Northside Blues

I miss Michael Wuertz a lot.

So Starlin Castro's best tool is his bat where he's a very risky bet to hit .300/.350/.450 at any point of his career and is more than likely going to be way below that? BA is saying his best tool is hitting singles. Still a little too high. I just see too many names below him that have equivalent or better upside and more of a chance of hitting it.

I do not blame him for it. Kerry Wood would have needed TJ eventually anyways. It may not have been until he was 24 but it was inevitable.

Is it really that hard to believe that an average lefty can hit righties better than an above average righty? Jim Hendry doesn't need to be admitted to an insane asylum.

Some scouts have him with below average range and he may need to move to second down the road.

I am not sure that going to bat with the intention on ending the atbat in three pitches or less is something to make us excited. Craig is right. The likelihood of him developing into an impact player is so small that he probably only be a 50-75 type prospect. There are a lot of guys with higher upside and a greater chance of reaching it, that is my point. Also a K:BB of 1 is only meaningful if you walk a lot. Not walking and not striking out is hardly a good thing.

Lee has very little patience? Granted, he's only played one season of low-A ball, but he walked 31 times in 304 plate appearances (10.2 % of the time). That's not that bad. Lee also has less power than Castro. Lee's IsoP last year was .090. Castro's IsoP last year was .093. Then in the AFL it was .099.

A 11% and 17% walk rate are hardly comparable. Neither is a 30 point difference in IsoP. There are a ton of guys who had closer walk rates, power and strikeout rates. You are cherry-picking one guy. The fact is that in general guys like Castro have an extraordinary high rate of never becoming more than a utility guy at best. Hanley is far from the best comp, results wise and one of a million guys with similar tools and dreams at the same age. I have not and am not saying he isn't a good prospect or even not our best. I am merely saying as far as "great" prospects go his likely upside is not very high and his chances of developing into a starter is not very high, relatvely speaking. Is he really any different than Lee? Both guys are essentially the same player right now. Guys who show solid contact skills with very little patience and now power. Relatively speakng both guys have pretty much the same likelihood of ever developing power and patience. The difference between Lee and Castro is insignificant until one shows power or patience. Castro hitting the ball 200 feet and praying he finds holes for singles at any level of competition is not a subsitute for his absolute desolate power right now. Scouts are hardly in unison that he will develop it. Cairo is 6'1" 210. Arias was listed at 6'1" 165 at the same age. I hardly picked those two guys out at random. PECOTAs top comp for Castro is Izturis and ZiPS top comp for Castro is Arias. Zips also has Erick Aybar and Omar Infante rounding out the top three. If his power and patience develop he can be a Ramirez type player but that is no different than saying if Corey Patterson develops patience he will be become a Carlos Beltran type player five years ago. We all know how that one turned out.

At the same level and age Hanley Ramirez's plate discipline, power and production are nowhere near comparable. They're almost the exact opposite. At the same level and just a year older Derek Jeter's plate discpline was completely advanced. He walked nearly twice as often as Castro did with a smaller strikeout rate. That is hardly comparable. Izturis, Cairo and Arias on the other hand are near perfect matches in discipline, power and production. Even if we accept that Castro has Ramirez's power it won't play as well because Castro appears to be an early count hitter not a late count hitter. This causes a solid BABIP but poor IsoP. There's just too much dreaming on Castro where the dream is only maybe a 1 in 20 chance to rank him in the top 25. A top 25 guy needs to be much more of a sure thing.

That wasn't exactly my point. My point is what makes Starlin Castro at age 19 any different than Izturis, Cairo or Arias at age 19. This are the only comps of his who have done anything.

So in other words he is indistinguishible from Cesar Izturis, Miguel Cairo and Joaquin Arias? Is he really any different than Franklin Font either?

Now Clay Davenport is saying that we need to use 75th percentile now instead of 50th (why?). They really have no idea what to do. Anyways Lee is now at .287/.378/.472

With the rest of the team looking close to league average adding an average pen makes us average. It is hardly the most useful statistic for bullpens but the Cubs ERA from the pen was 11th in the NL. I think Guzman and Marmol are fine in their roles but I can't say that anyone else down their is useful. Even Sean Marshall is not utilized properly.

I am not stating whether or not he was good last year. His walk ratedropped a significant amount moving from AAA to the majors and his home run rate dropped more than a significant amount making that same jump. Typically, pitchers do not see gains in their ratios while going from a lower level to a higher level. It's very likely that we see significant regression in both rates, and minimal improvement on his K rate. His FIP will skyrocket in a hurry if that happens. Maybe saying he sucks is a little harsh, but I wouldn't expect an ERA south of 4.50. I'd much rather have Sean Marshall in the rotation over both Gorzy and Wells. I'd try out Guzman there first too, but I can see why some people wouldn't want to risk the higher stress to cause him to get injured again.

How do you know the pen sucks? Couldn't be because of last year, because they didn't suck then, either. Perhaps not but the Cubs did not have a single relief pitcher in the top 30 of ARP last year and just one in the top 75.

I would say that we are in the lower to mid 80s with a small chance (1 in 10?) of breaking 90 but the same chance of failing to break 80. We are probably going to have poor offensive production up the middle, with the exception of Geovany Soto. I think our offense is middle of the range somewhere between 6th and 10th in the league. I think we still have a great front half of the rotation but Wells sucks and so does Gorzy. We don't have a legitimate top ten pitcher so the stinker at the end will cancel out Z and Dempster. Lilly is fine but a risk. Even if he is 100% we are just a hair better than average in the rotation. Our pen sucks so at best we have a league average pitchng staff and our defense sure as heck won't be helping them out too often. Putting everything together and that is a whole lotta average. Given that we play a slightly below average schedule I think that places us around 83-84 W's. Of course there's more potential there than most 84 win teams it's just asking for all the things to break right is asking for a lot. I've got the Cardinals pegged at 87-88 wins.

What is Castros upside for the next four years?

Pecota seems to have messed up badly and no one at BP seems to know how to fix it with Nate Silver no longer involved.

I cannot be the only one who noticed this. 2008 PECOTA Projections 2009 .289/.368/.464 Derrek Lee 2010 .287/.367/.462 Derrek Lee 2010 PECOTA Report 2009 .306/.393/.579 Derrek Lee's Actual Line 2010 .282/.367/.454 Derrek Lee's New Projection So let me get this right. Pecota projects 2009 and 2010 with all the available information prior to 2009. One year later PECOTA gets new information which shows that Lee's 2009 projection was probably too low. Pecota takes this updated information and makes an updated projection for 2010 Derrek Lee. And this new information causes Pecota to think Lee is worse than they did prior to it. Please I cannot be the only one who noticed this.