Ender

Keep in mind that is assuming no bench etc. Ankiel and Duncan are playing full time in that lineup instead of platoons, Pujols elbow doesn't steal AB's etc.

It isn't just Cameron though, it is the fact it moves Hall out of CF and Braun out of 3B. Hall cost the team roughly 1-1.5 wins defensively in CF last year, Braun cost roughly 3 wins at 3B. Gross/Dillon were average defensive players which is who was going to play LF. The defensive shifts that come along with the signing are just huge. Kendall had 20 CS in 131 attempts last year for a 15%. Estrada had 11 CS in 73 attempts for a 15%. Kendall had a 30% in 2006, Estrada had a 29%. There really isn't much of a difference.

How do you figure average? Jay Jaffe ran some numbers today at BP that suggests they've improved the defense but are still a below average defensive team. http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=7093 Well defense is a tricky beast since every system disagrees on different players. Plus/Minus had them at -48 last year and about -30 of that was Braun alone, another -10 was Hall in CF. Then again Kendall may be worse than Estrada defensively and Weeks will play more so it is hard to say. You would think some guys would improve over last year just with age. I'll say closer to average than last year by a lot and leave it at that.

That baseballmusings lineup thing always creates really goofy looking lineups, I wouldn't buy too much into the lineup it spits out. The runs/game it spits out seems relatively accurate though.

It's hard for me to see how the Brewers have as good a pitching staff as the Cubs. :-k Not hard for me at all. Last year the Brewers arguably had a better pitching staff, they had better peripherals than the Cubs but a much worse DER which is usually the fault of the defense. The defense has been shifted around so it should be about average now instead of 3rd worst in the league. The real key to that projection is Gagne, not sure I buy into a 3.38 ERA for him, I'm thinking more in the mid to high 3.00's. The other key of course is Marmol which I see as sort of a higher upside Turnbow but I'm sure others see as more of a Broxton type. Depends on if his BB/9 from the first half is the reality or from the second half.

Cubs - Aramis Ramirez - .301/.363/.536, 5.8 WARP Derrek Lee - .296/.381/.517, 5.4 WARP Alfosnso Soriano - .278/.336/.544, 4.9 WARP Geovany Soto - .273/.352/.470, 4.7 WARP Kosuke Fukudome - .289/.401/.504, 4.4 WARP Felix Pie - .284/.339/.470, 3.7 WARP Mark DeRosa - .286, .360, .439, 3.3 WARP Ryan Theriot - .270/.330/.347, 3.1 WARP Carlos Zambrano - 3.81 ERA, 1.33 WHIP, 4.7 WARP Rich Hill - 4.02 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, 4.7 WARP Ted Lilly - 4.25 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 3.7 WARP Bob Howry - 3.60 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 2.2 WARP Michael Wuertz - 3.47 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 1.9 WARP Carlos Marmol - 4.06 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 1.9 WARP Sean Marshal - 4.74 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, 1.8 WARP Ryan Dempster - 4.24 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 1.8 WARP Jason Marquis - 5.04 ERA, 1.48 WHIP, 1.7 WARP Jon Lieber - 4.62 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, 1.5 WARP Kerry Wood - 4.25 ERA, 1.38 WHIP, 1.0 WARP Brewers Ryan Braun - .300/.367/575, 6.1 WARP Corey Hart - .288/.358/.528, 5.9 WARP Prince Fielder - .287/.384/.560, 5.5 WARP JJ Hardy - .273/.329/.441, 4.4 WARP Mike Cameron - .269/.356/.493, 4.4 WARP Rickie Weeks - .265/.368/.454, 3.5 WARP Bill Hall - .267/.335/.482, 3.5 WARP Jason Kendall - .255/.324/.321, 1.7 WARP Yovani Gallardo - 3.88 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 4.8 WARP Ben Sheets - 3.93 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 3.9 WARP Eric Gagne - 3.38 ERA, 1.28 WHIP, 3.9 WARP Dave Bush - 4.31 ERA, 1.32 WHIP, 3.7 WARP Chris Capuano - 4.51 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 2.9 WARP Jeff Suppan - 4.84 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 2.4 WARP David Riske - 3.96 ERA, 1.35 WHIP, 1.7 WARP Carlos Villanueva - 4.72 ERA, 1.44 WHIP, 1.4 WARP Saloman Torres - 4.29 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, 1.4 WARP Derrick Turnbow - 4.56 ERA, 1.54 WHIP, 1.2 WARP Brian Shouse - 4.12 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 1.0 WARP Totals - Brewers had a 35 WARP out of the every day hitters, the Cubs a 35.3. Brewers a 28.3 out of rotation and top 6 RP, Cubs a 26.9. PECOTA thinks the two teams are pretty much even.

