Rob
-
Posts
15,267 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
13
Content Type
Profiles
Joomla Posts 1
Chicago Cubs Videos
Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits
2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking
News
2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks
Guides & Resources
2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks
The Chicago Cubs Players Project
2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker
2026 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker
Blogs
Events
Forums
Store
Gallery
Everything posted by Rob
-
For the record, I don't believe that using FIP is an inherent flaw with fWAR. They made a choice to use a statistic that is more predicative. That gives fWAR significantly more value than bWAR in debating how to assemble a roster, trying to break down whether a contract is good, etc... If you're looking for a more accurate representation of what actually happened, there's always bWAR. As to Davis himself, his 2011 FIP is obviously not representative (hardly shocking considering it was just 9 starts). His HR/FB which had floated around 11% for his career was at 3.6%. It seems pretty obvious that Davis got lucky on a few hard hit flyballs that hit off the wall instead of going over. FIP saw his H/9 was too high and erased some of those doubles assuming it was the fault of the defense instead of Davis himself. These things happen in 45 IP sample sizes. Can we move on from this boring argument? -
My thoughts on the signing I still can't believe how bad the Pirates infield defense was in 2010. Jeebus.
-
For the record, I'd also like to state that I was WAY off on what I expected the contract to be. I was thinking something like 3/20. At this price he's definitely flippable if healthy.
-
The whole "backloading of contracts" thing is a hell of a lot less about budgeting and more about making things as cheap as possible. Let's look at a hypothetical 2 year contract worth $20 million dollars. Let's also assume you can get a 2% annual rate of return by investing that money into stocks/bonds/mcdonalds property across the street. Scenario A: Frontloaded contract that pays $15 mil the first year and $5 mil the second year - You make $100,000. Scenario B: Evenly split contract that pays $10 mil each year - You make $200,000. Scenario C: Backloaded contract that pays $5 mil the first year and $15 mil the next. - You make $300,000 As long as you believe you can make any money at all investing, backloading a contract will help out your bottom line.
-
I was just working on writing an article for the front page and decided on a whim to check out the Pirates infield defense metrics the last few years. In the least shocking development of all time, when he was pitching in front of a crappy infield Maholm's ERA went up. I'll post the article tomorrow. Gotta figure out a couple stupid formatting things but it's too late for that now. Suffice to say I like the move, pending absurd contract details.
-
There's a pretty decent chance that the Garza deal will send back a young SP who could slot into the rotation (though it wouldn't shock me to see us start a Turner or Drabek or Banuelos at AAA). There's also a pretty decent chance that Dempster is traded before opening day. I would be absolutely shocked if Sonnanstine is thought of as anything more than an emergency fill-in option we hide at AAA until June.
-
Re: What would you deal Garza for?
Rob replied to toonsterwu's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
I read on PSD that Dombrowski likes both DeWitt and Samardzija and feels they both fit. I'd be disappointed to give up Samardzija after he seems to finally be putting it together, but I'm sure the package would probably be worth it. -
Isn't Russell cheap for a few more years though? Never let a middle reliever get in the way.
-
14 was a bit of a surprise for me as well. I figured us in the 18-22 range but was preparing myself to see 25 or so. Also kinda surprised to see Baez at #31. I mean, I knew he was between #28 and #42, but I definitely figured on the back end of that. He didn't get a chance to do much of anything during the season... I imagine his placement next year will be more telling.
-
Sending someone like Baker would make sense. Barney would actually make a ton of sense for the Tigers. They could move Barney back to SS, shift Peralta over to 3B, and kick Inge to the curb. Of course... he's young, cheap, and moderately productive. That makes it unlikely the Cubs deal him unless DD is willing to pay for it. Baker and Byrd are both useful pieces that aren't perfect fits for the Tigers but could be of some use. I'd hope we get some degree of consideration for either. DeWitt is a pretty blah piece that is a safe throw-in DD shouldn't have to pay anything for. But he is a lefty and the Tigers do have Raburn and Inge who mash on lefties... so if you discount his funky reverse platoon splits he might be somewhat attractive to the Tigers.
-
Glad to hear it. He certainly deserves it.
