Bill James Handbook 2008 Cubs Projections

[Guest]

Does it seem at all like Geovany Soto is this year's Ryan Theriot? They were both young players who replaced unpopular and unproductive veterans (Kendall-Perez), both had strong performances in a highly limited number of ABs, both had a little minor league success, and both had high fan expectations for the following year. I'd be shocked if Soto ever puts up an .850 OPS for a full season in his entire career.

 

Hopefully his AAA success this year wasn't just a fluke. If he can be a league average catcher, that'd be great, but I think we are probably going to have to revise his numbers downwards if we want to be realistic about the team's likely run production.

 

Soto won the PCL MVP last year. I think it's safe to say he had more success in the minors than Theriot did.

[Sarcastic]

Does it seem at all like Geovany Soto is this year's Ryan Theriot? They were both young players who replaced unpopular and unproductive veterans (Kendall-Perez), both had strong performances in a highly limited number of ABs, both had a little minor league success, and both had high fan expectations for the following year. I'd be shocked if Soto ever puts up an .850 OPS for a full season in his entire career.

 

Hopefully his AAA success this year wasn't just a fluke. If he can be a league average catcher, that'd be great, but I think we are probably going to have to revise his numbers downwards if we want to be realistic about the team's likely run production.

 

Soto won the PCL MVP last year. I think it's safe to say he had more success in the minors than Theriot did.

 

I'm not saying that Soto isn't more talented than Theriot, but his minor league track record isn't great. People are really hanging their hopes on one great year at AAA. Besides that year, his best minor league OPS for a full year was .756 in AA back in 2004. It is possible that his breakout was real to some extent, and I hope it was. But I just think that there are a lot of parallels in the way the two players were set up in the minds of the fans. Obviously they aren't the same player, but I don't know why some people have so much confidence in him.

[TruffleShuffle]

I'm not saying that Soto isn't more talented than Theriot, but his minor league track record isn't great. People are really hanging their hopes on one great year at AAA. Besides that year, his best minor league OPS for a full year was .756 in AA back in 2004. It is possible that his breakout was real to some extent, and I hope it was. But I just think that there are a lot of parallels in the way the two players were set up in the minds of the fans. Obviously they aren't the same player, but I don't know why some people have so much confidence in him.

 

almost nobody is expecting him to be as good as last year. i'd even say that most aren't expecting an OPS above .800. but soto did have much more of a breakout year than theriot, who never put up outstanding numbers for even one year in the minors. so nobody really thought that theriot had a "just-figured-it-all-out" moment, whereas Soto seems as if he may have really taken off. plus soto is a very good defender and has also shown pretty good discipline, and he's at a position where the cubs have no other acceptable options. even a league-average catcher would be just fine considering the price.

[BigbadB]

I'm not saying that Soto isn't more talented than Theriot, but his minor league track record isn't great. People are really hanging their hopes on one great year at AAA. Besides that year, his best minor league OPS for a full year was .756 in AA back in 2004. It is possible that his breakout was real to some extent, and I hope it was. But I just think that there are a lot of parallels in the way the two players were set up in the minds of the fans. Obviously they aren't the same player, but I don't know why some people have so much confidence in him.

 

almost nobody is expecting him to be as good as last year. i'd even say that most aren't expecting an OPS above .800. but soto did have much more of a breakout year than theriot, who never put up outstanding numbers for even one year in the minors. so nobody really thought that theriot had a "just-figured-it-all-out" moment, whereas Soto seems as if he may have really taken off. plus soto is a very good defender and has also shown pretty good discipline, and he's at a position where the cubs have no other acceptable options. even a league-average catcher would be just fine considering the price.

 

Exactly. Every player that gets to first base won't be automatically given the green light with Soto behind the dish, and our pitching staff is in love with walking people, therefore a lot of guys get to 1b. That's significant by itself. How many catchers are there that are really good on offense, defense and controlling a game? Very few. You pretty much have to take what you can get behind the dish. The reason guys like Henry Blanco keep jobs at the major league level is because of the importance of defense and holding runners. Any offense at all is a plus. I don't view SS as being nearly as significant as C in that realm. Theriot isn't really "good" at anything. He has decent range, a decent glove and a poor throwing arm. He's below average at the plate.

[squally1313]

Using Baseball Musings' lineup analysis and the predictions as above (with a PECOTA for Fukudome):

 

Cubs avg R/G: 5.194

 

Best lineup: 5.431 R/G

Fukudome

Lee

DeRosa

Ramirez

Soto

Soriano

Pie

Pitcher

Theriot

 

Worst lineup: 4.771 R/G

 

With a .360/.475 line for Fukudome: 5.068 R/G avg; 5.289 R/G best

 

Having no knowledge about the accuaracy/past success of this application, I thought it was funny that:

A. Hendry seemed absolutely set on trading our 3 hitter for Kaz Matsui

B. Soto bats above Soriano. Geovany Soto.

C. Theriot bats 9th, below the pitcher. Our pitcher's that good of hitters? LaRussa actually a genius? Theriot actually that bad? (Hmmmm, I wonder)

 

I mean, I know this would never be the lineup, and I know lineup organization has been proven by some very reputable sources to be pretty meaningless, but still, found it amusing...

[Guest]

Does it seem at all like Geovany Soto is this year's Ryan Theriot? They were both young players who replaced unpopular and unproductive veterans (Kendall-Perez), both had strong performances in a highly limited number of ABs, both had a little minor league success, and both had high fan expectations for the following year. I'd be shocked if Soto ever puts up an .850 OPS for a full season in his entire career.

 

Hopefully his AAA success this year wasn't just a fluke. If he can be a league average catcher, that'd be great, but I think we are probably going to have to revise his numbers downwards if we want to be realistic about the team's likely run production.

 

Soto won the PCL MVP last year. I think it's safe to say he had more success in the minors than Theriot did.

 

I'm not saying that Soto isn't more talented than Theriot, but his minor league track record isn't great. People are really hanging their hopes on one great year at AAA. Besides that year, his best minor league OPS for a full year was .756 in AA back in 2004. It is possible that his breakout was real to some extent, and I hope it was. But I just think that there are a lot of parallels in the way the two players were set up in the minds of the fans. Obviously they aren't the same player, but I don't know why some people have so much confidence in him.

 

There's also the age factor to consider. Soto's played a full year at AAA at age 22 while Theriot didn't reach AAA until he was 26.

[Ender]

C. Theriot bats 9th, below the pitcher. Our pitcher's that good of hitters? LaRussa actually a genius? Theriot actually that bad? (Hmmmm, I wonder)

 

A lot of research has shown that batting the pitcher 8th is better in general than batting him 9th. LaRussa didn't pull that out of thin air, some smart people did research and backed up that opinion. Still seems weird to me of course but it doesn't surprise me.

 

The idea is that your low OBP guys are at the bottom of the order so the pitcher coming up 8th isn't going to cost you that many runs. Having a decent OBP but low SLG guy batting 9th puts another runner on base for your 1/2/3 hitters who should be your best hitters.