champaignchris

This is a big ol' "Meh" for me. I put very little stock in Quade's record at the end of the year. This seems to be a, "We're rebuilding, so let's not spend a bunch of money on a big-name... Maybe we'll even catch lightning in a bottle," type of decision. It doesn't make me mad, but doesn't get me particularly pumped up either.

An article about using stats to understand why scoring is down says this: "[Doug Glanville] was a great fielder; in fact, he ended his career on a streak of 293 consecutive games without an error." Is it me, or does that number seem pretty insignificant for a guy who ended his career primarily as a bench player, who only had to field about one and a quarter fly balls per game he appeared in over that stretch. I mean, it's pretty easy to extend an errorless streak when you come into the game in the 8th inning as a pinch runner and then play one inning in the field. And I'm putting aside the entire question of whether errors and fielding percentage are a good way to evaluate fielding in the first place.

I hated this year. It wasn't fun to watch. But most brutal? I don't think anything that happened this year compares to how I felt after being swept out of the playoffs in '08. As bad as this team year's team was, it was nowhere near as bad as the 2006 team, which I still say is the worst Cubs team I've ever seen. 2004 was just a strange, gut-wrenching trial, in which one weird thing after another seemed to get into the team's way. They won 89 games. It felt like much less than that. They were a game better than 2003's playoff team, but missed the post-season by three games. 2003... 5 outs away. Ugh. 2001... the complete August collapse, beginning with that road trip to Sand Diego. Really, 2010 is going to go into the same mental file as 2005, 2002, 2000, 1999, 1996, 1992, etc. Just another bad year to go on top of a bunch of other bad years.

ok so his FIP in august was 3.68 and september was 3.28. isn't that "turning it around" from how he pitched earlier in the year? i don't think anyone believes that he's going to start posting christy mathewson ERAs every year. we'd just like him to pitch like he has for most of his cub career, that will be fine. Yup. The sub-2 ERA since his return isn't sustainable, but this recent run certainly would lead one to believe that he can be the pitcher who's been posting an ERA in the mid-3s for most of his career.

Weren't the '06 and '08 Indians that he managed two of the more under-performing clubs in recent memory when compared to preseason expectations?

As a Cubs fan, I appreciate that Sammy made a team, that was otherwise appalling, watchable for a good 8 year stretch in the mid-'90s through the early-'00s. The "team" the organization put around him in 2000, for example, was a complete joke. And the team has no doubt mishandled Sosa since retirement. He should have been allowed to announce his retirement at Wrigley. There should have been a "Sammy Sosa day" each year since his retirement, with Sammy singing the 7th inning stretch. It would have been nothing at all to the Cubs, while going a long way to mend some fences. All that said, you simply do not demand to have your number retired less than 5 years after your retirement. Fergie Jenkins didn't get his number retired until about 25 years after he threw his last pitch. Ron Santo waited a similar amount of time. Ryne Sandberg didn't get his retired until about 15 years after his retirement. Revered long time Cubs like Gabby Hartnett, Stan Hack, Phil Cavarretta, Rick Reuschel, Lee Smith, and Mark Grace have never have their numbers retired and likely never will. (Hartnett is the only one of those I mentioned who had a career worthy of having his number retired, but his case is complicated because the team didn't have uniform numbers during the first half of his career and they didn't keep the same number from year to year over the second half of his career. Still, there should be a flag up there with Banks, Williams, etc. Nine is the number he wore most often. Retire that. Or just put his name up on a flag without a number.)

I agree. I don't see the down side to Dunn. I'll admit to being one of those holding out hope that the Cubs can improve themselves enough in the offseason to make next year interesting.

And we traded him for two and a half years of Bobby Mercer (decent, but past his prime outfielder) and four years of Steve Ontiveros (bad third baseman, spent 6 years in Japan after leaving the Cubs at age 28). Madlock spent another decade in the league and put up Mark Grace-ish numbers.

Agreed. I just spend 20 minutes on Baseball Reference trying to figure out how we did not win the WC that year. It came down to 2 things: LaTroy Hawkins and bad luck. We played 5 games below our pythag and Houston played 3 above theirs. Prior had 16 freaking Ks against the Reds and lost and the obvious Victor Diaz game. Those 2 games just took the wind out of their sails and lost a ton. On September 24th, the Cubs were 87-66 and the Astros were 85-69. The Cubs went 2-7 to finish the season and the Astros went 7-1. The Cubs lost games 3-4, 2-3, 3-4, 1-2, and 4-5 - that's five of the seven losses by one run, where they never scored more than 4.

2nd in the National League behind the Brewers, .761 since the All Star Break. Team ERA is last in the National League since the ASB, 5.41, giving up an .810 OPS against.

4-19 (.174) in their last 23. We could be on our way to an historic season. If they go 8-31 (.205) the rest of the way, they'll set the record for the worst team in Cubs history. I'm almost, kinda, sorta rooting for this to happen. Just so I can say I've seen something I've never seen before. If they go 14-25 (.359), it'll surpass the 2000 Cubs and be the worst team since 1981. If they go 16-23 (.410), they'll match the miserable record of the 2006 Cubs, which I consider to be the worst Cubs team I've ever seen. (They were a game better than the 2000 team, but, when you compare the rosters, there's no way the 2006 team should have been as bad as it was.) Can Hendry really field two of the three worst Cubs teams in a generation and keep his job?