-
Lots of information in today's Ask BA:
-
What if he signs a 3 year contract and is flipped midseason? Could it happen? Sure. If the offers are good enough, I expect Theo would deal just about anybody. But signing somebody to a 3 year contract when you have no intent of keeping them around more than 3 months is extremely risky. You'd be betting against injury and ineffectiveness while hoping the teams in the race are guys with holes in their rotations and more attractive starters aren't made available. Not to mention the fact that in order for such a gamble to make sense, you have to acquire something of more value than the time you've paid for... So if you assume he's getting $6 mil per season (probably low but it makes the math easy) and you trade him at the deadline, you'd need to have acquired pieces worth approximately $4 mil just to break even. Anything less and you'd be better off having spent the money in IFA.
-
Maholm is much more likely to be a David DeJesus type signing... 2-3 year contract in the hopes he can help us compete in 2013 and 2014. I really don't see him signing a one year contract and being flipped midseason.
-
Wood is a pretty extreme flyball pitcher. Volstad and Maholm are extreme groundball guys. I'd be pretty interested in hearing how the batted ball profile affects their decision-making process. It could be something entirely off the wall like "well, we weren't so worried about Wood being an extreme flyball guy because the park factor for HR is only particularly high for lefties, which he should perform well against." This is sort of what I was attempting to allude to in that post. Only I'm not smart enough to put it that way. I definitely got what you were saying in my first read of that post. Of course that only angered me, as I had just finished retyping my post about 12 different times for the sake of clarity before finally hitting submit... only to see your post on the exact same topic had appeared in that time.
-
Park Factor of 119 for LH HR. This whole article might be worth reading for ya, if you're interested. http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php/kicking-big-rocks-extreme-park-factors-and-batted-ball-data/
-
Wood is a pretty extreme flyball pitcher. Volstad and Maholm are extreme groundball guys. I'd be pretty interested in hearing how the batted ball profile affects their decision-making process. It could be something entirely off the wall like "well, we weren't so worried about Wood being an extreme flyball guy because the park factor for HR is only particularly high for lefties, which he should perform well against."
-
Hmmm... Garza/Dempster/Maholm/Wood/Volstad/Wells I wonder who the odd man out is? This whole thing could be a sign of a move to come or it could just be that the plan is to send a guy down to AAA. Anybody know the option status for Wood, Volstad, and Wells?
-
This.
-
Yeah, I'm absolutely a Big HOF guy.
-
I think Sappelt is probably a fourth OF. But given the fact we're going nowhere this season I would absolutely love to give him as many PA as possible so he can prove me wrong.
-
I think between Wood/Volstad/Wells we're likely to have one guy perform like a #3, one guy like a #4, and one guy like a #5. I'm not going to try to predict which is which.
-
Misc. Free Agent News
Rob replied to Clem Fandango's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
From the moment Theo and Jed came on board they have preached about how poor defensively the Cubs have been and how they wanted to change that. And Hawpe actually makes Soriano look like a fantastic LF by comparison. There is absolutely zero chance that the front office would ever seriously consider Hawpe for an outfield role. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. You can keep talking about how they might, but it is in no way realistic even in the slightest. 1B, maybe. I can see a confluence of circumstances that might, however unlikely, allow Hawpe to be the stopgap until Rizzo is ready. But the idea that we might ever acquire Hawpe to play the OF is about as likely as luring Barry Bonds out of retirement. And that's not hyperbole. -
this cannot possibly be true, unless you're considering their prime to be like 8 years long. I wish I could remember who posted it. But I thought hitters primes were shown to be closer to 23-27. No one else remembers this within the last month or 2? That was me. It was in the middle of (yet another) debate on how Fielder's size might impact his decline. I can do ya one better. There was an article on fangraphs a month or so back that had a nice little graph. I'll just copy and paste the relevant stuff. The rest of the article actually talks about Prince specifically and how much value the author expects him to have over his upcoming contract. It's definitely worth a read. At any rate... the premise that bad-bodied, one-dimensional sluggers age poorly has long been a sabermetric tenet and it would seem that premise still holds up. Is it a certainty? No. Nothing is. But if we're gonna bet against the odds, I'd much rather do it for 5 years than 7.
-
Misc. Free Agent News
Rob replied to Clem Fandango's topic in MLB Draft, International Signings, Amateur Baseball
:shock: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:
