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A tour of the latest from the web...

-  A rather random rumor that the Cubs may have some interest in A's shortstop Bobby Crosby.He's set to make $5.25M this year, so you know he wouldn't cost much in prospects and the A's would probably have to eat at least half his salary. If he's willing to be a utility guy, he'd be a step up from Aaron Miles. Baseball Prospectus projects Crosby at a .243 EqA versus Miles .232. Defensively, Crosby's been a bit above average (according to UZR) to below average (according to BP) at shortstop but probably has a strong enough arm to handle third base. Of course, he'd be replacing Joey Gathright or Micah Hoffpauir on the roster - unless Lou comes through with a six-man bench - and in that case he'd be replacing Bobby Scales, Jake Fox, Luis Rivas or Corey Koskie, in which we'd finally have an acceptable scenario for acquiring Crosby. That is unless the Cubs wise up quickly on this Aaron Miles fiasco that is about to be unleased upon unsuspecting fans.

- Caption fun with Ted Lilly at Big League Stew. Comment #3 has to be the winner.

- Dave Pinto runs through the Cubs expected offensive output. Marcel Projections and the Lineup Tool come up with 5.15 runs per game with the projected lineup, 5.42 with the optimum lineup. The Cubs scored 5.31 runs per game last year.

UPDATE: One wonderful reader pointed out that the probable lineup has Fukudome batting second which(to steal kmokeefe's line) is improbable (at least to begin the season). Let's try it on our own using the lineup of Soriano, Fontenot, Lee, Bradley, Ramirez, Fukudome, Soto, Theriot and the pitcher as suggested by Lou (actually Lou suggested Aaron Miles batting second, but we'll do that next).

That comes up with 5.29 runs per game. The optimal lineup of Bradley, Soto, Fukudome, Ramirez, Lee, Soriano, Fontenot, Pitcher and Theriot comes up with 5.469 runs per game. Flipping Miles for Fontenot results in: 5.025 runs per game and 5.317 with the computer-generated optimal lineup. 

- Lou took on Steve Phillips...Lou will win.

- Baseball Analysts takes a look at the All-Time One Teamers - the best player at each position to play for only one club. I checked on Ryne Sandberg(80.8) and Ernie Banks (80), but both are out-WARP'd by the author's choices of  Charlie Gehringer (85.3) and Cal Ripken Jr. (120.7). I was quite surprised to see Lou Whitaker(85.7) with a better career WARP-3 than Sandberg; I think I'll need to add him to my subjective Hall of Fame class.

UPDATE #2: Clearly I need an editor, as it was pointed out that Sandberg played 13 games for the Phillies in 1981.

- The miracles of science. We'll be taking donations for TCR's own $10,000 electrolysis machine in April.

- Split-squad action today, Cubs travel to Goodyear to take on the Indians; Carl Pavano vs. Chad Gaudin to start. Milton Bradley will DH in that game as well. Here's the lineup from Muskat:

CF Joey Gathright, SS Aaron Miles, 1B Derrek Lee, DH Bradley, LF Jason Dubois, RF Brad Snyder, 3B Bobby Scales, 2B Nate Spears.

Jeff Samardzija will lead the team in Las Vegas tonight versus the White Sox. MLB.com shows radio for the Indians game and TV for the White Sox game.

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Submitted by Rob G. on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 12:02pm
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Comments

Submitted by kmokeefe
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 12:51pm

the probable lineup used to calculate the 5.15 has fukudome hitting 2

i find that improbable.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:20pm

updated the post with the lineup that Lou suggested early on in spring training...

thanks for catching that...

Submitted by Dr. aaron b
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:59pm

Did they do a lineup projection for a the games Soriano,Bradley and possibly Aramis miss? It's better than average that Soto's off days might make us trot out a

Theriot
Miles
Reed Johnson
lee
Kfuk
Koskie/Rivas
Bako
Gathright

Submitted by big_lowitzki
on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 9:06am

So you are saying that it is better than a 50-50 chance that Soriano, ARam, and Bradley are all hurt at the same time?

Someone needs to take a class on probability.

