Realistic, Bold Predictions for '09

[cbbryan]

I think it all depends on how Lee does and how consistent of playing time Hoffpauir gets. His production could be a real mixed bag if he doesn't get consistent playing time. On the other hand, if he's playing on a pretty consistent basis I think he'll do really well.

 

Hoff is having a great spring though.

[Mephistopheles]

Hoffpauir will be in AAA for most of the season.

 

Unfortunately that is a bold prediction based on what most people here view on Hoff.

[imb]

shut up meph

[Mephistopheles]

Okay.

[hotshot13422]

wow, that was a conversation that i never expected to see.

 

 

Carlos Zambrano finishes the year with the highest BA and OPS out of any of the cub hitters.

 

Carlos Marmol has a serious injury

 

Gregg becomes an all-star closer, getting over 50 saves

 

IMB! and Meph become friends

[Fred Hornkohl]

IMB! and Meph become friends

 

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b137/Hornkohl/Hell.jpg

[NCCubFan]

IMB! and Meph become friends

 

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b137/Hornkohl/Hell.jpg

Good ole Hell, Michigan. I'd forgotten about that.

[treebird]

An .832 minor career minor league OPS is impressive for a 28 year old 1B?

a) intuitively realize 900 MLE ops the last 2 seasons (as well as 900 in 73 mlb AB or whatever) shows him as a really good bet to be productive with the bat

 

In 2008, Micah's third year at AAA, his batting line translates to a .286 EQA. While that's actually really close to Lee's PECOTA projection for 2009, I don't think Hoffpauir's odds of repeating his big season are very good.

 

Furthermore, while advanced fielding metrics haven't really been very kind to Lee, I would still take his defense over Micah's. Plus/Minus has Lee's 2008 at +4, while Micah is at -2 in admittedly very few innings.

we're talking about different things here. i agree with you that Lee would likely be the more productive player of the two in full time duty, but i think the notion of "only 73 AB he hasn't proven anything" is junk. what he did the last two years at both levels proves he's a safe bet to be good with the bat. which is the most you can say about any player, because even "proven" guys at the mlb level like victor martinez can have unforeseen crappy years.

 

you really have to consider his age and the number of times he'd been through the league when putting up those numbers. there are plenty of guys who can figure out how to hit in the pcl in their ages-27 and 28 seasons, and they're certainly not all major league caliber players. maybe hoffpauir is special, but i doubt it.

[TruffleShuffle]

you really have to consider his age and the number of times he'd been through the league when putting up those numbers. there are plenty of guys who can figure out how to hit in the pcl in their ages-27 and 28 seasons, and they're certainly not all major league caliber players. maybe hoffpauir is special, but i doubt it.

 

soto destroyed iowa in his third crack at the league, and pecota still loved him last year - and was justified by his actual performance. i don't think hoffpauir is special, but pecota takes into account repeating levels and still thinks that he'll be a pretty productive player. there's a good chance that a guy who can thoroughly hammer AAA pitching will be at least a pretty solid hitter at the major league level.

[XZero771679666304]

 

you really have to consider his age and the number of times he'd been through the league when putting up those numbers. there are plenty of guys who can figure out how to hit in the pcl in their ages-27 and 28 seasons, and they're certainly not all major league caliber players. maybe hoffpauir is special, but i doubt it.

 

This is true. Really, the only way there is going to be any clarification is if Hoffpauir gets more AB's. Hoff looks good, but so did Roosevelt Brown. My feeling is that he is a guy who may be exposed with too much PT, but we'll just have to see.

[treebird]

you really have to consider his age and the number of times he'd been through the league when putting up those numbers. there are plenty of guys who can figure out how to hit in the pcl in their ages-27 and 28 seasons, and they're certainly not all major league caliber players. maybe hoffpauir is special, but i doubt it.

 

soto destroyed iowa in his third crack at the league, and pecota still loved him last year - and was justified by his actual performance. i don't think hoffpauir is special, but pecota takes into account repeating levels and still thinks that he'll be a pretty productive player. there's a good chance that a guy who can thoroughly hammer AAA pitching will be at least a pretty solid hitter at the major league level.

 

i'm pretty sure you've had little good to say about aaa numbers when it came to your boy ronny cedeno.

[ctcf]

Kevin Gregg is the closer for the majority of the season and is one of the top 3 in the NL.

[Cubswin11]

The Good:

Z finally gets to 20 wins, and posts the highest OPS on the team

Fontenot hits 20+ HR's

Bradley plays over 125 games and leads NL in OPS/OBP

Reed Johnson becomes our everyday CF by the start of June, guess it could be considered bad because it means Kosuke sucks again

Gregg saves 40+ games

Marshall wins 15 games and posts a sub 4 era

Theriot hits .300 again and has a .370+ OBP

Soriano has a 30-30-30 season HR-2B-SB, stays healthy 155+ games and finishes top 3 for MVP voting

Dempster puts up similar numbers to last year

Lilly wins 15+ games

Soto has a better year than last year

Heilman pitches well in the bullpen but bad in the starting rotation

We win 89 games and the division

Ramirez has another typical year, solid, but not great

 

The Bad:

Harden makes less than 15 starts

Marmol sees his production fall off across the board, spends time on the DL

We struggle to find a consistent 6-7th inning reliever

Kosuke continues to suck miserably

Lee hits under 20 HR and gets dropped to 7th in the lineup in the 2nd half

Whoever starts for Harden between Shark/Guzman/Gaudin/Atkins/Heilman has no success

Miles doesn't hit over .260 and posts an OBP under .310

 

And the Boldest of statements (if you consider it one after the offseason) the Cubs trade for Jake Peavy by the middle of July after Ricketts becomes owner and the Padres have to start selling off assets like Michael Jackson when they see record low turnout at games.

 

Division Standings:

Cubs 89 wins

Cardinals 83 wins

Reds 81 wins

Astros 77 wins

Brewers 74 wins

Pirates 69 wins

[17 Seconds]

The Good:

Z finally gets to 20 wins, and posts the highest OPS on the team

Fontenot hits 20+ HR's

Bradley plays over 125 games and leads NL in OPS/OBP

Reed Johnson becomes our everyday CF by the start of June, guess it could be considered bad because it means Kosuke sucks again

Gregg saves 40+ games

Marshall wins 15 games and posts a sub 4 era

Theriot hits .300 again and has a .370+ OBP

Soriano has a 30-30-30 season HR-2B-SB, stays healthy 155+ games and finishes top 3 for MVP voting

Dempster puts up similar numbers to last year

Lilly wins 15+ games

Soto has a better year than last year

Heilman pitches well in the bullpen but bad in the starting rotation

We win 89 games and the division

Ramirez has another typical year, solid, but not great

 

The Bad:

Harden makes less than 15 starts

Marmol sees his production fall off across the board, spends time on the DL

We struggle to find a consistent 6-7th inning reliever

Kosuke continues to suck miserably

Lee hits under 20 HR and gets dropped to 7th in the lineup in the 2nd half

Whoever starts for Harden between Shark/Guzman/Gaudin/Atkins/Heilman has no success

Miles doesn't hit over .260 and posts an OBP under .310

 

And the Boldest of statements (if you consider it one after the offseason) the Cubs trade for Jake Peavy by the middle of July after Ricketts becomes owner and the Padres have to start selling off assets like Michael Jackson when they see record low turnout at games.

 

Division Standings:

Cubs 89 wins

Cardinals 83 wins

Reds 81 wins

Astros 77 wins

Brewers 74 wins

Pirates 69 wins

 

 

aramis' typical years ARE great.

 

if all those things happen we'd be well over 89 wins i'd say.

[TruffleShuffle]

you really have to consider his age and the number of times he'd been through the league when putting up those numbers. there are plenty of guys who can figure out how to hit in the pcl in their ages-27 and 28 seasons, and they're certainly not all major league caliber players. maybe hoffpauir is special, but i doubt it.

 

soto destroyed iowa in his third crack at the league, and pecota still loved him last year - and was justified by his actual performance. i don't think hoffpauir is special, but pecota takes into account repeating levels and still thinks that he'll be a pretty productive player. there's a good chance that a guy who can thoroughly hammer AAA pitching will be at least a pretty solid hitter at the major league level.

 

i'm pretty sure you've had little good to say about aaa numbers when it came to your boy ronny cedeno.

 

in the case of soto (coming into 2008) and hoffpauir (coming into 2009) you're talking about guys who hit very well in their limited exposure to big league pitching. in the case of cedeno (coming into 2008) you're talking about a guy who was one of the worst hitters in all of baseball over the course of a full year of facing major league pitching. big difference.

[Tracer Bullet]

If Hoff was forced to play 150 games when he was 23, he would have been one of the worst hitters in MLB (at the time, he was destroying high A pitching to the tune of a .699 OPS). Soto put up a .470 OPS in a few MLB ABs at 23. He only had 25 ABs that year, I'm sure he would have been great over a full year.

 

Oh, and Ronny's first 80 ML at-bats (roughly the number of good ABs Soto and Hoff initially had) were fine. Not great, but average for a SS.

 

You "logic" makes no sense.

[TruffleShuffle]

If Hoff was forced to play 150 games when he was 23, he would have been one of the worst hitters in MLB (at the time, he was destroying high A pitching to the tune of a .699 OPS). Soto put up a .470 OPS in a few MLB ABs at 23. He only had 25 ABs that year, I'm sure he would have been great over a full year.

 

Oh, and Ronny's first 80 ML at-bats (roughly the number of good ABs Soto and Hoff initially had) were fine. Not great, but average for a SS.

 

You "logic" makes no sense.

 

the vast majority of players who completely flop at the big league level (over the course of a full season) do so because they're just not good enough or can't make the necessary adjustments against big league pitching, not because they're too young or whatever. i don't care if ronny was 23 or 33, his performance in 2006 showed there was a strong chance that he could not become an adequate major league player. soto and hoffpauir weren't given the chance at age 23 because they had not seemingly mastered lower levels of play, as it seemed that cedeno had. but once you've done well against AAA pitching then you should be ready to face major league pitching. age really doesn't matter here.

 

your "argument" is bad.

[jersey cubs fan]

If Hoff was forced to play 150 games when he was 23, he would have been one of the worst hitters in MLB (at the time, he was destroying high A pitching to the tune of a .699 OPS). Soto put up a .470 OPS in a few MLB ABs at 23. He only had 25 ABs that year, I'm sure he would have been great over a full year.

 

Oh, and Ronny's first 80 ML at-bats (roughly the number of good ABs Soto and Hoff initially had) were fine. Not great, but average for a SS.

 

You "logic" makes no sense.

 

the vast majority of players who completely flop at the big league level (over the course of a full season) do so because they're just not good enough or can't make the necessary adjustments against big league pitching, not because they're too young or whatever. i don't care if ronny was 23 or 33, his performance in 2006 showed there was a strong chance that he could not become an adequate major league player. soto and hoffpauir weren't given the chance at age 23 because they had not seemingly mastered lower levels of play, as it seemed that cedeno had. but once you've done well against AAA pitching then you should be ready to face major league pitching. age really doesn't matter here.

 

your "argument" is bad.

 

Suggesting age doesn't matter does not make sense to me. Age clearly matters. Lots of players have flopped at an early age and had decent careers.

[Tracer Bullet]

If Hoff was forced to play 150 games when he was 23, he would have been one of the worst hitters in MLB (at the time, he was destroying high A pitching to the tune of a .699 OPS). Soto put up a .470 OPS in a few MLB ABs at 23. He only had 25 ABs that year, I'm sure he would have been great over a full year.

 

Oh, and Ronny's first 80 ML at-bats (roughly the number of good ABs Soto and Hoff initially had) were fine. Not great, but average for a SS.

 

You "logic" makes no sense.

 

the vast majority of players who completely flop at the big league level (over the course of a full season) do so because they're just not good enough or can't make the necessary adjustments against big league pitching, not because they're too young or whatever. i don't care if ronny was 23 or 33, his performance in 2006 showed there was a strong chance that he could not become an adequate major league player. soto and hoffpauir weren't given the chance at age 23 because they had not seemingly mastered lower levels of play, as it seemed that cedeno had. but once you've done well against AAA pitching then you should be ready to face major league pitching. age really doesn't matter here.

 

your "argument" is bad.

 

you realize your quotation marks make absolutely no sense whatsoever there, right?

 

why doesn't age matter here? b/c you said so? And anyone that has 1 good season at AAA is ready for ML (regardless of age), and if they don't succeed, they should be completely written off. Even if they go back to AAA and dominate again? yeah, ok.

[Soul]

When it comes to Hoff, I simply choose to believe he's going to cut it until proven otherwise.

[TruffleShuffle]

why doesn't age matter here? b/c you said so? And anyone that has 1 good season at AAA is ready for ML (regardless of age), and if they don't succeed, they should be completely written off. Even if they go back to AAA and dominate again? yeah, ok.

 

as i've discussed on this board, there's a very very poor track record for guys who are epic failures when getting a full year at the big league level. i suppose there was always a chance that he could turn it around and become an average major league player, but the chances were much stronger that he simply doesn't possess the ability - or at least the ability to make adjustments - in order to become a good starting shortstop at the big league level.

[17 Seconds]

If Hoff was forced to play 150 games when he was 23, he would have been one of the worst hitters in MLB (at the time, he was destroying high A pitching to the tune of a .699 OPS). Soto put up a .470 OPS in a few MLB ABs at 23. He only had 25 ABs that year, I'm sure he would have been great over a full year.

 

Oh, and Ronny's first 80 ML at-bats (roughly the number of good ABs Soto and Hoff initially had) were fine. Not great, but average for a SS.

 

You "logic" makes no sense.

 

the vast majority of players who completely flop at the big league level (over the course of a full season) do so because they're just not good enough or can't make the necessary adjustments against big league pitching, not because they're too young or whatever. i don't care if ronny was 23 or 33, his performance in 2006 showed there was a strong chance that he could not become an adequate major league player. soto and hoffpauir weren't given the chance at age 23 because they had not seemingly mastered lower levels of play, as it seemed that cedeno had. but once you've done well against AAA pitching then you should be ready to face major league pitching. age really doesn't matter here.

 

your "argument" is bad.

 

are you saying his argument doesn't exist?

 

and yeah, i don't see how you can say age doesn't matter here

[TruffleShuffle]

and yeah, i don't see how you can say age doesn't matter here

 

because people talk about age as though everyone who's 23 or 25 or whatever should be considered the same situation. ken griffey jr was ready to be a major league player when he was 19 or 20. chad gaudin was ready by 21 or 22 even though he was never a high ceiling guy. on the other side of the coin, travis hafner wasn't anywhere close when he was 20 years old and wasn't really ready until he cut down his strikeouts; even if he'd been called up at 22 or 23 he still wasn't ready.

 

for whatever reason, some guys develop late and some guys develop more quickly. comparing hoffpauir to cedeno is stupid because cedeno's development came at an earlier age than hoffpauir. of course you don't rush a guy who can't hit A-ball pitching to the major leagues. cedeno had hit AA pitching well and AAA pitching well, showed some decent pop and had acceptable k-rates and bb rates.

 

anyway i don't know why we're still having this discussion because (a) i've said all this 20 times, (b) cedeno isn't a cub any more and © he still sucks. so i'm out.

[SouthSideRyan]

I'm trying to stick to position players here so Truffle doesn't wind up with a loophole, and cause saying Maddux and Halladay isn't enough of a challenge.

 

So we've got

 

Carl Crawford

Brandon Phillips

Jose Reyes

Jhonny Peralta

BJ Upton

Jose Lopez

 

That's from an absurdly small sample of looking at the 10 youngest in each league over the past 8 years(which essentially doesn't count the last few years because I could point out that Truffle would give up on Daric Barton and Alex Gordon, but they haven't put up Ryan Theriot like #s yet, so I wouldn't really be proving him wrong)

[Guest]

and yeah, i don't see how you can say age doesn't matter here

 

because people talk about age as though everyone who's 23 or 25 or whatever should be considered the same situation. ken griffey jr was ready to be a major league player when he was 19 or 20. chad gaudin was ready by 21 or 22 even though he was never a high ceiling guy. on the other side of the coin, travis hafner wasn't anywhere close when he was 20 years old and wasn't really ready until he cut down his strikeouts; even if he'd been called up at 22 or 23 he still wasn't ready.

 

for whatever reason, some guys develop late and some guys develop more quickly. comparing hoffpauir to cedeno is stupid because cedeno's development came at an earlier age than hoffpauir. of course you don't rush a guy who can't hit A-ball pitching to the major leagues. cedeno had hit AA pitching well and AAA pitching well, showed some decent pop and had acceptable k-rates and bb rates.

 

anyway i don't know why we're still having this discussion because (a) i've said all this 20 times, (b) cedeno isn't a cub any more and © he still sucks. so i'm out.

Cedeno's development is on going. Players don't stop developing until their late 20s. The fact that you want to penalize him for a stupid decision made by the Cubs when he was 23 is way beyond bizarre. You simply have a blind spot of hatred for Cedeno for some weird reason.