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risico

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Everything posted by risico

  1. risico
    Brett Jackson stole another base and is now 12 for 14 while at Tennessee. He's really improved his success rate in that area which is encouraging to see. Also, an OBP of .385 at AA is tremendous. Golden had a pretty good game going 2/4 with 2R and a SB. McNutt is awesome. There's not much more that needs to be said.
  2. risico
    It's kind of disgusting listening to Len and Bob describe Arroyo. You would think they were talking about Doc Halladay. Lou hits his best hitter 8th and a guy who is prolific at making outs leadoff. Brilliant...
  3. risico
    I'm excited about Diamond not because I think he'll be a top of the rotation guy, but because I think he can be a quality starting pitcher in the majors. He's a former top 10 pick, was a top 75 prospect in two seasons (2005 and 2006) and finally appears to be figuring it out. He's got nearly as many strikeouts as innings pitched (104 Ks in 108 IP) and a 1.2 WHIP. With Jay's recent struggles, Diamond seems like the best candidate. I still favor putting Cashner in the rotation next year, though it might be tough for him to stretch out and not risk injury to get into the rotation this year. Are we talking about the same guy? This guy is 27 years old, has never posted an FIP below 4 at any minor league level, and has shown over the course of his career that he's prone to walking hitters and giving up lots of line drives and flyballs, many of which are HRs. I just don't see any reason to think he's going to figure it out and become a good pitcher.
  4. risico
    Just look at FIP... 1 HR is worth about 6.5 walks. Or if you look at run values, a HR is worth about 1.4 runs while a walk is worth about 0.3
  5. risico
    Gaub can't seem to find the plate this year. He's always been a bit wild, but at Iowa he was averaging upwards of 7 BB/9. I don't think there's any reason to give up hope on him though. His career minor league numbers and stuff all indicate that he'll be a good reliever. I think he should have been with the Cubs in the majors this season but what do I know...
  6. risico
    Am I the only one who's underwhelmed by this guy? I'd rather see Cashner get stretched out for that role or see what Jay Jackson can do.
  7. risico
    Dewitt is nothing special so far in his MLB career, but Theriot was a god-awful hitter. He actually has a negative WAR this season. It is pretty difficult to do that playing the middle infield.
  8. risico
    Meh, Dewitt is a decent MLB 2B who's under team control for awhile and has some upside. Smit is underwhelming and Wallach is a relative unknown since he's playing at a pretty low level. I think they could have gotten a better return but not much better.
  9. risico
    Stupid trade. Kenny trades a younger, better starting pitcher who's cheap and under team control for a long time for an average starter on a much richer deal, then he kicks in a prospect. Unless Jackson gets flipped in another deal, this was lunacy.
  10. risico
    Now we get to see the wonderful Blake DeWitt play 2B everyday. It's not that much better.
  11. risico
    Hell, Tyler Colvin would be a decent ROY candidate in a normal year. Not many rookies post a .376 wOBA and those ridiculous power numbers (.285 ISO).
  12. risico
    He was fine in high A ball. He was starting to hit but I don't feel he had it entirely figured out at that level. There was no reason to promote him to AA but as has already been stated, bad luck played a huge role in his performance. He still needs to be more disciplined at the plate, but you can see that he's open to working on the flaws of his game.
  13. risico
    I will say, this is a terrible year to be a ROY candidate.
  14. risico
    Lee is too far away from the big leagues to be having this discussion right now.
  15. risico
    Well, his walk rate is below the major league average. But his K rate is low and he doesn't seem particularly prone to chasing pitches. If he's not whiffing a lot now, he won't do it much over the course of his career. I think that's an encouraging sign. It shows that he's disciplined at the plate and he's not going up there looking to hit anything the pitcher tosses him. With that in mind, I believe the walks will come when he learns to battle with pitchers and learns how the major league umpires interpret the strike zone. I don't know that he'll ever put up the numbers that Jeter put up in the late 90s, but few shortstops ever do. Jeter put up 3 consecutive years of a .385+ wOBA. He put up seasons of 6.5 and 7.5 WAR while playing mediocre defense. He was a really good hitter. That all said, Castro is going to be better defensively than Jeter and will more than hold his own at the plate. I think he'll be able to put up at least a few seasons of 5+ WAR, which puts him in elite territory among major league shortstops.
