JGalt73

Game is postponed till tomorrow night - same match-ups. Wow this Saturday is shaping up poorly for baseball, 4 possible games down to 2...

In terms of speed and taking the extra base, BP 2005 had a James Click piece looking at runs created by 'aggressive' baserunning. It looked at chances and success at taking extra bases with some attempt at control. The best of the bunch added 5-8 runs over the course of the season. Furcal was among the league leaders in 2004 (2nd with 5.0 'extra' runs), and 2002 (6th, with 5.3 'extra' runs). It doesn't go beyond the top 10. Your most prolific "extra bases taken turned to runs" leaders for 1972-2004: 1) Robin Yount, 2) Rickey Henderson, 3) Ozzie Smith, 4) Ryne Sandberg.

Anyone know why Koronka is on the AFL roster? Doesn't seem like he has much big league potential to me.

This postseason is starting very badly - 4 games and 5 things have gone badly - I count Boston losing and the White Sox winning as two strikes. 8-3 Astros

Pettitte (17-9) 2.39 ERA 72.4 VORP, 6.92 K/9, 1.66 BB/9, WHIP 1.03, lefty @ Hudson (14-9) 3.52 ERA 40.5 VORP, 5.39 K/9, 3.05 BB/9, WHIP 1.35, righty Atlanta #4 in NL in runs scored with 763. .269/.332/.440 vs. lefties Houston #11 in NL runs scored with 687. .258/.322/.414 vs. righties (Can't resist: the Cubs scored only 12 more runs than the 'horrible' offense of the Astros!)

Aramis was not overpaid for his position and for the output he put up. Didn't mean to cause a stir, I posted that with only an eye to return on investment rate, which obviously is flawed against veterans as Bob's Keeper well articulated. You'd be hard pressed to get that repeatable high value for much less on the open market.

I agree (and I started to think the same as I was posting it!). It would be great if you didn't have a 25 man roster, as you need to balance total value and not the rate I presented. What it does allow you to do is look at marginal value for more similar players - and let's you look at the cheap production of a Walker or Barrett. It also reinforces that young and cheap spots are more valuable than throwaway veterans.

Nomar 11.4 VORP, $8.25M, 1.4 VORP/$M

Fixed, and it ain't pretty.

Thought it might help to see who "cost" the team what this year. I've included the math because I'm not sure I got the salaries correct. VORP Salary Derrek Lee 103.9 $7M 14.8 VORP/$M Matt Murton 14.3 ? ? VORP/$M Todd Walker 30.2 $2.5M 12.1 VORP/$M M. Barrett 32.4 $3M 10.8 VORP/$M A. Ramirez 47.6 $8M 6.0 VORP/$M Neifi Perez 11.4 $2.5M 4.6 VORP/$M J. Burnitz 16.2 $5M 3.2 VORP/$M J. Hairston 5.0 $1.8M 2.8 VORP/$M Henry Blanco 2.2 $1.2M 1.8 VORP/$M Nomar 11.2 $8.25M 1.4 VORP/$M T. Hollands. 0.2 $0.9M 0.2 VORP/$M C. Patterson -11.3 $2.8M -4.0 VORP/$M Jose Macias -5.5 $0.825M -6.7 VORP/$M Pitching: VORP Salary J. Williams 16.0 $0.336M 47.6 VORP/$M M. Wuertz 10.3 $0.322M 32.0 VORP/$M M. Prior 30.8 $2M 15.4 VORP/$M C. Zambrano 51.0 $3.76M 13.6 VORP/$M W. Ohman 12.5 ? ? VORP/$M R. Dempster 21.6 $2M 10.8 VORP/$M G. Rusch 11.1 $2M 5.6 VORP/$M G. Maddux 28.1 $9M 3.1 VORP/$M K. Wood 9.0 $8.5M 1.1 VORP/$M S. Williamson -0.2 $0.5M -0.4 VORP/$M If you're buying, Neifi v.2005 is actually a better value (with incentives) than Burnitz; and Aramis was overpaid. Cheap pitching also trumps the stars! What will the Cubs do when they actually have to pay Prior and Zambrano real money?

At least Boston has the safety, it's too bad about the 2 touchdowns they let up though...

Roger Clemens (77.7 VORP), Andy Pettitte (69.6 VORP), and Roy Oswalt (66.3 VORP) combined have a higher VORP than the entire Cubs pitching staff combined (174 VORP). How long ago were the Cubs leading the lists of the most dominaing staffs in baseball? In 2003 Prior, Wood, and Zambrano (170.9) had a VORP nearly equal to this year's entire Cubs staff! :shrug:

We have a new 2nd place NL VORP leader... 1. Roger Clemens 77.7 2. Andy Pettitte 69.6 3. Chris Carpenter 69.0 4. Dontrelle Willis 67.3 5. Pedro Martinez 66.6 6. Roy Oswalt 66.3 Wow, are the Astros a pitching machine this year! Will a 2/3 way Houston split let Carpenter or Willis walk away with the award? Will Carpenter and Willis' poor last starts taint the voting? Will the Cubs lose quickly for Houston's clinched WC and allow Clemens to skip his last start?

He would have started, but Houston is a contender.

Jim Callis of BA agrees with the Cedeno assessment. I'll also throw my vote in for Nomar, though I have to add that a Furcal advantage of lead off (even without an outstanding OBP) prevents Dusty from some of his usual lineup fetishes.

