Eric Clipperton

It's a good thing they don't sell JAY JACKSON jerseys or else I would be getting way, way, way ahead of myself. Rather than just 2 ways which I am currently doing in imagining his solid 2010 rookie campaign. It could happen, right? Not the solid part cause that could be a bit much, but Jackson to Chicago either beginning or middle of next season? None of this bullpen crap either.

My predictions: Z goes 6 IP giving up 2 runs- 3 BB, 5 K. Ish. Peavy runs up his pitch count, throws 100+ in 6 IP. Cubs offense comes alive, taking walks and Bradley has a good game knocking in some runs- say 4 on peavy then 3 more in the 7th+ Gonzales 2-run HR off a Cub reliever completes the scoring in a much-needed 7-4 Cubs win. Hawks win a tight hard-fought game as the last line change allows Kane/Toews to stay away from Lidstrom while Big Buff grinds him out along the boards and in front. Both goalies let in a softie or two but Khabby makes a couple big saves, Jesus Havlat Christ dominates the game and heals the several injured Hawks inspiring them to a 3-2 win.

Are your outfield standards really this low? For a veteran outfielder who got 30 million and never stays on the field, hell yea an .830 OPS is meh, I don't care where you're playing. You don't pay that much money for production like that, especially when you're only getting it for like 100 games that season Uhh, this is exactly what I'm talking about the overblown park factors. A .900 OPS hitter turns into an .830 OPS hitter if he goes to LA? Come on. I'd believe that for Petco. For Dodger stadium that's a whole lot of hyperbole. I don't see what this has to do with anything. He said I was silly for using career averages and compared it to calling Ramirez an .845 OPS hitter. Like I said, that's a riduclous comparing. Ramirez has performed well above those average for 5 consecutive years. bradley has only 3 "seasons" in his entire career where he's better than his career numbers. He's done it 3 out of the last 5 years, and is now on his way to his 4th in the last 6. Just a littttleeeee bit different than Ramirez. No you just need to keep it in context. Of course that doesn't "blow" but, when it's from a corner outfielder who is making 3/30 and only gives it to you for like 100 games in a season..... yeah, it does. He doesn't blow... the value does. Want to take a bet with me? I would like to bet with you that Bradley will be worth more than his contract over the next 3 years total, using the Fangraphs Value metric. If you have some other metric which counts "total player value", I would also consider this. Note that Bradley is currently at -$0.5M so you have a bit of a head start since he's in the red so far. Thoughts? Defense matters. And while Bradley is no Beltran or Gutierrez out there, he is still a decent enough defensive corner OF. Most of the players who post those .830 OPS figures or not, or if they are, cost a good deal more than 3/30. Basically I think if Bradley plays most of the 3 years, he'll be worth it easily. If he is hurt a lot, then he will be a bust, obviously. I am up for various other Cub-related bets for projections if anyone is interested. Might be a fun way to distract from the losses at hand this week and put our money where our message board mouths are. Beers at Quenchers or other bars with sick beer lists are suitable as well. I would enjoy them in triumph or defeat of any Cub internet gambles. One WAR-related player value note I was surprised to see: Kosuke was worth more than we paid for him last year. Salary was $7M (not incl. pro-rated bonus i think, but still) and he was valued as a 1.8 win player worth $8.2M, entirely due to his glove in the outfield combined with slightly below average hitting (for all positions, obv more than slightly below avg for OF). I see you do agree that using career averages for Ramirez is ridiculous. The rest of your paragraph on this topic brings up- Seasons are arbitrary. Why do you treat seasons as important dividing lines by which to determine performance? Each PA is a "trial" of hitting. However many PAs comprise a season is just that, a historical fact...but one which serves NO predictive purpose. Arbitrary lines. If we split up the games in each player's career into different chunks, it would not change the projected OPS, even though the seasonal OPS's would be divided up differently and be different #s per season. Overall it's still the same. Say we want to project by looking at the last 2,000 PAs- Ramirez will use fewer seasons, but the amount of data is the same. Is this clear, and/or do you disagree with the premise? This follows similarly to your critique of the home/road splits given earlier- seasons can be skewed and divided up in a similar misleading way. It's just tougher to grasp since the season is already concrete as "the unit" of baseball and is what matters- one season, one WS champ. Any number of PAs up to a reasonable upper bound could technically comprise a "season". Comments, complaints, questions? I'll be here all night. LATENIGHT NSBB STAT GRIND - Live from Logan Square

Because it's very likely that over the next year or two, there will be many opportunities to add players with higher "surplus value" over $$ cost than Peavy. He is signed for slightly under market value, but the contract is nothing great to the team signing him for sure, merely decent-to-good value for the $$. There will be many other players available in trades and even FA, where the same $$ might improve the Cubs by more- I doubt a Peavy deal would be the best way to spend the money he'll require, UNLESS we get a GREAT deal from SD on prospects required due to Peavy's no-trade. Most of the deals I've seen (except the ridic Cub fan proposals...Pie, Cedeno, Hill! haha) are not really good enough to pull the trigger yet. I'd keep looking at lots of guys over the next month or two. The rotation is solid as is, barring a couple injuries.

