Mephistopheles

Joe Posnanski's a sad disgrace to SI. The guys a total idiot.

What 1 for 2 or 2 for 4?

Not acquiring Kevin Gregg would have been the best move. Just as pointless. We would have been fine without him.

To be fair, Mike Fontenot qualifies as such minor leaguer.

Maybe the Cubs will go to a four man rotation when Rich Harden goes down. I can only hope we stop babying SPs... If Rich Harden goes down, we'll have four guys in the been who are good to go 3 innings without any stretching out needed (Samardzija, Heilman, Guzman, Cotts). Over the course of two times through the rotation we can stretch out one of the four to take the number five starts. I don't think it's a problem myself. Either that or Hendry's not worried. He'll just finalize the Peavy deal and manage to keep Marshall.

Patton was a stupid move the entire time. Hendry knew we'd have an option crunch with our relievers without being forced to baby a rule 5 guy on the roster. It's his own damn fault. The Cubs really couldn't afford the lack of bullpen roster flexibility that came with keeping a guy like him around.

Wrong, Neal Cotts just sucks. He cant find the strike zone and his stuff is a shell of what it was in 05. He cant get lefties out and all he has done so far is walk the first batter just about every time he pitches. 5 walks and a hit batter in 3 innings pitched. Also lefties are batting .500 against him righties .286. I'd say hes been extremely lucky so far have an era thats not double didgits. I'm not wrong. All you've shown is that he's struggling right now. I didn't say otherwise. He's not this bad, he's just going through a rough patch. There's no need to get all bent of shape by anyone struggling three weeks into the season. What's a better indication of his talent level: The 1100+ batters he's faced in his career that show him to be a relatively average left-handed relief pitcher, or the 19 batters he's faced this year you're basing your assessment on? By no stretch of the imagination is he a great reliever, but he's a guy worth having around. Let's not be so fickle.

The problem is that the studies will still be geared towards production analysis, not talent analysis. They'll try to make a estimation of park neutral production. It's a step in the right the direction. I'm relatively skeptical of exact vector analysis myself. In order to get the best measure of true talent in a park neutral setting you're going to need to move to a probability based assessment. Theoretically, you can start out by analyzing the vectors forget the actual outcome of the event. Then assign a probability to every possible event based on the vector. This is a good start. However, what you'll find that is that these vectors probably have little predicative worth. So we'll get the point to having probabilities of distributions.

OPS+ is OPS adjusted by league and (gasp!) park factors. Please dear god stop pretending to be a stats guy. Wow, I laughed so hard I teared up a bit. Thanks for bumping this thread. I can't believe I haven't seen this. Being the resident stat guy, I think this is a good opportunity for me rant on park factors. Everyone seems to misinterpret them. It doesn't matter how statistically inclined you are. It's not because people are dumb (they're not). It's because they misinterpret the meaning of them. OPS+ is NOT a measure of talent. It never was intended to be. EqA is NOT a measure of talent. It was never meant to be. GPA is NOT a measure of talent. It was never meant to be. DRA is NOT a measure of talent. It was never meant to be. wOBA is NOT a measure of talent. It was never meant to be. All of these major statistics measure production. The difference between the analysis of talent and production is the difference between the future and past. A players output is not a martingale, if it were the two would be the same. Production has an intrinsic concept of being compared to something more than talent would. Statistics measuring production always boil down being compared to one of two things: average level players and replacement level players. Since they want to measure a players production rate to the rate of an average (replacement) level player. The analysis is relatively simple. What would a league average (replacement) level player due if he was given the playing time of our player? Just the league average run effect. HR, BB, 2B, 3B, K, etc PFs are irrelevant. We don't care about how the park plays on a micro level. The only thing that matters is what happens to an average player on a macro rate. However, when trying to make some educated guess on a players true talent level, a lot more work is needed to be done. This is why things like EqA, wOBA, etc suck ass at this. Parks effects on an individuals stat line are much more of a micro level than a macro effect. To make changes like this we need a large spectrum of park factors which eventually is more of a dynamical system than any kind of park factor we're used to seeing. In order to make guess worth crap on a true translation out of a park for a player we need to a stat line completely. We can't just make a simple change. I don't have the answer to this. That's the million dollar question. No one has a system that does this well. The best may be the DTs on BP, but they're still useless. Quite frankly, none of the people interested in these sorts of things have the mathematical modeling and probability background in order to derive something better. Let's be honest, most people working in sabermetrics really don't have more than an undergraduate college background in stat or whatever. It's pretty damn obvious reading their "research". That's not to say they're dumb or wrong or anything. It's just that if someone with relevant background got interested, things would get real interesting. But anyways, about PFs and OPS+. It measures production. It doesn't measure talent. Parks affect each player differently, we need systems that adjust for that. /rant.

