davearm2

It's not just one outlier though. Parks move up and down these rankings all the time without any plausible explanation. That leads me to question the validity of the measure itself. It could be that extraneous factors (such as weather) are not being controlled for. It could be a sample size problem like you mentioned. Or there might just be too much noise in the data. Regardless, there's a problem (IMO). If you know how they're calculated like you said then you should know why there's so much variation. It's based on teams' run scoring/prevention at home versus away. There is nothing directly about the park that is being measured. And the ESPN ones in particular are very simplistic, which is why that one varies more. If you have a few guys on the team that just happened to have all their big hot streaks on homestands then that could cause a big variation. If you have a weird summer of weather that could cause a big variation. If you have September schedule of nearly all road games and you're out of it so you pretty much only play callups that could cause a big change. Etc. It's basically the same principle as why for an individual player you always want to use 3 year splits when possible, or why UZR is nearly useless under a 1000 innings. There's a lot of variation for a variety of reasons, but over a large sample that noise is greatly reduced. So we agree then: a "park factor" (in its various formulations) doesn't do a very good job of isolating the effect the ballpark itself has on the hitting environment -- as you said, there's lots more going on that can't very easily be controlled for. That's been my point all along.

Talk about stats that don't pass the smell test... a ballpark went from 18th to 1st in one year? Absent significant changes to the field's dimensions, its park factor should remain essentially constant from year to year. So unless they moved in the fences 25 feet or chopped the foul territory in half of something, that just doesn't add up. They're calculated based off of how teams scored on the road and at home, so it's obviously not a static number. There's a good deal of variance. That's why I gave three years. I understand how park factors are calculated. And it's flawed, as this example illustrates. A truly robust and reliable measure would have virtually no year-to-year variance, since the parks themselves aren't changing (with a few exceptions). That's not true at all. Any statistic, even the most sound and reliable, is prone to have variance within the course of a small sample. You're condemning an entire statistic based on the existence of an outlier. It's not just one outlier though. Parks move up and down these rankings all the time without any plausible explanation. That leads me to question the validity of the measure itself. It could be that extraneous factors (such as weather) are not being controlled for. It could be a sample size problem like you mentioned. Or there might just be too much noise in the data. Regardless, there's a problem (IMO).

Talk about stats that don't pass the smell test... a ballpark went from 18th to 1st in one year? Absent significant changes to the field's dimensions, its park factor should remain essentially constant from year to year. So unless they moved in the fences 25 feet or chopped the foul territory in half of something, that just doesn't add up. Weather. If that's truly the explanation then the term "park factor" is a misnomer. Might as well just call it a weather factor instead, if that's what it is. Weather causes variance, the parks themselves are the most important factor to how the stadium plays. How do you explain how Arlington went from 18th to 1st in one year? Look it's plainly obvious that the various parks play differently -- some more pitcher friendly and some more hitter friendly -- and in principle we should be able to measure those effects statistically. I just question whether what's being sold as a "park factor" really is capturing the park effects reliably. Sure doesn't seem like it in this instance anyway, which calls the entire method into question. And if weather really does play a significant role, then the only proper response to a question like, "what will Marlon Byrd's stats look like now that he's playing home games at Wrigley instead of Arlington" is, "that depends on the weather". That answer, while perhaps accurate, is of very little practical use.

It's neutralized in the park factor computation.

Talk about stats that don't pass the smell test... a ballpark went from 18th to 1st in one year? Absent significant changes to the field's dimensions, its park factor should remain essentially constant from year to year. So unless they moved in the fences 25 feet or chopped the foul territory in half of something, that just doesn't add up. Weather. If that's truly the explanation then the term "park factor" is a misnomer. Might as well just call it a weather factor instead, if that's what it is.

Talk about stats that don't pass the smell test... a ballpark went from 18th to 1st in one year? Absent significant changes to the field's dimensions, its park factor should remain essentially constant from year to year. So unless they moved in the fences 25 feet or chopped the foul territory in half of something, that just doesn't add up. They're calculated based off of how teams scored on the road and at home, so it's obviously not a static number. There's a good deal of variance. That's why I gave three years. I understand how park factors are calculated. And it's flawed, as this example illustrates. A truly robust and reliable measure would have virtually no year-to-year variance, since the parks themselves aren't changing (with a few exceptions).

