Re: Projecting the 2013 Cubs

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I really can't believe we're going to Mather the sixth infielder role to Lillibridge and just throw away a win or so. Just silly.

[Guest]

BP's playoff odds are out. Cubs have a 12.5% chance of making the playoffs, 8.3% chance of making the Division Series and a 0.5% chance of winning the World Series.

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/odds/

 

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/399/502%20/960.jpg

 

"So, you are telling me there is a chance!" -- Jim Carrey, Dumb and Dumber :-) :-) :-)

 

rofl

[davell]

I really can't believe we're going to Mather the sixth infielder role to Lillibridge and just throw away a win or so. Just silly.

I'm not getting worked up over a 25th man. Hell, Lillibridge was solid himself in 2011.

[UMFan83]

BP's playoff odds are out. Cubs have a 12.5% chance of making the playoffs, 8.3% chance of making the Division Series and a 0.5% chance of winning the World Series.

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/odds/

 

Better odds of making the playoffs than:

 

Royals (12.1%)

Padres (9.5%)

Orioles (4.8%)

Rockies (4.8%)

Marlins (1.7%)

Twins (1.5%)

Astros (0.4%)

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I really can't believe we're going to Mather the sixth infielder role to Lillibridge and just throw away a win or so. Just silly.

I'm not getting worked up over a 25th man. Hell, Lillibridge was solid himself in 2011.

 

I can get worked up enough for all of us. He was completely awful all his other years.

[WrigleyField 22]

BP's playoff odds are out. Cubs have a 12.5% chance of making the playoffs, 8.3% chance of making the Division Series and a 0.5% chance of winning the World Series.

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/odds/

 

Better odds of making the playoffs than:

 

Royals (12.1%)

Padres (9.5%)

Orioles (4.8%)

Rockies (4.8%)

Marlins (1.7%)

Twins (1.5%)

Astros (0.4%)

Seems pretty fair.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[seanimal]

BP's playoff odds are out. Cubs have a 12.5% chance of making the playoffs, 8.3% chance of making the Division Series and a 0.5% chance of winning the World Series.

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/odds/

 

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/399/502/960.jpg

 

"So, you are telling me there is a chance!" -- Jim Carrey, Dumb and Dumber :-) :-) :-)

 

lol whatever

[biittner77]

I really can't believe we're going to Mather the sixth infielder role to Lillibridge and just throw away a win or so. Just silly.

I'm not getting worked up over a 25th man. Hell, Lillibridge was solid himself in 2011.

 

I can get worked up enough for all of us. He was completely awful all his other years.

 

Somebody has to be the worst player on the team.

[Thed Hoyerstein]

Fangraphs re: Jeff Samwichjar

 

http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php/2013-pod-projections-jeff-samardzija/

[KingCubsFan]

I really can't believe we're going to Mather the sixth infielder role to Lillibridge and just throw away a win or so. Just silly.

The Reds had Miguel Cairo. The Cardinals had Daniel Descalo. The Yankees had Jayson Nix. Heck, the A's started Jemille Weeks. Every team has their own Lillibridge.

 

I'm impressed by your ability to be upset by it, though.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I really can't believe we're going to Mather the sixth infielder role to Lillibridge and just throw away a win or so. Just silly.

The Reds had Miguel Cairo. The Cardinals had Daniel Descalo. The Yankees had Jayson Nix. Heck, the A's started Jemille Weeks. Every team has their own Lillibridge.

 

I'm impressed by your ability to be upset by it, though.

 

I'm impressed by your ability to try to just generically lump all those players together, despite them all being much better than Lillibridge.

 

fWAR since 2008:

Cairo: 2.2

Weeks: 1.9

Nix: 1.5

Descalso: 1.4

Lillibidrige: -0.9

 

You listed a bunch of examples of legitimate sixth infielders. Lillibridge isn't that.

[Sammy Sofa]

And you just called out somebody else for lumping things together? Talk about the audacity of [expletive].

[Guest]

I really can't believe we're going to Mather the sixth infielder role to Lillibridge and just throw away a win or so. Just silly.

The Reds had Miguel Cairo. The Cardinals had Daniel Descalo. The Yankees had Jayson Nix. Heck, the A's started Jemille Weeks. Every team has their own Lillibridge.

 

I'm impressed by your ability to be upset by it, though.

 

I'm impressed by your ability to try to just generically lump all those players together, despite them all being much better than Lillibridge.

 

fWAR since 2008:

Cairo: 2.2

Weeks: 1.9

Nix: 1.5

Descalso: 1.4

Lillibidrige: -0.9

 

You listed a bunch of examples of legitimate sixth infielders. Lillibridge isn't that.