While we are on the subject of the brilliant A's coaching staff, can someone explain to me why Orlando Cabrera is hitting 2nd and Jason Giambi bats 3rd for this team? Matt Holliday won't crack 80 RBI this year with those clowns in front of him. The hell's wrong with Giambi batting third for the team? He hit .247/.373/.502 last season, which while not elite, was good for a .309 EqA. The Cubs have had a guy with a .309 EqA just once in the last eight years (Lee '05). Sure he's going to regress some as he continues to age, but there's no reason the guy should not be able to at least keep a very good OBP with a good SLG. Cust will probably hit better than him, and they want to go LRL. So move Giambi to the five hole and Cust up to the three hole? Eh, there's not that bad and there is nothing wrong with Giambi batting third. Holliday probably won't crock 100 RBI but it won't be because of Giambi but because he's out of Coors. Orlando Cabrera probably shouldn't be batting second, but who else are you going to put there? Suzuki? Ellis? Really if you're set on having their big three 3-5, none of the other hitters on the roster are really better for the spot than Cabrera.

Neal Cotts isn't that bad guys. We just don't use him properly. He's a useful guy to have in the pen as a long men because he's got stuff better suited for righties, but can get lefties out decently and he can go two innings if need be. He's not dominant enough against lefties to be a LOOGY which is what we try to do with him. We keep putting him in situations where he's going to fail, and when he fails we bitch at him.

We all know KW will get a standing ovation in June. And if the Cubs are down and he's in the game, a good percentage of the Cubs fans in Wrigley will be hoping the Cubs don't win.

We don't need two one dimensional sluggers in our lineup. If Jake Fox could be a serviceable backup catcher, that's an option but I don't think anyone in the Cubs management thinks that is an option. There's no reason to have Hoffpauir and Fox on the team.

guys its my fault bruce homered. i benched him in two fantasy leagues because of he's a little banged up now and was facing a top five pitcher in harden. my fault. i decided that playing Dukes against Kawakami was a better match.

punk ass bitch braun has two home runs tonight. go back to sucking soon plz.

No.

With the weather we should be throwing Sean Marshall. Too much risk. Marshall threw last on Thursday? He's good to go.

Man I love Mike Hampton. Stop sucking though.

figures they kept the one we cant get out.

Aramis isn't that good of a hitter. He's good, outstanding, but under no definition is he excellent. Neither is Kosuke Fukudome. Only one of them has the capability of producing .310+.

I want Rich Harden having no part of this game.

KOSUKE! I'd move Derrek Lee up to the two hole. I'd drop Kosuke to the three hole and swap Ramirez and Bradley. 1. Soryano 2. Lee 3. KF 4. Errormiss 5. Bradley 6. Soto 7. Fontenut 8. Cajun Diarrhea

Man ESPN. If you're going to talk to an "executive" (if in fact you did), you had better make sure you talk to one who gets his facts correct. Roy Oswalt's throwing hard than he has since 2004. There's a 10% chance his K rate is as low as it is by chance.

Elbow injuries are almost sure bets to recover these days. That being said, it's not an overnight recovery and despite being able to pitch the likelihood of him being effective the tail end of the season is not very good. His stuff will probably bounce back relatively quickly. The CB will take longer than the FB, but as long as he gets passed the mental side of it he should be able to hammer down it again. The command of those pitches, however, will take a good 3-4 months to get back. He's a 2010 option for me. There's not a ton a risk for his health in 2010 though. If we can get him for a discount for 2010 that requires us to sign him for the end of this season, it might be worth it.

Team W L RS RA W1 L1 EQR EQRA W2 L2 AEQR AEQRA W3 L3 D1 D2 D3 Mets 6. 6. 55 49 6.6 5.4 59 38 8.2 3.8 57 38 8.1 3.9 -0.6 -2.2 -2.1 Marlins 11. 1. 77 45 8.9 3.1 67 44 8.2 3.8 61 42 7.9 4.0 2.1 2.8 3.1 Braves 6. 6. 56 61 5.5 6.5 58 56 6.1 5.9 51 52 5.9 6.1 0.5 -0.1 0.1 Nationals 1. 10. 54 75 3.7 7.3 56 71 4.1 6.9 60 65 5.1 5.9 -2.7 -3.1 -4.1 Phillies 5. 6. 59 74 4.3 6.8 57 73 4.1 6.9 50 70 3.6 7.4 0.7 0.9 1.4