The guy is SUCH a tool. Brewers fans online seem to rightly be embarrassed at this clown, and the saddest part is looking at the pathetic comments on his blog from the army of followers who worship at the altar of this ballhawking douchecanoe. Somehow he already procreated, which finding out this news left my mind boggled.

So is hitting the ball hard right at the defense. If there were people who had the ability to hit balls hard right at people consistently and they were the people playing for the Cubs, yes. Neither one of these seems to be true, however. You missed the inning with three straight liners to deep CF of which only the last resulted in a hit when the Cards collided? I'd call those hard hit balls. Oh, so you're claiming that the Cubs intentionally hit those balls to places they knew could be caught. Uh.....no? Just that it's bad luck/small sample. Not an overwhelmingly horrible offense which can only score 1 run max.

So if these things prove true, he'd be expected to eventually be the starting 2B, right? And might have a solid chance of turning into an average or + everyday 2B for the Cubs in a few years?

In addition to some "problems" which are the result of negative swings in variance, I will agree with this, although a lot of the GM problems might be avoided if we had some mythical "perfect" manager who didn't ask for stupid things like LH bench versatility, and the trade of Wuertz to name just one Lou-move.

He used to be an actuary. As someone who works in actuarial consulting, I kind of view him as the pinnacle of actuary coolness, which is to say that regular people might find him cool-ish and mathy types would think he is super interesting and not too nerdy, which in the world of actuaries where 50% are painfully awkward and most of those you originally find cool or decent enough have some incredibly nerdy traits as well, or just straight up eat their fingernails right in front of you during meetings, makes him sort of like Pujols if he played in a league solely otherwise comprised of 600 clones of Aaron Miles. Interesting to hear that he came across well, although I'll assume you're more on the math side just by knowing what the Fielding Bible is, rather than OMFG ERRORS?>!!?>!

Brooks Kieschnick had a hilarious baseball card at some point, I don't remember why this was but it is all I really remember about him since I was like 12 and knew nothing about baseball since the '92 Pirates except for things learned from collecting baseball cards.

Hopefully Ascanio will again start back in Iowa. I think he has a chance to be a solid SP and I hope he gets to work on this for more or less the rest of the season. He had nice stuff in his callup and I can see him being a good SP if the control he showed briefly in Iowa sticks around. If not, it's good work to tighten up his command and control for any future bullpen stints. We NEED cheap SPs under club control eventually! Jake Fox at C, ha. F it. Let's go with the contrarian strategy. Most teams have come around on D, maybe we can buck the trend and butcher it up with cheap mashers trying to hold on while hilariously overmatched on D. Would be entertaining on all counts. Hoff in OF! Fox at 1B/C/OF! Soriano at 2B! Russell Branyan! While we're at it just bring up Flaherty for SS/3B...haha ok I'm kidding but to some extent, it may be the direction we're going right now.

So is hitting the ball hard right at the defense. If there were people who had the ability to hit balls hard right at people consistently and they were the people playing for the Cubs, yes. Neither one of these seems to be true, however. You missed the inning with three straight liners to deep CF of which only the last resulted in a hit when the Cards collided? I'd call those hard hit balls.

Also remember Blalock got moved from 3B for a reason. He is completely terrible. I think Soriano to 2B would downgrade our D less than picking up Hank Blalock.

It's a big slump, plus being exposed to everyday pitching such as LHP which he is pretty horrible against. The two don't go together very well, but he'll end up ok. Not as nuts as we maybe thought, but I'd imagine average or slightly below production for 2B. Remember he is a decent 2B defender, certainly above DeRosa according to UZR etc.

I'd sign Harden for multiple years, adjusting for risk of course. Maybe some team will throw big bucks to him, but I doubt it will be anything too crazy. Maybe 2/20 with consecutive club options at 12 and 15, or 3/15-21 base with IP or GS incentives going up to something like 3/36-45 for 100% healthy (using the Harden scale...something like 180 IP = 15? 12 would be good top-end to reward us for guaranteeing him the 5-7M/yr, but I'd pay 15 total for 180 IP assuming he'll continue to be good at worst if not injured, with great a possibility) $5M to keep him around when injured is not bad at all, risk-wise. If we get say 350 IP over 3 years, that's likely worth 25M or so, to me at least. What would everyone pay right now for a 1-year extension? 10? I'd definitely sign this. I would prob do up to 12, but most might not agree with me. I love Rich Harden. TPR! We doubled our Richness by going from Hill to Harden. Rich Harden's FB/CH + Rich Hill's CB = best of all time 1.00 ERA season, no?

