CubColtPacer

The rumors were that OKC went to Golden State and Washington first and asked for Klay Thompson or Beal. They were turned down by both teams which is why they went to Houston.

The Cubs offense is getting awfully close to league average. They are crushing the rest of the NL in doubles. The OBP deficit which was 30 points under league average a few weeks ago is down to 9. Still dead last in walks, but as expected their batting average is creeping up (and it still might have a little more room to creep up further). Their RISP numbers have been flying up recently, but still could use about another 100 points to be in line with how the rest of the league does. Obviously league average is not the ideal, but it's much better than what was expected before the season.

I have no idea why there are no games tonight. As for the rest, the Bulls-Heat was originally the Sunday ABC game with the Knicks-Pacers on Monday. But the Blackhawks have a potential game on Sunday, so the Bulls-Heat got moved to Monday and that pushed Knicks-Pacers to Tuesday. And since the original schedule had Bulls-Heat game 4 on Sunday, that meant they had to have game 3 on Friday, which pushed Pacer-Knicks game 3 all the way to Saturday (since apparently they wanted to take tonight off).

Haha yeah. Right after the Pacers had fought back from 13 down and taken a 2 point lead. The Pacers seem to have that ability to simply not show up for long stretches of play every few games. Reminded me of game 3 against Atlanta when the Hawks had a 32-6 run (with a 22-2 run to start that).

wouldn't they have had to match salaries? They could have traded him to a team under the cap, but IIRC the news around the deadline was that the Bulls weren't desperate enough to send a first round pick with him to entice a team.

I think he's said that he'll exceed that threshold for a winner. If they take the Heat to 6 or 7 or somehow find a way to advance, that could be a factor They've been about the same level for three years now (admittedly, I can somewhat see the point of not going over the threshold this season). His work with the White Sox and MLB CBA is just another indication that he does not care to spend much on his teams. I don't believe Reinsdorf. The Bulls are over the threshold this year, and unless they amnesty Boozer or trade Deng to a team under the cap they will be again next year. What if they buyout RIP? I'm already assuming they do that. The tax level was 70.3 million this year, and the Bulls are paying the tax since they have salaries just over 74 million. Even without Hamilton next year the Bulls are at about 72 million for 8 players. So even with minimum salary players filling the rest of the roster, they would be in the 74-75 million range and I doubt the tax level will jump up that much. They could try to dump Hinrich to get under, but I'm not sure who would be interested, and that might not get them enough room anyway.

I think he's said that he'll exceed that threshold for a winner. If they take the Heat to 6 or 7 or somehow find a way to advance, that could be a factor They've been about the same level for three years now (admittedly, I can somewhat see the point of not going over the threshold this season). His work with the White Sox and MLB CBA is just another indication that he does not care to spend much on his teams. I don't believe Reinsdorf. The Bulls are over the threshold this year, and unless they amnesty Boozer or trade Deng to a team under the cap they will be again next year.

They don't have Bird rights to him, so any team can just price him beyond what the Bulls can legally afford (the MLE, basically, since the Bulls are up against the hard cap), and they will. They can't even offer that much unless they clear salary. Right now, signing Nate to an MLE deal would put the Bulls over the apron (unless the luxury tax level skyrockets) and you can't go over the apron when using the MLE. They'll probably be limited to offering one of Robinson or Bellinelli the mini MLE unless they decide to dump a big salary.

Those are Starlin's stats from last year.

From looking over his career statistics, maybe a good comparison for Torreyes is Jeff Keppinger? Keppinger had a touch more power while Torreyes might be a little better defensively. Keppinger hasn't had the greatest of careers, but hitters with that level of production should be more valuable than they were even a few years ago due to declining offense. The nice thing about Torreyes too is that his skill set should give him a lesser chance of busting than most prospects. I'm very interested to watch him as he gets more data at AA.

