nilodnayr

Please clarify this comment, if you don't mind. Lilly is coming from the most unfavorable splits of any pitcher on the market, and still you have a concern? 30% games against Red Sox/Yankees is a far worse split than pitching in the NL Central, no? Over the last three years Lilly has pitched about equal vs the BoSox/Yanks as compared to is overall #s. In 06 his ERA was .30 higher vs them than his season ERA, in 05 is was .43 lower, and in 04 it was .06 lower.

Cedeno's OBP was .005 higher than Neifi's. That is pretty darned insignificant. Ronny was just as bad as Neifi. Seriously. It cracks me up when people try to say that Cedeno was better than Neifi last year. I'd take .254/.266/.343/.610 over .245/.271/.339/.610 every day of the week. Some people seem to forget that a hit is better than a walk. What do you consider a better AB.....a 10 pitch walk with no one on base or a first pitch single with no one on base? Obviously I'll take the 10 pitch walk with no one on base in that particular situation. My point was that I'd prefer to have a team full of guys that can hit their way on versus a team full of guys that can walk their way on. The ability to hit is more valuable than the ability to take a walk. Batters do not have the ability to hit...they have the ability to make contact. Some hitters make more quality contact than others which usually results in more hits, but you are forgettting that once the ball leaves the bat, the hitter loses control of the outcome except for a home run (and using speed to stretch doubles into triples, etc.). The ability to take a walk is more valuable than the ability to simply put the ball in play.

I would. Zito will play his home games at AT & T Park, Lilly at Wrigley. Zito will be in the NL West with its share of pitcher's parks, Lilly in the NL Central. ZiPS projected him at 4.37 ERA as an A.

The Rogers Centre inflates home runs more than Wrigley. Also, I don't see how 328ft foul lines, 375 ft power alleys, and 400 ft CF really qualifies as "cavernous". Thats pretty much the same as the Great American Smallpark.

Heck, they will both be lucky to put up 4 ERAs

I'd think he'd be happy, since the current lineup fails to strike fear into anybody. But with the state of the minor league players and Sabean at the helm, this is about the best it will be in quite a while.

Bet they'd change their tune if he were offered an extension for Wells-like money. Which is something we absolutely know the cubs will not do. What makes you think that? Jim Hendry saying that he does not want to acquire a long term solution for CF.

I believe you are correct Soul. Statistics show what was done. They are tangible proof that something happenend. However, the numbers don't "say" anything. It is the inferences that are made about what the numbers show that "say" things. Inferences are opinions based on the data. Two people could look at the same data and come to different conclusions. In science luck/chance is something to be gotten rid of. Usually this is done through randomization of the subject pool. If the scientist has done the right thing, luck plays a very little role in the outcome of the experiment. If the the variable under study is not found to be correlated with the results, the scientist doesn't say the results were do to luck. He/she says he/she doesn't know why it occured. Luck certainly plays a part in an individual baseball game or even a few games in a row. That is why the playoffs are such a crap shoot. But by the way some people talk about luck one would think that these guys/teams are all lottery winners. I seriously question some of these articles about the roll luck plays over the course of 162 games. Random variation and luck are not the same thing. It just means that the results are not likely to be repreated and the data are likely to regress to the mean, either for better or worse. But this is a closed system and without really looking up the data I'd say there is probably a large standard deviation in the data pool (in terms of BABIP). In other words there will always be outliers who overperform and underperform. The mean is just that. If an individual doesn't perform up to the mean or perfroms above the mean, it doens't necessarily say the person was lucky or unlucky. It says that they were better or worse than average. I believe random variation and luck are two sides of the same coin. Luck is defined as a combination of circumstances, events, etc., operating by chance to bring good or ill to a person. Now you can call that "chance" or "results which are not likely to be repeated and are likely to regress to the mean" or whatever you want to call it, but the fact is, is that the 2005 White Sox, produced results which were not likely to be repeated (and were not in 2006). I absolutely agree there will always be outliers in BABIP, but the fact that all members of the 2005 rotation were probably at least one standard deviation to the lower than expected of the mean is luck, chance, whatever you want to call it. It just so happened that in 2006, all of their rotation performed at the mean. If you want to say that the White Sox won the 2005 Word Series due to randomness or chance, I am fine with that.

