badnews

Maybe he should care, they've been right more often than he has the last few years. On another note, remember when people said Billy Beane wouldn't like a guy like Pie because of his walks, and the biggest prospect he just traded Haren for was a guy with the same problems as Pie? I also think it's a mistake to assume to #3 starters out of those guys. De Los Santos has pitched 1 year in the minors. Remember Justin Jones back when he was at the level De Los Santos pitched at? He was a 10+ K/9 lefty with a 2.28 ERA. Things can and do happen. This board is flat out disingenuous a lot. Remember when people were talking up getting Carl Crawford, and they said "Oh, he's going to get better and hit 30 home runs and so forth" but Nick Swisher, who just turned 27 like a month ago, has no capacity to get better, moving out of Oakland and into a better lineup? A switch hitter who just turned 27 and has hit 35 home runs and taken 100 walks in a season in his career is just going to be .836 OPS guy you can get the same production from easily somewhere else? It wouldn't surprise me if Swisher starts putting up Teixeira-esque numbers. And this isn't a rental, he's cheap seemingly forever. It's almost ridiculous how long he's locked up for a bargain price. In 2010 Shawn Green type players will probably make $16 million a year, how will Swisher look then? Any disparaging of this trade from the White Sox side looks like nonsense to me. Speaking of Teixeira, I thought Swisher would get a Teixeira-like deal because he's so cheap for so long. The White Sox actually got the A's to buy into Ryan Sweeney? Fabulous for them. Salaries are rising so much Michael Wuertz could be making more money than Swisher in 2010. If I had to pick between Nick Swisher, Alex Rios, and Brad Hawpe, I'd rather have Swisher. Kenny Williams got a steal. The sad thing is, if the Cubs do get Brian Roberts it'll probably be for a near equivalent package and everyone on the board will be kissing ass about it. The spin here is too much sometimes. Who even cares if the White Sox can't contend? They can spin him off for a way better package in two years, I imagine.

I'm not in as big a hurry to dump Dempster or Marquis for nothing and salary eaten. It seems like a Jacque Jones type of situation, where we actually paid some money and sent him away for nothing while guys like Jose Guillen are making big money. Can Dempster and Marquis really be worth nothing in a market where crap like Kyle Lohse could pull down 4/44? I don't think so. I'm not saying they're worth a gold mine but I'd expect to be able to get something like Ruben Gotay and no cash thrown in for Marquis. I thinK Gallagher should be at the head of the pack for a starting job. He's put up outstanding minor league numbers, give him a real, legitimate chance. I like our catcher depth as it stands with Soto, Castillo, and Donaldson, I don't think Texas would give up Teagarden and his strikeout numbers remind me of Kelly Shoppach.

The A's got ripped off and the White Sox got an excellent deal, no question. Let's see... this De Los Santos guy came out of nowhere and has pitched 1 year. Ryan Sweeney is worthless. Gio Gonzalez is nice but BA only calls him a 2-3 starter. Yeah. Since when are guys like Swisher who are cheap and under contract for a long, long time available so freely? I wouldn't be surprised if he put up a .900+ OPS in 2008. The White Sox could sell him off for an even better package if they aren't any good soon. We should've upgraded the Brian Roberts offers a little and gotten Swisher.

That really seems like splitting hairs to me. A few million and 2 years of age (I see people referring to Brian Roberts stealing bases for Alfonso Soriano because he's getting older and "slowing down," how old do most people think Roberts is, anyway?), means a lot less to me, and most intelligent organizations I'd suspect, then playing a position of much more value (it's like getting a center fielder over a 3rd baseman or something), producing more, and not having the ugly steroids stigma. I know we all want to pretend that Roberts admitting to steroids and suddenly breaking out after years of mediocrity in 2005 means nothing. Maybe it does mean nothing. If he was a Cardinal though I wouldn't be inclined to cut him the benefit of the doubt. But here we do. We're paying for him like this steroids thing never happened. Do you think that would happen if he were a Cub? No, we'd probably have to sell for 50 cents on the dollar. Oh well. Maybe it's worth it to quiet people about leadoff men and stealing bases and blah blah blah. But the costlier proposals mentioned on here look like we're getting rooked.

