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3finger

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Everything posted by 3finger

  1. 3finger
    You don't see how they could use two guys with pop on the bench? Nevin is not a poor man's Wilson. Besides the fact that he costs more than twice as much, Nevin is 6 years older, and coming off a season with a 79 OPS+, compared to Wilson's 112. And Craig is running circles around Nevin now. Wilson could start for this team in LF, moving Murton into a platoon with Jones, which blows the doors off the current OF production. Nevin is the backup for 1B and 3B, and a pinch hitter. Wilson is a legit starter. As I mentioned earlier, Nevin's medicore 722 OPS this year has been vastly inflated by his home ABs at The Bandbox in Arlington. He won't reach 700 in Chicago unless the wind is blowing out every day at Wrigley. Wilson is a vastly superior player. Yes, adding Nevin will help, because even a 680 OPS is better than what the Cubs were getting from Hairston and whatever hideous middle infielder Nevin effectively pushes to the bench. But this deal won't mean much -- maybe a tenth of a win.
  2. 3finger
    Changed it to last 100 years... D'oh!! #-o
  3. 3finger
    Jones hasn't been the worst of the Cubs' problems this year, but I think this list gets at the key point: RF is supposed to be a high-production position, and Jones has never really put up the numbers necessary to be an asset in right. Jones' adjusted OPS for his career: 1999 96 2000 89 2001 96 2002 125 2003 106 2004 90 2005 99 He's only beaten the league twice in his career, while a RF should be beating the league significantly each year. Elsewhere (maybe in this forum, I can't remember) there is some discussion of moving Jones to CF. If he can play center adequately, and Hendry can find a real bat for right, the Cubs could squeeze some value out of him. I suspect those are really big "ifs."
  4. 3finger
    Thanks, and apologies. Got the quote from a 3rd party web site and in my haste did not check the full article.
  5. 3finger
    From today's LA Times: Anyone have an idea who the "different player" might be? No indication of who the Cubs might be seeking. The Dodgers do have a deep farm system fwiw.
  6. 3finger
    Worst 10 single season OPS since 1900, minimum 500 plate appearances: 1 Hal Lanier 1968 .461 2 Hunter Hill 1904 .462 3 Bill Hallman 1901 .473 4 Jim Levey 1933 .477 5 Fred Raymer 1905 .479 6 John Gochnauer 1902 .485 7 Charles Moran 1904 .490 8 Bobby Lowe 1904 .494 9 Hal Lanier 1967 .494 10 George Barclay 1904 .495 Neifi, 2006: .496
  7. 3finger
    Nevin's home/road split this year: Home 762 Road 665 That road number is almost beastly. Phil's gotta be hoping for southwest winds strong enough to produce small craft advisories on the lake.
  8. 3finger
    What problems did Roy Halladay have? Halladay completely lost his mechanics. Toronto sent him down to the minors to rebuild his mechanics from scratch. Afterwards, he became the dominant pitcher that he now is (when healthy). yeah, halladay lowered his arm-slot and put some movement on his pitches. before, he was nearly coming over the top and had no movement to speak of. i don't know if he specifically lost his mechanics as much as he wasn't able to overpower anyone in the big leagues with an arrow-straight fastball. Here's what happened to Halladay. If this has happened to Prior we can forget about him for this year. I'm hoping/assuming that Carroll's source was exaggerating for effect.
  9. 3finger
    Yep. The Cubs are just waiting for him to get his avg. about the mendoza line before they give him the big jump from Daytona to the Majors. What's not to like about a .170/.233/.296 line? The Cubs are so good at drafting position players. :x He'd fit right in. It's all about productive outs, and with that many outs some of 'em are bound to be productive.
  10. 3finger
    I'm just lovin' the phrase "significant structural headwinds" in the article. Sounds like what the Cubs are facing this season.
  11. 3finger
    This is definitely the right answer -- let's get him before The Mayor goes back on the DL.
  12. 3finger

    *715

    3finger replied to OleMissCub's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk

    Why didn't you star Sheffield? He admitted it himself that he used steroids. My bad. Of course, he used 'emaccidentally dontcha know.
  13. 3finger
    Well it has been substantiated to at least some extent. If this link doesn't open for you lemme know and I can give a brief summary of it, but Wagner explains it much better than I could and he also uses cool graphs. Note that you're at least half-right: strikeout rates don't matter much for hitters, but for pitchers they go a long way toward separating the wheat from he chaff. And also note that this is a tendency, not an absolute rule. Guys with low K rates can have success (like the Cameraman's Friend) and guys with high K rates can have Abramoffian flameouts, but in general more Ks means better results over the long term.
  14. 3finger
    I agree it is likely to go up but don't put to much thought into it. How many Braves did the Cubs strike out Sunday? And how many runs did they give up? Things like baserunners and opponents average are cool but I don't care about K's as long as they get outs. I'll take a one pitch at bat where a batter pops out all day compared to a six pitch strike out. The theory is that pitchers don't really have much control of the outcome once the bat strikes the ball. A low K rate therefore can be a sign of impending doom. FWIW, Sir Sidney has never been able to miss bats, or judges for that matter.
  15. 3finger