Fun with numbers and runners... Neifi and Macias have gotten 13% of all Cubs at bats with runners in scoring position this year... ...and put up the following lines: Macias .250/.267/.300 Perez .264/.288/.426 Neifi is third on the team for opportunities with RISP, only 1 chance fewer than Aramis Ramirez! Roster construction and line up construction have failed miserably. Don't let me get started that Corey and Neifi and Macias have been at the plate in 20% of all chances with RISP! There is are many reasons our offense ranks 15/16 in runs scored in the NL. Three are presented here.

.259, 10th in the NL. Their RISP OBP is .338, only better than Arizona. This is helped none by the fact that Neifi has been at the plate with RISP the third most times on the team (1 fewer opportunity than Ramirez!) and has hit .264/.288/.426. Patterson is 6th on the team for most opportunities with RISP and has hit an amazing .218/.273/.307. Combined Corey and Neifi have gotten more than 17% of the Cubs AB's with RISP. Neither of them should have gotten these opportunities - the bench (preferably in another town) was an option.

The real reason the Cubs play poorly at home is the lack of 1800 extra bleacher seats - luckily the Tribune is all over this problem.

I think the fluke is that we are better on the road. We're bad at both, with equally negative run differentials. We could easily be <.500 on the road and dismiss the discussion of being worse at Wrigley.

Fluke? Hitting Cubs Away: .269/.326/.438/.763 Cubs Home .273/.327/.449/.776 Opponents Away: .253/.329/.409/.738 Opponents Home .247/.323/.407/.729 Pitching Home: 93 HR, 281 BB, 636 SO, 7.88 K/9, 1.32 WHIP, 4.07 ERA Away: 85 HR, 277 BB, 574 SO, 7.80 K/9, 1.37 WHIP, 4.42 ERA The Cubs hit better at Wrigley - it's a hitter's park, right? However, the Cubs also pitch better at Wrigley, let up fewer runs and runners at Wrigley, and opponents bat worse at Wrigley. Fluke.

While stability at the end of the bullpen is certainly a plus, might not the moral of the story be that for $2M a reliable closer can be made out of a failed starter who was picked up from the scrap heap (even if he just came off Tommy John surgery?). I am somewhat reluctant to pay "closer money" unless I'm getting a Rivera, Wagner (young version), or Gagne...

Let's just assume that there weren't 67 players in baseball who had more runners on during their at bats... If Lee could score his current .1617 RBI per runner and had seen as many runners as... ...Matsui, he'd have 126 RBI. ...David Otiz, he'd have 123 RBI. ...Pujols, he'd have 114 RBI. ...Brian Giles, he'd have 114 RBI... Instead he has his current 105 RBI, and earlier in the season he was destroying the ball without anyone on base for him. Mid-season estimates had him with a chance at 100 RBI by the break if he'd had an above average # of runners on base. Of course it hasn't helped him that he's only had 46 AB with RISP since the break. Lee only has 33 RBI post All Star Break, and only 15 have been by other than HRs. He has not hit well with RISP for 2 months. On an amazing XBH side note, which player is tied for 5th in doubles post ASB? Neifi Perez with 20. Wow!

I was not expecting such bad production in such little time, but using Davenport's park adjusted fielding runs above average so far this year: Nomar(3B&SS)/Walker/Aram : 270 games -29 runs Wright/Reyes/Cairo(2B): 379 games -2 runs Rodriguez/Jeter/Cano: 428 games -8 runs Nomar 28G @ 3B -5 Nomar 26G @ SS -1 Walker 97G @ 2B -9 Ramirez 119G @ 3B -14 The only above average players in the list Wright +2, Cairo +3, Jeter +5.

Corey Patterson, unfortunately, is worse. And there are more than 5 that are worse, but I am guessing you were being somewhat hyperbolic - but, not much... Among all non-pitcher major leaguers with at least 100 PA, Jose Macias is better than only 24 of 427, according to VORP. With Macias' 170 PA as a cut off, there are only 11 worse players given that many appearances - Tomas Perez Miguel Cairo David Newhan Gary Bennett Jose Hernandez Timo Perez Corey Patterson Joe McEwing Eric Byrnes Tony Womack Cristian Guzman Unfortunately, Dusty has managed to play 2 of the 12 worst. (Though, in defense Patterson may have some future value.)

In honor of wasting time (though mine is at work), I looked at OPS by pitch for Zambrano, Maddux, and Prior for this year - I did this a couple weeks ago now... Pitch Avg Z Prior Maddux 0-15 0.782 0.419 0.691 1.051 16-30 0.734 0.538 0.872 0.537 31-45 0.744 0.619 0.634 0.844 46-60 0.750 0.870 0.521 0.742 61-75 0.651 0.616 0.521 0.688 76-90 0.752 0.646 0.803 0.743 91-105 0.608 0.445 0.703 0.624 106-120 0.725 0.659 0.729 0.500 121-135 0.564 0.393 0.800 Prior's troubles come in pitches 15-30: whether this is a terrible inning #1 or inning #2 with the 4-5-6 hitters is open for debate (I don't have the patience to check the game logs). He's unhittable in the middle innings and then is hittable after 75 pitches and sees slowly diminishing returns over 90-105, 106-120, 121+. Maddux is horrid in pitches 1-15 with a 1.051 OPS against. He's then steady and gets slighly better for the rest of his pitches. Zambrano is unhittable early, gets hit at 46-60 pitches (3rd/4th inning back at heart of order?) and then gets better until after 105 pitches - which he sees too regularly (though I will not vent that here). Avg here is for all Cub pitchers, so the variance of these 3 is included... _____ Some of this is obviously skewed as you do not get to later pitches if you are bad early. However, it does appear that we have some extremes with Z great early and Maddux horrible early. As a team, we do have our highest OPS in our 1st 15 pitches and steadily improve over the game.