As long as you're fielding questions, can you tell me what happened to "Trey" Taylor, a lefty out of Baylor, I think, who the Cubs drafted twice, the second time rather high (7th Round?), but apparently he never pitched for them?

Maybe a little off topic, but does anyone know what happened with Justin Bristow, a guy the Cubs were rumored to be interested in taking with their 1st pick a few years back (he was in high school then, college now).

Does anyone think these proposals are a rip-off for the Cubs? What was that one I just read, Sean Gallagher, Eric Patterson, and two more prospects for Brian Roberts? Heck, why don't we just throw $20 million into the deal. I'd like to know why we should give up anything close to equal value as to what the Tigers gave up to Renteria. Hey, I wasn't a fan of getting Renteria, but I didn't know we'd be seeing these proposals for Roberts either. Let's see, Renteria has better rate numbers than Roberts in each of the past two years. Renteria plays a position of *much* more value, one a lot more difficult to fill with offense and defense than Roberts' position. Oh yes, Renteria also doesn't have a cloud of steroids hanging over him. I prefer Gallagher to Jurrjens, though Gallagher doesn't blow Jurrjens out of the water. Add that mismatch in with Eric Patterson and two other prospects, who unless they are Jamal Spearman and Jesse Estrada, probably through sheer numbers equal the value of Gorkys Hernandez, and you have the makings of a deal that looks like it stinks.

I wouldn't waste time going after Snell. He's in our division, making him difficult to obtain probably, and I don't really see him as being a ton better than what we already have. It wouldn't surprise me to see Gallagher outpitching Snell in a year. His numbers up until this year have been interesting in K/9 department but bad elsewhere. Then this year he had a good first half and crapped out the second half. His delivery isn't smooth and he doesn't have a good build. What I'm saying is he's a good pitcher I'd like to have but it doesn't make sense to me to throw a fortune at the Pirates to acquire him.

I think the idea that, if Roberts is acquired, he should bat 2nd, is a very good one. People have this mental block about leadoff but what can't Roberts do in the 2nd spot that he could in the 1st spot? I'm a believer in catering to the whims of Mr. Soriano. He seems fragile, I could see the Cubs being stuck with an $18 million .810 OPS left fielder if he's moved around. My philosophy on this is, as long as he's doing his thing well let him be. My answer would probably be the same if we acquired 1981 era Rickey Henderson. I'd rather have a .900 OPS strikeout crazed lower OBP leadoff man than an .800 OPS record-for-LOB-in-a-season middle of the order hitter.

That doesn't seem like it lets him off the hook though. If Felix Pie went back to Iowa and posted a .727 OPS I think we'd all have a good reason to be pretty concerned. Furthermore, we are comparing a shortstop's offense vs. a first baseman.

In that case, let's trade Cedeno for Hu. I like Hu's chances of succeeding in Chicago better than Cedeno's.

I hope Yohan Gonzalez can advance faster than that!

It's a great deal for the Tigers, but you can't compare it with Marquis's deal really, because if he were a free agent, Willis would've gotten more, even though he sold off his first FA year cheaply.

I don't know many White Sox fans personally so I take with a grain of salt what they do. They're not in our division after all. It only hurts when they win the World Series or we trade someone to them who does well (Jon Garland).

I remember I wanted the Cubs to draft Herrera. He was drafted in the 20something round and Baseball America did a big feature on him. Of course they didn't. I guess it's just as well, they would've found a way to throw him into the Trachsel deal anyway. I always thought Thomas Diamond was the crappiest of the DVD trio.

Do we agree on the bottom line? For the probable price Oakland would demand for Blanton, he doesn't greatly improve the pitching staff or "legitimize it" in the way people are acting like it will?

