TruffleShuffle

It's not the Big East's fault that a lot of those schools don't have big-time football programs. And saying the Big East has no depth is ridiculous - only a small number of those schools can be considered pretty irrelevent as far as basketball goes (USF, Rutgers, Providence). UConn and Syracuse are powers every year and Pitt, West Virginia, Marquette, Georgetown, Villanova, Cincy and Louisville are good to very good most years. The Big East has been ranked #3, #2 and #2 the past three years in conference RPI, while the Big Ten was #6, #6 and #1 during that stretch. Last year was the first year since '01 that the Big Ten had a better conference RPI than the Big East. So to call them "more of a mercurial phenomenon than a power conference" is completely absurd.

Santo has every negative that a non-sure-fire hall of famer could have working against them: -played a position that is the most underrepresented in the HOF -played during a pitcher's era, so his numbers don't look as impressive when compared to guys who played during more offensive eras -never won or played in a World Series -was overshadowed by a better, more charismatic teammate -was overshadowed by another player at the same position during his era (Brooks Robinson, because of his defensive brilliance and playing on a better team) -not great in the most overrated statistic (batting average); much of his value came from his ability to get on base, which is underrated by voters -played solid but not spectacular defense, so receives little credit for his glove In any case, I'd like to think that I'd feel so strongly about his HoF-worthiness even if I were not a Cub fan.

by the way, Penn State lost to Southeast Louisiana on Saturday. They've now lost to Southeast Louisiana and Stony Brook, along with Shippensburg in an exhibition game, and beat Hartford by one point. They're going to get destroyed in the Big Ten.

I'm amused that an Eagles team that lost its starting quarterback for the year, blew a 17 point 4th quarter lead against a divisional opponent, and lost on a 62 yard field goal, can win the division by winning their last two games. It won't happen, but it's still pretty funny.

Well, I don't think you have much to worry about. The Raiders host KC and then have a road game against the Jets, and if they couldn't score a point against the Rams' awful defense, I'm pretty sure they're not winning either of those games. The Lions definitely lose next week at the Cowboys. This week I think they lose, but there's the question of Bears' motivation.

well so much for not posting the answer or hints

yeah apparently "all-star caliber" means hitting .340 for the first two months of the year, thereby getting lots of votes since you've got the best batting average in the league, and then completely falling apart after that. In June of that year he had a .270 OPS (yes, OPS) but by then it was too late and everyone had voted for him. Also, it didn't hurt that shortstops in the NL were a joke.

One "l" at the end of his last name, not two. So my answer was yes. Sad to hear of his passing recently, but he sure did a lot during his lifetime.

Yankees trade away: John-Ford Griffin, Jason Arnold, Ted Lilly Yankees get: Jeff Weaver Oakland trades away: Franklyn German, Jeremy Bonderman, Carlos Pena Oakland gets: John-Ford Griffin, Jason Arnold, Ted Lilly Tigers trade away: Jeff Weaver Tigers get: Franklyn German, Jeremy Bonderman, Carlos Pena Decent trade on paper for the Yankees until Weaver immediately crapped himself upon arrival in New York. Didn't like the trade at the time for the A's, and since they turned Lilly into Bobby Kielty, it looks even worse. Tigers made out like bandits, even though Pena didn't turn out that great (still better than people thought he was, though) and German was a disappointment. Bonderman was dominating high-A ball in his first crack at it at age 19. Just didn't see why the A's would deal him.

Dawson, no question. Santo, it's a little fuzzier there. I'm a big proponent of comparing players to others that have played their given position. If a guy is one of the ten best 1B, 2B, etc., he belongs in. Looking at 1B, Gehrig and Foxx were unquestionably better than Bagwell. The next tier would have to be McGwire, Bagwell, Greenberg (better player, but shorter career), Johnny Mize, Eddie Murray, Killebrew, Cap Anson, McCovey and Frank Thomas. Ignoring the whole steroid business, I'd probably rank them as: 1. Gehrig 2. Foxx 3. Greenberg (I think guys should be given credit when they missed some of their prime years due to the war - not penalized for this) 4. McGwire 5. Mize 6. Bagwell 7. Thomas 8. Killebrew 9. Murray 10. McCovey whereas 3B I would go: 1. Schmidt 2. Eddie Mathews 3. George Brett 4. Boggs 5. Santo 6. Home Run Baker 7. Molitor 8. Brooks Robinson 9. Stan Hack 10. Rolen So even though Bagwell was clearly the better hitter, I'd call him and Santo about even based on where they rank at their respective positions.

