Ender

To give a Brewer fan perspective. Braun and Aramis have to be a push at 3B, Aramis should be better than last year and Braun could easily regress. There is no way to give C to the Cubs, it should be a push or incomplete. Soto is almost completely unproven and many a big hitting prospect has come out flat their first full season. Kendall's 2nd half was a lot like his 2006 so it isnt' safe to assume he's done as a hitter, sure OPS doesn't like him but if he can post a .350 OBP he'll be valuable. Hart should be an edge over Fukudome. If Fukudome matches Hideki's rookie year Hart will be better, there is no reason to expect Fukudome to come off of elbow surgery and adjust to a new league and put up Hart like numbers. Hart had a .913 OPS and a .951 OPS his last two years in the minors, this isn't some fluke that he did so well last year. He just didn't get the press with Weeks and Fielder on the same teams. He double dipped with the pitching and defense. The Brewers had better peripherals than the Cubs last year for pitching, the defense is why they had a worse ERA. You can't count that as a double positive for the Cubs. The Brewers have also improved overall, a much deeper bullpen and Gallardo and Villanueva for a full season in the rotation will make a difference. I think the two teams are pretty even right now, guys like Soto, Villanueva, Fukudome, Kendall, Gagne, Marshall etc are going to decide who takes first. The team who has the most 'risks' work out or stays the healthiest will win the thing... that or Yost will blow enough games to give it away again.

One year does not a regression make. Carlos Zambrano is still one of the top 10 pitchers in baseball. He's 26, and he showed he can still pitch with the league's elite in June, July and down the stretch in September. If it were just one year I wouldn't be worried. BB/9 - 3.5, 3.6, 4.9. 4.3 GB% - 50.5%, 50%, 46.9%, 46.5% FiP - 3.41, 3.62, 4.15, 4.55 Those are some really ugly trends. Now he is only 26 and you don't expect regression from someone that age but Zambrano has had his arm abused big time at a young age and if you look at pitchers with similar histories it doesn't paint a good picture.

I'm not so sure the Cubs have a legit #1 given the 3 year regression of Zambrano. My money is on Hill being the team ace this year. Lilly is a tough read, is the improved control for real or is it sort of like Capuano's 2006 where he had abnormally good control and then it went away again the next season. As for Parra vs Gallagher, part of it is the lefty thing and part is probably that Parra scouts even better than his numbers look, the numbers have been hurt by the injuries. That of course brings up a whole different question, don't the injuries kind of make Gallagher look like a better option anyway?

I dunno, if Prior and Wood don't have so many injury issues the Cubs probably win a lot more playoff games in recent history. Seems like losing 2 of your best young talents and abusing a 3rd to where he regresses 3 years in a row(Zambrano) is going to hurt any team. Not that I think Hendry is good, I just think Baker takes as much of the blame as Hendry ever should.

A lot of research has shown that batting the pitcher 8th is better in general than batting him 9th. LaRussa didn't pull that out of thin air, some smart people did research and backed up that opinion. Still seems weird to me of course but it doesn't surprise me. The idea is that your low OBP guys are at the bottom of the order so the pitcher coming up 8th isn't going to cost you that many runs. Having a decent OBP but low SLG guy batting 9th puts another runner on base for your 1/2/3 hitters who should be your best hitters.

I don't think any team can hope to jump from last to competing in one year(at least not smaller markets). What they can hope to do is play exciting enough baseball that fans start to come back to the stadium. If they feel that 2-3 years from now they can compete then the time to start fielding a real team is now.

I had the DBacks down for a losing season this year, last year was extremely lucky for them and that rotation was terrible going into the year. With Haren as the #2 a lot has changed though, Davis is still crap and Livan and Randy are shells of their former self but if a young arm can come out with a big year(Im' look at you Owings!) they are a legit rotation suddenly.

The real key with FIP is that it is relatively stable from year to year and ERA swings wildly so is almost completely useless. Yes FIP is not anywhere near all inclusive and some players will very obviously trend to one side or the other it is still a more reliable baseline stat than just plain old ERA. If a player has a big improvement in ERA one season and his FIP stays steady(see David Riske last season) you know it was pretty much just a good luck season.

As shocking as it sounds I don't think the Royals are sellers. The young talent is going to give them a decent lineup this year or next and Grienke, Bannister, Meche, Hochevar give them a shot at having a real rotation. I think they start to put their best team on the field and see if they can't start building up the fan base again.

Gagne had an xERA in the high 3's last year and a FIP in the mid 3's. I would expect him to improve with slightly better health. He won't be the stud of the past and he probably won't earn his $10M unless he becomes a type A FA and brings back draft picks but he shouldn't be a debacle either.

Looks like it was really the Rockies that signed him not the Brewers. With any luck Villanueva will be in the rotation full time as he has sub 4.00 ERA potential there so is wasted in the bullpen. Vargas is kind of mediocre but maybe he could be effective in the bullpen, dunno.

While the Cubs are probably the team to beat in the NL Central (I mean they are defending division champs and all), that article is putrid. I'd be embarrassed if that had my name on it.

