shawndgoldman

I'm shocked no one's suggested Soriano at 2nd yet. Put Soriano at 2nd, anyone but Cedeno at SS (Theriot, DeRosa, or Izturis), Murton/Floyd in LF, Pie in CF, and Jones in RF. If you can, sign Preston Wilson to platoon with Pie until he can hit lefties better than Jones (which shouldn't take long) and at that point slide Wilson's platoon to RF with Jones.

They sure did. Pierre's BABIP was around .250 for the first few months of the season, and climbed up over .300 in the 2nd half. His career BABIP is .320, but was only .305 last year. The league average is somewhere around .300. As for the general discussion, BABIP is Batting Average on Balls in Play, so it doesn't take into account home runs or strikeouts. Thus, its calculated by (Hits - HR)/(ABs - HRs - K). There are a few things to consider when looking at BABIP: 1) a pitcher doesn't have much control over the % line drives given up, but can control the % of ground balls and fly balls given up. Changing a pitcher's GB/FB ratio will change both his BABIP and his average, OBP, and slugging rates against. 2) a hitter's BABIP doesn't vary much from season to season. A hitter can control the line drive % (ala Jeter), and can also control his BABIP through excellent bat handling (ala Ichiro) or speed (ala Pierre). However, usually a hitter won't improve dramatically in these abilities with time. 3) an anomolous BABIP is usually a sign that the extra hits on balls in play was due to good fortune (or bad fortune or team fielding, for BABIP against). Players tend to not change their abilities with regards to BABIP, just their luck. A hitter with an anomolously high BABIP one season can be expected to have a BABIP closer to their career norm the following year. Likewise for BABIP against with a pitcher. This is all relavent because of Mark DeRosa. His BABIP in 2006 was well above his career average. His BABIP bump comes from an increase in line drive %. If that represents a change in his ability to hit line drives, then we can expect him to produce at or near his 2006 level. If the extra live drive % is a result of friendly scoring of those few lucky hits that found holes (a soft liner to the OF that falls is more likely to be called a line drive than one that is caught), then his production will likely return to his pre-2006 level. Its hard to say what caused his increased LD% in 2006. Only time will tell, i suppose... (OT aside: Derwood, you realize that if OSU and Michigan win their bowl games, and ND and Wisconsin win out, then PSU will have 4 losses, all to teams that will likely end the season in the top 5? I'm a HUGE PSU fan, and think a big win Saturday and a win in the Outback bowl would make this a successful season.)

I'd change that slightly: A player's best tool determines where he bats: 1-2 speed 3-6 power 7-8 leftover crap, with better contact hitter batting 8 and better power hitter batting 7 Either way, Dusty's lineup construction is a joke. The fact that its rarely complained about anymore isn't a sign his lineups have improved, its only a sign of how little they matter these days.

We are awesomely bad/awful/terrible?

I think asking him a question related to how he manages a game could prove very revealing. Something along the lines of OBP vs. speed at the top of the lineup or tools v. stats as was mentioned above.

Obviously not, but what if the Marlins decide to move him in the offseason because of his impending salary increase, AND Girardi requested he be traded to the Cubs? In that scenario, the Cubs could make a deal for Cabrera AND Girardi, with some low-level pseudo-prospect thrown into the Cabrera deal to nab Girardi. I know that's very very very far-fetched, but wouldn't it be great if Hendry solved two problems with one brilliant off-season move?

I think the this speaks to the more underrated of the two biggest problems in the Cubs organization... Many of us know of and complain about the Cubs' lack of emphasis of OBP and working the count, but there is another, perhaps more dangerous side to that coin - the emphasis placed on pitching for strikeouts, pitch counts and walks be damned. We are at the top of the league in strikeouts by pitchers every single season, but all our pitchers (except Maddux) have totaled high pitch counts/inning as they nibble the corners avoiding the dangers of "aggressive major league hitters". That this is occuring at the same time baseball as a whole is waking up to the importance of OBP and working the count makes this philosophy even more dangerous. One can argue that high pitch counts was one of the major factors leading to the Marlins comeback in the 2003 NLCS, and a major cause of the injuries sustained by our staff since then. Furthermore, most of out pitchers that have come up since Rothschild took over seem to show much worse control in the majors than they did in the minors. (I haven't done an analysis of this, but i'm willing to bet the regression in this category is worse than league-average regression by a significant margin.) Firing Rothschild and birnging in a guy that preaches agressiveness to his staff is an absolute must at this point, given our young rotation and the bevy of prospects that are near being ready for MLB jobs.

