Optimistic perspective on cubs off season to date.

[cubfever7]

Right after the Cubs acquired Izturis, various pundits were lining up around the block to extoll how great his glovework was before his injuires. I know this brand of hometown published hype is typical after an acquisition, but in Izzy's case I gotta say that it has some merit as he had the best zone rating of any SS in MLB in 2004..his range was decidely average, but the guy can be a real Wilson Pickit (sp mine) and with decent D at 2b and the return of DLee, I like our chances to play pretty soundly in the IF....

 

Center is what concerns me--Barrett will probably always be mediocre no matter how hard he works and the corners should be passable.

[cubfever7]

I don't own a copy of the fielding bible yet, but do have the 2007 Baseball Handbook on the way which apparently has some new fielding metrics in it. Until then I'm relegated to relying on ESPN's ZR and RF for stat based judgements and what I see on DeRosa is encouraging.

 

He's played a little less that what would equal a full season at 2B in his career with more playing time logged at 3B and a nearly equal amount at SS. If one were to apply his career defensive #'s at 2B to the MLB totals at that position for 2006, DeRosa ranks 6th in zone rating ahead of players like Utley by 18 points and WAY ahead of players like Belliard, Adam Kennedy, Giles, Loretta and many others. In range factor he finishes 8th again spanking the same group of players and including Iguchi and Biggio this time. His career SS #'s vs 2006 MLB SS's would have placed him 4th in range factor and a respectable 8th in ZR. Even his career #'s in RF look pretty decent where in 2006 he'd have finished ahead of Vlad, Abreu, Ordonez, Dye and Francouer in zone rating.

 

Offensively, his OBP for his career is a very nice 58 points higher than his BA...there is room for optimism with this acquisition folks. Some said Hendry was playing drunken sailor, but maybe not on this guy.

[goonys evil twin]

Offensively, his OBP for his career is a very nice 58 points higher than his BA

 

Since when is that "very nice"? That's barely better than the Cubs team average last year, and worse than every other NL team. There's nothing special about that number.

[cubfever7]

My apologies there evil twin. For some reason, i was thinking a split of 45 was some type of benchmark, but a cursory glance at the #'s confirms what you say.

 

Bear in mind though, this thread is entitled the "optimistic view of offseason acquisitions." So maybe i'm a little euphoric, what the hey?

[cubfever7]

Sorry for the triple post there all, impatience on my part. Hitting submit didn't yield instantaneous results (or any results at all for that matter) and my trigger finger got itchy. Kinda like the guy that shot Tank's bodyguard.

 

Anyone know how i can reduce the size of the Santo/Sandberg photo? I plugged in the url in my profile and the pic came out HUGE. I don't want to waste any more network resources than need be--and to me the pic looks a little dumb being that big.

[A New Era]

Anyone know how i can reduce the size of the Santo/Sandberg photo? I plugged in the url in my profile and the pic came out HUGE. I don't want to waste any more network resources than need be--and to me the pic looks a little dumb being that big.

 

Irfanview.com

 

resize, re-upload somewhere.

[BigbadB]

Sorry for the triple post there all, impatience on my part. Hitting submit didn't yield instantaneous results (or any results at all for that matter) and my trigger finger got itchy. Kinda like the guy that shot Tank's bodyguard.

 

Anyone know how i can reduce the size of the Santo/Sandberg photo? I plugged in the url in my profile and the pic came out HUGE. I don't want to waste any more network resources than need be--and to me the pic looks a little dumb being that big.

 

If you move it to your sig, it should fit a lot better. It's not really a good picture for an avatar. But, it is a nice picture.