Stats and the 2006 Cubs

[TruffleShuffle]

So poring through some stuff over at Hardball Times, I found some interesting info. I guess this is good fodder for people who want to believe that 2007 will be a better year.

 

Here's PrOPS for various Cub players in 2006:

 

Theriot: .084

Bynum: .032

Barrett: .023

Pierre: .004

Murton: .003

Jones: -.003

Cedeno: -.004

Lee: -.016

ARam: -.019

Pagan: -.040

Blanco: -.041

Walker: -.042

Neifi: -.047

Nevin: -.070

Mabry: -.073

Izturis: -.129

 

What jumped out at me, looking at the list, was the large number of Cubs who were unlucky last year. In fact, out of the 23 position players who batted for the Cubs last year, only 6 had a positive or neutral PrOPS. It also suggests that Jones' numbers were not really fluky in 2006, or at least that he played as well as his numbers suggested. Looking at other teams, it appears that there appears to be a slight "unlucky" bias that mostly affects non-regular players. I'm not sure what the reason is for this, but in any case, it does look like the Cubs were unlucky (and bad, of course) in 2005 and outside of Barrett and Theriot, some improvement might be expected.

 

By the way, the acquired players this offseason:

DeRosa: +.033

Soriano: -.012

Ward: +.047

 

I'm going to wade through some pitching stats now... I'll let you know if there's anything interesting.

[treebird]

So poring through some stuff over at Hardball Times, I found some interesting info. I guess this is good fodder for people who want to believe that 2007 will be a better year.

 

Here's PrOPS for various Cub players in 2006:

 

Theriot: .084

Bynum: .032

Barrett: .023

Pierre: .004

Murton: .003

Jones: -.003

Cedeno: -.004

Lee: -.016

ARam: -.019

Pagan: -.040

Blanco: -.041

Walker: -.042

Neifi: -.047

Nevin: -.070

Mabry: -.073

Izturis: -.129

 

What jumped out at me, looking at the list, was the large number of Cubs who were unlucky last year. In fact, out of the 23 position players who batted for the Cubs last year, only 6 had a positive or neutral PrOPS. It also suggests that Jones' numbers were not really fluky in 2006, or at least that he played as well as his numbers suggested. Looking at other teams, it appears that there appears to be a slight "unlucky" bias that mostly affects non-regular players. I'm not sure what the reason is for this, but in any case, it does look like the Cubs were unlucky (and bad, of course) in 2005 and outside of Barrett and Theriot, some improvement might be expected.

 

By the way, the acquired players this offseason:

DeRosa: +.033

Soriano: -.012

Ward: +.047

 

I'm going to wade through some pitching stats now... I'll let you know if there's anything interesting.

 

All the people who were really unlucky are either gone or should expect very little playing time, Izturis excepted.

 

Maybe this means Izturis will have an up year and hit 275/315/370!

[TruffleShuffle]

All the people who were really unlucky are either gone or should expect very little playing time, Izturis excepted.

 

Maybe this means Izturis will have an up year and hit 275/315/370!

 

True, but people compare this year's offense to last year's offense and say that all they did was replace Pierre with Soriano. A whole lot of guys had unlucky years last year and ate up a lot of ABs. With average luck, they'd have scored more runs. So if this year's offense has average luck, they'll get a bump from this as well as from Soriano (not to mention hopefully a full year of Lee). Plus the Pythagorean W/L was four games below expected. So you're making up some offense and some wins right there, assuming average luck (it's the cubs, so maybe this is a poor assumption).

[goonys evil twin]

What are PrOPS?

 

Anything that says Blanco was unlucky last year immediately stands out as a questionable tool to measure luck.

 

Putting our hopes for the future on changing luck is a surefire way to end up disappointed.

[goonys evil twin]

Looking at a hardball times article that describes this stat, it doesn't look like anybody but Izturis, Mabry or Nevin came close to falling into the really unlucky category this year. The most notable on the list is Aramis, and he doesn't even fall in the top 200 most unlucky NL players. I'm not sure this is much of a tool to predict guys poised to bounce back from unlucky years.

[TruffleShuffle]

Some miscellany:

 

--Glendon Rusch's HR/FB (homers allowed per outfield fly ball) was 24.8%, which is awful. The league average is 11-12%. Hill, Zambrano and Maddux were right around average in this stat; Howry, Ohman and Dempster were below the average, and basically everyone who pitched significant innings were above 11-12%.

