Mephistopheles

I don't know if I have ever explicitly went over that here. I know I bar-b-que'd GRB on it once. Or twice. Or thrice. I've pointed out that he has a ton of value in his bat quite often here. Like I said elsewhere about a week ago, pitching wise he's probably a 4.00 or so RA pitcher and his bat knocks off about 0.50 or so of that off. So I think he's a mid 3.00s true talent RA pitcher. For comparison, Roy Halladay's career RA is 3.92, Johan Santana's career RA is 3.35, and Jake Peavy's is 3.45. Though none of those have adjustments for bats (or lackthereof).

Im pretty sure I blazed Rocket or Wolf or someone on this eighteen months ago or so, and this argument as been written for years. Neither you, nor Lookout Landing stumbled across something we (read: I) didn't know. You can also use this argument to Jason Marquis' benefit....and Rich Harden's detriment. Rich has to be the worst hitter in baseball, bar none.

On that note, keep track of how many times the Cubs make an out on the basepaths. That's also a very good idea. Obviously CS is already a stat, but there's no stat for getting thrown out at a base for being way too aggressive (either trying to take extra bases or trying to take 3rd on a ball hit to the left side). http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/sortable/index.php?cid=421535

Do you want this? Because I can get it fairly easily. Sure, although unless you have PBP data, I think it would difficult to find out whether or not a pitcher hit his spot. i have pitch by pitch data, location, spin, speed, who bat, who pitched, who's on 1b/2b/3b etc. ill throw it up together sometime this week. it's on my computer at home.

Do you want this? Because I can get it fairly easily.

you shouldn't keep track of them.

I can do this.

#2! R1 P6 - Miguel Cabrera, 3B R2 P7 - Johan Santana, SP R3 P6 - Matt Kemp, OF R4 P7 - Carl Crawford, OF R5 P6 - Cole Hamels, SP R6 P7 - Victor Martinez, C R7 P6 - Felix Hernandez, SP R8 P7 - Jay Bruce, OF R9 P6 - Troy Tulowitzki, SS R10 P7 - Howie Kendrick, 2B R11 P6 - Kerry Wood, RP R12 P7 - Justin Verlander, SP R13 P6 - Jim Thome R14 P7 - Brian Wilson, RP R15 P6 - Chien Ming Wang, SP R16 P7 - Troy Percival, RP R17 P6 - Pablo Sandoval, C/1B/3B R18 P7 - Adrian Beltre, 3B R19 P6 - Chris Carpenter, SP R20 P7 - Rafael Soriano, RP R21 P6 - Cameron Maybin, OF I picked Kemp earlier than I wanted to, but I didn't think he would make it back to me in the fourth round, and with Carlos Beltran going the pick prior, he was the top rated position player left on my board, though had I known that Carl Crawford was going to make it back to me, I wouldn't have picked him. VMart was the last elite catcher left on the board, and I needed one. However, I was mulling over a falling Corey Hart. I reached on Jay Bruce, but I wanted to walk out of the next two picks with Bruce and Jeter/Tulo, good closer, and howie kendrick. Bruce was the most likely to go earliest. Going into the Wang pick I had a very high K, low ERA low WHIP setup without a ton of Ws. Wang was perfect. C - Victor Martinez 1B - Miguel Cabrera 2B - Howie Kendrick 3B - Adrian Beltre SS - Troy Tulowitzki OF - Carl Crawford OF - Matt Kemp OF - Jay Bruce UT - Jim Thome Bench - Pablo Sandoval Bench - Cameron Maybin SP1 - Johan Santana SP2 - Cole Hamels SP3 - Felix Hernadnez SP4 - Justin Verlander SP5 - Chien Ming Wang SP6 - Chris Carpenter RP1 - Kerry Wood RP2 - Brian Wilson RP3 - Troy Percival RP4 - Rafael Soriano

not really...

