Eric Clipperton

The return of Meph? Just wanted to mention that I am most certainly not Meph, while I may remind you of the departed in some ways, merely looking at the differences in posting size and frequency make clear that I am not Meph unless he is completely changing style upon his return. I post infrequently and when I do they are way too long epics which try to explain as much of my reasoning as possible. Which is basically the opposite in all ways from anything Meph posted save for his few periods of playing nice. Of course, if I were Meph I would definitely not want to bring it up since I would expect KHALIL GREENE KHALIL GREENE KHALIL GREENE to be the reply. One point that I want to make clear is on Zambrano's hitting value. With only <100 PAs, even a close to average hitter is not really picking up a whole lot of value, and any metric will have a ton of variance. But if we wish to include Pitcher hitting to Zs value, should we then subtract all other pitchers' hitting lines? If so, someone like Lilly who is truly horrendous would find himself to be slightly less valuable than the pitching line would indicate. Anybody think this matters, or does it make more sense to ignore P-hitting since high leverage spots will lead to a PH almost all the time? Could see it either way...

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index.php/carlos-zambrano-loves-lucky-charms Article from fangraphs discussing some of the points i mentioned in an earlier post. In the interest of full disclosure, i am commenter Rodney King on fangraphs. The offer I posted in the comment is valid for anyone over here as well- I'll take action on whether Z will live up to his contract or not, for mutually agreed upon units and terms to any interested Z backers. If anyone finds this little game interesting I would consider any bets of this style, so if you disagree on a projection or player value let's hash out some terms ahead of time and either feel better about being right or learn a lesson the hard way. Of course luck also will play a huge part as always.

I don't understand how pointing out that Z pitched well enough to win a few extra games is cherry picking stats. The point is that there were games in which Z pitched well to very well in that he didn't get a win. You're in favor of a salary dump of Z? I wouldn't do that - I think he's too valuable for that. The point that Z didn't get a win in some games he pitched well in does not tell us any meaningful information about the skill or value of the pitcher. Pitcher value is independent of wins. Every pitcher has games they pitch well in but lose, and pitch poorly while lucking into a win. Who cares? I am right about even either way on a pure salary dump of Z- i could take it or leave it. How much do you think he is worth?

I agree with Bruce's points on how Zambrano's quirks are treated, and appreciate the callout of other media members who disgrace the term journalist. That said, the numbers presented here may back up his point to the average Cubs fan, but in the context of nsbb.com c. 2009, they are ill-informed and potentially misleading. If you analyze a pitcher's "quality start losses" only, well, pitchers with stats as good as Bruce mentions actually DO grow on trees-specifically the cherry tree where he picked these games. This contains massive selection bias, and we could easily rearrange the "stat" to say practically whatever we needed to support our already decided-upon conclusion. Personally, I'd get rid of him if we don't have to pay any salary as long as there is some actual value coming back, no matter how long a shot the prospect is- something like Kyler Burke is a good example of the type of guy I would consider worth a try. If we pay $5MM/yr, I'd expect a couple guys in the acquiring team's top-30 list, more or less. And if we pay $10MM per....well, then why make the deal? Hope the Cubs don't panic to get rid of guys who they have devalued in the media, some of which is due to Lou's ridiculous postgame speeches and other idle chatter. Actually, idle implies this chatter is benign. Idiotic and self-serving are more accurate adjectives, as it frequently hurts the team in ways an old-school baseball man is unlikely to want to hear: devaluing assets, limiting roster and trade flexibility, etc. Basically I'd be all for getting rid of Z if there were reason to believe the Cubs would not panic and spend that money in a reckless and backwards-thinking fashion. i.e. CHONE, a proven closer, speed, grit, chemistry etc. Bring in some more valuable players, the Lilly and DeRosa of the 06-07 free agency period...not the Soriano.

I don't know...Grabow does walk a ton of guys, but Lackey pitching left handed would probably walk a ton of guys too, might not fill that all-important LOOGY spot, which surely is an actual position on Lou's lineup card.