Jenkins/Werth is the OF platoon and it should be pretty productive. Ruiz is the C - .259/.340/.396 in his first full season, projects to be better than that in the future. The rotation is ceratinly a question mark, the bullpen is ok but not great. That lineup is going to be better than last year barring injuries and is enough to carry the team.

I certainly agree and any team from the #2 spot all the way down until the Giants/Marlins level teams could easily make the playoffs. I think the Mets are the clear top team and after that we have a big mix of teams that could be anywhere from 80-88 wins depending on which players step up and which get hurt etc.

You don't undertand how much defense means if this was a serious post. Most sources have him listed as an .800+ OPS C which makes him top 5 or so in the NL even if his defense doesnt' show up. As for the pitching, Zambrano is in a clear downward spiral over the past 4 years and I don't think last year was fluke. Lilly had a career year that I don't see repeating. Marquis and the #5's are all worse than they pitched last year. The real difference is i don't believe in the Cubs defense from last year, I don't think they are a top 5 defensive team.

1. Mets - Seems pretty obvious 2. Dodgers - This is a really good team if they let the younger guys play 3. Phillies - A lot depends on Lidge but this is still a good team. 4. Braves - Good lineup, ok pitching, strong bullpen. 5. Brewers - The cameron signing is biggest upgrade in the NL Central this season, the defensive rearrangement is worth 4-5 wins imo. 6. Rockies - Took a hot streak to sneak into the playoffs, I don't see a repeat. 7. Cubs - Soto won't be as good as people think, Fukudome will take some time to adjust, the rotation will regress. 8. Diamondbacks - This was a sub .500 team last year and even with the Haren upgrade they'll have problems competing in that division this year. 9. Padres - This team is on a downward trend. 10. Reds - I love the Reds young guys, they are the one team that could mature early and be 4-5 spots above where I pick them. 11. Astros - this is a really poorly built team with no long term future, this is a huge drop from #10 with the Reds having a shot at .500+ and the Astros having a shot at 90+ losses. 12. Marlins - meh 13. Giants - worst franchise in baseball when you take $$ into account and yes I think it is worse than Baltimore which is shocking. 14. Cardinals - They need to rebuild big time. 15. Nationals - No pitching 16. Pirates - small market + poorly run = bad results

Those MLE's are more optimistic than BaseballHQ/Ron Shandlers. He has OPS of .772, .719, .772, .834, .839 over the past 5 seasons. I don't know what the differences in the two versions are but he does mention that the league itself is pretty comperable to AAA but with smaller parks and smaller balls.

Using the plus/minus system the Cubs had the 4th best fielding in the NL with a +52. The Brewers as a comparison had the 3rd worst with a -48. That means in theory at least that the Cubs made 100 more plays defensively than the Brewers would have which equals roughly 80 runs or 8 Wins. Which of course is the playoffs vs 2nd place. Now the pitchers also have a plus/minus stat that relates to things like infield flies, groundballs etc and the Cubs were also 3rd in the NL in that stat which suggests the pitching as a whole SHOULD have a lower than normal BABIP even without the defense taken into account. As for it being repeatable, that is pretty hard to say. Lee is a good 1B, Theriot scouts like an average defensive player but was above average last year. Aramis has been below average his entire career and was above average last year. My guess is the IF defense regresses this year. However the OF defense should be pretty good if scouting reports on Fukudome are accurate.