Yeah, I was using ESPN's park factors, but they seem to back up the individual pitcher data better than maybe just saying it's all random. The A's as a team had a 3.79 ERA at home (3rd) and a 4.81 road ERA (19th). They had a .278 BAA and a 6.71 K/9 on the road and .249 BAA with a 6.18 K/9 at home. That makes it look like McAfee does indeed pretty significantly pull down BAA/BABIP. I wasn't trying to make anything up, what was McAfee playing for this year, because it doesn't look like 2007 was a typical year for McAfee and I don't understand why we should pretend it was when confronted with things we don't understand and just classify as "random" because of that. I couldn't find that information, I was just pointing out going by the HR/F ratios by most of their pitchers it looks like a bigger difference than that, but I don't know for sure. Yes, but I don't take whatever you say at face value. This Ervin Santana home/road business still mystifies me and I don't see why we have to keep dodging around it when it's a source of confusion and an obstruction to my understanding your point. But what does this have to do with Blanton? It looks like everyone had a large benefit this year. Why can't we just focus on McAfee 2007? Joe Blanton posted FIPs of 4.40 and 4.21 in 2005-2006 and now all of a sudden everyone thinks he's swell, maybe we should look at McAfee in 2007 instead of past years for an explanation. Hudson is not a flyball pitcher, he's a groundball pitcher. Hudson's HR suppression rate with Oakland was pretty good, and looking at his road stats I don't think you can just say it's because he is a groundball pitcher, like I think you meant to say. In any event, my point was groundballers like Blanton are helped too, whereas it seemed like you were trying to say it was wrong to point out anyone but Zito types could experience a benefit at home. When did I act surprised or like I found something earth-shattering? If you look at other posts in other topics you'll see a lot of Blanton spooning and this topic is a response to that. That's not very polite to tell people to shut up. If I told you to quit yammering about how ERA is useless until you can logically explain Ervin Santana's home/road ERA split I don't think you'd like that or that would be kind. We're not debating world politics here or something terribly important here, I get it, you know your stuff and I've been pretty open I'm way behind the game and just trying to understand, I don't know why all of posts come with this heavy "message board badass" posturing. If I were blustering or I got angry you were showing up what I was posting than maybe I can understand but wow, come on. I don't care for being ordered to shut up and follow orders like you're the boss of everyone around here or something. I haven't been rude to you, I don't understand the hostility. But baseball often doesn't work like that, where you can so tidily remove the parks from the equation in the reality. Blanton put up mediocre numbers until McAfee played like such a strong pitcher's park, and Wrigley has been a hitter's park lately, so if people are going to gush about how great it would be to get Blanton for an arm and a leg maybe it wouldn't hurt to look at what he's likely to do for the Cubs in 2008. But in the game played on the field, parks will have their say obviously. Isn't it more likely to play as a hitter's park the last few years? But he's not a huge groundball pitcher and before this year, even less so. You seem pretty quick to take to take his 2007 G/F ratio as etched in stone for what he will do the rest of his career. Who says he's not more like 2005-2006? Blanton's G/F this year was around the same as Marquis and Marshall's. I don't think you can just clap your hands and say "Cubs, groundball pitcher, a match made in heaven." Maddux was a better groundball pitcher and he wasn't that great with us. That is your definition of a "poor number 2, good number 3" guy? My definition would seem to be different, perhaps that is where some of the confusion is derived. I think it could be because of his quite friendly home park. It would seem to explain fairly well what's going on with Blanton and the rest of the A's staff though. Come on what? Look, yeah, I'm not with you by a long shot but I'm more with you than the average message board fan. When the games are won and lost by runs and it's a pitcher's job to prevent runs, I don't think it's a good idea to just talk about what should happen according to the graphs and if it doesn't happen that way for years, oh well. Like when people say "Jeremy Bonderman is very, very good, but he's just randomly unlucky" and he's been randomly unlucky for 4 years now, it's hard for me to get behind that, I prefer it when the baseball players start showing results in all of the "crap categories" (as you might put it). Or when people who talk down to others whip out the graphs (this happened after 2006) to show how Dave Bush was going to become the next Chris Carpenter, and pfffft, didn't happen. Okay, well, I'll treat Dave Bush like a great pitcher when "luck" turns his away apparently but not before then, sue me. Anyway that doesn't have to do with you, but I'm just telling you why I can't get on board with your more counterintuitive concepts without first understanding the reasoning behind them.