I'm guessing that if Prior goes on the DL, Hill is called up to start in his place until his return. However, due to the off day Monday we won't need our 5th starter until the 22rd of July. Hill may stay down in the minors to get one more start. Interestingly, Hill's "start" the other night puts him on track to start on the 17th and the 22nd... Hopefully, Theroit gets a chance to prove he's worth more than Neifi in the next week.

I can't express in words how excited this makes me... One of these :D will have to do. Absolutely. One thing Al and i agree on is the only surefire way to answer the question is to give the guy more innings in the majors. I for one am all in favor of finding out what we have by doing so. That certainly is interesting. I'm really glad you're on the case here! Keep up the excellent work!

Your Felix Pie article was fantastic! I was wondering if you can provide the same type of data for the hitters our pitching prospects face. I've been debating whether or not Rich Hill is a "AAAA pitcher" with Al Yellon over at Bleed Cubbie Blue. The big problem with Hill at the MLB level to date has been his high walk rate... the big question is what causes the high walk rate. Al believes that Hill has a curveball that major leaguers lay off of when it misses the zone but that minor league hitters swing at even when its in the dirt. I tend to think Hill's nibbled at the corners more at the MLB level due to either fear of the better hitters or due to the coaching of Larry Rothschild and Dusty Baker. The problem i envision is a correctable one but the one Al thinks is causing trouble has to do with a lack of talent, so determining which one is really the cause of Hill's troubles will go a long way towards telling us what we can expect out of him in the future. The swing rate, contact rate, and location charts you showed for Pie would be incredibly powerful tools for resolving this debate. If Al's right, then the swing rate should be much higher for Hill's AAA appearances than his major league ones, and there should be a big blue spot low in the zone for Hill's AAA opponent swing% chart that isn't there (or is at least more green) for the same chart at the MLB level. If i'm right, then the swing rates should stay relatively constant between AAA and MLB but the pitch rate should be higher outside the zone for Hill's MLB appearances. Either way, thanks for doing this! The data is fantastic!

I think its about time we sign Rusch to a long term deal so he doesn't bolt for greener pastures.

I think his lower rate stats arise from having a lower BABIP. This in turn seems to have arisen from line drives turning into ground balls. I would expect him to start hitting more line drives, which would bring his BABIP back up, thereby raising his OBP and SLG averages. Raising his BABIP from .172 back up to the league average of .300 would increase his OBP to .399 and his SLG up to .380. That's still a weak SLG rate, but i would expect that to come up as well as he stops hitting less many ground balls and more line drive doubles and HRs.

Are you serious? Lets enact the mob mentality that as soon as a guy blows a save he's the worst closer ever - that makes us look real intelligent!

I listened to the most recent Gammons interview on WEEI, and he didn't say anything about the Cubs or Wirtz. Furthermore, the guy who "fenway" over at WSI said was interviewing Gammons wasn't even on the show... he's gone for the week. I smell a lie...

I'm listening to the most recent Gammons interview on the WEEI web site right now. I'll let you know if he mentions anything about a Cubs sale or Wirtz purchase. Personally, i'm starting to smell a liar over on the white sox board...

I've emailed both WEEI and Peter Gammons to see if he did actually report this yesterday evening. We'll see what happens. The fella that posted this over at WSI (Fenway) gave me the info i requested right away, so i don't think he's making it up. Whether or not Gammons is actually onto something is another story...

He also hit my absolute favorite home run of all time in the 2003 NLCS.

True, but you can only afford dedicated fielders for left, center, and right in your starting lineup. Since you only have a few bench bats/gloves to go around, you need them to be able to play multiple positions. That means the ideal bench OF'er will be able to play at least 2 OF positions...

Wouldn't that have looked nice next to: Jones 2005 vs. Righties: .268/.348 /.466/.814 and Jones career vs. Righties: .294/.341/.488/.830 Unfortunately, with the injuries to our pitching staff we couldn't afford to make a deal for Pena. If Wood and Prior had been healthy we might have been able to make a run at him to platoon with Jones and we'd be looking at a future OF of Murton, Pie, and Pena, which is pretty darn good.

Is anyone else having trouble connecting to MLB.TV?

the other option - if you have a nice computer, is to get Orb, which is free. You need to have a comp with a TV-card, however. http://www.orb.com

Not a good sign for our offense either. People have to stop trying to read the tea leaves via the first week of spring training games, or any spring training games for that matter. The results of these games aren't a sign for anything. Amen. ST games are useful for one thing - monitoring the competition for positions on the team. Williams likely has a spot on the team either way, but he is certainly competing for a SP spot. This very well could be a bad sign for Williams, even if today's game doesn't say much about the offense...

Does anyone know who the runs were scored off of? Were they all on Williams?

Thanks for the updates, Vance!