I think they can put up a similar package to what the Yanks asked the Dbacks for...Otsuka and one of Hurley and Diamond and one of Loe, Volquez, or Rheinecker.

Bet they'd change their tune if he were offered an extension for Wells-like money. Which is something we absolutely know the cubs will not do.

I'd love to delude myself into thinking the Cubs have the best pitching in the NL Central, but as of Christmas eve, in my book, that honor clearly belongs to the Milwaukee Brewers. Take a hard look at Capuano's #'s last year..combine those with a full year of Sheets, throw in Suppan, Bush and Vargas and the Cubs have a VERY formidable foe in their division that's geographically North of them. This is also a staff that has 2 pitchers in the pen who have made AS teams as closers (Turnbow and Cordero) along with some good looking youngsters and holdovers....our pen may have a slight edge, but it's real close. Well, maybe you're right. Who knows, maybe if Prior comes back strong and Hill breaks out we'll be OK. I don't know----the Brewers always seem to pull a fade to finish the season, and I wouldn't count on Sheets for an entire year. His rehab didn't exactly go as smoothly as the Crew was hoping. We'll see. Everyone's undefeated right now :wink: All it will take is a little luck :wink:

I'd love to delude myself into thinking the Cubs have the best pitching in the NL Central, but as of Christmas eve, in my book, that honor clearly belongs to the Milwaukee Brewers. Take a hard look at Capuano's #'s last year..combine those with a full year of Sheets, throw in Suppan, Bush and Vargas and the Cubs have a VERY formidable foe in their division that's geographically North of them. This is also a staff that has 2 pitchers in the pen who have made AS teams as closers (Turnbow and Cordero) along with some good looking youngsters and holdovers....our pen may have a slight edge, but it's real close. Well, maybe you're right. Who knows, maybe if Prior comes back strong and Hill breaks out we'll be OK. I don't know----the Brewers always seem to pull a fade to finish the season, and I wouldn't count on Sheets for an entire year. His rehab didn't exactly go as smoothly as the Crew was hoping. We'll see. Everyone's undefeated right now :wink: All it will take is a little luck :wink:

I was corrected on this recently as well, so I feel it is my duty to do the same to you. :D You know, that whole do unto others....... UK corrected me that Reid Brignac is currently one of the top SS in the minors and in the Tampa Bay organization, which essentially makes Zobrist a useless chip above the useless chip that Escobar would be. But, if they don't want Zobrist, can we have him? Ahh yes, thanks. Its tough to keep track of the 87 quality DRays position prospects.

Ohh I didn't realize by "rumors floated" you meant trade scenarios fans pulled out of their behinds. I'm sorry. And I too am sorry - I guess I thought this was the transactions forum on a message bd. Forgive me. trade proposals <> rumors. I pasted a quote from the Will Carroll article, that is what I consider a rumor, not pure conjecture on our part. If we have a chance to get involved it would be because the deal has stalled at Chuck James. The only way we get to the table is with Rich Hill. THT ranked James as the #47 prospect last year (and salty #30). Our only entry was Pie at #43. Topprospectalert.com has Salty as the braves #1 and Escobar as #8 this year (James isn't a prospect anymore). BP had Hill at #47 on their list last year and James as an honorable mention due to his fly ball tendencies, which shouldn't be as big of a problem in Tropicana. I don't see how we get involved in this without giving up significant talent.

Thats a worse offer for TB than what they already have on the table from the Braves (Davies and LaRoche). I don't recall seeing rumors with LaRoche included. I thought the DRays wanted James, and the Braves countered with Davies, to go along with Salty and/or Yunel Escobar. http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/news/article.jsp?ymd=20061208&content_id=1754894&vkey=hotstove2006&fext=.jsp In this deal I laid out, the DRays get more of what they need most (pitching), and skip on parts they can do without (C, SS). I stand corrected, and while I agree that Zobrist makes Escobar basically a useless chip (of course he could always be spun elsewhere), I don't think we can underestimate Salty's presence. We, nor any organization in baseball, has a chip like him. I don't think the Rays are counting on Navarro to be their catcher of the future.

Ohh I didn't realize by "rumors floated" you meant trade scenarios fans pulled out of their behinds. I'm sorry.

