Article Ideas

[Mephistopheles]

I'm really not all that original when it comes to new ideas for topics to tackle. I have a few ideas kicking around.

 

1. Harden Thoughts, now that the initial shock of the deal has worn off.

2. 10 Round Draft Review.

3. Prospects...though September is best for that.

4. Cubs/Brewers from here on it.

[NCCubFan]

The Harden trade might be an interesting topic, although it might make sense to wait until after tomorrow's start to see if he looks just as good (still a small sample, but I'd put more into it if it's two good starts since the trade as opposed to one good and one so-so or bad). Cubs vs. Brewers might also be timely, although I don't think the Cardinals are going away either. Another interesting topic might be to evaluate Fukudome's and Soto's rookie seasons so far.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Harden's kinda been beaten to death, imo. I don't know how much is left to evaluate until he pitches a bunch for us.

 

Off the top of my head, I think these could be worth some analysis:

 

- Draft review. However many picks you want, 5, 10, 15, the whole thing, whatever.

 

- Under/Overvalued prospects. Who in the Cubs system you think is getting too much pub, or not enough pub, and why.

 

* Next year's rotation crunch. Starred because it's my favorite. Zambrano, Harden, Lilly, Marquis, Gaudin, Marshall, Hill, possibly Dempster, and possibly Samardzija could all have spots next year. Break down who's best off staying, who's best off in the pen, who's best off in Iowa, who's best off getting dealt(either for not being good enough, or being able to fetch the best value, or both) or not brought back.

[NCCubFan]

* Next year's rotation crunch. Starred because it's my favorite. Zambrano, Harden, Lilly, Marquis, Gaudin, Marshall, Hill, possibly Dempster, and possibly Samardzija could all have spots next year. Break down who's best off staying, who's best off in the pen, who's best off in Iowa, who's best off getting dealt(either for not being good enough, or being able to fetch the best value, or both) or not brought back.

That's a good one I hadn't thought of. Perhaps it could even be expanded to the bullpen with respect to whether any or all of Wood, Eyre, or Howry should be brought back.

[Guest]

You made a comment the other day on liking Fontenot as much or more than DeRosa the other day. Might be an interesting subject.

[1908]

I've always enjoyed reading your evaluations of players currently playing in Japan. Perhaps an evaluation of this year's free agent/potential posting class? Uehara, Darvish, Aoki etc.

[Guest]

I'm really not all that original when it comes to new ideas for topics to tackle. I have a few ideas kicking around.

 

1. Harden Thoughts, now that the initial shock of the deal has worn off.

2. 10 Round Draft Review.

3. Prospects...though September is best for that.

4. Cubs/Brewers from here on it.

 

Of these four, I'd love the draft review. I also like TT and 1908's suggestions.

[Outshined_One]

An evaluation of Jeff Samardzija, namely what the future holds in store for him and what factors have contributed to his past struggles and recent success.

[treebird]

An evaluation of Jeff Samardzija, namely what the future holds in store for him and what factors have contributed to his past struggles and recent success.

 

this is what i was going to say. you've talked about him briefly in the past, and i'd be very interested to read a more fleshed-out analysis.

[Rob]

I'd love a draft review.

[nilodnayr]

How about a study of teams over/underacheiving their pythags and finding correlations to other stats, bullpen ERA, defensive metrics, defensive efficiency, luck (ie eBABIP in relation to BABIP), sacrifices, etc. I've always wondered if theres actually something a team can control to be "more efficient" at winning games.

 

I also liked the paper you wrote last year showing "power rankings" normalizing for strength of schedule using Markov chains. Could you run it again? Also, you could use that to accurately define how hard teams schedules are going to be from here on out (with maybe regressing to pythag and adjustments for home field advantage, but I'll leave that up to you). Theres lots of talk about how the Brewers have it really easy, etc. It'd be nice to know how accurate those observations are.

[Mephistopheles]

An evaluation of Jeff Samardzija, namely what the future holds in store for him and what factors have contributed to his past struggles and recent success.

 

this is what i was going to say. you've talked about him briefly in the past, and i'd be very interested to read a more fleshed-out analysis.

 

I'll hold off on him until he gets a few more innings under his belt in AAA. Although before entering AAA he Kd 11.6% batters he faced. Right now he's K-ing 26.3%. The probability of this happening, assuming he was an 11.6% K-er is a whopping .000000517029921098811.

[nilodnayr]

An evaluation of Jeff Samardzija, namely what the future holds in store for him and what factors have contributed to his past struggles and recent success.

 

this is what i was going to say. you've talked about him briefly in the past, and i'd be very interested to read a more fleshed-out analysis.

 

I'll hold off on him until he gets a few more innings under his belt in AAA. Although before entering AAA he Kd 11.6% batters he faced. Right now he's K-ing 26.3%. The probability of this happening, assuming he was an 11.6% K-er is a whopping .000000517029921098811.

 

that seems low :D

 

But seriously, due to random statistical variation, over only 37.1 innings, I'd have to think that even I had a greater probability of K'ing that many guys over that small sample size.