Here are the average games played by Bradley, ARam, and Soriano over the last three seasons, respectively: 94, 146, 134. That means that there would be approximately a 42% chance that Bradley would miss a game, a 10% chance ARam would miss a game, and a 17% chance that Soriano would miss a game.

That would mean that there would be less than a 1% chance that all three would miss the same game.

If you combine that with the chance that Soto would get an off-day on the same day (based on Soto's games played last year), you get a .09% chance that all four would miss the same game.

But sure... "It's better than average."

Submitted by WISCGRAD
on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 9:43am

While the chances of all 3 being out at the same time is very very low, based on those percentages what is scary is that the chance of at least one of the three being injured for a given game is like 56%! Yikes!

Submitted by Doug Dascenzo
on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 11:10am

Hey WISCGRAD, as the resident statistician, I was hoping you might be able to help out with this question I had after reading big_lowitzki's post -

Are the odds that all three will be out at the same time affected at all by the increased probability that the games each will miss are consecutive? Saying Bradley has a 42% chance of missing a game seems a little misleading, because if he's injured he might have a 100% chance of missing, say, the next 30 games. It's not like flipping a coin where the odds of missing a game reset each day.

Also, this probably isn't something you would know, but I wonder if anyone has ever done a study on the likelihood of a player getting injured in a given month. Intuitively, it might seem more likely for a player to get injured in April due to cold weather, and maybe August due to being worn down from the grind of playing all summer. If there is an increased likelihood of guys getting injured in certain months, and we have a few injury-prone players, that might mean that there's an even better chance of them all being injured at the same time.

All right, I've thought about this too much now.

Submitted by Dr. aaron b
on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 3:39pm

This was more to the point I was trying to make. It isn't a huge leap to conclude that.

1. Milton Bradley misses somewhere between 35-60% of every season

2. Alfonso Soriano has spent at least 1 stretch on the DL in each season he has been in Chicago.

So it is better than an average bet that those guys will miss some time.

Mark Prior and Kerry Wood both had stretches where they were durable and healty. However we saw what happened when we built our roster around the plan that they would be a healthy 1 and 2.

Submitted by big_lowitzki
on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 4:09pm

So it is better than an average bet that those guys will miss some time.

Sure... "some time." But that is different than saying that it is an average bet that they will miss time together. And even more different than saying those two, along with Aram, will miss time together. And even MORE different than saying that those three will miss time together along with Soto.

Submitted by WISCGRAD
on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 3:52pm

I thought about that exact question too, but the probabilities wouldn't change. Because while there is a chance that Bradley would miss the first four weeks of the season and Soriano would miss say the last week - meaning they never overlap - it could also be that they both get injured at the same time and ALL of their days overlap. So if you change the unit from games to say weeks or months, the probabilities still say the same.

Basically, what you've pointed out though is that our "less than 1%" answer is a bit misleading. Rather than saying each season we should expect 1 or 2 games in which all 3 are injured, we would really expect this to never happen in like 9 of 10 seasons, and in 1 of 10 to see a two-week span where all three are on the DL.

Submitted by Doug Dascenzo
on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 5:36pm

FWIW (not much), Excel's FORECAST function has the following predictions for games played in 2009 based on their games played going back to 2001 when each of them became full-time players:

Bradley - 101
Soriano - 124
Aramis - 138

I'd love to see Bradley in the 120-130 range, but this is probably acceptable for the NL Central, right?

Submitted by Ryno
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 12:53pm

Bobby Crosby?
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No.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:01pm

remaining spring training broadcast schedule...

http://www.bleachernation.com/2009/03/04/2009-chic...

Submitted by crunch
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:06pm

thanks.

Submitted by The Joe
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:05pm

Here's the problem...though Crosby was already going to be shopped, he's already said he wants to be traded because he doesn't want to be a backup. So why trade for an expensive, shitty and pissed off SS?

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:23pm

well Crosby isn't going to get that job right now unless an injury happens and he'd probably be happy just to get out of Oakland at the moment. And if/when the clock strikes midnight on Theriot, I'd rather have Crosby as a back-up option. Then of course, the deal will probably still be out there if they are looking for a replacement for Theriot.