The park factors I'm looking at says McAfee was the park 2nd most detrimental to batting average in the majors, winning out by far in the AL, and Oakland also played by far in the AL the most run-suppressing of the parks, 2nd in the majors only to Petco. So we have a pitcher who has an enormous home/road ERA split, his home park is the most pitcher friendly in the AL, our home park shows up as the most run-inflating park in the NL, and it's unreasonable to see the possibility of peril here? I mean, I keep seeing on here, picking up Blanton would be a huge upgrade, it would also require an enormous package and he seems pretty iffy. McAfee didn't suppress runs or BA nearly as much in 2006, maybe that's part of why Blanton was worse. In 2005 it played as a hitter's park and Blanton posted his highest FIP and a much higher HR/F ratio. If Blanton costs an arm and a leg to acquire and comes over here and pitches 205 innings of 4.00 ERA baseball for a reasonable salary he hardly seems worth the talent to land.

Why not "get started?" I've basically been asking for such for this topic. If Oakland doesn't give all pitchers a break, why does it seem like all of the AL starters who go to the NL get an ERA bump except for the A's pitchers? Tim Hudson was a groundball pitcher who consistently had a better home than road ERA, people said Hudson would be a sub-3.00 ERA guy in the NL. His home run suppression for his Oakland career was abnormally low. It's unlikely anyone pitching for the Cubs is going to have a HR/F ratio of below 10.5% if history is any indicator. Couldn't it be possible that Oakland helps the home pitchers more than the numbers show, sort of like Colorado helps the home hitters more than the park factors show? Mark Mulder was more of a groundball pitcher, he more often than not had a substantially better home ERA. Gaudin was a ground ball pitcher who has had a better ERA at home than the road the past two years with Oakland. Lenny DiNardo, a groundball pitcher who was good at home and bad on the road this year. Joe Kennedy, better with the A's at home than on the road. This year it seems like Oakland has been an asset to these guys. And then there's Esteban Loiaza in 2006. I don't agree that that's an apt comparison. But back to Ervin Santana. Why doesn't your wisecrack work here? If he's the same pitcher at home that he is on the road, why is consistently so bad on the road? Just a 3 year fluke? ERA may not mean anything to you but I think when his manager has to overuse the bullpen whenever Santana starts on the road and puts his team in a bad position for winning the game, he might disagree.

But Chris Young's home run suppression and BABIP isn't even really in line with the other San Diego pitchers. And what about Ervin Santana? Are his home/road splits meaningless? Every year he's got a good home ERA, a bad road ERA, and a big home/road BABIP split. Do you just dismiss this three year pattern as irrelevant and chalk up the BABIP difference as a voodoo curse? I'm not trying to be snarky, I'm just saying with Santana it doesn't seem random or anything.

What makes Joe Blanton's case different from Chris Young's? If we're skeptical about unusual BABIPs why don't we just throw Young's 2006-7 right out the window?