What's an ace caliber starting pitcher? He's only 28 and he's got a better career ERA+ than CC Sabathia, Chris Carpenter, Ted Lilly, Danny Haren, Jake Peavey, Cliff Lee, John Lackey, Josh Beckett, Zach Greinke, and just under Roy Halladay (Doc 132, Z 127). His WHIP is better than or just over all of them too. Z's problem is that he gets demonstrably upset while in public, not that he's not a great pitcher. As per usual, the Cubs are going to trade him for cents on the dollar mostly because they don't like his antics. On top of that they're tipping their hand publicly, which more than likely lowers whatever value he would have had if it were not the case. There's a reason why they haven't won a world series in over 100 years. Edit: I forgot to mention that he hits pretty well for a pitcher too. Cobs! Rather than over his career, I'd prefer to focus on the past three years, where most of those guys have been better than Zambrano, by a wide margin in some instances. His hitting adds to his value, but the fact remains that Zambrano has not been a top-flight pitcher over the past three years. You can make a good argument that Ted Lilly has been more productive than Zambrano over that stretch. Yes, using career stats is obviously a flawed way to measure value. Basically every one of those pitchers except Z had a few bad years before becoming a top pitcher, while Z came up and started tearing it up relatively quickly. Unfortunately, he has been slowly in decline ever since his first full season. WAR by year, 2003-2009: 4.9, 4.7, 4.5, 3.9, 2.8, 2.8, 2.7 The last three years we have seen an above average starter, for sure, but not really the "true ace" everyone must mention when talking about starting pitchers. I agree that Lilly has been better over the last three years, and think at worst the two could be considered equal. In fact, if you look further into Z's peripherals, he has been getting worse over the past couple years from what I can see: while this year Z has a 3.82 FIP, it turns out this is propped up by a ridiculously low 6.5% HR/FB rate which turns out to be behind his low home run rate in 2009 of 0.63 HR/9. If he could really keep preventing HRs at this rate, he would still be good even with his recent decrease in strikeout rate and always suspect walk rate. Since the GB% is down to a career-low of 43.2% (for comparison, 2003: 55.4%, 2004: 50.7%,2005: 50.0%, 2006-8 all right around 47%) it will be impossible to sustain even this modest level of success without some serious changes to reverse these peripheral trends. None of these trends show much hope that Z will improve over the next few years, and actually may continue to decline. He'll probably be about a 3-win(over replacement, not Official Pitcher Wins) pitcher. This is very valuable...but not $18MM/yr worth. Zambrano with his current contract is essentially a negative value asset. Given his "ace" status in the common media, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he is basically zero value. Worthless. So don't expect to receive much of anything for him, and if we do get an offer from a team desparate for an "ace" no matter how much it smells like an $18MM/yr #2, then Carlos it's been nice knowing you from the stands and through the airwaves all these years. The chances we will regret trading you for any significant return? Slim.

Killer Irony: A Black QB Sack my logo is the photo of McNair's corpse being removed in a body bag... So many options on offensive McNair death humor entendre, it keeps with my tradition of names which exalt in recent player deaths, i.e. University of Dead Negroes following the death of Sean Taylor, after a brief stint as Die Sean Taylor which i did feel slightly bad about when i found out he actually died and it was not a minor shooting incident like i figured when i first heard, but it still served the purpose of making fun of a huge skins and Taylor fan in my league who always talked about how incredible ST was and so I lived up to my reputation of having no boundaries or good sense or morals in any standard sense of the word. also like, for McNair, references to Shotgun, Draw, Guns Blazing, No Huddle- #9 Blood Puddle, Air McNair's Fantasy: Life, Touchdown McNair's Corpse, No Super Bowl Ring & No Pulse, and for good measure anything bringing up out of nowhere for offensively good measure the classic NFL standard for worst event in recent memory: RAE CARRUTH'S GUNNERS. i will go wash the filth off including inside my veins, internal organs, and certain other cells.

So, they'll try to play this one at some point today, right? Seems like there are few open dates due to all the rainouts. Ugly day, just like Aaron Miles' existence.

Enjoyed a moment Wednesday when Miles came up to hit and a group of people apparently in from Sweden (they kept waving their poster stating this towards Len and Bob from sec 423) yelled "Miles You Suck!" in various forms upon hearing his name announced, which without thought I reflex-yelled YEAH MILES SUCKS WORST PLAYER IN THE MAJORS AARON MILES and we all sort of cheered the fact that at least we knew he sucked, making his suckage amusing rather than painful as usual for Miles ABs or even balls hit to his tiny elf-like body which reminds me of a 5 year old unable to move while attempting to play with an adult's glove which was clearly stolen or borrowed rather than actually meant to be on his tiny useless appendage which should be hiding from all eyes and not telling anyone he has millions of dollars from his infamously suck-filled career.

I'd re-sign Harden if it could happen for cheap; if we could get him back for 1-2 at 1/10-2/16 or similar, I'd like to take the risk and trade Lilly to free the cash while acquiring a solid prospect or two from a team who needs a guaranteed avg or above starter who will actually EAT INNINGS in a way better than someone like Cookies Blanton's who tosses mediocre innings and eats them likely topped with chocolate sauce and lard.

Who is Ryan Buchter? Was just looking through some stats and his look reasonable at Peoria but I have no idea where he came from- appears he was with the Nationals last year? When have we traded with them, I've got nothing.

Went to the game today, great time to attend my first of the year- Cubs were excited bouncing around Riot after the game winner. Great to see and you hope this might get them going a little bit. Also fun to play the Twins who seem to have pretty cool fans overall. Aaron Miles is one of the worst players in the majors, seems like a random dude in the stands could be subbed in for him at 2B and we wouldn't lose anything but a terrible goatee. That error today was super weak. Ted Lilly was sweet today as usual- way to grind it out Ted, and impressive how he managed to still give up a HR even with the wind blowing in.