 

--Maddux (not surprisingly) was the most efficient, throwing an average of 3.3 pitches per batter. Rusch, Eyre and Aardsma were the least efficient (4.3).

 

--Among regular or semi-regular pitchers, Wuertz kept the ball on the ground the most (53.6%) while Hill was least (30.0%).

 

--The league LOB% (percentage of runners allowed that did not score) was 71% among pitchers, and the Cubs were right at the average. The worst at this were Maddux and Prior, who were down around 62%. Eyre's LOB% was a very high 87%; Wuertz and Howry were also pretty good at stranding runners they allowed. Zambrano (75.9%) was as well.

 

--The Cubs were by far the wildest staff. They allowed 4.2 BB/game; the next highest teams were the Royals, Pirates and Marlins at 3.8 BB/game. The league average was about 3.25. Way to go, guys!

 

 

--The 2006 Cubs had the lowest P/PA and highest ground ball percentage of any National League team. I was going to blame Neifi and Juan for both of these, but actually it was Murton (57.7%), Izturis (57.1%) and Jones (55.9%) who hit the most ground balls, with Juan (55.2%) not far behind. Neifi, on the other hand, had one of the lower ground ball rates (37%), because he inexplicably hit fly balls in 42% of his ABs. As you might guess, this isn't a good thing for someone with no power. But, we can blame Juan (3.5) and Neifi (3.2) for the low P/PA number, because they were the two most impatient hitters on the team. Also down at the bottom of that list? Izturis (3.5) and Cedeno (3.5). Notice a trend?

 

--Juan Pierre was one of the ten worst clutch hitters in baseball last year, which is probably why Hendry didn't resign him. Right behind Pierre on the not-clutch list was Ryan Howard, who made up for it by hitting home runs on a mind-boggling 38.3% of his fly balls. I think this suggests that he's strong.

[TruffleShuffle]

What are PrOPS?

 

Anything that says Blanco was unlucky last year immediately stands out as a questionable tool to measure luck.

 

Well, the luckiest NL regular was Freddy Sanchez, and the luckiest AL regular was Robinson Cano. I'd say that's probably pretty true.

 

 

Putting our hopes for the future on changing luck is a surefire way to end up disappointed.

 

I'm not saying the Cubs would've been anything other than bad last year, even with a little more luck, but pretending that luck doesn't play a role in player performance in any given season is ignorant.

[goonys evil twin]

 

I'm not saying the Cubs would've been anything other than bad last year, even with a little more luck, but pretending that luck doesn't play a role in player performance in any given season is ignorant.

 

Thankfully I never pretended that luck doesn't play a role. I just don't see how any of this is a strong indication that any of these guys is likely to get better next year.

[TruffleShuffle]

 

I'm not saying the Cubs would've been anything other than bad last year, even with a little more luck, but pretending that luck doesn't play a role in player performance in any given season is ignorant.

 

Thankfully I never pretended that luck doesn't play a role. I just don't see how any of this is a strong indication that any of these guys is likely to get better next year.

 

I'm not saying that any given player is going to be luckier. It seems like a lot of the departed players were pretty unlucky last year, so the offense was a little worse than it "should have been." So, one can assume that if the 2007 Cubs have more neutral luck rather than bad luck, that they'll get a bump over last year from that as well.

[CubinNY]

 

I'm not saying the Cubs would've been anything other than bad last year, even with a little more luck, but pretending that luck doesn't play a role in player performance in any given season is ignorant.

 

Thankfully I never pretended that luck doesn't play a role. I just don't see how any of this is a strong indication that any of these guys is likely to get better next year.

 

I'm not saying that any given player is going to be luckier. It seems like a lot of the departed players were pretty unlucky last year, so the offense was a little worse than it "should have been." So, one can assume that if the 2007 Cubs have more neutral luck rather than bad luck, that they'll get a bump over last year from that as well.

 

Unless seasonal luck doesn't carry over to the next season. Then they will have a 50/50 chance of being unlucky again this season.

 

I'm not convinced that over the course of 162 games chance doesn't even out. I could see chance playing a bigger role in part time player's numbers though. In addition, I would hope that younger players like Cedeno and Izturis can improve.

[RynoRules]

Hard to pin hopes on luck. Not killing the messenger, Truff, just saying.

 

More disturbing by far is Tree's sig. Please, Mommy, make the bad man stop!

[cheapseats]

The difference between Rocco Baldelli's actual OPS and his prOPS is greater than Theriot's.

 

I really think Baldelli's numbers will drop next year. If the D-rays are smart, they trade him for the best pitching package they can get.