  16. risico
    Well, 1 season's worth of UZR isn't really telling, as that model can have a lot of variability from year to year. But yes, I do think Castro is a good defender at SS. He is great at making contact, that's for sure. The thing about the Jeter comps. is that Jeter always had a good walk rate and was particularly good at getting himself on base. So far Castro hasn't shown that, but he's very young so I expect him to figure that out eventually. And OBP should be more weighted than SLG because of the expected run values of a BB, 1B, 2B, 3B, HR, and out. Here's a good thread: http://www.insidethebook.com/ee/index.php/site/comments/why_does_17obpslg_make_sense/
  17. risico
    There was no reason to promote Vitters to Tennessee IMO. He should be in Daytona at this point in his career. But hopefully he'll learn this year and hit well next year.
  18. risico
    Anyone who values and uses advanced statistics
  19. risico
    Castro is posting a .302 wOBA. He's not a major-league quality hitter at this point and probably shouldn't even be in the majors. Lee's struggles are at least partially due to BABIP, though he's hitting more groundballs than last season and he's whiffing a lot more.
  20. risico
    This is more an indictment of both players than an indictment of just one of them...
  21. risico
    Give the "poor luck" shtick a rest. It's a tired argument. Last year Lee and Ramirez had some of the best seasons of their careers but couldn't prop up the rest of Hendry's poorly constructed team (Bradley, Soriano, Harden, Miles). The Cubs have relied on oft-injured players to get the job done - you can't use injuries as an excuse. The injuries to Prior and Wood were to be expected, not to mention guys like Bradley and Harden. Jim Hendry invested heavily in these players with the knowledge of their injury histories and it hurt the team. If there's one thing Jim Hendry has shown over his tenure as a GM, it's that he has no understanding whatsoever of advanced statistics and how to use them. A simple look at the numbers of some of the failures that he's acquired confirms this.
  22. risico
    The ASG has never been meaningless and never will be as long as sports writers use ASG appearances as a criterion for HOF selection. It's a joke, I know, but selection to the ASG matters and having it in the hands of the fans is unacceptable. Then again the managers don't do any better in picking the teams so I'm not sure who deserves that responsibility. But the hall of fame doesn't matter either. It matters to me :-?
  23. risico
    You're acting as if no one here criticizes some of his decisions at the time he makes them. That's exactly my point. If he makes a trade we hear he sold low, paid too much, got a player that's over-the-hill, etc. If he doesn't make a trade we hear he holds onto players too long, overvalues his prospects, etc. All of that comes from the fact we have no information on the trade negotiations (except rumors and speculation) and hindsight after the players involved succeed or fail. As other Hendry discussions have pointed out, for the most part Hendry's strength is trading. His major weakness is offering up contracts to free agents. Hendry, as a GM, has the responsibility to make decisions regarding when to trade players. We have hindsight to evaluate him, sure, but his job is to have foresight to make the correct moves. In much the same way you can't evaluate the trades Hendry made, you can't evaluate him as a trader. The information you have on him as a trader is incomplete and doesn't tell the entire story. Just look at the rosters he's assembled with the resources he's been granted and you see that he's been a bad GM. There are other reasons (e.g. roster mismanagement), but he's had the budget to win with the Cubs and over his tenure they've been quite average.
  24. risico
    His BABIP is about 20 points higher this season than last, so that's probably the biggest reason for the change in AVG. But it does seem like he's improved his plate discipline. As for the power numbers, it looks like he's hitting fewer flyballs and more line drives than last season. Maybe he changed his swing a bit?
  25. risico
    You're talking out of both sides of your mouth here. First you say "we don't know what kind of deals he nixed" and then you say "There were plenty of Cub players that could have been traded at the height of their value but were kept and dealt away for nothing". We never know what another team is offering for a player, so how can we criticize Hendry for holding on to them or dealing them for nothing. Using your example of Rich Hill, what amazing offer was made at the height of his career? It's very true that we have no idea what offers Hendry has turned down over his tenure as Cubs GM. All I am saying is that there are plenty of examples of players that Hendry held onto whose value dropped significantly before they were traded. I have no idea what offers were on the table, but I do know that Hendry tends to hold onto players. You can't say, "Hendry is good at trading because he doesn't give up much talent" while ignoring the fact that this is often due to his reluctance to trade players at the height of their value. Reluctance to trade away players is a double-edged sword of sorts.
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