Kind of confused what the problem is. That Soriano and Ramirez projection is basically spot on, nobody is going to perfectly predict R/RBI or playtime but the OBP/SLG which is the important part is almost perfect. The only major difference with Lee is his BABIP was so extremely high last year which again you cannot predict which player get the lucky hits. That leaves DeRosa who only had a 1 year history of being decent so of course a system didn't think he'd repeat it and I'm still doubtful he repeats it since his AVG was .030 pts higher than his xAVG last year which suggests a line that looks a lot more like the PECOTA one in the future. Those projections were pretty decent and if you actually use more stable stats like xAVG, xERA etc I'm sure they are even more spot on. No system is going to predict luck correctly so when you use stats heavily influenced by luck/variance/sample size whatever you want to call it you will not get great results.

Really depends on his health. If he is fully healthy I like him more than Leiber. He was actually pitching pretty well last season before he got hurt.

A #3 starter in the NL in 2006 had between a 4.31 and 4.84 ERA on average. He probably falls into the #4 category now since scoring is down a little. That isn't adjusted for parks or anything though.

Lieber's xERA the past 3 years have been 3.75, 4.10 and 4.09 so he really hasn't regressed that much. He has had problems with strand rates each of the last two seasons which might indicate some problems pitching out of the stretch or just might be randomness. I'd say there is a decent chance he puts up at least as good of numbers as Marquis and better than Dempster.

Capuano's ISO was better last year than the year before so it is hard to blame the extra base hits on the defense. It was mostly the singles and the fact the bullpen let in 16 of 25 inherited runners on him.

You cannot begin to discuss how good a pitcher actually is without removing the defense and park from the equation.

The average #5 SP puts up over a 5.50 ERA, the average #4 SP is around a 5.00 ERA. The Brewers have three guys who are a #4 on a bad year and a #3 on a good year at the back of their rotation. I cannot stress enough how much the defense mattered last season, using the plus/minus system if you swapped the Brewers and Cubs defense last year the Brewers give up 80 fewer runs putting them at 4.30 R/G in a hitters park good for 3rd in the NL (The Cubs being 2nd last year btw at 4.26 R/G). The difference between the Cubs and Brewers pitching last year was mostly just defense.

The Brewers had the 3rd best FIP in the NL last year so it was really the fact they had the 3rd worst defense in the NL that held their pitching down. When you add in the fact they are in a hitters park vs an extreme pitchers park they had the 2nd or 3rd best pitching in the NL and they should be better this year.

Hart is a decent CF so probably him with Dillon/Gross platoon in RF.

The first game he is available is April 29th against the Cubs. My math has this at about a +4 win move for the Brewers. +2 wins from hiding Braun's glove in LF instead of at 3B, +1 win from moving from Hall to Cameron defensively in CF and then +1 win for upgrading from Gross/Kapler/Gwynn/Dillon to Cameron offensively.

Well ERA is a terrible way to judge a pitcher over a partial season so it basically is nothing. If you look at peripherals they were just about the same guy last year with Marshall being just a tiny bit better. Of course Marshall is a 25 year old rookie who has shown flashes of much better skills and Marquis is a 29 year old who probably won't get any better.

Large market teams can afford to 'overpay' with prospects so there is nothing wrong with the deal. If the names remain the same I like the deal a lot for the Orioles but I don't think the Cubs are really any better than the Brewers so if Roberts is even a 1 or 2 win upgrade it could be what puts the Cubs in the playoffs so it is worth it.

Well I'm sure the .370 BABIP between the majors and minors was part of it. Shandler has him down for .272, 13 HR, 45 R, 56 RBI and an .801 OPS which would be pretty darn good for a catcher. His MLE's from 2004 to 2006 paint the downside though .676, .630, .683. Last year was the first season he has been decent offensively from an MLE standpoint.