Are the Cubs better than their record? My post is not going to get into each individual player and how they are overperforming/underperforming. For the purposes of this post, it assumes they are balancing out. If they are not that's another important variable to consider when looking at a team's true talent level. Instead, I looked into things that commonly have a baseline and can be used to measure variance. Pythagorean record, BABIP compared to league median, and performance in clutch situations. What I found is that the Cubs so far have been on the unlucky side of all 3. 1. Pythagorean record. Currently the Cubs are still 1 game behind their pythagorean record. They have been outscored by 13 runs on the season. That has gotten much closer to even with the Cubs close victories over the last few days. 2. BABIP. The Cubs are 27th with a .267 BABIP which is 24 points behind league median of .291. That is despite a line drive percentage of 19.6% (just behind league median of 20.0%), one of the lowest IFFB% (25th at 7.7%, league median is 10.35), and a GB/FB ratio that is slightly weighted towards fly balls but not much (1.17 vs league median of 1.26). Their HR/FB rate is elevated: 12.7 vs league median of 10.95. 3. Clutch hitting. This is absurd how the Cubs seem to start every season with terrible clutch hitting. Some years it has evened out, while a couple years recently it hasn't. This year is following that trend. Here's the National League total batting line so far: .246/.313/.387. Here's the Cubs line so far: .230/.283/.396. So clearly the Cubs are a very bad offense, clutch hitting or no clutch hitting. 30 points of OBP behind league average is only ahead of Miami, and they have to jump up 20 points just to reach the next team. There's no amount of variance that can even turn the offense into average. But here is the numbers with runners in scoring position: National League: .252/.340/.383 Cubs: .152/.253/.244 That's not a misprint. The National League gets better overall with runners in scoring position. The Cubs are 180 OPS points worse so far. If they were the same amount behind the National League in this category as they are in the total (which is what it would theoretically regress to eventually), they would be 205 OPS points better. The OBP difference for the Cubs isn't that bad, but it comes from actually outwalking the National League with RISP, despite being way behind in the walks category for the totals. And if you have to concentrate your base hits in one category and your walks in another, you'd want to do it the exact opposite way the Cubs have. Their RISP with 2 outs and bases loaded numbers are similarly atrocious. There is some evidence of some potential positive variance on the pitching side that I'll leave for another post, but it's not nearly as strong as the hitting side. Are there reasons the Cubs might underperform in any of these areas? Or is this really a case of an average team whose variance has gone very badly so far?

They did apparently announce last night that Werner would be playing linebacker. There are others concerned about the scheme fit, although it should be noted that the Colts don't play a true 3-4. They like some others are more of a hybrid. He'll be paired with Mathis at that position, so I would assume Werner would play some run downs in place of Mathis and then maybe occasionally slide up to end on obvious passing downs?

It is strange how this has turned into a war of attrition. 6 teams currently in the playoffs have All-Stars out (Rose, Kobe, Westbrook, Rondo, Granger, Lee). Then you have Gallinari out for the Nuggets and even Lou Williams/Pachulia out for the Hawks. So out of the 16 playoff teams, 7-8 of them have a significant player out for the season/indefinitely. That doesn't even begin to get into the players that are hurting but trying to play through it which is usually the main injury storyline of the playoffs. I do expect in this case that Westbrook will be back in time if they make the Finals though. They're saying potentially weeks depending on what they find in surgery.

Here's similar sorts of numbers for each team from 2013: http://www.kshb.com/dpp/sports/baseball/mlb-average-ticket-price--fan-cost-index-for-all-30-baseball-teams MLB average is up to 52.50 a person, but the Cubs are estimated at almost $75 a person.

I'd be interested to see that filtered to top prospects with a minimum MiLB OPS, to see how those percentages change when focused on prospects whose primarily value is in their bat/power. I'd agree with that. My feeling is that at least part of that is how major league teams use their benches. They tend to emphasize versatility and defense over hitting ability, and that makes it harder for mediocre sluggers who play corner spots to make his 1500 AB threshold. That would also be another explanation for the high correlation between successful hitters in the majors and a high minor league strikeout rate. The sluggers have already been thinned out to a degree, so the ones who do get more than 1500 AB's tend to be the best of the best. While middle infielders who have low strikeout rates but are bad hitters tend to hang around for a long time for defensive reasons. However, even if you look at the successes, Baez already has the 13th highest strikeout rate among all of them. So it's definitely something to be concerned about. I do dispute the thought though that his strikeout rate will likely rise as he progresses though the levels. While that is intuitive, I am not sure it works out for a high school prospect like Baez with so few plate appearances and who has been promoted fairly aggressively. I'm not sure if we know where Baez's strikeout numbers are going to go yet. There's too many variables involved to hazard a good guess.

Nope, I was thinking of a position player, I remember he was supposed to be super fast. I'm getting worried I have been thinking of Hak Ju Lee this whole time, which kinda pisses me off and makes me feel old. Yeah, you might be thinking of Pin-Chieh Chen. Can't think of anyone else fitting the Asian middle infield description besides Hak-Ju Lee or Chen. Maybe he's thinking of Kyung-Min Na? He isn't a middle infielder (CF mostly), but he was supposed to be fast when he was signed, got a pretty big bonus, and there were several other Asian signings that year (including Chen for a lesser amount that year). He also was in 2009 so a little closer to the stated timeframe. If it is him, Na was traded to San Diego in the Rizzo deal, and San Diego released him this year.

well, Billy should have given more consideration to the very real possibility of his coach being canned or of leaving for another job. Just one part of the decision-making process. Of course Johnny could always be considered culpable for being a terrible judge of character himself, but his coach blatantly misled in him in selling him what he thought was a dream. Johnny's coach is a pathological scumbag that can never be trusted and will do the same thing over and over and over at the same school. The coach that cuts Billy only does so once or twice, whenever he moves. Once or twice, huh? Interesting. In Groce's first (full) off-season as coach, Illinois already has had four players transfer. In Crean's five (full) off-seasons, so far Indiana has had four transfers (five if you want to count Matt Roth; heck, six if you want to count Ron Patterson). So which program is doing a worse job fulfilling its obligations to student-athletes? of course you have to count roth and patterson. you're also being disingenuous when you talk about the transfers in Groce's first full year. yeah, of course that's when the kids he didn't recruit are going to leave. when else are they going to leave? what i'm saying is that this serial overrecruiting isn't going to happen under his watch. Patterson has admitted he didn't make grades even in his second chance summer school situation. He had to average a 2.0, which he wasn't quite able to do. He thinks that he didn't get a 3rd chance because of the scholarship situation (and he might be right), but if he had just made good enough grades in either of his chances he would be on the team right now. Could the basketball team have fought a little harder for him? Probably...it wouldn't be the first situation where a sports player got special treatment. Are they obligated to do that though?