Thankfully I never pretended that luck doesn't play a role. I just don't see how any of this is a strong indication that any of these guys is likely to get better next year. I'm not saying that any given player is going to be luckier. It seems like a lot of the departed players were pretty unlucky last year, so the offense was a little worse than it "should have been." So, one can assume that if the 2007 Cubs have more neutral luck rather than bad luck, that they'll get a bump over last year from that as well.

I voted that he'll have a good year, but if the Cubs had signed him, I would have gone with the DL option.

9-6 so far, I think

yup you're right, if the cubs don't win the world series in the next two years, they'll be the worst team in baseball

Well, the luckiest NL regular was Freddy Sanchez, and the luckiest AL regular was Robinson Cano. I'd say that's probably pretty true. I'm not saying the Cubs would've been anything other than bad last year, even with a little more luck, but pretending that luck doesn't play a role in player performance in any given season is ignorant.

Some miscellany: --Glendon Rusch's HR/FB (homers allowed per outfield fly ball) was 24.8%, which is awful. The league average is 11-12%. Hill, Zambrano and Maddux were right around average in this stat; Howry, Ohman and Dempster were below the average, and basically everyone who pitched significant innings were above 11-12%. --Maddux (not surprisingly) was the most efficient, throwing an average of 3.3 pitches per batter. Rusch, Eyre and Aardsma were the least efficient (4.3). --Among regular or semi-regular pitchers, Wuertz kept the ball on the ground the most (53.6%) while Hill was least (30.0%). --The league LOB% (percentage of runners allowed that did not score) was 71% among pitchers, and the Cubs were right at the average. The worst at this were Maddux and Prior, who were down around 62%. Eyre's LOB% was a very high 87%; Wuertz and Howry were also pretty good at stranding runners they allowed. Zambrano (75.9%) was as well. --The Cubs were by far the wildest staff. They allowed 4.2 BB/game; the next highest teams were the Royals, Pirates and Marlins at 3.8 BB/game. The league average was about 3.25. Way to go, guys! --The 2006 Cubs had the lowest P/PA and highest ground ball percentage of any National League team. I was going to blame Neifi and Juan for both of these, but actually it was Murton (57.7%), Izturis (57.1%) and Jones (55.9%) who hit the most ground balls, with Juan (55.2%) not far behind. Neifi, on the other hand, had one of the lower ground ball rates (37%), because he inexplicably hit fly balls in 42% of his ABs. As you might guess, this isn't a good thing for someone with no power. But, we can blame Juan (3.5) and Neifi (3.2) for the low P/PA number, because they were the two most impatient hitters on the team. Also down at the bottom of that list? Izturis (3.5) and Cedeno (3.5). Notice a trend? --Juan Pierre was one of the ten worst clutch hitters in baseball last year, which is probably why Hendry didn't resign him. Right behind Pierre on the not-clutch list was Ryan Howard, who made up for it by hitting home runs on a mind-boggling 38.3% of his fly balls. I think this suggests that he's strong.

True, but people compare this year's offense to last year's offense and say that all they did was replace Pierre with Soriano. A whole lot of guys had unlucky years last year and ate up a lot of ABs. With average luck, they'd have scored more runs. So if this year's offense has average luck, they'll get a bump from this as well as from Soriano (not to mention hopefully a full year of Lee). Plus the Pythagorean W/L was four games below expected. So you're making up some offense and some wins right there, assuming average luck (it's the cubs, so maybe this is a poor assumption).

Tampa ranked 9th, 10th and 9th among the 14 AL teams during his tenure there. The last time he managed an NL team (Reds in 1992), position players bunted only 33 times during the year, which was less than average, just by taking a cursory look at other teams.