Shandler projects him at a .796 OPS in a neutral setting so the opinions vary quite a bit. I think Shandler is probably a bit low but BP is way too high, Hideki Matsui's rookie year was a .798 OPS and I think he was a better player than Fuku offensively. Maybe Fuku adapts faster but even then I don't see those BP stats. Edit : typo~

True, i doubt his stats are that good. Most of those seem reasonable though I think BP is too high on Fuku for this season at least and I bet Soto takes a year to grow into those stats. He is also deluding himself that last year was a fluke for Zambrano, I think Shandler is correct to expect a 4ish ERA with the downside of a 4.50+ ERA. His arm has seen too much abuse. The Marmol projection is terrible, he was lucky as heck last year but he isnt' a 4 ERA bullpen arm either. Bill James has always been terrible at pitching projections.

woah, lets not get ahead of ourselves. That's not too far fetched. If the Cubs managed to get Roberts and trade for a decent SS (Khalil Greene, maybe?), I think they would be the best team in the NL. Of course, those things would have to happen, but only one of them would make the Cubs the best team in the Central. Of course, that's not saying much. Right now I think you are fooling yourself saying that the Cubs are the best team in the NL central. The Brewers and Cubs are still neck and neck. This is still a weak division so I think it takes more than an average SS to move from tied for best team in the central to best team in the NL.

You are happy with the starting pitching? The defense will make the SP look ok regardless assuming Aramis stays good at 3B.

4yr/$50M sounds like a really good deal to me and I'm not even a Cubs fan! You would have to think at least $10-$20M of that makes its way back to the Cubs just from merchandise etc.

Kendall was a type B free agent so the Brewers did not lose a draft pick for signing him and nothing that happens in the offseason really changes much with your draft pick. Other signings might push your draft pick down a little bit but nothing is going to move it up. The price tag of $10M is not a sure thing yet, it easily could be $10M based on incentives for all we know. The thing is I expected 2 years/$16M for Gagne and 1 yr/$10M is probably a better deal. If he is good it means a type A FA and the draft picks easily make up the extra $2M, if he stinks they are out $10M instead of $16M. The only case where it hurts to overpay for a single season is if he is just mediocre but healthy.

1 year contracts always look big because there is no risk involved. If the deal doesn't work out it is a relatively small gamble to overpay. If it does work out next year you let him walk and he is a type A FA and you win big.

Well from the pirates side of things an old RP who is in the last year of his contract isn't going to bring them anything worthwhile long term most likely regardless. This way they get a couple nuggets that at least have a chance of helping them a few years down the line.

7.6 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, 47.8% GB's, 4.21 xFIP. Torres had the same year he had in 2005 and 2006 basically, he just had a poor LOB% and HR/FB which spiked his ERA. ERA is such a terrible stat for judging pitchers, Torres had a very lucky ERA in 2005 and 2006. This is a good trade by the Brewers adding another slightly above average RP to their pen. They don't have any really good RP but they have quite a few marginally above average ones now which is better than what they had last season. Looking at his second half the only thing I see is a jump in BABIP. His K's were steady, his BB rate went DOWN, his HR's stayed about the same. His BABIP just had a spike which most times when that happens in isolation is just luck.

No study of clutch hitting can begin without including R/L splits either. I have to imagine that Dunn sees a steady diet of LOOGY's in late inning clutch situations and it is going to really change his stats. Not to mention they'll be willing to BB him many times which will inflate his OBP. I just think it is a really hard thing to prove or disprove and it would take a very in depth study to even touch on the subject properly.

Well as a Brewer fan I'm pretty happy Braun won it. As a baseball stats guy I think it could go either way which is what the voting says. While yes Tulo was a much better fielder he was also David Eckstein as a hitter on the road and it is hard to look past that for me.

Brewers pitching staff really wasn't bad this season, it was the defense that let them down. I don't know that it will improve with experience or not. Weeks, Braun and Fielder are all well below average defensive players as is Estrada so that is the majority of the IF there being terrible. The hitting is going to improve but in a subtle way most likely. The OBP is going to go up as the young players gain plate discipline and they should improve with situational hitting, in the end it probably won't be a big jump in OPS but it will show up some in runs scored. The young hitting is not the only up and coming talent though. Gallardo has a legit shot at being an ace and Villaneuva looks to be a solid #3 prospect, sort of like a Lilly type pitcher. Parra is another good arm in the system and he'll probably be in a bullpen role all year stretching out for a starting job in 2009. Suppan is a decent #4 and Sheets injury this year had nothing to do with his arm, so he very well may be healthy next season. A rotation of Gallardo, Sheets, Villaneuva, Suppan, Capuano/Bush is going to be as good as anyone in the division. The bullpen is a very valid concern especially if they let Linebrink and Cordero walk and of course the young hitting could regress but the team also underachieved this season with all of those come from behind losses. My guess is they are an 85-90 win team next season in a still weak division.

Not if you adjust for stadiums... Fielde would hit 200 HR's and drive in 10,000 in that park. I knew I recognized him. who would've thunk that Chuck Norris would have his skin died and put on all that weight. heh, in all seriousness Holliday has an .854 OPS on the road and would be on pace for 98 R, 108 RBI and 22 HR's using his road stats. The park is just way too big a factor for him or Tulo to win the awards.