Transmission's Archives
Book Review: "Chicago Cubs Yesterday & Today"
Steve Johnson, Chicago Cubs Yesterday & Today (Minneapolis: Voyageur Press) 2008. 144pp. $26.95
Any new addition to the collection of Chicago Cubs anthologies, encyclopedias and coffee table books is faced with the elemental problem of distinguishing itself from the dozens of other works competing for your beer money. In the case of Steve Johnson's Chicago Cubs Yesterday and Today, published by Voyageur Press, the pitch is twofold. First, instead of a chronological ordering that begins in the past and proceeds linearly towards the present, Johnson organized Yesterday and Today topically, juxtaposing pictures from different eras in Cubs history for side-by-side comparison. Hence the title. Second, Johnson presents an extensive and diverse selection of historical photos, many in color, from the archives of the Chicago Historical Society, the Hall of Fame, and private collections. While the execution of the whole "then and now concept" was about as consistent as a young Kerry Wood - full of promise, if alternatively brilliant and off target - the photo selection is more Greg Maddux - consistently great.
Game 35 Recap: Cubs 3, Diamondbacks 1
Pitchers Duel
W - Lilly (3-4), batter's interference calls
L- Haren (4-2), jerks who didn't start Lilly in their fantasy leagues
S - Wood (6)
Things to Take from This Game
1. Lilly Comes Through
Facing the best offense in baseball, one dominated by right-handed hitters, Lilly shut down the Diamondbacks to the tune of three hits, two walks, one earned run on a Chris Young Home Run, and ten strikeouts. He spotted the fastball well, with more velocity as the day went on, and had his harder curve and/or slider working for him. A really remarkable performance for Lilly.
2. Haren's good, not great
Haren also pitched very well. The key moment came in the fifth, when with a runner on second and two outs, he walked Johnson to get to Lilly. Lilly then singled through the middle for an RBI, and Soriano dropped a double in down the left field line. Lee added a home run off of Cruz in the eighth, completing the day's scoring
3. A Dominant Ninth for Wood
Wood threw nine strikes in the ninth, completely overpowering Young, Jackson and Upton. Easily the most dominant I've seen Wood, this year.
The this-is-what-I-get-for-not-being-a-fantasy-baseball-homer details, below.
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Game 34 Recap: Cubs 0, Reds 9
This Ain't Pleasure.
W - Volquez (5-1), Mascots and umpires getting injured in funny ways
L - Lieber (2-2), 3+ hours of my life
Things to Take from This Game
1. The Votto (and many others) Game.
Here is a list of Reds starters who did not hit home runs: Patterson, Griffey, Encarnacion, and the pitcher, Volquez. Joey Votto was the worst at not hitting home runs, as he failed to not hit home runs three times, against three different pitchers, to three different parts of the ball park.
2. Lieber? We barely saw 'er.
Lieber was terrible in his first start of the year. The second inning featured four home runs, to Votto, Dunn (back to back), Bako and Hairston. Just didn't have much in the way of stuff, with spotty command inside of the strike zone. It's not like Marshall or Gallagher were any better in relief
3. Can't Hit Volquez.
Volquez issued four early walks (and a couple late ones), but the Cubs couldn't hit him and he settled in after the first couple innings. Ten K's through seven, no runs, four hits.
4. Dusty, Dusty, Dusty....
What an idiot! Here we have one of the most talented young pitchers in the game, part of our core for the next several years, and with a 9-0 lead, and it's raining, and he's thrown 90-plus pitches, Dusty lets him come out for the seventh? With a rested bullpen? And there isn't even anyone up at the beginning of the inning, in case he struggles? What is he thinking? You're telling me there isn't a reliever who can cover a 9-0 lead for three innings? Of course, the young stud struggles through the inning, is painfully, clearly, visibly tired, and needs pitch number 118 to finally get through the inning??!?!
Oh, wait. Dusty is the Reds' manager, now? Nevermind.
5. Did I mention it rained?
And there was no one at the park, and it was deathly silent. What a wretched game to watch.
The all wet details, below.
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Game 31 Recap: Cubs 3, Cardinals 5
2. Everyone = Hill? The only pitcher on either side to strike out more batters than he walked was Isringhausen, and his strikeout came on a "let's hurry up and get out of here" called strike three on Lee to end the game. Between the double switches and the walks and the Joe Morgan, it was a tough game to follow. Seriously, could Miller and Morgan stopped talking about Australian aboriginal farming techniques just long enough to call the game?
3. No Clutch Hitting The box score shows 23 LOB for the Cubs. Among the more egregious innings were the first (two on, one out, no runs) the fourth (leadoff double doesn't score) and the seventh (bases loaded, one out, one run scores)
4. Soriano Looks Lost Soriano started out his first ABs by going 0-2, 0-1, 0-2, 0-2, and 0-2. Besides two strikeouts, he did get a single and an RBI sac fly out of all that. But still...
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Game 18 Recap: Cubs 13, Pirates 6
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Game 6 Recap: Cubs 3, Astros 2
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Game 5 Recap: Cubs 9, Astros 7
Things to Take from This Game
1. No easy innings
2. The Lees
3. More love for Fukudome
4. Then, there's Soriano...
That je ne se qua of mine that you didn't know you missed until you saw it again, the dinge an sich goodness inherent in a recap, below
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One final update
I can't believe it has gotten to the point where I feel compelled to say this, but...