 

 

so... on a per year basis (only because this is so inconsequential that i don't care to put in much more effort than that to figure out how much playing time was actually involved, especially when the way you did it was just about as lazy):

 

Cairo: 0.44

Weeks: 0.38

Nix: 0.3

Descalso: .28

Lillibridge: -.18

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Some of those players haven't been playing every year since 2008, but otherwise, yes. There's no good reason to be fielding a player who projects as sub-replacement. In this case, the reason seems to fall somewhere in a continuum from "He's Sveum's buddy" to "We just don't care enough to bother."

[davell]

I'm anxiously waiting for the day Fangraphs breaks down the average WAR of the 25th man. So we can complain about losing 3/10 of a WAR out of the spot.

[Guest]

Some of those players haven't been playing every year since 2008, but otherwise, yes. There's no good reason to be fielding a player who projects as sub-replacement. In this case, the reason seems to fall somewhere in a continuum from "He's Sveum's buddy" to "We just don't care enough to bother."

 

I agree, but I, personally, don't care that much. And the sample size isn't huge. Maybe they feel he's better than those numbers from a scouting perspective. I'd be more inclined to believe that than that they're too lazy to look at the available options for better replacements.

 

Plus, thanks to his power, he's been decently competent (take that very loosely) against lefties, I guess. Hopefully, he would be used accordingly.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

I'm anxiously waiting for the day Fangraphs breaks down the average WAR of the 25th man. So we can complain about losing 3/10 of a WAR out of the spot.

 

A few tenths of a WAR here, a few tenths there, pretty soon you're talking about real baseball.

[Sammy Sofa]

Gibberish.

[Guest]

I'm anxiously waiting for the day Fangraphs breaks down the average WAR of the 25th man. So we can complain about losing 3/10 of a WAR out of the spot.

 

A few tenths of a WAR here, a few tenths there, pretty soon you're talking about real baseball.

One of the problems with WAR is that it's predictive value is slightly better than 0. I'd imagine that in a small sample a good game or two could make a huge difference. Anyway, all things being equal, I'd like to field the best team possible. Since, it's super, super, hard to quantify such things, I'd like to trust Theo and Co. to find the best guy 24th and 25th guy and not try to bolster my opinion with noise.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Yeah, I'm getting pretty tired of the "Well, we'll just trust the front office" argument when there's a pile of evidence that says sometimes they make moves that make the team lose more baseball games.

[Sammy Sofa]

Saying "I trust the FO" is very different than "I think they never make mistakes." Yeah, the Mather signing sucked more than a 25th man signing almost always would, but if you're going to sit there and act like you knew he'd have been THAT bad then you're just a hilarious and hideous liar.

 

Half of the guys you listed above were terrible last year (and one is older than dirt) and the other half were barely any better than Lillibridge. Odds are pretty safe that griping about this is the epitome of splitting hairs. If somehow you luck into them having signed a 25th man with a -2 WAR season, hey, congratulations.

[KingCubsFan]

I really can't believe we're going to Mather the sixth infielder role to Lillibridge and just throw away a win or so. Just silly.

The Reds had Miguel Cairo. The Cardinals had Daniel Descalo. The Yankees had Jayson Nix. Heck, the A's started Jemille Weeks. Every team has their own Lillibridge.

 

I'm impressed by your ability to be upset by it, though.

 

I'm impressed by your ability to try to just generically lump all those players together, despite them all being much better than Lillibridge.

 

fWAR since 2008:

Cairo: 2.2

Weeks: 1.9

Nix: 1.5

Descalso: 1.4

Lillibidrige: -0.9

 

You listed a bunch of examples of legitimate sixth infielders. Lillibridge isn't that.

Are you actually relying on the legitacy of defensive and baserunning metrics of players who get 150-200 PA a year?

[Guest]

Is there a reason we are assuming Lillibridge will get the job?

 

Even if he wins it in the spring, is there a reason we're assuming he'll keep it over Lake/Watkins/etc if he's awful in the first half?

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Saying "I trust the FO" is very different than "I think they never make mistakes." Yeah, the Mather signing sucked more than a 25th man signing almost always would, but if you're going to sit there and act like you knew he'd have been THAT bad then you're just a hilarious and hideous liar.

 

I knew he was a bad choice to make the roster, and was making it for bad reasons. That's enough for me. Lillibridge is practically just a remake of the same movie at this point.

 

Half of the guys you listed above were terrible last year (and one is older than dirt) and the other half were barely any better than Lillibridge. Odds are pretty safe that griping about this is the epitome of splitting hairs. If somehow you luck into them having signed a 25th man with a -2 WAR season, hey, congratulations.

 

They weren't my list, and they've all been noticeably and consistently better than Lillibridge.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

Is there a reason we are assuming Lillibridge will get the job?

 

Even if he wins it in the spring, is there a reason we're assuming he'll keep it over Lake/Watkins/etc if he's awful in the first half?

 

Because they are telegraphing the move pretty hard. He's Sveum's buddy, he's pretty much the only guy in camp who vaguely resembles a utility man besides Valbuena, and they aren't going to use prospects in that role.