Now that the trade is final... Derek finished all-time among Cubs (with at least 1500 PA for rate stats)... #31 Plate Appearances #13 OB% #4 SLG% #4 OPS #13 Adjusted OPS+ #16 doubles #11 Home Runs #16 Runs created #7 strike outs #9 double plays grounded into #8 AB/HR He's also top-10 all-time in Cubs history in a bunch of SABRE-metric stuff like RE24, WPA, WPA/LI, and REW.

Pujols... Check out these numbers from this year... .000/.231/.000 vs. LAA .200/.259/.240 vs. LAD .167/.265/.200 vs. NYM He obviously wilts in the face of the pressure of playing against big market teams from Los Angeles and New York.

Yup.

With the amount of one run losses, I would have expected the deviation between the Cubs actual record and their Pythagorean "expected" won-loss record to be more than three games. Still, that's second worse in the Majors (behind the Cardinals, of all teams).

3-7 through the first ten games.

Just throwing this out there... Other than the two blow up games (season opener and the D-Lee game), Z has a 3.86 ERA this year. I know that's kind of like saying Z doesn't suck except for those times when he does...

After we're done with Milwaukee, there are 17 straight games against the top 5 teams in the league. Anyone want to predict the record over that span? With the way they've been playing, is 5-12 too pessimistic?

According to this ESPN article: http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/mlb/news/story?id=5417150

Bingo. If we assume x% of players were roided up and that number was even between batters, starters, relievers, then x% of roided up batters would be playing every day, while only x% of every starting pitcher is roided in a given game and there would be only an x% chance that the relief pitcher being brought in was on roids. Thus, if x=25, two batters in every game were on roids, while the batters were facing a roided starting pitcher only once every four games, and a roided relief pitcher for an inning or two every other game. Regardless of what the actual percentage was, unless significantly more pitchers than hitters were doping, cheating hitters would have a more significant effect on the game.

Just to throw this out there... The Cubs are 9.5 games out of the playoffs. The Angels are 8.5 games out of the playoffs. He has essentially the same chance of making the postseason on either team. With that being the case, why would he approve the trade? I suspect the metric might be changed if the proposed trade was to the Giants, Rays or someone else solidly in the playoff hunt.

Didn't Torre just turn 70? Does a 70-year-old want a multi-year project like the Cubs? Do the Cubs want to hand over their multi-year project to a 70-year-old?

Looking at other 1B contracts, I think Dunn will probably command closer to $14M or $15M a year.

I think Dunn's massively undervalued as a player by the media and consequently fans in general. The disparity between the media coverage on him and that on Howard makes me irrationally angry. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing the Cubs put a good wad of money on Dunn at first base for about 4 years. Is he going to command more than $20M a year? Don't know. But there's no reason why the Cubs shouldn't be a player for him. I think Konerko, Berkman, and Carlos Pena are all going to be free agents, but I don't see any of them being major upgrades over Lee. Konerko and Berkman might still swing a better bat, but they're just as old as Lee and I'd question whether either would be able to field their position for the duration of even a two year contract. I suppose Pena is a couple years younger and might make for a decent stop-gap. He's even more of an all-or-nothing hitter than Dunn is and is not having a very good year. (Still better than Lee, though.) Jorge Cantu doesn't do much for me at all as a Lee replacement. As Ramirez insurance? Sure, but I don't see him as the "big bat" we're looking for.

Basically, going into next year, the Cubs will need a first baseman, second baseman (because, apparently, the team feels a Baker/Fontenot platoon isn't worth trying), and probably someone who can step in and play starter quality third base if Ramirez sucks/is injured for a huge chunk of the season for a third season in a row. The outfield is probably set for the beginning of the year due to the contracts. And the four outfielders the Cubs have aren't the reason they're awful this year, anyway. On paper, Dempster, Wells, Gorzelanny, Silva, and Zambrano should be good enough as a starting staff to compete, if they get any offensive and bullpen support at all. I can see the Cubs picking up a second tier/back of the rotation kind of guy for continued Zambrano insurance. Or maybe Hendry (or whomever) can pull off a Bradley/Hundley kind of trade for Z and bring in a useful part with a bad contract. Marmol, Marshall, and Cashner are the start of a good bullpen. There should be enough in-house already to fill in the rest. Hopefully we don't have a third year in a row of the bullpen being completely horrible for two months until the coaching staff figures out who can actually pitch. (Isn't that what Spring Training is for?) So basically, assuming payroll stays roughly the same, you've $30M to sign a starting 1B, starting 2B, spot starter 3B, and 3/4 slot starting pitcher. I don't see the money stretching that far. Barring a blockbuster of a trade that completely restructures the team, they'll probably be a major player for one of the big 1B FAs, sign a couple of "meh" utility infielders, and a "meh" starting pitcher. Not real exciting.