So poring through some stuff over at Hardball Times, I found some interesting info. I guess this is good fodder for people who want to believe that 2007 will be a better year. Here's PrOPS for various Cub players in 2006: Theriot: .084 Bynum: .032 Barrett: .023 Pierre: .004 Murton: .003 Jones: -.003 Cedeno: -.004 Lee: -.016 ARam: -.019 Pagan: -.040 Blanco: -.041 Walker: -.042 Neifi: -.047 Nevin: -.070 Mabry: -.073 Izturis: -.129 What jumped out at me, looking at the list, was the large number of Cubs who were unlucky last year. In fact, out of the 23 position players who batted for the Cubs last year, only 6 had a positive or neutral PrOPS. It also suggests that Jones' numbers were not really fluky in 2006, or at least that he played as well as his numbers suggested. Looking at other teams, it appears that there appears to be a slight "unlucky" bias that mostly affects non-regular players. I'm not sure what the reason is for this, but in any case, it does look like the Cubs were unlucky (and bad, of course) in 2005 and outside of Barrett and Theriot, some improvement might be expected. By the way, the acquired players this offseason: DeRosa: +.033 Soriano: -.012 Ward: +.047 I'm going to wade through some pitching stats now... I'll let you know if there's anything interesting.

Here's another thing to consider: http://www.fangraphs.com/graphs/89_2B_season_full_7_20061001.png Note that this year his BABIP dropped to near normal. Here's his BABIP and LD% the past four years: 2004 BABIP: .340 LD%: 21.5% 2004 BABIP: .365 LD%: 22% 2005 BABIP: .337 LD%: 19.4% 2006 BABIP: .306 LD%: 21.8% He's not fast, and he hits righthanded, so one wouldn't expect him to him to get a lot of help from these factors. He doesn't - his infield hit per ground ball % is 7% (contrast that to Ichiro, whose career rate is 12.8%). Here's more from JC Bradbury, one of the people at Hardball Times, who created a stat called PrOPS, or projected OPS. It gathers several stats together and determines what a guy's OPS "should" have been, and then compares this to what it actually was. This is his way of determining which players have been luckiest in a given year. In 2004, he didn't have enough ABs to be eligible, but his PrOPS that year was .047. This past year, it was -.037. This suggests that he was a little unlucky in 2006. So, aside from the steroid issue I mentioned above, I think this also suggests that Giles was quite lucky from 2003-2005. He might not be as bad as he was in 2006, but chances are that 2003-2005 won't happen again either.

ok, now post his numbers for 03, 04, and 05. interestingly enough, steroid testing began in 2006. Didn't it begin in '05? Good point. Actually, it began in '04, but the policy was such a joke that year that I'd be surprised if anybody obeyed it. 2005 there was more of a "real" policy, but the punishment was not nearly as strong as it was in 2006. In any case, I'd really be wary about him... he's 5'8" and one would be foolish to ignore the possibility that a good deal of the power he showed came by artificial means.

Isn't it assumed that Jones hits 5th? If so, the worst hitter he has behing him is Barrett, which is fine. I don't want anybody pulling that crap. If you're bunting, then you've got Soriano on base, and he can just steal anyway. And what are you doing bunting Soriano to second, anyway? That means an automatic out, which isn't what you're looking for when you've got two really good hitters coming up. I'll take someone who can get on base and and score when Lee and ARam hit homers and doubles.

ok, now post his numbers for 03, 04, and 05. interestingly enough, steroid testing began in 2006.

DeRosa I could live with at #2, especially if Murton's power keeps developing, because then he could produce some runs in the 6-spot. I wouldn't mind seeing Barrett at #2, although it won't happen. But batting Izturis #2 would be extremely stupid. You're guaranteeing that he'll get significantly more ABs than better hitters like Murton and Barrett, and you're also putting your worst hitter in front of the two best hitters. Izturis bats 8th for the Cubs; anything else is a mistake.

so how's rich hill going to do in 2007?