Hairyducked Idiot

Getting back on topic, here's a list I thought was interesting. Five players own the top 12 spots on the all-time strikeout list: Reynolds, Stubbs, Dunn, Cust and Howard. They struck out between 30% and 35% during their record-setting seasons. Their AAA K-rates: Reynolds skipped AAA, but struck out 25.1% of the time at AA Stubbs struck out 22% of the time in AAA Cust struck out 26.2% of the time in AAA (or 28.8% if you prefer just to look at his first stint and not his career as a AAA veteran) Howard struck out 26.1% of the time in AAA Brett Jackson struck out 32.5% of the time in AAA. He's really an unprecedented strikeout talent. If we're really going to tank and give him the starting job next season and he somehow keeps it for a full year, we might see 250 Ks.

He still can't hit. There will be no waffle. Unless he starts to hit.

In general or about Brett Jackson? That was mostly me. A couple of other people started doing it too, but many of the posters asked that it be stopped.

Their wins and losses under Williams aren't that impressive for a big-market team in a small-market division.

Everything I said was dead on and has been proven out. The only goats I get are people who like having their goats gotten. Except the parts I said were hyperbole and you admitted were hyperbole. That certainly sounds like something I would do, but I went back over every page of the thread and can't find what you are talking about.

In this thread, Kyle talks about a current Chicago Cub and his interesting performance. A lot of other people seem really fascinated with talking about Kyle. Everyone agrees Brett Jackson is striking out too much, but I think there's some interesting nuance within that. Will he strike out at a similar rate to some of the highest K hitters in the league, can he cut it below that, or will he continue to strike out at an unprecedented rate? Will it begin to compromise his power, or can he still show 15-20 HR power? Is the 15% BB rate going to be able to continue? That's much higher than he was posting in the minors, but it's proving remarkably persistent.

Everything I said was dead on and has been proven out. The only goats I get are people who like having their goats gotten.

This thread doesn't have to be about me, Tim. Keep it on topic, please.

Just preventing a tedious semantic argument over the difference between whether opining that Brett Jackson doesn't seem likely to improve is the same as saying "he can't improve."

Though I know this isn't any real attempt at baseball conversation, I'll treat it as such. The point was never that players can't change. It was that 60 PAs is enough to smooth out sample size concerns so that you know you are getting a pretty good luck at a player's current ability level. 2 home runs in 60 PAs doesn't really tell you much about whether a guy is currently a 40 HR hitter or a 10 HR hitter. But K-rate is subject to a lot less variance, so that after 60 PAs you have a very good idea about the player's current abilities. That doesn't mean that he can't make an adjustment and change. Brett Jackson's 40% K-rate in his first 60 PAs wasn't a sample-size-induced variance fluke. It was his current ability, as evidenced by his next 60 PAs. A lot of nice numbers in mid-August were variance flukes, as evidenced by how they've stabilized in his next 60 PAs. He can always change and become a better hitter. But this is who he is right now.

Doesn't have to be too late. Brett Jackson might be the most interesting story on the Cubs right now. First, there's the question of whether he can turn the K's around. If he can get them down to a merely awful level, like 30%, he could be a borderline star player with his complementary skill set. If he can't, he's gone from our No. 1 prospect to huge bust pretty quickly. He might be our starting CF next year, he might be traded, he might be in Iowa. I think if anything he's best suited for a 5th OF role, but that's the least likely scenario.

That is a significant upgrade.