The rumor seems much ado about nothing to be honest....

Submitted by Cubster
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:32pm

I suggest the A's trade Crosby for Ronnie Cedeno and Garrett Olson...so that they can flip Olson for Peavy.

Scott Eyre still broke?

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:33pm

Bobby Dickerson doing the managing today in Goodyear versus Indians. Lou went to Vegas.

Submitted by The Joe
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:36pm

I finally got a response from Cubs.com on my waiting list position.

I have numbers 27406 and 27405. Anyone want to do a 2 for 1? JD, I know you do...

Submitted by CPH2133
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:38pm

Why two numbers? Still 32,921 for me, I'll swap...

Submitted by John Beasley
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:47pm

I'm around 19K-something. When this came up a few months ago, I calculated that, at the rate I'd moved up over the last 2.5 years, it'd take me another 3,000 years to have a shot at season tickets.

Submitted by CPH2133
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:52pm

Yea, i'll need ever longer. Can you leave your spot on the waitlist in your will?

The cubs just need to build a new, huge stadium that has 100,000 seats, Wrigley is a dump (ducks)...maybe i'll have a chance then.

Submitted by The Joe
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:54pm

Just wait for them to start sucking again. We'll probably move up faster.

Submitted by Doug Dascenzo
on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 11:13am

Or, give the economy another couple years of being in the shitter, and I bet you'll see your number start to move up. I'm guessing season tickets are one of the first things to go for a lot of people/businesses when money starts to dwindle.

Submitted by CPH2133
on Thu, 03/05/2009 - 11:32am

While that is most likely right, if they cant afford their season tickets (the companies, people who have them now) there will be no way in hell I can afford them! But I'll make it happen if my number ever comes up. I'm assuming to climb 30 thousand spots (which will most likely never ever come up) but if it did it'll be 40 years from now. Right after retirement...with some money coming in from retirement...sounds like a match made in heaven.

Submitted by The Joe
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:53pm

I was on the list and forgot my account. So I contacted them and they said they didn't have a record of me and I should sign up again. I recently contacted them again and they sent me both numbers...but they're right next to each other so that doesn't really make sense.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:44pm

http://blogs.chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/spor...

Rehash of Aramis sitting out the WBC, looks like they'll go w/ Tejada instead of asking Aramis back.

http://deadspin.com/5164181/matt-vasgersian-christ...

F-bomb on MLB network...

Submitted by SJS
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:10pm

That second link is a MUST SEE!!

It's 3/44 but Vasgersian is a tool!

Submitted by navigator
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 1:58pm

I noticed you left out Milton's first name in your lineup. He was the only one.

Can we refer to him as "DH" from now on?

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:02pm

it was a cut and paste, standard journalism practice to omit the first name once it's been mentioned in an article.

Submitted by kmokeefe
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:05pm

zing

Submitted by Andrew
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:01pm

I'm pretty sure Miles isn't going anywhere, but how would you propose getting rid of him if you could?

To Rob or anyone else.

Submitted by CPH2133
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:04pm

Have you seen Taken? He'd fetch a pretty penny in the human trafficking scam.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:06pm

leave his motel room door slightly ajar and let the robbers finish the job?

we're stuck with Miles, I just don't like it.

Submitted by Ryno
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:10pm

First road trip to Milwaukee, tell Prince Fielder that Aaron Miles is, in fact, made up entirely of veggie burger.

Problem solved.

Submitted by Cubster
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:03pm

no DeRosa in the starting lineup for the Tribe

Submitted by SJS
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:25pm

It would have been difficult for DeRo to start since he was in Florida playing with Team USA.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:19pm

speaking of the lineup, she missed the catcher..

Mark Johnson batting 9th..

Submitted by Cubster
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:23pm

Cubs get 2 runs in 1st...Snyder 2 rbi single after Gathright, DLee got on with singles, 1st and 3rd.

Bradley popped to 2nd, Dubois was hit by pitch which loaded the bases for Snyder's 2 run single

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:23pm

Lee was on, not Miles...2-out single as well...