That's a good question and one I'm not sure what the answer is. My thoughts are that if he's guaranteed money through 2018, the cap hit would go through that season (meaning two years of cap hits and the second being worse than the first). If I'm wrong, though, it makes the contract a bit more palatable, though it doesn't make Flacco any better. The cap hit is a 1 time thing. The 24 million is a result of his remaining pro-rated signing bonus accelerating onto that year's cap. Of course, that would still make it a 3 year/62 million year deal (with the cap hit over 4 years). I could see that being an argument for keeping Flacco that long, but I'm guessing they'll end up extending rather than cutting, even if he doesn't get any better.

Maybe, maybe not. I mean, if he's as bad as dew says, cutting him won't be all that painful. If he's still good though, they can extend him and manipulate the cap hit. If they cut him in 2016, they would have a dead cap hit of around 24 million. That's pretty prohibitive. So they either cut him after year 3 and still have 24 million on their cap, or they have Flacco on their cap for 29 million. Neither option is all that appealing, so they'll have to work out an extension. Flacco will have them over a barrel. It may be 7-9 years before they truly feel the pain from this contract, but it has set a chain of events into motion that most of the time will end up with a bad result. This is of course all irrelevant if Flacco has turned the corner as a QB. We'll have to see on that one.

lol, yep. We can talk about Flacco's contract in overall dollars, but truth is that those last couple of years are unlikely to be paid out as-is. As-is, no. But that's not a positive point for the Ravens. Flacco will be the perfect age to demand another large money extension then. And the Ravens can't really get out of the deal easily even at that point. The guarantees make cutting him after year 3 pretty unpalatable, and just going forward with that contract if Flacco demands a ridiculous amount isn't really workable either. They'll be in pretty terrible negotiating position.

What's your solution dew? Let them walk and trade for Colt McCoy? You aren't making any sense. I'm not sure what dew's solution is, but here is one option. If the QB isn't willing to come down, slap the non-exclusive franchise tag on them. If they sign a deal with another team, you can always match and be not much worse off than you were before, or if it's still crazy high, you can take the two first round picks. You then either have extra draft picks to move up to take a QB (if it's a good QB year) or you can try to find a talented backup that hasn't had a chance somewhere else. Either way you will also have extra money available to lose less talent than Baltimore ended up losing. Is it risky? Absolutely. But so is losing other parts of your team because you paid your QB 120 million. Both strategies are viable, but it's going to be harder for QB's to keep setting record contracts with a cap that is going to remain stagnet for a few years, which has not been the norm in the past.

ESPN had just decided yesterday to televise Heat/Bobcats on the 5th (bumping Thunder/Pacers) and Heat/Sixers on the 6th. So now they're stuck with two terrible games, and who knows if the Heat start resting early at this point. I understand needing time for production to get there, but that seems a bit early to be locked into games.

Apparently they have 3 open without considering early entrant players. So they would only need 3-5 early entrants. I count 13 on the roster with 2 seniors, any walk ons in that group? Lanter is a walk on. And apparently Polson is a former walk on who had a scholarship this year, so maybe Calipari doesn't intend to renew that for next year? Edit: Wow. Apparently Kentucky only has 8 players on their roster who started as scholarship players. One of those is one of the seniors, and then of course the four potential early entrants. So there are only 3 starting as scholarship players that are almost certainly coming back next year. Four of their current scholarships are former walk ons, and then of course they have an open scholarship as well. So they have tons of flexibility.

Apparently they have 3 open without considering early entrant players. So they would only need 3-5 early entrants.

I know there's a lot of alarmism going on and I know concussions are a significant issue, but this is getting ridiculous. How in the world is this enforceable without really dragging down the games? It depends on how far it gets out of hand. The NFL reviewed a week of games and found 5 times that it was worthy of penalty. It is only for plays outside the tackle box and only on obvious situations (so it's not as strong as the QB rule where even inadvertent contact is called). If it's only happening in 1 out of 3 games even before the RB's start adjusting for it, it shouldn't be getting called all that often. If it's only happening that often, why the need for the rule change? Well, that's still 80 times a season. If they can get that down to 20-30 by calling it a penalty, I'm sure the NFL will think that's a success, even if 5-6 times it's called wrong over the course of the year.