Posted this info over at PSD, but I thought it'd be relevant here. It's really hard to get a hold on exactly what the Cubs spent in baseball operations, because teams don't generally open their books. We know from various reports that the Cubs had roughly a $200 million budget for "total baseball operations" in 2011 and that it was supposed to be "about the same" for 2012. First, I'll list my estimate of their budget, and then I'll defend each line below: 1) MLB payroll $105 million 2) Team ops: $20 million 3) Baseball ops salaries: $10.3 million 4) Minor league ops: $10 million 5) IFA and draft bonuses: $11.2 million 6) Scouting costs: $2 million 7) Dominican Academy: $8 million Total: $166.5 million 1) This one's pretty easy. Most of the numbers come from here: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/compensation/cots/?page_id=140 We started the year at $109 million, added Concepcion and Soler, shed some guys in trades. 2) This one's probably the murkiest, so I tried to estimate high. "Team ops" includes things like travel, stadium costs, salaries of baseball personnel, baseball infrastructure (like the video system in the dugout or the massive database Epstein commissioned). Normally, this would include salaries of people inside the baseball operations, but I separated that out into No. 3 because that's an interesting one for this year's Cubs. Basically, I'm estimating $20 million because $10-15 million seems to be about the consensus of the four leaked team documents in 2010 that Deadspin got, and I want to error on the side of guessing high: http://bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4654:detailed-financial-info-from-pirates-rays-marlins-angels-and-mariners-released 3) The Cubs current baseball operations lists 20 employees, from Theo Epstein down through video operators. They also have 26 employees under scouting and development, from McLeod on down through equipment managers. http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/team/front_office.jsp?c_id=chc We know Epstein make $4 million a year. In pro sports operations, the salaries tend to be very top-heavy. The grunts make almost nothing, because those jobs are in such high demand. I'm completely WAGging here, but I put down $4 million for Epstein, $1 million each for McLeod and Hoyer, and an average of $100k for the other 43. Again, trying to error on the high side. 4) This is the cost of running a minor league system, basically player salaries (not their signing bonuses, their monthly salaries) and coach salaries. The minor league team pays the rest. This was pretty consistently $8-9 million across the four teams that leaked their documents, so I put down $10 million for this. 5) This one is easy. We know this down to the dollar, pretty much. $8.3 million in the draft and $2.9 on IFAs. Soler and Concepcion got MLB deals and are accounted for in part 1. 6) These are a pretty incidental cost. Basically, the scouts are already accounted for in baseball ops salaries, but it costs money to fly/bus/drive them around. 7) That's the high end of the $6-8 million estimate the Cubs gave out. I know I did a lot of guessing, but the numbers come out really nicely, because we know that they had roughly a $200 million baseball operations budget in 2011, too. And that year, they spent about $45 million more in combined MLB payroll and amateur bonuses than they did this year. Take the final total of $166.5 million, add in $45 million, subtract the Dominican Academy ($8 million), the cost of all these new executive and staff (maybe $5 million?) and a few million for infrastructure, and it takes you right to about $200 million. So by my rough estimate, we left about $30 million on the table this year. That either goes into Ricketts' pocket, saved for future years, or goes against something like the Wrigley Field rebuilding or whatever.

I wish. But there's just no way they'd be that gutsy and no one would take them seriously.

I'm a little annoyed they didn't see the change coming. There were lost of rumors, but they kept insisting it wasn't going to happen. Then it did, and they seemed a little blindsided.

Okay, I'm sold on Valbuena. Give him 3b next year and use the savings on CF and so much pitching.

Hasn't he? The amount of money spent on combined baseball operations has appeared to be steadily dropping since he took over. I guess nobody really knows, but making Theo one of the highest (if not the highest) paid executives in the game, significantly expanding baseball operations staff, renovating Wrigley facilities, securing a new spring training facility, paying $35+ million on international free agents doesn't scream "cheap" to me. Theo got about $4 million/year. All those baseball operations staff might add up to about the same, maybe a smidge more. They haven't begun the renovations yet, outside of some money-making opportunities. The new spring training facility is not being paid for by the Cubs, and the IFAs were being counted in the MLB payroll. Add it all up, and we're still about $30 million short in the total baseball operations budget from its peak.

We drew 3,168,859 in 2009, with Ricketts taking over after the season. With 7 home games to go, we are on pace for 2,912,904. A difference of 255,594. I'm aware they've spent money besides MLB payroll. That's why I said combined baseball operations has appeared to lose significant spending, not just MLB payroll.

Hasn't he? The amount of money spent on combined baseball operations has appeared to be steadily dropping since he took over. So has revenue as far as I can tell. I dont think there was ever an expectation or indivation they would operate at a loss. Has revenue gone down? They've lost about 250k in attendance since he took over, but they've added some advertising and MLB shared revenues have gone up significantly. If it has, then much of it has been self-inflicted.

Jeez. Man up and realize that that franchise ain't even on our level and thinks about it every single day, (and let our lil homies ride on em). They're all LOOK AT ME because they're the neglected red-headed step child. how are they not on our level? i guess if the only way we evaluate levels is by tickets sold or team value we're better, but their team is better right now and has won a world series recently. And yet nobody cares. The Marlins won a World Series as well. More people care about the Boise Cubs right now than the Chicago version.

Hasn't he? The amount of money spent on combined baseball operations has appeared to be steadily dropping since he took over.

Yeah, the Astros would probably see what we were doing and start just forfeiting games. It'd be a hideous parallel to the epic AL East arms race that Epstein waged against the Yankees.

Plus, you can save another $5 million or so when you trade 40% of your rotation at the deadline (Garza and FA). So we might be able to get that down under $65 million. We'd have a good chance at the No. 1 overall pick and the Wrigley renovations would be almost completely paid for. I mean, it sucks and it's an awful plan, but I wouldn't put it past them.

I've been a Valbuena skeptic, but I can definitely kind of see it now. Out of all the cheap options we might go with next year, I find him to be the most intriguing.