[Mephistopheles]

The thing to remember about the sample size argument isn't so much "luck" in this case (or most cases). There's clearly a change in his ability/stuff/skill for this 37 inning sample. The only question is if he can keep it up, which is where the sample size argument comes into play.

[nilodnayr]

The thing to remember about the sample size argument isn't so much "luck" in this case (or most cases). There's clearly a change in his ability/stuff/skill for this 37 inning sample. The only question is if he can keep it up, which is where the sample size argument comes into play.

 

Ohh, I absolutely agree. When we are talking about K rate, thats not really going to be subject to luck, which is why I didn't use that word. Pizza Cutter has K/PA exceeding .5 r squared at 150 BF, so Shark is over that, but still, there were quite a few zeros after that decimal point!!!

[Mephistopheles]

I also liked the paper you wrote last year showing "power rankings" normalizing for strength of schedule using Markov chains. Could you run it again? Also, you could use that to accurately define how hard teams schedules are going to be from here on out (with maybe regressing to pythag and adjustments for home field advantage, but I'll leave that up to you). Theres lots of talk about how the Brewers have it really easy, etc. It'd be nice to know how accurate those observations are.

 

I did something almost exactly like this earlier in the season, but only in reverse. I used schedule to predict "expected" records based on H/A and who a team played. Combining the two mathematically to used in in the markov chain I used earlier isn't useful, unless I use the chain to predict games against each other, which couldl be done I suppose. It's easier to use PCT3 or something since it fits in to log5.

[Mephistopheles]

The thing to remember about the sample size argument isn't so much "luck" in this case (or most cases). There's clearly a change in his ability/stuff/skill for this 37 inning sample. The only question is if he can keep it up, which is where the sample size argument comes into play.

 

Ohh, I absolutely agree. When we are talking about K rate, thats not really going to be subject to luck, which is why I didn't use that word. Pizza Cutter has K/PA exceeding .5 r squared at 150 BF, so Shark is over that, but still, there were quite a few zeros after that decimal point!!!

 

That's not really true. There was a fantastic article I read a year or two ago on HBT about strikeout increases w/o substantial increases in swing/miss percentages not being "real"....maybe I can get BK or Fred to spider/parse the data for me on that somehow....we only have pitch by pitch data for AAA though, I think. Maybe I can get BK or Fred to teach me how to do it myself...

 

the samardzija was a simple binomial distribution with p = .116, again i said assuming the 11.6% K rate. Given that streaks actually exist a bit more than likely in sports, a pitcher with an 11.6 percent k rate has a higher probability than that to k 26% over that sample. Though probably not much...

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere on this site, but I recall mention of him abandoning the slider as his out pitch and going to something more effective. I'm not overly optimistic he'll keep up his current pace, but maybe that moves his K rate somewhere between where it was and where it is now.

[Vanilla Ice]

I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere on this site, but I recall mention of him abandoning the slider as his out pitch and going to something more effective. I'm not overly optimistic he'll keep up his current pace, but maybe that moves his K rate somewhere between where it was and where it is now.

i think he moved to a splitter

[Butterscup1679666578]

I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere on this site, but I recall mention of him abandoning the slider as his out pitch and going to something more effective. I'm not overly optimistic he'll keep up his current pace, but maybe that moves his K rate somewhere between where it was and where it is now.

i think he moved to a splitter

 

I thought that he's all but abandoned the splitter because they think it was a big factor in his arm problems.

[Guest]

I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere on this site, but I recall mention of him abandoning the slider as his out pitch and going to something more effective. I'm not overly optimistic he'll keep up his current pace, but maybe that moves his K rate somewhere between where it was and where it is now.

i think he moved to a splitter

 

I thought that he's all but abandoned the splitter because they think it was a big factor in his arm problems.

 

Samardzija has moved to the split as his primary out pitch. Harden has dropped his.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere on this site, but I recall mention of him abandoning the slider as his out pitch and going to something more effective. I'm not overly optimistic he'll keep up his current pace, but maybe that moves his K rate somewhere between where it was and where it is now.

i think he moved to a splitter

that sounds right

[Butterscup1679666578]

I'm pretty sure I read it somewhere on this site, but I recall mention of him abandoning the slider as his out pitch and going to something more effective. I'm not overly optimistic he'll keep up his current pace, but maybe that moves his K rate somewhere between where it was and where it is now.

i think he moved to a splitter

 

I thought that he's all but abandoned the splitter because they think it was a big factor in his arm problems.

 

Samardzija has moved to the split as his primary out pitch. Harden has dropped his.

 

Oh Samardzija. I totally mixed that up.

[soapy]

i like the ideas; particularly a Samardzija piece and the rotation crunch (though maybe better for the off-season?). on the topic of brewers/cubs the rest of the way, i'd also be interested in an article/discussion about the cardinals chances from here on out. with Carpenter and Wainright conceivably coming back, i'm starting to think they're sticking around for the duration.

[RynoRules]

How about an evaluation of the upcoming FA class juxtaposed against what the Cubs will likely need and/or want. Might be a bit premature since the jury is still out on this season, but could be a good one for the future.