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:25pm

bah, you edited...now I just look like an ass.

Submitted by Cubster
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:26pm

god bless the edit option...

Scott Eyre is still broke, how's Howry doin'

Submitted by Cubster
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:36pm

Gaudin sucketh...hit by pitch, double, HR, double ugly...3-2 Tribe

"they are teeing off and not wasting time"

"Rothschild to the mound..."

did I mention that I love having an edit option...

Spears triples.

Submitted by The E-Man
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:33pm

I have a feeling that "Scott Eyre is broke..." is the new, "3/44"

Thanks Dr. Aaron B for the redundancy.

Thanks Dr. Aaron B for the redundancy.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:36pm

Spears triple...

3/44 is better...

George Bell still wears his cap high on his head...good to know things don't change.

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/p...

Submitted by Ryno
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:38pm

Hate to be a downer, fellas, maybe it's the economy or something, but I'm not real optimistic about the year. Of course, I don't see much competition in the division, but I think Chi, Stl, Mil, and Cin will all be contenders. Cincy will surprise.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:38pm

http://muskat.mlblogs.com/archives/2009/03/usa_usa...

1 ER, 2 H, 4 IP vs Blue Jays

Submitted by Cubster
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:45pm

Miles beats a high relay throw in a 5-4-nope DP attempt. 3-3 as Spears scored

Submitted by navigator
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 2:53pm

The second unhappiest city in America, St.Louis (http://realestate.msn.com/slideshow.aspx?cp-docume...), and their baseball Cardinals need your help. Attendance at Cardinals games is projected to drop below the 3.2 million they need to meet budget this year. (http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.ns...)

Can you help? STEEP DISCOUNTS on ticket packages are available.

Submitted by Ryno
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 3:01pm

They could just cut some budget. How much is Pujols making these days?

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 3:23pm

Gaudin settled down after the first...3 IP, 3 K, 3 ER, 4 H, 0 BB for the day.

Campusano in now.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 3:43pm

Brian Schneider in according to Pat Hughes...Schlitter I assume.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 3:47pm

still calling him Schneider...

Submitted by Dr. aaron b
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:11pm

On a somewhat related note:

Dr. Aaron B drank way TOOOO much last Friday. Schlitter ensued on Saturday.

Submitted by Wes
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 5:41pm

Weird, because I bought a 12 of Schlitter.

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:15pm

is there any way to disable auto-play on videos on all websites? It ranks up there with pop-up and pop-under ads on Internet annoyances...

Submitted by crunch
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:21pm

http://www.thinktechno.com/2008/01/24/stop-youtube...

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:28pm

thanks, I'll try it.

Submitted by Cubster
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:26pm

Dr. Aaron B drank way TOOOO much last Friday...
---
reminded me of the Leo Durocher commercial

Hey, fellas...let's have another Schlitz

Submitted by navigator
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:37pm

Leo pronounced it "Slitz"

Hey boys get me another Slitz!

Submitted by SJS
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:30pm

WBC Fun:
*Pedro Martinez - 2IP, 3H, 2ER, 1BB, 2K (Dominicans lose 6-1 to Baltimore)
*La-T-Roy Hawkins - 1IP, 2H, 1ER
*JJ Putz - 2/3IP, 3H, 3ER, 2BB, 1K

Lastly, through 5 1/2, South Africa has scored 6 runs. It's not newsworthy, but I'm just stunned.

Submitted by Ryno
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 4:42pm

And now, your starting pitcher for Team South Africa...

Dave Matthews...

Catching Dave Matthews...

Charlize Theron

Submitted by Charlie
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 5:45pm

I'd watch that game.

I'd watch anything that includes Charlize Theron.

Submitted by mattralph
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 6:54pm

Ryne Sandberg qualifies as a one-team player despite the 13 games he played with the Phillies?

Submitted by Rob G.
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 7:15pm

'Doh...totally forgot about that and clearly glanced over it. Thanks.

Submitted by SJS
on Wed, 03/04/2009 - 7:45pm

Oh snap!

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