KaiserCesar

Fun fact - Dejesus, Lahair and Stewart are in the top 17 in the NL in pitches per plate appearance. Woo, homerun!

They had 18 as a team.

Just show me the calculation where the probability is "easily greater than 10%". Well, the average no-hit avoidance streak is currently 10.86 years, so I don't think it's too far out of line using the rationale you used. Here's the data I used on that one. The original 10% was a very quick and dirty calculation I did on the fly assuming there being 3+ no-hitters per year and a 1 out of 30 chance of it being one specific team each time. I skewed it upward due to the offensive woes of the Cubs, even though the runs scored of teams that have been no-hit suggests that that doesn't really matter too much. Using your "post 2007" time frame, the CUBS have played 693 games and made 6,167 hits, or 8.90 hits/game. They have not been no-hit during that period, 1 hit once, 2 hit seven times....... H/G Instances 0 0 1 1 2 7 3 12 4 30 5 51 6 68 7 84 8 77 9 92 10 78 11 54 12 28 13 38 14 37 15 13 16 9 17 6 18 6 19 1 20 0 21 1 22 0 23 0 24 0 25 0 I didn't take the time to calculate the standard deviation for these 693 games, but I'd still like to see you try to get "easily greater than 10%" out of these numbers, eh? I'd like to think using the numbers relating to the overall occurrences of no-hitters would be a better approach, since we'd have to infer the nature of the distribution of hits per game and some more sophisticated math (oh no!).

Just show me the calculation where the probability is "easily greater than 10%". Well, the average no-hit avoidance streak is currently 10.86 years, so I don't think it's too far out of line using the rationale you used. Here's the data I used on that one. orioles - 2007 - 5 yankees - 2003 - 9 blue jays - 2011 - 1 red sox - 1993 - 19 indians - 2011 - 1 white sox - 2011 - 1 tigers - 2010 - 2 royals - 2008 - 4 twins - 2012 - 0 rangers - 2007 - 5 angels - 1999 - 13 a's - 1991 - 21 mariners - 2012 - 0 nationals/expos - 1999 - 13 mets - 1993 - 19 braves - 2010 - 2 phillies - 1978 - 34 reds - 2010 - 2 cardinals - 1990 - 22 astros - 2008 - 4 brewers - 2007 - 5 cubs - 1965 - 47 pirates - 1971 - 41 dodgers - 1994 - 18 giants - 2003 - 9 padres - 2009 - 3 diamondbacks - 2006 - 6 rays - 2010 - 2 rockies - 1996 - 16 marlins - 2010 - 2 The original 10% was a very quick and dirty calculation I did on the fly assuming there being 3+ no-hitters per year and a 1 out of 30 chance of it being one specific team each time. I skewed it upward due to the offensive woes of the Cubs, even though the runs scored of teams that have been no-hit suggests that that doesn't really matter too much.

There is literally never a decent chance a team gets no-hit. Well, I guess it means by what 'decent' is. Since 2007, there have been 18 no hitters over the course of 5 and a third seasons. The Cubs are in the bottom quarter of the league in terms of offense, so the chances are easily greater than 10% over the course of an entire season, but significantly less than that now that a third of the season is done and we are moving into summer. If the probability of the CUBS getting no-hit once during the course of any given season were "easily greater than 10%" then one could logically infer that they would have been no-hit at least once every 10 years, on average. The stark reality of the situation is that 47 years (and 7,376 games) have transpired since the CUBS were last no-hit by Sandy Koufax in 1965 Something just doesn't add up here. Well, the Cubs have the longest streak of avoiding no-hitters, so it's really a statistical anomaly more than anything. Also, I'm using post-2007 numbers to try to reflect the run environment a little bit. Between 2002 and 2006, only 5 no-hitters happend in comparison to the 16 between 2007 and 2012.

I just calculated the numbers on the no-hitters since 2007 and the average offensive rank of the teams that got no-hit was 14, so that does seem pretty random and not too dependent on team performance.

There is literally never a decent chance a team gets no-hit. Well, I guess it means by what 'decent' is. Since 2007, there have been 18 no hitters over the course of 5 and a third seasons. The Cubs are in the bottom quarter of the league in terms of offense, so the chances are easily greater than 10% over the course of an entire season, but significantly less than that now that a third of the season is done and we are moving into summer.

The Cubs are a little worse at scoring runs (27th) than getting base hits (23rd), but I think it's at least a decent chance they get no-hit considering some of the lineups that get put out there once a couple of injuries or days off occur.

Or hold onto him and make a qualifying offer at season's end? With this number of trade targets, there's little risk of all potential trading partners sneaking back into contention or deciding to hold onto their arms. With that in mind, there's really no reason for GM to pay a premium for Dempster considering its a near certainty at least a few of those guys will be available.