Stats show the why. Why was a team good? The game is to stop your opponent from scoring while scoring as many runs yourself. Stats show how well a team performed at each of these tasks. Stats also show why teams performed how they did at these tasks. Did a team get on base a lot, did they hit for a lot of power. Did their pitchers keep guys off the bases, did they keep the ball in the yard. Stats also more deeply show why they were successful or unsuccessful. Did hitters get on base because they took walks, or because they hit for a high average. Digging deeper, longitudinal stastical analysis has given us norms, predictors. Is a high OBP with a low IsoD sustainable? How can average be predicted using contact rate? When a ball is put into play how does the hitter have control over whether or not it will be a hit or an out? Is there a statistic that allows one to predict, eliminating interference, what that rate should be? One of the main reasons the white sox won in 05 and not in 06 IS shown by statistical analysis as I have pointed out, you are just ignoring it. The White Sox rotation was a main reason they won the WS in 05. A main reason the rotation was successful was a lower than expected BABIP. In 2006 their BABIP was as expected and they came in third. Do you not attribute the 2005 BABIP to luck? Especially when faced with the evidence comparing it to 2006. What do you attribute it to? Lower than expected-----what some people expected, based on some numbers. Like it or not, you will never be able to predict with certainty what a team will do based simply on statistics. Teams like the 2005 White Sox will forever stand as a flaming bastion that, try as you might, you cannot quantify teamwork completely into a nice little neat box. They may be used as a very strong factor, but when they fail to predict a team like the '05 Sox one must step back and accept that other factors which can not be quantified in the box score also have an effect. To simply call it luck is not only incorrect, but is actually an amusing irony since it is the very thing that the statistics attempt to dispel in the first place. I love statistics. But worship them as the end of all analysis? That's myopic. Anyhow, I doubt anyone else wants to read us go around in circles for the rest of the evening, so I'm done with this. People do not expect that, statistical analysis shows that. I for one like the fact that you will never be able to predict with certainty what a team will do based simply on statistics, otherwise what would be the fun of going to the bleachers and creating an Old Style tower (besides the Old Style and the women). Ahhh, so it was teamwork that lead to the low BABIP in 05 and not 06...I guess Rowand made a lot more difference than everyone thought! KW must be an idiot for trading him away otherwise they totally would have won another world series, what an idiot. Its not that the BABIP analysis failed to predict the 05 whitesox, its that it CORRECTLY predicted the 06 whitesox as they came back to the expectation. If KW was smart he would have realized Garland was quite lucky and would not repeat his 05 performance and traded him. I don't think you are really comprehending the argument here. The statistics used are not intended to dispel luck, but rather identify it. Maybe you just don't understand what BABIP is. Here is a great explanation from Baseball Prospectus

And my exercise showed that 162 games + playoffs is not a large enough sample to normalize BABIP.

Is expected BABIP the same across the board for all pitchers, or does it depend on the actual pitcher? How does a person come up with a pitcher's expected BABIP? There maybe individual pitchers and hitters (or types of pitchers and hitters) that explainably consistantly exceed expectations in regards to BABIP. In the McCarthy trade thread cheapseats said that knuckleballers have different BABIP than other pitchers. A deceptive motion may lead to one pitcher having a lower than expected BABIP because they do a good job of hiding the ball from the hitters giving them little time to react leaving them with less of an ability to hit the ball hard (although Dontrelle does not), a fast hitter may have a higher than expected BABIP because his speed allows him to beat out infielders that others would get thrown out on (although Pierre does not). A team with stellar defense with excellet range will curb BABIP as they will be able to get to more balls and make more outs (or errors). Park factors also play a large part in BABIP, thats why often you will see a pitcher's BABIP compared to his teams offensive BABIP (anyone know what the whitesox's offensive BABIP were for 05 and 06?). I compared the 05 difference between actual and expected with the 06 to do my best to isolate the luck. Expected BABIP = LD% +.120

If traded for wisely, A. Jones makes this team a contender NOW, playing any of the OF positions. Pie is still a huge gamble. CF is a gaping hole on this team right now, and they need another big hitter desperately. If the cubs were wise they would just platoon Jacque. The difference in the production of a platooned Jacque and Andruw Jones is surely smaller than the value of Pie et al. CF is not a gaping hole on this team, SS is.

