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Hairyducked Idiot

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Everything posted by Hairyducked Idiot

  1. Hairyducked Idiot
    The 2013 Cubs could be a really, really good defensive team. The only real question is if Castro can put it together defensively by then.
  2. Hairyducked Idiot
    Obviously there are still plenty of moves to come, but here's where I have us right now. Sappelt*/Byrd/DeJesus (Soriano/Johnson) Stewart/Castro/Barney/LaHair (Dewitt/Baker) Soto (Castillo) Garza/Wood/Dempster/Maholm/Volstad Marmol/Samardzija/Russell/Castillo/Corpas/Beliveau/Wells The bullpen is the hardest to project, of course. Rizzo and Jackson likely taking over jobs by August. I'm probably underestimating the bullpen problems, but I think that team can project to 76 wins with some upside. (* Yes I'm going to beat that drum all offseason.) Edit: Removed projection that Theo would invoke rarely used "takebacks" clause and put Cashner in the bullpen
  3. Hairyducked Idiot
    Wood and Volstad get the spots. Wells as a No. 6 I can live with.
  4. Hairyducked Idiot
    It *always* makes sense. Giving someone $4 million this year and $3 million next year is paying them more value than reversing the two years.
  5. Hairyducked Idiot
    Wow. If that's it, great freaking deal. I approve. Our front office is so freaking awesome.
  6. Hairyducked Idiot
    This is a silly thing to get excited about, but I was looking at the fangraphs front page today and they still had the links to their 2011 Organizational Rankings. Last year, we were #29 for front office/baseball ops and t-20th for "future talent." If a Garza trade goes through, we should easily be top-10 in both categories. We are trending upward.
  7. Hairyducked Idiot
    Do the Tigers have the 40-man room to absorb some players?
  8. Hairyducked Idiot
    Is that the guy who claims to have broken a bunch of stuff, but really just tries to predict something that looks likely so he can claim he "broke" it?
  9. Hairyducked Idiot
    Third-best starting pitchers on recent world series winners (being lazy and going to B-R so I'm using ERA+): 2011 Cardinals: Jaime Garcia, 102 2010 Giants: Matt Cain 124 2009 Yankees: Andy Pettitte 111 2008 Phillies: Joe Blanton 105 2007 Red Sox: Daisuke Matsuzaka, 107 I'm not even going to post the 2006 Cardinals because it'd just be trolling, but it's bad. There's no template for a good playoff team, but you can do just fine with a barely-above-average No. 3.
  10. Hairyducked Idiot
    That sounds about right to me. Being the 87th, 90th, 80th or 62nd best starting pitcher is right exactly where I was placing him: A solid No. 3 starter. Using "qualified" usually undersells a player (and yes, I did it too with LFers earlier) because the bad players don't play enough to be qualified.
  11. Hairyducked Idiot
    I have absolutely no idea how Fuld and Sappelt are remotely comped. I just don't see it at all. But if you are talking about the Sam Fuld who put up 1.9 fWAR in 105 games last year (career fluke, but nonetheless), then that's not damning of Sappelt in any way.
  12. Hairyducked Idiot
    I'm going to flog it until it becomes not true, yes. His minor league numbers are consistent with the "partial seasons." His decreased season was *still* right around league average, aka a No. 3 pitcher. His "struggles" were not all that struggly.
  13. Hairyducked Idiot
    I like Sappelt fine, and would rather he get at bats than Campana or Johnson or Soriano, but it's not really a difficult path to Dave Sappelt: sub-2 WAR player. There'd be a lot more to discuss if someone would actually post that path instead of just spamming "Everyone thinks he's a fourth outfielder" or whatever. There were 20 qualified left fielders last year. The midway point was between Josh Willingham (2.1 WAR, .809 OPS, bad defense) and Martin Prado (1.6 WAR, 685 OPS, good defense). Both played in about 130 games. Prado at 260/302/385 with good defense is actually a pretty good downside projection for Sappelt, imo.
