Author Topic: Cubs in '11  (Read 57322 times)

Cactus

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #435 on: May 10, 2011, 08:46:28 am »
If Starlin Castro does not get a hit in his first AB tonight, his average drops to .298

buff

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #436 on: May 10, 2011, 01:12:24 pm »
Well Zambrano is pitching well enough so far that a team might try and trade for him at the break.  If the cubs continue to struggle they need to do everything they can to move him and Dempster while eating as little money as possible.

Cactus

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #437 on: May 10, 2011, 01:40:46 pm »
Castro will sign a big contract that will keep him with Cubs until a date to be reported later.

Internet rumor or could there be something to this?

Cactus

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #438 on: May 10, 2011, 01:43:01 pm »
Source of that "news" is Sun-Times columnist Joe Cowley.

StrikeZone

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #439 on: May 10, 2011, 02:04:12 pm »
Wow, it's a little soon for a move like that, if true.

Clarkaddison

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #440 on: May 10, 2011, 02:57:09 pm »
Cowley has about as much credibility as Phil Rogers.

Reb

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #441 on: May 10, 2011, 04:05:38 pm »
Go figure.  Samardzija has been tougher to hit than Marmol.

Opposition BA:  Samardzija- .123.  Marmol- .169

Opposition slugging %:  Samardzija- .169.  Marmol- .173.

Okay, a walk an inning but if guys can't hit you, still pretty good.

Seems like Samardzija is doing a real good job working the bottom end and top end of the strike zone--lots of hard stuff way down in the zone (or lower) and hard stuff high in the zone.  Not much of that hittable stuff in the middle of the zone- SO FAR! Can it last?

Reb

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #442 on: May 10, 2011, 04:09:17 pm »
On the bullpen generally, Cubs now at 2.76 bullpen ERA.  That is tied for 4th in the NL (with Giants) and close to 3rd best (Braves at 2.73).  God help me, but even Justin Berg looks better than last year. At this rate, I'll have to shut up about the bullpen.

On the other hand, Cubs starting rotation still DEAD LAST in ERA in NL.  That is an area of potential vast improvement before too long.

Jes Beard

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #443 on: May 10, 2011, 04:10:30 pm »
Four of the top 16 are everyday players for the Cubs.  That is why the offense sucks...half the offense is hacking away at everything.

At least after I pointed out to you twice in a couple of says that the Cubs' OBP is about 5th in the NL and above league average you have slightly changed your mantra, but "hacking away at everything" is not in and of itself a problem.  It can CAUSE the problem of a low OBP, except that it hasn't done that so far with the 2011 Cubs.

Jes Beard

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #444 on: May 10, 2011, 04:15:09 pm »

I hate saying it, but you're talking about two guys in Castro (patience, fielding, possibly power) and Cashner (lack of proven durability and innings, hasn't shown consistency) who are pretty flawed players and may not ever totally overcome all of them.

Are you for real?

I'm not sure getting a "wave" of B. Jackson, a healthy Cashner, and McNutt exactly elevates the talent level to a 95-100 win team.

It won't.  Which is why I have been advocating aggressive stocking of prospects and trading off any established players with any value in order to get them.

CurtOne

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #445 on: May 10, 2011, 04:35:07 pm »
Castro will sign a big contract that will keep him with Cubs until a date to be reported later.

Internet rumor or could there be something to this?

This is so we can trade him for a middle reliever.

Reb

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #446 on: May 10, 2011, 05:16:20 pm »
Fun with numbers.

Cubs are #10 in the NL in runs scored per game (#13 in total runs).  But, Cubs are #5 in team OPS.

The only NL team who is as out of whack as the Cubs in runs scored/OPS are the Braves.  They are the converse.  Braves are #5 in runs scored but #10 in team OPS.

Not surprsiingly, Braves outperform their runs scored/OPs because they are #1 in team OPS with runners in scoring position.  Cubs, on the other hand, are #15 in team OPS with runners in scoring position.

Diagnosis:  a fluke.

Most teams are pretty close in relative runs scored and OPS. The correlation is not perfect by any means but, for example, top four teams in runs scored (Cards, Reds, Marlins, Dbacks) are 1.2.4, and 3 in overall team OPS.

Braves are laughably out of whack.  They are .697 OPS overall, but .872 OPS with runners in scoring position.
Cubs are .720 OPS overall, but .613 OPS with runners scoring position.

