Hairyducked Idiot
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Everything posted by Hairyducked Idiot
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I count 11 of them as coming from outside the organization, including Hill and Lopez as re-signs. How many actually contributed a -1.0 WAR (or worse) on their own? Joe Mather (-2.0), Josh Vitters (-1.3), Steve Clevenger (-1.0), Chris Volstad (-1.9), Justin German (-1.5), Rafael Dolis (-1.2).
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I think they only had a similar recent history on a superficial level. Mather had a .790 OPS in Memphis in 2010 and an .820 OPS in 2011 spending most of his time in very hitter-friendly Colorado Springs (117 batters park in 2011). Sappelt had a .902 OPS across three levels in 2011, ending with .847 in a brief appearance in AAA. Then he had an .834 OPS in Louisville (95 pitchers park). But even if you thought the two were roughly even, and even if you wanted Sappelt in AAA, you should have been able to find a better utility guy than Mather. "None of the above" is the best option in that case.
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I count 11 of them as coming from outside the organization, including Hill and Lopez as re-signs.
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I'm not particularly impressed with those reasons. I love Dave Sappelt more than it should be allowed, but I don't think he's worth holding down for service time. It seems like begging the question to say that you can't let Joe Mather go because Joe Mather might go somewhere else, and that's a defense for keeping him around when he's terrible. You're right that Mather is a bit of a weird inclusion on the list, but I included it for two reasons: 1) He's emblematic of one of the biggest, most concerning facets of the 2012 Cubs: The inability to find replacement-level players. We fielded 22 sub-replacement players this season for a combined -16.9 WAR (using the more descriptive, less predictive B-R WAR). That's concerning for this front office's ability to judge marginal talent, unless they were intentionally trying to make the team as bad as possible. 2) It really looks to me like he was given the job based entirely on spring training performance, which irks me to no end.
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Given a catcher's usual lifespan and the lower projection, I don't think holding Castillo down for service time was worth much of anything. What were the other ones? Because that's the only one I can see. Our front office used a questionable reason to put a guy on the roster, and that guy proceeded to have a -2 WAR season. I think it's worth criticizing something like that.
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:yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo: :yahoo:
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At some point, Epstein has to take the blame for either the 2012 Red Sox or Cubs. He can't dodge both. Hey, you want to hang three bad teams on the FO, champ. Reach for the stars! He's like the hero in an action movie. You have to empty the chamber, and they'll still all ping off the walls around him.
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A) Deciding that this season was worthless and that no resources could be spent on it, which led to the following mistakes: 1) Removing all the good pitchers from the bullpen and finding less than nothing to replace them, leaving us with the only sub-replacement bullpen in baseball. 2) Ian @#$@#$% Stewart. 3) Missing the perfect sell-high opportunity on Garza in the spring by holding out for too much. 4) Allowing Joe Mather to be awarded a roster spot based on spring training performance. 5) Putting Steve Clevenger on the Opening Day roster instead of Castillo
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At some point, Epstein has to take the blame for either the 2012 Red Sox or Cubs. He can't dodge both.
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Then it turns out we made a genius move, because six years down the road there's an even bigger star available at that position right as our above-average player's contract expires, and we aren't tied down to that mere star we could have signed.
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His second stint with the Cubs: 27 IP, 21 K, 11 BB, 2 HR His WHIP was heavily influenced by an unsustainable .200 BABIP. That's probably enough to earn him a spot in the back of the bullpen next year as a mop-up guy, but I don't expect anything more than that from him.
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And then we make the playoffs 3 out of those last 5 years, and Jim Hendry laughs.
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He's a bad right-hander with a mediocre fastball and ties to the organization's new execs. Not only will that probably guarantee him a spot next year, but I think they are targetting a few more guys with that description.
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It's not even the first time we've had this plan. It's not? Andy MacPhail says, "Hi." I don't think draft all the pitching you can, completely neglect position player development, and try to band aid the rest is nearly the same plan Theo has in mind. Andy MacPhail constantly preached player development when he was hired. He just sucked at implementing it.
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It's not even the first time we've had this plan.
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An ordinary bullpen, an ordinary 3b and CF and replenishing the rotation to what it was before the deadline makes this a decent team.
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I need Fred to come tell us how many times the Cubs have ended seasons with walk-of wins.
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Using fangraphs and dividing DeJesus's WAR up by playing time, I come up with the Cubs getting below-replacement performances from the entire positions of 3b and CF. Catcher made it to a fractional positive WAR because of Castillo's late surge. The bullpen managed to be worth -1.4 WAR as a whole, the only below replacement bullpen in baseball. These weren't your ordinary, run of the mill scrubs.
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The bullpen's final gift.
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Vitters with 3 walks in his last two games. Unless he gets another PA or more with extra innings, Brett Jackson finishes the season with a 41.5% K-rate in 142 MLB PAs. The two combined to hit 247/269 in their callup.
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Does he look small and scared?
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Cubs A's O's <= -0.5 WAR players 7 1 3 The Cubs' problem isn't so much the stars, it's the scrubs.
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Wouldn't that set it at ~38 wins? Then wouldn't the average team have 61 wins?
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former Cubs still hanging around
Hairyducked Idiot replied to biittner77's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
inb4"looks small" -
Isn't Rizzo sitting today? Yes 1. Tony Campana, LF 2. Adrian Cardenas, 2B 3. Starlin Castro, SS 4. Bryan LaHair, 1B 5. Dave Sappelt, RF 6. Josh Vitters, 3B 7. Brett Jackson, CF 8. Anthony Recker, C 9. Travis Wood, P