    *715

    3finger replied to OleMissCub's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk

    Runs Created Above Average for players from 1980 to 2004 (can't get 2005 to work on my sabermetric encyclopedia -- need to fix that): 1 *Barry Bonds 1496 2 Frank Thomas 796 3 Rickey Henderson 762 4 Jeff Bagwell 680 5 *Mark McGwire 665 6 Edgar Martinez 647 7 Gary Sheffield 605 8 Manny Ramirez 573 9 Jim Thome 571 10 *Rafael Palmeiro 564 Babe's the best, and Aaron's one of my favorites, but Bonds has indeed been dominant. I've put a * next to the guys I think were juiced. Do we know the other guys weren't? I'd also submit that if all of Bonds' production is really attributable to roids rather than talent, we should still give the man his props for scoring some damn sweet stuff.
  16. 3finger
    This could help explain some of the bullpen's struggles, since the better pitchers will generally only be in if the Cubs aren't losing late. With bad offense and bad starting pitching, there's not much the bullpen can do. Hendry would save money by selecting a lucky fan to pitch middle relief during home games.
  17. 3finger
    Career OBP/SLG/OPS: Patterson .293/.414/.707 Pierre .355/.375/.730 Hendry thought he was improving CF by bringing Pierre on. Pierre isn't a great player, but the numbers said he should have been an improvement over Patterson, especially in OBP. So maybe acquiring Pierre made sense. Or maybe not. JP amassed most of his stats at Watery Domestic Beer Field, which in pre-humidor days had a steroidal effect on offensive stats. Adjusted for park effects, Patterson's career OPS going into 2006 was 81% of the league average, which is pretty bad. Pierre's adjusted OPS was 87%. More of Pierre's value is in on-base rather than slugging, and his steals give him some extra bases not reflected in his OPS, so he has some leadoff value. However, he was never likely to play more than a supporting role.
  18. 3finger
    Baseball Prospectus predicted .348, not great but high enough to make the speed worth something. The problem with Pierre is that if he's not slapping out singles he has essentially no offensive value. Youkilis can walk or hit the occasional dinger even if he's not getting a lot of base hits. Pierre's never hit lower than .276 (he's hitting .231 now) -- my guess is the average will come back up and with it some of Pierre's usefulness. Of course, by that time MLB will have relegated the Cubs to the PCL.
  19. 3finger
    Isn't this one of the signs of the Apocalypse? I'm laid up with a foot injury, so I'll be watching this ghastly spectacle.
  20. 3finger
    Run differentials, NL Central: Cards: +56 Reds: +4 ex-Seligs: -10 Astros: -23 Cubs: -71 Pirates: -36 Yep, by this measure the Cubs have actually been lucky this year. I'm guessing the Reds fatten up on the Cubs rather than the other way round.
  21. 3finger
    Age each guy first appeared in the majors: Maddux - 20 Clemens - 21 Seaver - 22 Sutton - 21 Glavine - 21 Carlton - 20 Ryan - 19 Perry - 23 Niekro - 25 And for the new kids: King Felix - 19 Z - 20 Kazmir - 20 Bonderman - 20 Cain - 20 Liriano - 21 Santana - 21 I like Bonderman's chances the best, although I could easily see none of these guys making it. Unlike the other pitchers on this list, Bonderman is on a team that's already good and looks like it will stay that way for a while. Cain is about to become a very good pitcher for a very bad team. That formula worked at times for Carlton, but he started every fourth day. Z has a chance if the Cubs minor league system produces above expectations and alien invaders seize Dusty Baker. In any event, as Diffusion suggested, most of these guys will be derailed by injuries -- maybe not really bad ones, but enough to keep them short of 300.
  22. 3finger
    Prior+Wood starts and Cubs winning percent by year: 2002/52/.414 2003/62/.543 2004/43/.549 2005/37/.488 2004 is a bit of an anomaly thanks in part to some outstanding individual seasons (Z, ARam, Hollandsworth). Don't see many of those on the horizon in 2006.
  23. 3finger
    I could have lived without the whole conversation, but maybe I'm just too sensitive. In any event I agree with your bottom line -- there's room for Ryan Church's bat in the Cubs lineup.
  24. 3finger
    Tampa Bay's pitching staff is scary bad after Scott Kazmir, and the Unholy Rays are thick with good young outfielders. Unfortunately, the current Rays front office understands that Gomes is really good and really cheap right now, making it unlikely they'll move him. My guess is the only Rays OFs the Cubs could get a reasonable price would be Gathright (yechh) or maybe Huff (who is better than his current abysmal numbers, but not cheap, and besides you'd hope the Cubs would be aiming a little higher than "better than abysmal").
  25. 3finger
    fwiw, the Marlins broadcasters have speaking as though the extension is already a done deal. Dusty may have been the right guy for 2003, but he's not even close to being the right guy for 2007. Disappointing move. On the other hand, maybe he'll get the bird flu from Prior ...
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