you bet your ass they are. 1. You're looking at ERA (AKA you're wasting your time) 2. I don't look at ERA and I had no idea that he led the league in ERA (and I don't care) 3. His splits are fine. Forget about them. 4. He's a good number 3, poor number 2. That's exactly what everyone thinks he is. 5. b/c of 1-4 your Blanton "analysis" -- if it can be called that -- is meaningless. You seriously drive me nuts sometimes. You have had three posts on this thread and you STILL haven't answered WHY his splits are not a big deal. I can't possibly see why they would not be, but I'm not blessed with your level of genius. Maybe you could descend long enough to explain this to us lesser forms? Would be appreciated. Let's see...... identical strike out rate identical walk rate identical ground ball rate ITS AMAZING HE'S THE SAME DAMN PITCHER ON THE ROAD AND AT HOME! OMG! OMG! OMG! OH MY GOD CALL THE COPS AND GIVE THEM THE 411! Splits courtesy of baseball reference and refer to Blanton's career #'s I Split G GS GF W L S CG SHO IP ERA H R ER HR BB IBB SO HBP +-+------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+------+------+----+----+----+---+----+---+----+---+ Home 48 47 0 22 15 0 4 2 319 3.55 303 134 126 28 79 9 181 4 Away 54 51 1 20 19 0 2 0 314.2 4.66 362 174 163 29 88 2 188 10 I Split G PA AB R H 2B 3B HR BB IBB SO HBP SH SF ROE GDP SB CS Pk BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip sOPS+ tOPS+ Split +-+------------+----+-----+-----+----+----+---+---+---+----+---+----+---+---+---+---+---+----+---+---+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------------+ Home 48 1303 1209 134 303 59 5 28 79 9 181 4 4 7 4 28 18 4 2 .251 .297 .377 .674 .273 0 86 Home Away 54 1368 1247 174 362 77 7 29 88 2 188 10 6 17 14 29 22 7 2 .290 .338 .433 .771 .318 0 113 Away The two biggest impacts the Oakland's home park has are on HR (the dominant factor) and a babip (more fouls become outs, but this is only a few extra outs / year). The splits that matter are the three true outcomes and ground ball %. His HR at home and on the road are nearly identical (and both good), which means that he really hasn't benefited that much from the spacious confines as much as you might think. K's and walks are generally pretty park independent, so the fact that those are close shouldn't be surprising. The main difference driving the ERA gap is babip. As noted above, a few points of this is going to be due to the extra foul ground leading to some extra pop-outs during the year in foul territory. But it's only going to be a few extra outs a year (most of those fouls that go into the stands still turn into outs unless Blanton is facing an entire lineup of Barry Bonds) that the park provides. Blanton doesn't have a high enough K rate to be a #1 or #2. But nobody is claiming he is one. He doesn't walk guys and he suppresses HR quite effectively - at home or on the road. Which means he's not a bad pick as a #3 or #4 starter. btw - Marquis may get just as many grounders, but he also gives up more HR than Blanton, which is a bad downfall for pitchers with low k-rates that allow guys to reach base. He's therefore a bad comp for Blanton. How do you just say that his home run suppression is a skill anymore than suppressing hits isn't a skill? Are the numbers from his career somewhat thrown off at all because Oakland doesn't play as the same park every year or not? I'm asking, I don't know. Why do we generally throw out BABIP for a pitcher when it comes to home/road but it seems like people are less skeptical of it when it comes to left/right. BABIP doesn't seem to the only thing affected by his home/road splits, so does Isolated Power for the last two years. I don't see how his home run suppression is significantly more credible than Chris Young's, Chris Young has a lower G/F by far but the fly-to-home run rate is similar. Maddux is now good at suppressing home runs, but with the Cubs he wasn't. When you look at the bad pitchers, they never have a BABIP people consider "legitimate." So I wonder how that works. Usually the posts I read on here dump on Jon Garland so I'm surprised to see defense of a similar pitcher. Another question for anyone courteous enough to want to field it, does actual performance not matter to people here, is it more important to field a team that's theoretically good instead of actually good? Like Maddux - his ERA is probably not going to be what the gurus say it "should" be for the rest of his career. Or if you have Jeremy Bonderman and he does what he's been doing for the past 4 years, do you feel satisfied that where the real statistical measurements are, he's a fringe #1, or at some point do you begin to think, hey, you'd be just as well off with a good who hits a 3 year streak of fluke luck?

No snarkiness? Wow. That seemed unnecessary. I don't think it's odd to think that a pitcher can pitch the same way in different parks and get different results. Chirs Young's K, BB, and G/F rates don't vary enough from home and road to explain his splits, yet I don't think it would be a good idea to pretend that Chris Young's home park has no effect on his performance. I'm just bringing up other guys to get an idea about what's relevant and what isn't. You haven't been that forthcoming about that.

Why can't you just answer the questions about the other guys? Maybe it would give the plebeians a leg up on what is relevant and what isn't. Or maybe you could say what is relevant to look for in splits. Blanton had an 0.99 WHIP at home and a 1.43 WHIP on the road. Is that meaningless? All that foul ground in Oakland can't affect opponent batting average or anything, an increasing home run rate on the road, does that mean anything? I don't think your #4 does anything to show my analysis is meaningless. Saying Blanton is a good number 3, poor number 2 is meaningless.

You didn't answer the question. Are all splits of the players I listed irrelevant splits? This split from Blanton was totally random, and the fact that he was 1st in AL ERA and in bad company on the road ERA, shouldn't cast any aspersions on how good he is? Well let's narrow it down - are the Beckett/Chris Young splits meaningless, and why aren't Greene's splits meaningless?