Ok, I agree with most of this thought process. But the Cubs have shown they aren't good enough to pull this off. There's nothing about this team except for the SP that indicates they have any chance of reaching the world series. I would love to be proven wrong. Right. But I don't think firing the GM is giving up. I think it's working towards a WS end result. It's not like there is a surplus of smart GM's just waiting to be hired. I mean there are several complete idiots with GM jobs who would make us long for the glory days of Hendry. While hiring nsbb.com's 20 smartest people to GM by committee for $50K each would be a way, way better option than any "baseball guy" for $1MM to manage or GM, this is about as likely as every message board poster understanding that little can be learned from small sample sizes. If we hired nsbb's 20 smartest posters to gm by committee, we would lose 110 games. This is incredibly wrong even by internet standards. Hilarious.

Well, I would have started Harden personally, but yes I would have preferred Zambrano as well in game 1. Not the time to reward Dempster for his fine season (since we then amply rewarded him in the offseason).

Sure they do. The end result of both seasons was a very, very poor playoff "performance" where the team simply failed to compete on any level in any capacity of the game. These are not robots out there. Psychology is a giant portion of human beings. You can't just ignore external factors and how they play upon a team. Many players have said there is "extra pressure" due to not winning a world series in 100 years. Is this true? Maybe. We wouldn't know unless we were those players in that playoff series. A team that repeatedly chokes while maintaining the same group of core performance leaders is certainly succeptible to a saturation of their psyche. If you were at your job, and every year you did well in sales, but at the big convention you lost ten major accounts(and you repeated this for several years), do you honestly think this would not affect you psychologically or in terms of your overall performance in that field? My solution to improve the Cubs offense: Play the remaining ~100 games in the season. Sales analogy: who cares about my psychology...the results show that I suck at sales, so I'd expect continued failures whether or not psychology has a thing to do with it. The fans are the ones susceptible to said saturation. Because you know NOTHING about the "failure to compete". They weren't trying to suck. They just did. And do, however a large part of this is also attributable to luck. Also, I'd say that Lou's failure to take Dempster out after 7 walks certainly did not help matters, in last year's playoff opener.

Ok, I agree with most of this thought process. But the Cubs have shown they aren't good enough to pull this off. There's nothing about this team except for the SP that indicates they have any chance of reaching the world series. I would love to be proven wrong. Right. But I don't think firing the GM is giving up. I think it's working towards a WS end result. It's not like there is a surplus of smart GM's just waiting to be hired. I mean there are several complete idiots with GM jobs who would make us long for the glory days of Hendry. While hiring nsbb.com's 20 smartest people to GM by committee for $50K each would be a way, way better option than any "baseball guy" for $1MM to manage or GM, this is about as likely as every message board poster understanding that little can be learned from small sample sizes.

No, I'm saying that 0-3 in back to back NLDS's is not flukey, but rather an indicator of a weak team. Also, these are not robots out there. It's perfectly reasonable to accept that the playoff chokiness has saturated their psyche. 2007 and 2008 have very little to do with each other. In 07 the Cubs were decent, but nowhere near as good as last year. It is not reasonable to accept that playoff chokiness just started saturating psyches this season. There is no support for this theory anywhere. However Lou probably thinks a lot like this, which certainly does not help matters. Yay kneejerk reactions. My solution to improve the Cubs offense: Play the remaining ~100 games in the season.

So we're up to two separate game thread meltdowns today...can the Cubs put together an epic rally to allow for a third meltdown after they blow it in the 9th?

Was he with them at that point? He left the band early on and tried to sue them or something. He left after Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which I wouldn't say is "early on", relatively speaking. Still catches me by surprise to hear something like this on the Cubs broadcast even though they do mention Wilco especially fairly often, in addition to a few other bands.

I agree with everyone you mentioned but Heilman. He's actually had SOME success this season. According to WXRL, he's been the worst pitcher on the team. Which has nothing to do with how he'll perform going forward. I would get rid of the other four though (Cotts has an option I think?)

I like the strategy of "use one of your top couple relievers in the 5th" also.

There's a lot of competition, but that is up there. And now Cotts is in to pitch? Great call, only 4 more innings to pitch...Nyjer Morgan such a threat from the left side though.

god, please no CRAIG MONROE grand slam...

Impressive amount of 100% incorrect comments in this thread. News flash: Luck is a large part of baseball, not to mention life. back to the game.....it's GASCANIO time. Wait when did he come back to the Cubs? He was down in Iowa at least for a few days, right?

This single sentence was like a brutal dart to the face. For extra bonus pain, I suggest playing a game called "list of relievers the Cubs could have signed for the approximate cost of Aaron Miles".