Talk about stats that don't pass the smell test... a ballpark went from 18th to 1st in one year? Absent significant changes to the field's dimensions, its park factor should remain essentially constant from year to year. So unless they moved in the fences 25 feet or chopped the foul territory in half of something, that just doesn't add up.

I do realize that, but he was a bad defensive CF last year. Moving him to RF will improve the defense, and probably still give us better production then we got out of Bradley last year. Especially if we find the right platoon partner for him. For example how would a Jonny Gomes and Fukudome platoon in RF look next season? I do not think Fukudome was bad in CF, and I doubt Byrd will be better. fukudome was very bad in center last year, and byrd is about average there. so yes, he should be a lot better. also, it helps the d in rf. so that's 2 defensive positions upgraded with 1 move. Show me a stat that says the same player is a big defensive liability in CF but a big asset in RF, and I'll show you a stat that I don't have a whole lot of faith in. Granted there's more ground to cover in CF than RF, but that conclusion just doesn't pass the smell test.

It's a pattern. Who else do you want? Michael Young career OPS+ at home: 115 away: 86 Nelson Cruz at home: 121 away: 80 Kinsler at home: 123 away: 77 Andrus at home: 125 away: 76 Andruw Jones last year at home: 121 away: 91 It's pretty well accepted that guys hit better at home than on the road. I sampled a few former Rangers (DeRosa, Teixeira, and Pudge Rodriguez) and they exhibited the very same home/road pattern after moving on from Texas. And I agree that players typically do play better at home than on the road. However, nowhere in Marlon Byrd's career has he posted OPS+'s in the high 130's except in Arlington. At home and on the road at all of his other stops, he's basically been right in between 100 and 110. And that's all anyone should expect from him, which is not horrible, but certainly nothing to get excited about, either. All I'm saying is Byrd's numbers at Texas are propped up because of the park he plays in. He's not as good as advertised. I used Burnitz as an example because Hendry acted like Burnitz was the guy he wanted all along (after the Sosa trade), spewing his 30+ HR power, blah, blah, blah. Just FYI: An OPS+ of 100 even would've been good for 13th best amongst MLB CFs in 2009. Byrd's actual OPS of 106 was 9th best. A 110 would've been 6th best. Anything in the 130s would've been #1. So even by your own conservative estimate, we're still talking about a guy whose hitting is in or near the top 10 at his position.

It's a pattern. Who else do you want? Michael Young career OPS+ at home: 115 away: 86 Nelson Cruz at home: 121 away: 80 Kinsler at home: 123 away: 77 Andrus at home: 125 away: 76 Andruw Jones last year at home: 121 away: 91 It's pretty well accepted that guys hit better at home than on the road. I sampled a few former Rangers (DeRosa, Teixeira, and Pudge Rodriguez) and they exhibited the very same home/road pattern after moving on from Texas.

Look you wrote an article outlining reasons why the Cubs should shop Theriot. Is "Tim used to like Ryan Theriot" a reason why the Cubs should shop Theriot? How about "Tim is one person who no longer thinks of Ryan as such a nice guy"? Is that something that should be entering Jim Hendry's decision process? I would've thought it would be easy to understand how these personal jabs detract from the point of the article. Talk about being obtuse... I'm writing an opinion piece - I believe my opinions are fairly relevant to the piece. Whether they are relevant to Jim Hendry or not doesn't really matter, does it? Also, you're bright enough that after reading the remainder of the article, you should realize that, "I used to like Ryan Theriot" is a double entendre that serves as a hook for the reader to begin the article. It means both that I used to like Theriot as a good fit for the Cubs (primary meaning based on the content of the article) as well as I used to like Theriot as a guy (family man, seems fun, etc.). LOL the new NSBB insult du jour: "you're obtuse"! Very original, Tim. To answer your question, yes, an article entitled "Theriot Should be Shopped" should focus upon rationales that would be relevant to Jim Hendry. You're obviously free to express your opinion, but just don't get all defensive when people point out the fact that a bunch of irrelevant discussion of your personal feelings on the subject dilutes whatever serious baseball analysis you intended.

There's no rule that says Fuld would have to get more ABs than Johnson. Piniella can divide up the starts however he sees fit.

Look you wrote an article outlining reasons why the Cubs should shop Theriot. Is "Tim used to like Ryan Theriot" a reason why the Cubs should shop Theriot? How about "Tim is one person who no longer thinks of Ryan as such a nice guy"? Is that something that should be entering Jim Hendry's decision process? I would've thought it would be easy to understand how these personal jabs detract from the point of the article.