1. David DeJesus, LF 2. Coco Crisp, CF 3. Billy Butler, DH 4. Alex Gordon, 3B 5. Mike Jacobs, 1B 6. Jose Guillen, RF 7. Mark Teahen, 2B 8. John Buck, C 9. Mike Aviles, SS 1. Zack Greinke, RHP 2. Gil Meche, RHP 3. Luke Hochevar, RHP 4. Brian Bannister, RHP 5. Kyle Davies, RHP Decent bullpen w/ Soria and company. With continued development of Billy Butler and Alex Gordon as well as Luke Hochevar, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility for the Royals to win in the high 80s this season. Obviously, the continued development and breakouts of two or three of the guys mentioned is a prerequisite, but would you be surprised if Gordon and Butler OPS'd 900+ this year and Hochevar developed into a #2/#3 pitcher? I wouldn't. Also, the way Kyle Davies closed out the season is reason for optimism that he might be getting it, though the stuff isn't all the way back yet. Either way, 80 wins is certainly attainable this season for them I think. It'll be good for baseball for the Royals to be relevant, I think. They're like the Cardinals, but not the Cardinals so we can root for them.

You read it because I can't say no [expletive].

When we're only starting Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster and Rich Harden we are. And that's all that mattered under the scenario. The Cubs went 51-24 last season in games started by those three. As I stated, I built in regression for Dempster and Harden. The numbers I came up with have Jake Peavy being about a run better per start than Ryan Dempster. Ryan Dempster's getting 2/5ths of the starts....over 162 games that's 65 starts.......65 runs give or take a few. In the playoffs where the teams are so evenly matched, one run a game is pretty substantial, don't you think? No duh. The Cubs might have the highest chance of making it in baseball. Adding Jake Peavy only makes it more likely than without him...obviously.

Well not really.

Another classless, baseless, pointless, fact-less attack directed at me by badnews. I'm shocked.

You think one, single pitcher (who wasn't even that great last season in terms of total value) is worth 1/14th of a championship every season to this team? That's insanity. That's Khalil Greene-territory. Not really. Let's just do a rough take on the situation. For now let's make a couple relative assumptions. 1.) Without Peavy the Cubs have a 100% chance of making the playoffs. 2.) With Peavy the Cubs have a 100% chance of making the playoffs. 3.) Rich Harden is able to make one start in the NLDS with or without Peavy 4.) Cubs starts in a 7 game series w/o Peavy: 2 for Z, 2 for Demp, 2 for Lilly, 1 for Harden. 5.) Cubs starts in a 7 game series w/ Peavy: 2 for Z, 2 for Peavy, 1 for Demp, Lilly and Harden. 6.) The Cubs offense coupled with pitching staff #4 is an average team faced in rounds 2 and 3 of a hypothetical playoff. 7.) The Cubs offense coupled with pitching staff #3 w/o Peavy is an average team faced in round 1 of a hypothetical playoff. 8.) The Cubs offense is a 5.00 runs per 9 innings offense. That's ~825 run offense. 9.) The career SP-RA is to be used for each starting pitcher. 10.) We're slotting the Cubs bullpen as a 3.00 RA bullpen in the 9th inning, 3.50 in the 8th, 4.00 in the 7th and 4.50 in the 1-6th. Obviously, since we're assuming that the Cubs without Jake Peavy are an average playoff team, the Cubs chances of winning the World Series under these assumptions is 12.5%. How about once we trade for Jake Peavy? Well we go ~98 win team to a ~105 win team, once you make the proper adjustments. Our chances of wining the World Series improve to 21.4%. Nearly a nine percent increase in this model. If we make the same assumptions for 2010 and 2011, which is of course a big assumption unlike the ones I've already made, then the chances we go title-less in the three years without Peavy is over two-thirds but if we trade for Peavy, we're better than a coin flip bet to win at least one title the next three years. I don't know about you, but I like those odds. I like them very much.