Well it'll make sense when it comes to you. You know, usually when someone discredits a statistic for some reason you're supposed to change the argument. All you did was take the same statistic and show it to me in a different form. It's like you saying that Carlos Lee hits 50 homers per 800 ABs. And then I say that there are other ways to grade a hitter's performance than home runs, then refute my argument with, Carlos Lee hits homers at a rate 25% better than league average. It's the exact same argument and my previous point remains. ERA has little to do with ERA. I wouldn't say a guy with an ERA that's probably going to be five has much if any "production." And yes, Guzman and Marshall can certainly produce the same. Did you miss the entire 2006 season? The one in which Cedeno could easily outproduce Neifi's career numbers and any of the minor leaguers could certainly outproduce the 2005 version of Glendon Rusch? There is no guarantee that Marshall or Guzman could even produce at a semi-acceptable level. The 2006 Marquis was definitely not a great pitcher, however, the Cubs must have seen something in him that makes them truly believe that he can get back on track and outproduce any of the younger pitchers. You can discount ERA all you like, but many of us would be ecstatic if the Cubs #4 pitcher won 15 games with a 3.87 ERA. You do realize though that Glendon Rusch and Neifi Perez themselves could not reproduce, let alone outproduce Rusch's and Perez's 05 seasons, right?

Stats show the why. Why was a team good? The game is to stop your opponent from scoring while scoring as many runs yourself. Stats show how well a team performed at each of these tasks. Stats also show why teams performed how they did at these tasks. Did a team get on base a lot, did they hit for a lot of power. Did their pitchers keep guys off the bases, did they keep the ball in the yard. Stats also more deeply show why they were successful or unsuccessful. Did hitters get on base because they took walks, or because they hit for a high average. Digging deeper, longitudinal stastical analysis has given us norms, predictors. Is a high OBP with a low IsoD sustainable? How can average be predicted using contact rate? When a ball is put into play how does the hitter have control over whether or not it will be a hit or an out? Is there a statistic that allows one to predict, eliminating interference, what that rate should be? One of the main reasons the white sox won in 05 and not in 06 IS shown by statistical analysis as I have pointed out, you are just ignoring it. The White Sox rotation was a main reason they won the WS in 05. A main reason the rotation was successful was a lower than expected BABIP. In 2006 their BABIP was as expected and they came in third. Do you not attribute the 2005 BABIP to luck? Especially when faced with the evidence comparing it to 2006. What do you attribute it to?

They were also quite a bit better defensively in '05. To what degree? I did a cursory look and their feilding % wasn't that different (I know its a bad metric). Also, the only difference in players was Anderson replacing Crede (slight downgrade). The bench was a little different with Cintron and and Mack replacing Blum, Everret, Perez, and Harris. In aggregate the 2006 sox defense were pretty much the same bodies as the 2005 sox defense so how do you explain the large swing in BABIP?

I'll never agree with this, it ignores the plain truth. Getting great performances out of guys is just getting great performances out of guys. No stars coming into alignment. No horoscopes with Moons waxing in Scorpio. Just a really good job by a bunch of people all attempting to get those great performances from those players. A success story. White Sox circa 2005 -- great job, great success story. Regardless of the proof I provided above, don't you think the timing of all of those great performances is lucky? If half of their rotation would have had a great year in 05 and the other half in 06, then they wouldn't have made the playoffs in either year. Heck, pythagorean has them missing the playoffs in both years as it is. You think of it as proof of luck, and I think of it as proof of an organization do a great job for a season. Pythagorean is another of these stat analyses that attempts to determine winners while ignoring all the non-statistical things that have an impact on whether a team wins or loses. A team is not a collection of statistics. That's a video game. As easily understood in my tone, I do not base my case on pythagorean, but rather the lucky batting average per ball in play that the rotation had in 2005. Calling it proof of a great job means that you believe that the whitesox had control over the much lower than expected BABIP. If that is the case then why did they not control it in 2006? (Hint: its not the case). Their defense did not change significantly.

Thats a worse offer for TB than what they already have on the table from the Braves (Davies and LaRoche).