So, here are the Cubs outperforming the Braves in OPS overall but in the roughly 1/4 of total ABs--in which there are runners in scoring positon--Braves are outperforming Cubs by a whopping .259 points!  That is the kind of thing you sometimes see one month into the season and it is a total fluke and will not continue for long.

It's certainly possible or likely that Cubs will not be the fifth best team in OPS for the season, but no way you will see this kind of relative disparity between overall and scoring position for too long.  Ditto for the Braves.

JR

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #447 on: May 10, 2011, 05:21:16 pm »
Hopefully this means the number of Doug Davis starts will be kept to a minimum . . .

Randy Wells - S - Cubs

Randy Wells (forearm) threw batting practice Monday at the Cubs' minor league complex in Mesa, Arizona.
The Cubs must like what they're seeing, as Wells is now scheduled to throw in an extended spring training game on Thursday. He's running a bit ahead of his teammate Andrew Cashner at the moment, so barring any setbacks, he should return from the disabled list before the end of the month.
Source: Carrie Muskat on Twitter
May 10, 6:03 PM

Andrew Cashner - S - Cubs

Andrew Cashner (shoulder) threw batting practice Monday at the Cubs' minor league complex in Mesa, Arizona.
Cashner continues to make incremental progress from a right rotator cuff strain. The young right-hander is scheduled to throw another live batting practice session on Thursday, after which we'll likely know more about his status moving forward. His teammate Randy Wells is expected to return sooner.

brjones

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #448 on: May 10, 2011, 07:00:13 pm »
Cubs are #10 in the NL in runs scored per game (#13 in total runs).  But, Cubs are #5 in team OPS.

The only NL team who is as out of whack as the Cubs in runs scored/OPS are the Braves.  They are the converse.  Braves are #5 in runs scored but #10 in team OPS.

Not surprsiingly, Braves outperform their runs scored/OPs because they are #1 in team OPS with runners in scoring position.  Cubs, on the other hand, are #15 in team OPS with runners in scoring position.

Diagnosis:  a fluke.

I think there's more to it than that.  I think Fukudome is such an outlier from the rest of the team in OBP that just the raw team numbers don't tell the whole story.  Kosuke has a .468 OBP.  Reed Johnson has a .444 OBP in very limited playing time, and Jeff Baker is at .364.  No one else is better than .336.  Outside Fukudome and Baker, there isn't a good OBP on this team among players who have had any kind of consistent playing time.  And even Johnson and Baker are pretty much useless as OBP guys against RHP...on days a righty starts against the Cubs, Fukudome is the only guy who gets on base consistently.

The Cubs are currently 6th in the league with a .322 team OBP.  But if you take Kosuke out, they drop all the way to .310, which would put them in an 11th place tie with Milwaukee, one point ahead of the 12th place Braves.  That's a pretty severe drop based on just one player, especially when you consider he has missed out on ~40 PA due to platooning and his leg injury. 

Just to provide a little more context, I looked at the Mets...they're 5th in OBP at .325, the closest score to the Cubs.  They have 5 guys with at least 50 plate appearances who have a OBP higher than .336 (including 4 every day players: Beltran, Reyes, Davis, and Wright), plus 3 more with limited playing time who are above .336.  If you take their best OBP guy out (Beltran, .383; with 37 more PA than Kosuke--so he should have a bigger influence on his team's stats), their OBP drops to .318.  That would drop them all the way from 5th to a 7th place tie.  Not nearly as severe a drop.

The bottom line is that the Cubs have been a bad on base team outside Fukudome.  His high OBP may make them look superficially pretty good...but when 8 of the 9 players in your lineup have trouble getting on base, you're not going to score many runs no matter how often the 9th guy is getting on (especially when that 9th guy has gotten himself past first base only 3 times in his 45 times on base).

By the way, I wondered if Soriano had a similar influence on SLG because he's such an outlier...but he doesn't really because his low BA keeps his SLG from being as much of an outlier.

Reb

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Re: Cubs in '11
« Reply #449 on: May 10, 2011, 11:31:22 pm »
Kosuke isn't responsible for the disparity.  He is .933 OPS with runners in scoring position, so he is lifting up Cubs in both categories---OPS overall and OPS with runners in scoring position.  The point is the disparity, not whether Kosuke helps overall team OPS.

Further, if you reduce Cubs OPS by 12 points to reflect Kosuke's impact on OBP, Cubs overall OPS is still out of whack compared to their OPS with runners in scoring position.  They are still better than NL average in overall OPS with the Kosuke reduction and still near the bottom in OPS with runners in scoring position.