The ever so awesome http://www.mockdraftcentral.com has had their 2009 baseball mock drafts live for awhile now. I have decided to do a mock with them today. I had position 12. 1.12.12 - Johan Santana, SP 2.01.13 - Ryan Howard, 1B 3.12.36 - Jason Bay, OF 4.01.37 - Vladimir Guerrero, OF 5.12.60 - Victor Martinez, C 6.01.61 - Francisco Liriano, SP 7.12.84 - Robinson Cano, 2B 8.01.85 - Derek Jeter, SS 9.12.108 - James Loney, 1B* 10.01.109 - Ryan Zimmerman, 3B* 11.12.132 - Yovani Gallardo, SP 12.01.133 - Lastings Milledge, OF 13.12.146 - Brian Wilson, RP 14.01.147 - Mike Gonzalez, RP 15.12.160 - Trevor Hoffman, RP 16.01.161 - Clayton Kershaw, SP 17.12.184 - Brandon Morrow, SP 18.01.185 - Travis Hafner, DH 19.12.208 - Delmon Young, OF 20.01.209 - Pedro Martinez, SP 21.12.232 - Billy Butler, DH *My router crapped out and I had to reset it, missing those two picks. *sigh*. I obviously didnt get as many steals as i would like to have. oh well first draft always blows. I have like 75 steals max on my roster. C - Victor Martinez 1B - Ryan Howard 2B - Robinson Cano 3B - Ryan Zimmerman SS - Derek Jeter OF - Jason Bay OF - Vladimir Guerrero OF - Lastings Milledge UT - Hafner, Delmon, Loney SP - Johan Santana SP - Francisco Liriano SP - Yovani Gallardo SP - Clayton Kershaw SP - Brandon Morrow SP - Pedro Martinez RP - Mike Gonzalez RP - Trevor Hoffman RP - Brian Wilson

And I thought you were referring to the comments about the first half of the decade. It's not as certain the second half, but the odds we have one as good as we do now are still quite small. We should absolutely be trading away Vitters.

No, it's really quite the opposite. Look at history, or better yet, look at how many guaranteed contracts the team has for 2015-2020 Number of Cubs teams with 95 wins in the last 98 years: 4 Number of teams with 95 wins in the 3 years: 6 That's four percent and six percent, respectively. I like my chances.

unless our payroll is second only to the yankees, it's inevitable and certain.

i'd say an increase of 5-10% chance each of the years is significant. we'd go from about an 18% chance to somewhere close to 25% each season. That's gigantic. your concept of marginal value is completely wrong.

Nobody knows how serious the elbow injury is, that's just the point. He's been of of the best pitchers in baseball for most of the last five seasons, but I'm concerned with what he'll do the next four to five. Buying a guy's age 28, 29, 30, 31 and possibly 32 seasons for big money is usually a break-even proposition, but throw in elbow problems and the loss of a top prospect, and I'm getting awfully iffy about the deal. Our window of opportunity to win a world series is within the next three seasons. our key players on offense are all on the wrong side of thirty. our best pitcher is probably going to suffer a catastrophic injury in the next three to four seasons. our other pitchers are not signed longer than a few more seasons. our system blows. really we're not in a position to win for the years 2011-2014. period. there's nothing we can do about that. Those three seasons are going to be rebuilding years. The next five years after that is anybody's guess. Even if we keep Vitters for 20 years, we're not likely to have a team as good as we have now from 2015-2020. We're certainly not going to have one his first five seasons in the pros. We simply have no need for him, even if he becomes a stud. He's going to make us go from suck to average. Big flippin deal. There's only like a 30% chance he ever becomes that good, but even if it was a 100 percent chance we make this deal. Jake Peavy in our rotation in the immediate future makes us the WS favorite. end of story. for an organization that has been playing for the future for 100 years we'd be stupid to pass up our the best three year window we've had since the thirties. Losing Vitters doesn't mean drek.

acknowledging that fact, then deciding that the best solution is to give up on what little bit is left seems like a bad deal to me. But we're giving them up for one of the best pitchers in baseball. And he's only 27 to boot. He's bringing with him elbow problems and a monstrous contract. his contract is below market value. he's a safer bet physically than rich harden. and carlos zambrano. and ted lilly. and ryan dempster. and sean marshall.

Augie got suspended for four games. Gotta love Texas. Anything illegal involving booze is legal. I believe the first four games are against Illinois-Chicago.

Your system blows when your most likely star players are wellington castillo and someone else.

More middle infielders! YAY! Well the ole' adage is you can never have enough s2bs