Peavy is not the answer. We need to CLEAR salary in 2010-11 not raise it, or else we'll be looking up at only the Yankees. Even if we CAN spend $175MM...that doesn't make it prudent to lock into contracts that are so big it may be necessary, 2 years ahead of time. Cubs may be #3 in revenues (not sure, are they? or NYM?) but that means #3 payroll is more of an upper target, especially since having room for rentals w/ big contracts can be really helpful at the deadline, esp in this economy.

Also, dexter you appear to agree that Aramis Ramirez is a good hitter (pre-injury of course). What do you think was a reasonable projection for Aramis coming into this season, assuming he never dislocates his shoulder of course? Because he has a career OPS of .845, but over the last 5-6 years is more like .910. Would you still claim .845 is more likely, or do you just do this for Milton cause you can fuzz around with Milton's #s due to "park effects"? Or are you just making some ridiculous argument up to back up your dislike of our most recent "big money"(sort of) free agent?

yeah let's just throw away career stats, even though he's played to those numbers 3 of the past 5 seasons. .810 career home ops .833 career road ops yet he's some stud hitter because you can cherry pick some splits over recent years that make him look a lot better than he is. so how long do we give him before we admit that we're probably getting .840 OPS Bradley this season? another week? another months? next season? that'd be fine with me, he probably has to ops .950 the rest of the year to get back to .840 so i say bring it on. I had composed what was easily a 1,000+ word rant on the argument by dexter in this ridiculous thread, and then lost it due to being logged out automatically. Oh well it was WAY wordy anyway- however I looked at some scenarios such as above in this post which will never actually fulfill its destiny and be posted, but: If we assume 400 PA = "the rest of the way", Milton needs to OPS ~.877 to reach a season OPS of .840. Which is only slightly higher than the "career from 25+" average OPS of .873 which does not count park factors FWIW. Using OPS+ I get 128 over this same period. So .877 is by no way out of the question. If the season is 300 more PA for #21, an OPS of ~.890 gets him to .840 for the full season. Not so ridiculous, huh?

Maybe Lou saw them in the casino on his way to throw down bets against the Cubs. Not that he'd be smart enough to do this, but he certainly has been decreasing the odds of Cub wins about as much as a manager can possibly do with these recent gems. The pitchouts were truly horrendous. Hell, I might trade him for DUSTY right now. No young Ps to abuse really, well except Marmol who is already getting worked a ton.

I'm all for Soriano at 2B!!! LET'S DO IT our D is already pretty bad, might as well toss him in there and bring up JAKE to make the butcherfest complete. Soriano 2B Riot SS Dome CF Hoff LF? Bradley RF FOX 1B? Soto C Scales/Fonty/Miles/Freel 3B P This is a legit lineup, does anyone disagree? There is no way we will play it, but we can feel smarter when they keep sucking if we push for something like this on the Internet. How pathetic is the FOUR BACKUP INFIELDERS? And just for fun, since we need anything to lighten the terrible play: Jim Hendry's Wet Dream (sorry for any nightmares caused by this image): Soriano 2B (LF) Riot 2B (SS) Dome (CF, needs to learn 2B) Lee 1B Soto C Fontenot 2B (2B) Freel ...2B? sort of? (RF) Scales 2B (3B) Miles 2B (P) The almighty SIX-2B Lineup. Long awaited, never duplicated. Five is the current Cub record, no? Most pressing need is a 2B/C. F it, bring back NEIFI. At least he has speed. Have him spike the coffee with it and drug test the whole team immediately, voila no more Miles for like 25 games.

The Cobs mis-managed by Lou P. They swing at all pitches quite loosely Hitters- weak grounders and Ks Waste solid pitching most days Lou's take: make Marshall a LOOGY! These are the saddest of possible words Freel to Miles to Lee Trio of bear cubs, crapping on fields like birds Freel to Miles to Lee Ruthlessly pricking our OPS bubble Called strike threes, plays ground into double Contracts that barely indicate all the Cubs trouble Freel (throws to dugout), Miles, and Lee.

Yeah this is a hilarious matchup. Lilly vs. Young with the massive wind blowing out. Also nice swirl on that DLee popup to center.

Perhaps your friend is crazy, but I am going to take a guess as to why you came up to the conclusion you did. My guess is that you completely ignored contracts, because otherwise there is no way in hell you would come to the conclusion you did. Kinsler is signed for $3 million this year, $4 million in 2010, $6 million for 2011, and $7 million in 2012. Not to mention the fact that this utter gift of a contract also includes a team option for 2013 at $10 million. Of course, in one year of Z's contract, he makes nearly as much as Kinsler makes over the next four years. So you should probably buy your friend a beer and apologize for your massive, massive oversight. Player-wise, eh, I'd say all three are in the same ballpark of relative value. So I don't see Hendry being offered a Kinsler for Z anytime soon.

Who should we start hoping the Cubs pick, only to be devastated on draft day when they somehow manage to re-draft Tyler Colvin?

A 37 year old backup middle infielder? No thanks.