So if Russell is to be moved to the closer role, won't they have to call up another lefty? Do they have another in it already? I've lost track of which horrible junk ballers are up at this point. Maine has been back and forth so far this year, currently in Iowa, I believe. Beliveau is also on the 40-man but he has some talent and it's his first year at AAA so we probably won't see him for awhile.

Assuming that latter's .217 BABIP isn't permanent, I don't see Vitters being good enough to take the job away from Stewart in the next year and a half. I like Vitters quite a bit, but I suspect his value will be greater to a small-market team in need of a cheap 3b solution, and we'll be able to use him as a trade chip to that end. Everyone's a trade chip right now but unless someone better than Ian Stewart shows up The Vitters has a better chance of sticking around. Stewart is not a real long term option, BABIP hell or not. He's not really a good player. With good defense and a decent bat, he's a good player to have 'in the mix' while he's cheap, but not necessarily anchoring 3rd base indefinitely. However, with Lahair and Rizzo, it's not like there's a ton of playing time to go around at the corner infield positions, so the roster will probably have to be shuffled unless Lahair shows he can be a competent outfielder.

Does Soriano's OPS eclipse Castro's at any point this year? Right now its .710 and .740

I love that look with Jeffery on the outside and Marshall in the slot next to him. That can be a deadly alignment for the Bears. I think Marshall can get so much attention from the LBs, safeties, and CB over him that he can free up Jeffery on the outside, or if they are in 3-wide, a WR on the opposite side of the field is going to have man coverage, with very little safety help if the Bears are facing a single high. That's the type of coverage Hester can actually exploit. I believe the years that Marshall has scored a ton of TD's he's been used in that slot position in the red zone area. He can definitely find his spots and use his body to make the catch in crowded spaces.

The prospect gamble makes sense if the team does not have the resources to compete with that player in their prime years. It's done to give the chance to get even more production than the team could imagine getting with the player. The Cubs have a lot of payroll flexibility and a middle-of-the-pack farm system with good talent evaluators in the front office. The player in question also has a really long tome before any decline is fathomable. A straight up prospect gamble makes no sense and any deal would have to include a young and very productive player. There's no reason a team would make the deal unless they have a complete logjam at another position. That would be the case where a deal might be considered.

The likely way to subsidize a renovation trough property taxes would be through tax increment financing (TIF) which is done by creating a TIF district that captures any increase in property taxes and allocates them to a fund for redevelopment rather than going towards education and the general county and city budgets. Although if you capture property tax increases that are not a result of wrigley, you are effectively raising taxes or cutting services to everyone else because those funds are diverted. TIF is typically used for blighted areas with some glaring exceptions to that such as the Lasalle Central TIF district, so this approach could face some opposition.

I'm sure that's not close to true. You don't think property value has increased every day for the past 20 years in Wrigleyville? I don't, nor does the Cook County Assessor's office, take a look around at properties on their site http://cookcountyassessor.com/Property_Search/property_details.aspx?pin=14202190431001

the plan worked perfectly, campana wouldn't have been running on contact if there weren't 2 outs first.

So his bad rates are sustainable, but his good rates aren't? The drop off from his good rates coming down to earth will far outweigh the gain he gets when his K rate comes down too. So he won't ops 1.200? If the k rate can get cut down below 30 he can be decent .800 ops bat with something like a .340 obp and .460 slg. When the ball is hit, it's being hit really well by Lahair, just not .600 Babip and 37% hr/fb good. I'm reserving a more definite opinion until we get around that 150 pa mark Kyle mentioned.

I thought most of those were bad pitches to hit and all those fouls were impressive Jack Moore at fangraphs did a post on the at-bat http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/lahair-wins-mottes-12-pitch-battle/

I believe thats 13/23 for those keeping track at home

If you normalized his Babip, he would go from 12/22 on balls in play to 7/22. That would leave him with a .370 obp. Not exactly a fringe bat. Now also normalize his HR/FB%... 1 less home run turned into a fly ball in play. So, now we're talking an obp of something around .350. The real key going forward for Lahair will be if he can keep that K rate in the mid 20's where he's historically been. The stats show he's been lucky, but not that he needs luck to be productive.

If you normalized his Babip, he would go from 12/22 on balls in play to 7/22. That would leave him with a .370 obp. Not exactly a fringe bat.

You're basing that statement on that small of a sample? Matt Stairs played MLB level for a long time I'm basing that statement on his career and a lifetime of Julio Zuletas and Micah Hoffpauirs. I'm dismissing his small sample stats because of his small sample peripherals. It's not like we're talking about Tyler Colin here who mustered a slg heavy .800 ops by having an unusually high hr/fb. Lahair has exaggerated peripherals - but that's allowing him to have his 1.100 ops. Once those numbers come down, we'll see if he can keep his strike out rate down as well and continue to be a good hitter (his k rate isn't historically quite this high). In the worst case, he's a bench bat for a few years and could even be a valuable player on a contending Cubs team depending on how he ages.

Where is Samardzija?

K rate is down around 25% now and the BA up above .250, ops over .800