  14. Hairyducked Idiot
    Career FIP- 92. He's a strong No. 3 right now. This has nothing to do with his potential. He's already performed at an above-average level for a starting pitcher. number three starters/above-average starters throw more than a hundred innings a year. i'm a big fan of travis wood and think he's going to do well, but let's not go crazy. He threw 202 innings two years ago, and 158 last year. It's not his fault that the Dusty Bakers of the world would rather trot out Bronson "Shawn Estes" Arroyo.
  15. Hairyducked Idiot
    Can I get an actual case for Sappelt being a substandard MLB starter, and not just the generic label? Project his slash line, project his defense, and tell me where that would have ranked among MLB LF starters last year.
  16. Hairyducked Idiot
    Career FIP- 92. He's a strong No. 3 right now. This has nothing to do with his potential. He's already performed at an above-average level for a starting pitcher. This is what Moneyball was all about, and it's amazing that a decade later our front office is still able to take such great advantage of it. Lazy thinkers try to slap labels on guys instead of getting down into the nitty-gritty of what they have produced and what they project to produce in the future.
  17. Hairyducked Idiot
    Just idly going with the idea that they don't trade Garza. Garza/Wood/Dempster/Maholm/Volstad is a stunningly decent rotation. Maybe 14 WAR total projection with some upside. (5.0/3.0/3.0/1.5/1.5).
  18. Hairyducked Idiot
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_system Says nothing about escrow.
  19. Hairyducked Idiot
    What is to stop a team from posting a ridiculously high amount just to prevent the player from going to another team, then low-balling the offer because they never intended to spend that much on the player in the first place? They have to pay the posting fee whether they sign him or not. What team would pay $50 million to block another team from getting that player? They don't have to pay the posting fee if they don't sign him.
  20. Hairyducked Idiot
    I have no idea if the old Chicago Tribune prospero boards are still around or have archives, but the proof would be there if you wanted it. Here's a post from alt.sports.baseball.chicago-cubs discussing the acquisition: Yes, it was coming up back then.
  21. Hairyducked Idiot
    That's the way the Walt Jockettys and Jim Hendrys of the world see them. Our guys know better. I don't have a problem with giving prospects a chance, but there aren't many people in baseball that wouldn't call Lahair and Stewart question marks, Sappelt and Johnson 4th or 5th OFs, and Wells/Volstad/wood #4 or #5 starters. "Our guys" are throwing them out there and hoping for the best while looking for their replacements in 2013. The existence of people in baseball who think of Sappelt as a 4th OFer, and *especially* Wood as a No. 4 or 5 starter, is the reason why "our guys" are brilliant and their guys are not. It's very lazy thinking, it ignores several decades of brilliant statistical analysis and research, and it's just plain wrong.
  22. Hairyducked Idiot
    That's the way the Walt Jockettys and Jim Hendrys of the world see them. Our guys know better.
  23. Hairyducked Idiot
    I will too. But not so much under that he's not still a useful starter. Even at 270/310/390, he's pretty close to a wash with Soriano because of his defensive advantage and upside.
  24. Hairyducked Idiot
    Those are some good ones. I like the Callaspo comp a lot, but even he struck out a little more (4.6% to 5.0%) and was two years older when he got to the Midwest League.
  25. Hairyducked Idiot
    I hate these "fourth outfielder" or "starter" labels because it obscures the issue. There's not some clear dividing line. I look at Sappelt's minor league numbers and he pretty clearly projects to something like 280/320/410 in the majors without any improvement. I can't find his ZIPS projection, but the Bill James projections on Fangraphs have him at 300/349/425. I feel just as comfortable projecting him to a stat line like that as I would projecting a 25-year-old major leaguer coming off a 280/320/410 season. That would have ranked him 11th among qualified left fielders last season. In left field, Sappelt can bring you a .730 OPS with good defense and baserunning. That's a 2-3 WAR player. A 2-3 WAR player is one that you can feel perfectly comfortable starting. Yes, in an ideal world you'd have a trio of 4-WAR outfielders and Sappelt would be your fourth. But that doesn't mean he needs a "fourth outfielder" label slapped on him. Part of the reason our front office is so brilliant is that they can see the value in a guy like Sappelt while the rest of the league is slapping useless labels on him.
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