Friday Notes (Late Night Version)
• There has been a lot of talk–some of it here–about how Milwaukee's signing of Mike Cameron and resultant shifting of Bill Hall to 3B and Ryan Braun to LF will improve the Brewers' overall defense. On Friday, Jay Jaffe of Baseball Prospectus (subscription req'd) tried to gauge what that improvement might be.
According to Jaffe's rough, "back of the envelope" calculations, the Brewers project to be about 42 runs better on defense, which could mean between 1.5 and 4 extra victories. That's even assuming both Hall and Braun are below average at their new positions.
• Last week, I wrote about Dave Pinto's Lineup Analysis machine. Pinto finally fed the projected 2008 Cubs numbers into his virtual gizmo and the results show that the Cubs' most productive starting lineup would look like this:
Fukudome rf
Lee 1b
DeRosa 2b
Ramirez 3b
Soto c
Soriano lf
Pie cf
Pitcher
Theriot ss
In his write-up, Pinto shows (projected) love for Geo Soto and questions why Soriano's big bat would lead off, which puts Pinto in the company of many millions of wondering Chicago Cub fans.
• Just guessing here, but based on what we're hearing about operations in the Orioles front office, I suspect Peter Angelos keeps the key to the team's executive washroom locked in his desk, and when Andy MacPhail has to go, he has to ask Angelos for permission. I'm thinking sometimes the old man says yes, and sometimes the old man says no.
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True, but if he's at least decent defensively, and could put up a .270/.350/.390
he'd be worth at least a utility spot.
Come on Soler, Almora and Baez!!!
That is kind of damming with faint praise. :)
That may be true. But is he any less of a prospect than Darwin Barney was?
Barney: .288/.337/.378 in the minors, 35/45 steals 1724 PA's
Watkins:.281/.372/.389, 88/124 steals, 2205 PA's
http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/cubs/post/_/id/170...
It seems unlikely to me that Watkins will be able to keep up his walk totals in the majors, which kind of makes him a non-prospect.
Per the Baseball Cube (http://www.thebaseballcube.com/players/profile.asp...), Derek played the part of two seasons in A ball. He had 56 erros in 128 games in 1993, and 9 errors in 11 games in 1992.
I remember a conversation at TCR years ago with reference to Starlin's propensity for errors, and it was brought up that Jeter once committed 59 in A ball. It was a mini-point of discussion because different sources were reporting the number as either 59 or 159, but it was determined to be 59. Edit: I guess it was 56, funny we both thought of the same thing.
Not sure if it is a record, but in 1993 at Greenboro Derek Jeter had 56 errors.
Anybody know the record for errors at Single-A? Javy Baez with 2 more yesterday - now with 19 for the season.....
I was listening to the "live" audio on mlb.com when the Cubs drafted Dustin Geiger back in 2010, and they announced him as an "outfielder" when they drafted him. So although he had played 3rd base in HS, the Cubs Area Scout projected Geiger as a corner outfielder. But to get him to sign (he had signed an NLI with Central Florida), the Cubs had to give him an overslot bonus and agree to let him play 3B (at least for a while).
So look for Geiger to be moved to a corner OF slot (probably LF, what with Soler holding down RF) sometime soon.
Outstanding effort Phil. Thanks for the updates.
tough loss today, if this team could hit with risp be more fun to watch.
they are moving forward though
m.bowden DFA'd...damn.
Thanks as always, AZ.
On a different subject, I just now noticed the record of the L.A. Angels in the standings.
m.garza debuts tuesday vs pitt
vanillawafers (with recently shaved mustache) to the pen
Ugh