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Cubs Lineup
It's a Threepeat—Cards Beat Punchless Cubs to Complete the Sweep
Let the autopsy report on this ghastly series read: three games, two runs, 14 hits, three losses.
Lou Piniella made a lineup change on Thursday night, sliding Mike Fontenot from third base to the more familiar ground at second and starting the seldom-used Ryan Freel at third. The moves paid dividends...to the Cardinals:
Tonight's Lineup...Sort Of
According to Gordon Wittenmyer, Lou is moving Alfonso Soriano out of the leadoff spot for the time being and putting Ryan Theriot up there. It looks like Theriot, Fukudome, Soriano, Ramirez, Lee in the first five spots for tonight. It'll probably be some combination of Reed Johnson, Soto and either Fontenot or Miles for the last three spots.
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Cubs Lineup If They Play (Maybe They Shouldn't)
Update: First pitch now set for 2pm.
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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Cubs Lineup Fun
With the wind chill factor in Chicago approaching 137 degrees below zero and Spring Training still 21 days, 14 hours, 9 minutes and 41 seconds away, I found this fun little diversion courtesy of David Pinto at Baseball Musings.
Based on work by Cyril Morong (Beyond The Box Score), Ken Arneson (Catfish Stew), and Ryan Armbrust (The Pastime), Pinto has fashioned a Lineup Analysis machine. You simply feed nine players into the formula along with their OBP's and slugging percentages, and what you get back is a series of run projection numbers, based on various lineup permutations of the players you entered.
For yucks, I entered numbers for Soriano, Theriot, Lee, Ramirez, Fukudome, Pie, DeRosa and Soto, plus a generic Cub Pitchers line (.167 OBP, .207 SLG, based on the Cub pitchers’ ’07 hitting performance).
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Recent comments
crunch (view)
PCA called up.
crunch (view)
welp...
bellinger...fractured rib.
a not-very-ready PCA will probably be called up when it would be much better for him to be in AAA getting regular ABs.
crunch (view)
i have no hard data, but i'm seeing the same thing.
there used to be some parks where that was rampant (colorado during the todd helton days comes to mind), but i'm seeing it all over the place the past couple seasons.
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
I’ll spare the details which I’ve stated before but, in short, the Cardinals have lost their sight of their successful identity and strategy over last several dominant decades. From the beginning of the season I saw the Cardinals being in last place or near it again this year, and my prediction is that Mozeliak will be gone after the end of the season.
Bill (view)
I would have kept Cooper rather than Wisdom, but at least I can understand why they did it. In a team that lacks dominant power hitters, Wisdom can be a dominant power hitter, at least in streaks. I suppose that there is always the possibility that the streaks longer in both duration and frequency. I will be content if they essentially make a 100 % DH commitment to Mervis against righties and Wisdom against lefties. When a regular needs rest, give them total rest, rather than a DH rest. Do this for at least 2 months, and then re-evaluate at that point.
Dolorous Jon Lester (view)
This is Cubs adjacent but…
Jordan Walker just was optioned by the deadbirds. For all the talk of the Cardinals development machine, they’ve really missed on a lot of can’t miss superstars lately. Walker has struggled. Gorman has been okay. They’re already trying to push Carlson out the door. Their pitching system has been so bad they had to go out and sign basically a full rotation over the last two offseasons.
They’ve still developed a few of those pesky solid players, like Donovan, Edman, and Nootbaar. Their two best prospect to MLB players have been Adolis and Arozarena, neither of which is a cardinal.
I hope they never figure it out again. Cardinal failure brings me such joy.
Raisin101 (view)
Thank you so much! I really appreciate not only all your posts but how eager you are to respond to our questions.
Sonicwind75 (view)
Is it just me or does it seem that official scorers are becoming less likely to call a misplay an error?
Guess I've hit my cranky old-man phase in life. "I remember back in the day when an error was an error. