New Gm, New Manager

[Sammy Sofa]

Sounds pretty par for the course if they're planning to get rid of him after the season is over.

[jersey cubs fan]

( for example while Theriot would be expected to improve next year,

 

Why would you assume that? He's doing what he did in 2007. He's doing what his career was mostly likely pointing to until he had his peak year in 2008 that surprised many, but he fell right back to earth and he is what he is. You are talking about a bunch of 30-somethings, most with injury histories. The notion of underperforming what they "should" have done is vague. They are who they are, which isn't good. Ramirez is the only one whose level of underperformance is surprising, but he's also the one coming off the most serious injury and was injured this year (something everybody expects every season). This is an old expensive bad team. Quit trying to find excuses.

[Sammy Sofa]

OR ELSE.

[CubColtPacer]

( for example while Theriot would be expected to improve next year,

 

Why would you assume that? He's doing what he did in 2007. He's doing what his career was mostly likely pointing to until he had his peak year in 2008 that surprised many, but he fell right back to earth and he is what he is. You are talking about a bunch of 30-somethings, most with injury histories. The notion of underperforming what they "should" have done is vague. They are who they are, which isn't good. Ramirez is the only one whose level of underperformance is surprising, but he's also the one coming off the most serious injury and was injured this year (something everybody expects every season). This is an old expensive bad team. Quit trying to find excuses.

 

Theriot is 40 points worse than his worst season out of his other 3+ years and is currently 80 points below his career average. Even accounting for regression due to age Theriot should improve.

 

Lee has only had 2 months in the previous 3 years that were worse than his best month this year. For him to struggle this much is very, very surprising.

 

Ramirez was miles worse than anybody could have ever expected. In fact before the last week it was hard to find a comparable in the last few years in baseball to what he was doing.

 

Nady had a wide range of potential projections. His number is reasonable but definitely unlucky for him to be healthy enough to play but not healthy enough to be anything but terrible. He's had a questionable enough career combined with the injuries that he isn't a great bet to improve although he still has big upside compared to this year.

 

The reason I'm even bringing this up is that I'm trying to figure out how far this team is away from contention to help decide if the Cubs should try to make upgrades to contend in 2011 or not. How unreasonable the current core's performance this year is plays a large part into that.

[jersey cubs fan]

Theriot had a 71 OPS+ in 2007, and it's 65 right now. He's essentially the same player that took over the starting duties that year (as his numbers were propped up from platooning earlier), and he's turning 31 this offseason.

 

He's not all that great a bet to be any better. He probably shouldn't even be used.

 

Straight up OPS comparisons to past years aren't as telling as you are hoping, because for one, offense is down across the board. The NL OPS is 729, compared to past three years of 739, 744 and 756. These guys are also pretty old. Having worse numbers in your mid-30's than you did in your early 30's should not be a surprise. Combine the expected regression of aging with the significant decline in offense as a whole, and Ramirez is still the only one with a surprising low performance. And he's still the guy who had a real bad shoulder injury last year, was hurt this spring and dealt with an injury all season so far.

[CubColtPacer]

He had a 71 OPS in 2007, and it's 65 right now. He's essentially the same player that took over the starting duties that year (as his numbers were propped up from platooning earlier), and he's turning 31 this offseason.

 

He's not all that great a bet to be any better. He probably shouldn't even be used.

 

23.5% of his AB's in 2007 were against left-handers.

27.5% of his AB's in 2010 were against left-handers.

 

He was used part-time for part of 2007 but he really wasn't platooned. Playing part-time didn't prop up his numbers much and it's questionable if there is a link there at all.

 

I do think he has a good chance to be better. I completely agree with you that he is not a starting 2nd baseman and shouldn't be used that way. He's a decent backup middle infielder at this point. The Cubs would be best off to get rid of him.

[jersey cubs fan]

He had a 71 OPS in 2007, and it's 65 right now. He's essentially the same player that took over the starting duties that year (as his numbers were propped up from platooning earlier), and he's turning 31 this offseason.

 

He's not all that great a bet to be any better. He probably shouldn't even be used.

 

23.5% of his AB's in 2007 were against left-handers.

27.5% of his AB's in 2010 were against left-handers.

 

He was used part-time for part of 2007 but he really wasn't platooned. Playing part-time didn't prop up his numbers much and it's questionable if there is a link there at all.

 

The 40 point drop in OPS from the first half to the second half suggests he got worse once he played every day. But regardless of how you want to characterize the difference, he's been nearly the same player.

[fiver]

 

The reason I'm even bringing this up is that I'm trying to figure out how far this team is away from contention to help decide if the Cubs should try to make upgrades to contend in 2011 or not. How unreasonable the current core's performance this year is plays a large part into that.

 

If we can set up ourselves better for 2012 by not buying band-aids for 2011, then I vote for that.

[CubColtPacer]

Theriot had a 71 OPS+ in 2007, and it's 65 right now. He's essentially the same player that took over the starting duties that year (as his numbers were propped up from platooning earlier), and he's turning 31 this offseason.

 

He's not all that great a bet to be any better. He probably shouldn't even be used.

 

Straight up OPS comparisons to past years aren't as telling as you are hoping, because for one, offense is down across the board. The NL OPS is 729, compared to past three years of 739, 744 and 756. These guys are also pretty old. Having worse numbers in your mid-30's than you did in your early 30's should not be a surprise. Combine the expected regression of aging with the significant decline in offense as a whole, and Ramirez is still the only one with a surprising low performance. And he's still the guy who had a real bad shoulder injury last year, was hurt this spring and dealt with an injury all season so far.

 

The NL being down across the board offensively is a good point although the fact that the NL boasts the 2 worst offenses in the last 18 years makes the numbers look much worse for the league as a whole than they are. But even that is a 10 point drop compared to the Cubs 19 point drop and the Cubs have an increased talent level offensively where they upgraded one of their positions offensively and got deeper off the bench. And it's not like last year was some charmed year where the Cubs got great years out of their regulars (which for example 2008 mostly was).

[lumafia]

How you view this season depends on how you view Soto and Soriano. If you thought last year was a huge aberration for both of them, then this year the players are way underperforming. Sure, there are a few overachievers that have been mentioned (Colvin and Silva are the two biggest and Gorzelanny should also be mentioned. Byrd isn't really a strong candidate as his numbers are pretty close to the last 3 before that.) But they don't match up whatsoever with the underachievers (Lee, Ramirez, Zambrano, Theriot, and possibly Baker and Nady).

 

If Soriano and Soto are seen as overperformance, then it becomes a whole lot closer although still in underperformance territory.

 

I'm interested to see what happens after the season. Bruce doesn't think Hendry will be fired but I think a lot of fans are assuming he will. This team is definitely not as bad as its record and should improve markedly just bringing back the same team but definitely has some big needs as well. And the fans problems of being sick with the current core might play into a larger dismantling than might be needed.

 

Ryan Theriot isn't underperforming, he's just not good. He's 30 now, and 30 year old middle infielders with scarce productivity on their resumes should be expected to suck. Lee is playing almost exactly like he did for 6 months, between 2008 and 2009, before he bounced back for what looks like his last gasp of productivity.

 

I think it is absurd to suggest this team would improve just by bringing everybody back. It's already an old team full of players whose best days are likely way behind them. It's also absurd to suggest Soto is somehow underperforming anything. Soriano is right on best hopes for production.

 

This team is not better than it's record. That's the same BS nonsense we hear every year when the team doesn't win enough, because everybody needs to look for excuses to cover up Jim Hendry's failures. Just stop already. It's a poorly constructed baseball team. 2009 wasn't some 95 win team that just didn't put it together. 2010 was actually predicted to be quite bad by many people. This isn't a team that is stunningly underachieving. It's not a good baseball team. Every team deals with fluctuations in individual performance. The good ones win despite those struggles. The Cubs aren't good, and their record reflects it.

 

There's room to say that the Cubs are both not a very good baseball team and that a team who is 11 games under .500 at the break is underperforming. If the same team is brought back next year they are really, really likely to win more than 71 games which is what they are on pace to win this year.

 

Hopefully the Cubs don't bring back the same team because there are significant improvements that can be made ( for example while Theriot would be expected to improve next year, he still will be a bad player and there could be many ways to upgrade at 2B). But if you project out player by player, it's hard to come up with a scenario where they finish near 70 wins again.

 

Let's look at one preseason projection sorted by number of at-bats this year. From the highest number of at-bats every 50 below that I put a space to show who has gotten the majority of the at-bats.

 

Theriot: 94 points of OPS less than projected

Byrd: 37 points more

Lee: 179 points less

 

Soriano: 55 points more

Ramirez: 239 points less

 

Fukudome: 11 points less

Soto: 87 points more

Castro: 37 points more

 

Colvin: 163 points more

Fontenot: 3 points less

Nady: 168 points less

 

Baker: 90 points less

Hill: 130 points less

 

The fall off has been staggering. While the Cubs have had a couple surprises, the downsides have been a lot larger and with players who tend to get more at-bats than the ones to the upside.

 

So, are you saying that if not for Lee and Ramirez, the team would have sucked less? I agree.

 

FYI for everybody.

 

Zambrano, Lee, Ramirez, Theriot, Hill, Samarzidja and Grabow (arguably our biggest combined dissapointments this year) make more combined money than 1/3 of the first place teams in baseball right now.

[CubColtPacer]

He had a 71 OPS in 2007, and it's 65 right now. He's essentially the same player that took over the starting duties that year (as his numbers were propped up from platooning earlier), and he's turning 31 this offseason.

 

He's not all that great a bet to be any better. He probably shouldn't even be used.

 

23.5% of his AB's in 2007 were against left-handers.

27.5% of his AB's in 2010 were against left-handers.

 

He was used part-time for part of 2007 but he really wasn't platooned. Playing part-time didn't prop up his numbers much and it's questionable if there is a link there at all.

 

The 40 point drop in OPS from the first half to the second half suggests he got worse once he played every day. But regardless of how you want to characterize the difference, he's been nearly the same player.

 

That could be although he had a dropoff in both 2008 and 2009 as well. But the fact that he's only been a little worse than his worst year doesn't mean he's likely to repeat that year again.

[jersey cubs fan]

That could be although he had a dropoff in both 2008 and 2009 as well. But the fact that he's only been a little worse than his worst year doesn't mean he's likely to repeat that year again.

 

It doesn't mean he's likely to get significantly better at 31 either.

[jersey cubs fan]

and the Cubs have an increased talent level offensively where they upgraded one of their positions offensively and got deeper off the bench.

 

In the blind scouts eye of Jim Hendry they did. But they are essentially the same team, only older. Why you insist on ignoring the fact that 30 something players get worse is beyond me.

[CubColtPacer]

and the Cubs have an increased talent level offensively where they upgraded one of their positions offensively and got deeper off the bench.

 

In the blind scouts eye of Jim Hendry they did. But they are essentially the same team, only older. Why you insist on ignoring the fact that 30 something players get worse is beyond me.

 

Of course they get worse. But they tend to get worse slowly not fall off a cliff especially if they haven't hit 35 yet. When they do fall off a cliff, they tend to have bounceback seasons. Soriano is having one of those now and while his numbers are still not as good as at his peak which do show a decline as he gets older, it's still a lot better than 2009. Lee and Ramirez and to a small extent Theriot and Nady are experiencing that this year. None of them should be expected to hit anywhere near their peak production next year because they are all declining. But they all are somewhat likely (Ramirez the best, then Lee, Theriot, Nady) to have bounceback years.

[Ding Dong Johnson]

If Theriot "bounces back", he's still not very good.

[CubColtPacer]

If Theriot "bounces back", he's still not very good.

 

Just in case this gets lost, I think this is the thing that most will agree on including me. I want Theriot traded tomorrow if possible. He's a bad starter or a vastly overpaid backup.

[jersey cubs fan]

and the Cubs have an increased talent level offensively where they upgraded one of their positions offensively and got deeper off the bench.

 

In the blind scouts eye of Jim Hendry they did. But they are essentially the same team, only older. Why you insist on ignoring the fact that 30 something players get worse is beyond me.

 

Of course they get worse. But they tend to get worse slowly not fall off a cliff especially if they haven't hit 35 yet. When they do fall off a cliff, they tend to have bounceback seasons. Soriano is having one of those now and while his numbers are still not as good as at his peak which do show a decline as he gets older, it's still a lot better than 2009. Lee and Ramirez and to a small extent Theriot and Nady are experiencing that this year. None of them should be expected to hit anywhere near their peak production next year because they are all declining. But they all are somewhat likely (Ramirez the best, then Lee, Theriot, Nady) to have bounceback years.

 

Falling off a cliff at 34/35 is hardly unprecedented. That's what Lee is doing.

[CubColtPacer]

and the Cubs have an increased talent level offensively where they upgraded one of their positions offensively and got deeper off the bench.

 

In the blind scouts eye of Jim Hendry they did. But they are essentially the same team, only older. Why you insist on ignoring the fact that 30 something players get worse is beyond me.

 

Of course they get worse. But they tend to get worse slowly not fall off a cliff especially if they haven't hit 35 yet. When they do fall off a cliff, they tend to have bounceback seasons. Soriano is having one of those now and while his numbers are still not as good as at his peak which do show a decline as he gets older, it's still a lot better than 2009. Lee and Ramirez and to a small extent Theriot and Nady are experiencing that this year. None of them should be expected to hit anywhere near their peak production next year because they are all declining. But they all are somewhat likely (Ramirez the best, then Lee, Theriot, Nady) to have bounceback years.

 

Falling off a cliff at 34/35 is hardly unprecedented. That's what Lee is doing.

 

No although usually it involves injury,playing one of the harder positions, or lack of being in shape that causes such a swift decline. Sometimes a lack of walks will contribute to it as well or a player highly dependent upon speed. It would be highly unusual if this was not just a bad year for Lee since he doesn't really have any of those things and should be an ideal candidate to decline more gracefully.

[italianocubsfan7]

Sun-Times article on Joe Girardi, whose contract expires after this season:

 

http://bit.ly/9ApcC8

[jersey cubs fan]

No although usually it involves injury,playing one of the harder positions, or lack of being in shape that causes such a swift decline. Sometimes a lack of walks will contribute to it as well or a player highly dependent upon speed. It would be highly unusual if this was not just a bad year for Lee since he doesn't really have any of those things and should be an ideal candidate to decline more gracefully.

 

When he was younger plenty of people suggested he was going to be prone to earlier declines than normal due to his size, long arms and swing. He's had plenty of nagging injuries, to the back and neck, two things that do not get better with age. It would not be the least bit unusual if Lee was nearing the end of his productive career.

[bleedingblue]

Sun-Times article on Joe Girardi, whose contract expires after this season:

 

http://bit.ly/9ApcC8

 

 

No chance in hell Girardi comes to Chicago to rebuild the Cubs from the Yankees (who are probably going to repeat and three peat if or probably when they sign Cliff Lee in the offseason).

 

If it's anyone but Sandberg, I'll be shocked.

[Sammy Sofa]

No chance in hell Girardi comes to Chicago

 

Hopefully this is true.

[Exile on Waveland]

No chance in hell Girardi comes to Chicago

 

Hopefully this is true.

 

What if the alternative is Sandberg?

[Sammy Sofa]

No chance in hell Girardi comes to Chicago

 

Hopefully this is true.

 

What if the alternative is Sandberg?

 

Death.

[Tarver]

No chance in hell Girardi comes to Chicago

 

Hopefully this is true.

 

He'd be overpaid and overrated, but it could be a lot worse.

 

The FO is first and foremost. Managerial hires shouldn't merit much handwringing.