to you.

[CubinNY]

sweet, 4.98 ERA zips projection for marquis. kinda sad that i am glad its under five though...

 

And the Cubs already had 8 candidates for the back of the rotation with similar ZIPS projections:

 

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/files/oracle/discussion/cubs_signed_marquis/

 

Do we have any figures that ZiPS is an accurate predictor?

THIS might be of interest to you.

 

If those are correlation coeficients they aren't particularly strong for pitchers. For hitters, they are pretty good. Anything over .5 is considered strong.

 

I think this is the most interesting quote of the article

 

A few things to note. I believe this only includes players who reached 500 plate appearances and mostly excludes relief pitchers. Also, Smith tried combining a number of the projection systems to come up with a better formula, but the combinations fell short.

 

For example, I wouldn't put much stock in a projection on a player like DeRosa who's only reach 500 PAs once.

[Mephistopheles]

umm that really doesnt have much to do with it...

[CubinNY]

umm that really doesnt have much to do with it...

enlighten me.

[Mephistopheles]

the 500 pa there means that the correlation only took in account players who got 500 pas in order to minimize any random sample size issues. in derosa's case it isnt as if his projections dont use seasons where he had less than five hundred PAs. That pa disclaimer was only used to run the correlation. they really dont have anything to do with the actual projections.

[CubinNY]

the 500 pa there means that the correlation only took in account players who got 500 pas in order to minimize any random sample size issues. in derosa's case it isnt as if his projections dont use seasons where he had less than five hundred PAs. That pa disclaimer was only used to run the correlation. they really dont have anything to do with the actual projections.

 

Wouldn't "sample size" issues be a problem for any projection though? I mean, if they are going to throw them out when comapring projections to actual performance what validity do they have (Unless the projection was for PA)? Because of DeRosa's lack of PAs/season over the corse of his career I think it would be hard to make an accurate projection. I think It would be far safer to look at his career numbers without the fancy math.

[Mephistopheles]

the projection wont be accurate, but the projection is a projection of the players true talent level.

 

look at it this way, if you were to look at two distributions of 100 seasons of the player for the year. If you have one distribution that's always in 300 PA seasons and the other in 500 PA seasons the curve for their lines won't be the same, but the mean of the two curves will still be the same. That's mean is the projection. The 500 PA curve would be "squished" compared to the 300 PA curve.

 

and re about the looking at career averages, these projections are more accurate that those...

[C.C.]

It's official! 3/21.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/baseball/mlb/12/19/bc.bbn.cubs.marquis.ap/index.html

[Andy]

It's official! 3/21.

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/baseball/mlb/12/19/bc.bbn.cubs.marquis.ap/index.html

I can live with that, I guess.

[C.C.]

It's a lot better then the 3/28! But it still way to many years coming off a dreadful season.

[SCCubbieFAN]

article on cubs.com is reporting 3/$20mil.

[Butterscup1679666578]

Well that could've been a lot worse. Still not good, but oh well.

[C.C.]

"I knew I wasn't far off," Marquis said on Tuesday. "Knowing the knowledge Larry had, they said he would be a good guy to go see. It was nothing more than to get my mind right and get in a positive frame of mind."

 

 

 

 

"I was just a hair off," Marquis said of his mechanics. "It wasn't allowing me to execute my pitches the way I wanted to. With the adjustment we made, it'll help me work my sinker down like I'm capable of doing."

 

 

Let's hope he figured it out.

[Mephistopheles]

its too bad we cant have st louis' 2004-05 defense come down with him too in the deal. it's the only way he can "find" his sinker.

[RichHillIsABeast]

its too bad we cant have st louis' 2004-05 defense come down with him too in the deal. it's the only way he can "find" his sinker.

 

How does the defense have anything to do with how Marquis gets the ball into play (GB, FB, or LD)?

[Mephistopheles]

it won't really but it will help him find his success. his sinker isn't good enough to get by with a lot of walks and no Ks.

[RichHillIsABeast]

it won't really but it will help him find his success. his sinker isn't good enough to get by with a lot of walks and no Ks.

 

Ah. I don't know, he's gotten some pretty nice GB/FB ratios in the past. As long as the IF defense is strong behind him, he should be ok. Izturis is a wizard. Ramirez is better than average. Lee is a stud. DeRosa...could be better.

 

If that sinker isn't working from start to start, he's going to get beaten up pretty bad every now and again.

[UK1679666180]

All depends on how hard they hit the ball, moreso than any diff. in defenses between the Cubs and STL. You could field an entire IF of Ozzie Smiths last year and he would've been terrible.

 

He's never going to be a good BB/K ratio pitcher, he can be good enough for what is req'd from him to still be in the 70BB/100K ratio as far as long it doesn't look like the Bugs Bunny cartoon where it's a pinball machine.

 

He'll need to find the arm angle and release point on that sinker as well learn to pitcher smarter.

 

He still has to learn and try to be a poor man's Brandon Webb rather than overpowering hitters.

[Mephistopheles]

Ah. I don't know, he's gotten some pretty nice GB/FB ratios in the past. As long as the IF defense is strong behind him, he should be ok. Izturis is a wizard. Ramirez is better than average. Lee is a stud. DeRosa...could be better.

 

Im pretty sure you should know. You simply can't put a lot of guys on base and expect to survive without great defense and good luck. In this thread we've run around the block on the issue and there's no need to continue.[/

 

He still has to learn and try to be a poor man's Brandon Webb rather than overpowering hitters.