Ok 0 value was probably a little over the top. I will say that he has much more trade value today then he will at the deadline. 1st he currently is a .970 OPS. I would not bet that he is any better at the deadline adn will probably be lower. 2nd He currently has a whole year left on his contract. At the deadline it will only be 2 months. There is time currently for a team to work on an extension to get a trade approved. My guess a desperate team may give him an extention at teh deadline, but it will be more in Lee's favor then and will do more to decrease his trade value. Anyway to me the current Cubs are good but cannot become great for many (Jim Hendry caused) reasons. Yes they may win the division and luck into a WS like the Cardinals a couple of years ago. They however are not even close to the Yankees and others. I have a hard time seeing them get there with the current core without a major payroll increase. Lastly the Cubs are much closer to being a bad team then a great team in teh next couple of years with teh core players starting to be lessor players. These core players are going to cost the bulk of the payroll to be going into bad. If you have a feasible solution to making the current Cubs core into a great team in teh next 2 years, I can surely change my mind on wanting to break it up. Most folks would agree that the 2008 Cubs were a great team, and aside from being two years older (but still nobody older than, what, 34 or 35?), the same core is still intact. I'd say a return to 2008's performance level is at the very least feasible, and even if it's not all the way to another 97 wins, anything 90 or above puts them in the postseason in all likelihood. That's reason enough to keep things intact and play to win in 2010.

The big-market teams that have had the kind of sustained success that you're talking about have the same sort of long-term deals on their books as the Cubs do (more, actually), and those teams are not trading away their expensive impact guys like you're suggesting. IMO the main thing that separates the Cubs from the likes of the NYY and Red Sox is that those teams are producing a regular influx of all-star caliber talent out of their farm system. Hopefully the Cubs have turned the corner on this one, and will be getting significant contributions at the ML level in the near future from their top prospects. Ironically, you think the Cubs should contend every year, yet your blueprint virtually ensures that they won't be for the next few years, at a minimum. A better plan would be to try and contend now with the core they've got, and contend later with the core they're developing -- which is just what they're doing.

Name a few

I for one would appreciate it if someone could point me to the Theriot quotes that have got so many folks spitting nails. I expected to see them in the article, especially since Tim was particularly critical of them, but nada.

What? Why the hell would... ergh. Well they weren't going to do it out of the goodness of their heart... they would've gotten something else with Igawa. The way the blurb ends, it's reasonable to assume that something might've been Melky Cabrera.

That's my understanding of the situation too. The other component is the timing of the $9M coming from Seattle. According to Wittenmyer, $5.5M will be paid in 2010, and $3.5M in 2011. If that's correct then the Cubs get $3M in payroll relief in 2010 (9.0 on Bradley + 5.5 from M's - 11.5 to Silva), and $2M (12.0+3.5-11.5-2.0 buyout) in 2011.

Can somebody explain something to me? When discussing defense, many posters here regurgitate UZR scores instinctively. As best I can tell it's widely considered the current gold standard for defensive metrics. So if UZR says, say, Mike Cameron is an excellent CF, then the debate is over and it's a given that Cameron is an excellent CF. When discussing Ryan Theriot's defense, it's a universal truth around here that it sucks. Yet UZR thinks Theriot's defense at SS is above-average: +7.7, +0.7, and +8.3 in his three seasons as the starter. So if we tend to accept the UZR verdict on guys we see play occasionally-to-rarely, then why is it rejected for a guy we see play regularly? Something's not adding up there. Either UZR isn't all it's cracked up to be, or folks' firsthand impressions of Theriot are just plain wrong.