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Cubs 2007 Pitch Tracking: Pictures Worth a Thousand Curves
One of the latest and most exciting developments in baseball research is the measurement and analysis of individual pitches. For instance, the Pitch f/x system created by the company Sportvision tracks the in-flight movement of pitches from two different cameras, thereby assessing a pitch's velocity, horizontal and vertical movement. A bit less than 1/4th of all pitches from last year were so assessed, and MLB has made the raw contents of that data available at this location. Better yet, there are several bloggers who, unlike me, have the talent and dedication to transform that heaping mess of data into meaningful findings. Most notable, Josh Kalk has been developing player cards, a la what's available at baseball-reference or fan graphs or baseball cube, except with graphs incorporating this incredible new source of information on pitch selection and pitch behavior. He also has developed a remarkable application where you can select any player and any pitch with just about any limiting parameter you could want - say, Bob Howry fastballs to right-handed hitters on 0-2 counts with a velocity above 93 MPH that resulted in swinging strikes - and then view the results on a handy X/Y graph.
As if that's not enough, there's the more user friendly if less revolutionary pitch data commercially available at Baseball Info Solutions which is being applied by the talented folks at Fan Graphs. Fan Graphs now offers data on individual players' pitch selections and velocity, all thoroughly sortable. For instance, Tim Wakefield and Chad Bradford feature the two slowest average fastballs in the major at 74.2 and 78.6 MPH, respectively, while no one threw a changeup with greater frequency last year than Matt Wise, at 54%
There's a gold mine of potential information available at our fingertips, with The Baseball Analysts and The Hardball Times leading the way in this sort of analysis. With far less sophistication than what those guys can offer, let's see what it can tell us about the Cubs' staff.
2007 Batting Order Results
Or, how Baseball-Reference will be the death of me
The latest ridiculously interesting tool released by baseball-reference.com is its Batting Order Position Outcomes page. Plug in a team, a year, and a position in the batting order, and it will break down that position's results by the player batting in that slot.
For instance, did you know that on the 2007 Cubs team, Cesar Izturis logged the most games (41) and plate appearances (154) in the 8th spot in the order? He put up a .254/.314/.300/.614 line while hitting 8th, and the Cubs went 18-23 in games where he batted 8th. With Koyie Hill hitting 8th, the Cubs went an impressive 14-7. No thanks to Hill, necessarily, who hit .141/. 203/.211/.414 in those games. In stark contrast to Hill, Ronny Cedeno hit .368/.369/.737/1.052 in nine games there, and the Cubs went 2-7.
Other interesting but perhaps entirely meaningless discoveries include...
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Pie and (Corey) Patterson: A Plethora of Prognosticators' Projections
Who Starts in 2008?
What a difference a year makes. During the 2007 spring training, the starting rotation discussion centered around which of these three candidates would be our number five starter: Wade Miller, Mark Prior, and Angel Guzman.
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Criminal Baseball: The Chicago Colts and the Sunday Observance League
Every Day Is Like Sunday
Readers of the Chicago Daily Tribune woke up on the morning of June 23rd, 1895, to discover that the day’s baseball game between the Chicago Colts (fore-runners to the Cubs) and the Cleveland Spiders was likely to be delayed. On account of police raid. As the paper reported, the Rev. W.W. Clark of the Sunday Observance League had demanded warrants for the arrest of team captain Cap Anson and the rest of the Chicago starting nine, for breaking the Sabbath laws.
Wuertz, Cubs Come To 1-Year Deal
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No, You're Out Of Order
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Recent comments
crunch (view)
steele MRI on friday. counsell expects an IL stint.
no current plans for his rotation replacement.
hellfrozeover (view)
I would say also in the bright side column is Busch looked pretty good overall at the plate. Alzolay…man, that hurts but most of the time he’s not giving up a homer to that guy. To me the worst was almonte hanging that pitch to Garcia. He hung another one to the next hitter too and got away with it on an 0-1.
crunch (view)
amaya blocked like 6-8 of smyly's pitches in the dirt very cleanly...not even an exaggeration, smyly threw a ton of pitches bouncing in tonight.
neris looking like his old self was a relief (no pun), too.
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
In looking for bright spots the defense was outstanding tonight. The “stars” are going to need to shine quite a bit brighter than they did tonight offensively though for this to be a successful season.
Eric S (view)
Good baseball game. Hopefully Steele is pitching again in April (but I’m not counting on it).
crunch (view)
boo.
crunch (view)
smyly to face the 2/3/4 hitters with a man on 2nd in extras.
this doesn't seem like a 8 million dollar managerial decision.
crunch (view)
i 100% agree with you, but i dunno how jed wants to run things. the default is delay. i would choose brown.
like hellfrozeover says, could be smyly since he's technically fresh and stretched.
anyway, on a pure talent basis....brown is the best option.
Childersb3 (view)
Use pitchers when you believe they're good. Don't plan their clock.
I'm sorry. I'm simply anti-clock/contract management. Play guys when they show real MLB potential talent.
If Brown hadn't been hurt with the Lat Strain he would've gotten the call, and not Wick.
Give him a chance.
But Wesneski probably gets it
crunch (view)
alzolay...bro...