 

Eh dont see a point of comparing them. Marquis' career high GB% is 55.5%. Brandon Webb's career low GB% is 64.3%. That's nearly the difference between Marquis 2004 and 2006 rates.

 

On top of that Brandon Webb K's 7.25 per nine innings, Marquis K's 5.5 and it's a falling 5.5. Marquis also walks quite a bit more than Webb does. Stuff wise Marquis sinker has no business compared to Webb's.

 

He needs to concentrate on being something other than a starting pitcher.

[CubsWin]

Well, I guess we can finally change the title of this thread. It's funny that neither of the options listed in this thread's title for weeks now turned out to be accurate.

[CubsWin]

He needs to concentrate on being something other than a starting pitcher.

After reading your take on Marquis over the last several pages, I'm getting that based on several different sabermetrics you think he sucks and that you are certain he will perform worse than almost every other 5th starter in major league baseball. Am I misreading your comments?

[Mephistopheles]

whether or not he "outperforms" the other "fifth starters" does not matter. Slotting pitchers and saying "oh he's a fine ____ slot starter" is worthless. If you slot each spot at league average then guess what kind of team you're going to be? Average. Big deal...

 

On the other hand look at this way, is he better than Guzman? Probably not. Is he better than Marshall? Maybe. Is he better than Marmol? Maybe. If he's our fifth starter and we signed him for two million dollars that we can easily write off when Guzman's excelling in AAA (which is likely) that's one thing. But no, he's signed to an albatross of a three year contrat that can't be "eaten" at any point due to Jim Hendry's [expletive] misunderstanding of the concept of money.

 

You're asking me to compare him to the rest of the league's fifth starters when we're paying him seven mil? He's not even the seventh best starter on our team and we gave him 21 mil over three years. Christ. (Z, Prior, Hill, Lilly, Miller, Guzman are all guys I'd say are better without a doubt).

 

I have no idea if there are 150 starters out there who will outperform him, I do know that the Cubs have 7-8 guys who would outperform him or at least perform as good as him. That's all that matters.

[waffle]

He's an innings guy, he has worked with Rothschild and he obviously likes what he sees, he's had a decent year recently, and the contract is not all that bad (current conditions considered). Perfectly happy with this signing. If we got 200 innings and a close to 4.00 ERA I'd be quite happy with that.

[Backtobanks]

whether or not he "outperforms" the other "fifth starters" does not matter. Slotting pitchers and saying "oh he's a fine ____ slot starter" is worthless. If you slot each spot at league average then guess what kind of team you're going to be? Average. Big deal...

 

On the other hand look at this way, is he better than Guzman? Probably not. Is he better than Marshall? Maybe. Is he better than Marmol? Maybe. If he's our fifth starter and we signed him for two million dollars that we can easily write off when Guzman's excelling in AAA (which is likely) that's one thing. But no, he's signed to an albatross of a three year contrat that can't be "eaten" at any point due to Jim Hendry's [expletive] misunderstanding of the concept of money.

 

You're asking me to compare him to the rest of the league's fifth starters when we're paying him seven mil? He's not even the seventh best starter on our team and we gave him 21 mil over three years. Christ. (Z, Prior, Hill, Lilly, Miller, Guzman are all guys I'd say are better without a doubt).

 

I have no idea if there are 150 starters out there who will outperform him, I do know that the Cubs have 7-8 guys who would outperform him or at least perform as good as him. That's all that matters.

 

I can understand the frustration with Marquis, but to say Prior, Miller, and Guzman are better than he is "without a doubt" and that the Cubs have 7-8 guys who can match his performance is certainly questionable. Prior, Miller, Guzman, and the other young pitchers have a lot of question marks next to their names.

[C.C.]

whether or not he "outperforms" the other "fifth starters" does not matter. Slotting pitchers and saying "oh he's a fine ____ slot starter" is worthless. If you slot each spot at league average then guess what kind of team you're going to be? Average. Big deal...

 

On the other hand look at this way, is he better than Guzman? Probably not. Is he better than Marshall? Maybe. Is he better than Marmol? Maybe. If he's our fifth starter and we signed him for two million dollars that we can easily write off when Guzman's excelling in AAA (which is likely) that's one thing. But no, he's signed to an albatross of a three year contrat that can't be "eaten" at any point due to Jim Hendry's [expletive] misunderstanding of the concept of money.

 

You're asking me to compare him to the rest of the league's fifth starters when we're paying him seven mil? He's not even the seventh best starter on our team and we gave him 21 mil over three years. Christ. (Z, Prior, Hill, Lilly, Miller, Guzman are all guys I'd say are better without a doubt).

 

I have no idea if there are 150 starters out there who will outperform him, I do know that the Cubs have 7-8 guys who would outperform him or at least perform as good as him. That's all that matters.

 

I can understand the frustration with Marquis, but to say Prior, Miller, and Guzman are better than he is "without a doubt" and that the Cubs have 7-8 guys who can match his performance is certainly questionable. Prior, Miller, Guzman, and the other young pitchers have a lot of question marks next to their names.

 

I can see saying that about Prior and Miller, both are major league pitchers, and if healthy could out perform Marquis. But Guzman and Marshall are unproven on the ML level, so we have no way of knowing if they can outperform Marquis, let alone handle the work-load of a full season.

Edited December 20, 2006 by C.C.