This isn't about how the money is spent. It's the RESULTS from the money that is spent. It seems as though you have a completely different level of expectancy for this team. That's great, but you're flying that plane by yourself. Everyone else believes for the money that the Cubs have allotted to the payroll, more trips to the playoffs are in order. Let's look at the Braves. They went to the playoffs every year for like 14 years in a row. That's pretty amazing considering for parts of that time, their budget was not in the top half of major league teams. This makes the GM of the Braves better than Hendry, better than Cashman, better than Epstein, better than everyone. This is what you are paying your GM to do. Build from within and then spend to fill the holes and make the right moves to keep your team on top for not just this year, but the next several years in a row. You are right that just about every GM wastes money on someone at some point or another. However, if the results are there, while it's never acceptable to waste money, it's more forgiveable. The results aren't there for Hendry, therefore it's not forgiveable. The list of other teams where the GM's have been replaced should be evidence enough. The only reason Hendry hasn't been removed at this point is probably because the team ownership has been in transition. The sadness is that everyday he stays in office could end up being more damaging than the previous day. He's running this team right now like he's trying to save his job when he should be running this team with the future of the team in mind. It'd be interesting to see what the mood around here would be if the Cubs had made the postseason in 2009, giving the Cubs three straight and 4 in Hendry's 7 years. As you said yourself this is a results-based business and it'd be hard to argue with those results. I suspect many of the especially-vocal folks would still want Hendry gone, but I bet they would be the minority. But as we well know the Cubs didn't make the postseason in 2009. So in the end if folks want Hendry fired because his offseason moves last year backfired and turned a 97-win team into an 83-win team, I'll certainly listen to that. Heck I'm not particularly opposed to it myself, to be frank, because he's ultimately responsible for that failure. What I won't listen to, however, is the notion that Hendry has been an unmitigated disaster who's done more harm than good since taking over, and that there's no sane reason to keep him around, and especially the notion that just about anyone else could do a better job given the same opportunity and resources. To me that's just a bunch of nonsense borne out of frustration and impatience.

Seriously, you don't even care about trying now. Not sure what this is supposed to mean. I'm not advocating that the Cubs should be run like the Marlins. No but you are intentionally acting like a moron by pretending others are. The problem is the Cubs are no better than the Marlins, when they should be much, much better. What you're accusing me of ("pretending others are") is flat out wrong, and illustrates a failure on your part to comprehend what I'm saying.

Seriously, you don't even care about trying now. Not sure what this is supposed to mean. I'm not advocating that the Cubs should be run like the Marlins. No, but you're trying to make an issue that isn't nearly black and white be black and white. Marlins or Yankess with no middle ground when there clearly is. The Cardinals are a mid-level payroll team and have done a pretty good job of being competitive most years. They've made smart moves in acquiring players and have mostly avoided that deadly long term deal that cripples you for years. They also haven't sold off players and rebuilt every 3-4 years. And they haven't signed any huge FAs either. It can be done. People are pissed because Hendry has not only made some questionable moves in wasting money on lower level FAs, but has now effectively handcuffed the club for the future by signing guys like Bradley, Soriano, and Z to huge deals and dishing out the NTCs he has. If that's what you're taking away, then you're misunderstanding. I completely get that there's a continuum of ways to run a ballclub. Nowhere did I mean to suggest it's Yankees or Marlins with no middle ground. What I'm saying is you have to live all the way at the low end of that continuum to eliminate the risk of having costly mistakes. In other words the only way to prevent getting burned by bad contracts is to have no large contracts at all. Nobody here wants the Cubs to be run that way, so you basically have to do your due diligence, accept the risk, and live with the fallout when things go south, as they inevitably will eventually.

I'm neither dense nor obtuse. But I can recognize and illustrate the logical flaws being espoused here. The best, and perhaps only way to avoid wasting money is to operate your club like the Marlins have. So don't get on Hendry for his foolish spending unless you would prefer that alternative, because all big-market teams have a few expensive, high-profile screwups on their resume. It goes with the territory. I really don't understand how you can think you aren't being either dense or obtuse. You basically just said there are two ways to run clubs: like the Marlins or like the Cubs. Come on. I didn't say anything of the sort. All I said was the Marlins style was perhaps the only way to avoid wasting money, which seems to be a major strike folks have against Hendry. Meanwhile folks seem oblivious to the fact that Theo Epstein has got his share of Lugos, Cashman his share of Pavanos, Coletti his share of Schmidts and Andruw Jonses, the Angels their share of Sarge Jrs. etc. etc. That's not to excuse the mistakes, but rather to acknowledge that having one or two is basically unavoidable. I strongly suspect a careful analysis would show that Hendry hasn't operated particularly differently than his big-market colleagues in this area, either, although it'd be a much more difficult question to research. I'm lost now. Obviously nobody, myself included, is advocating running the Cubs like the Marlins.

Seriously, you don't even care about trying now. Not sure what this is supposed to mean. I'm not advocating that the Cubs should be run like the Marlins.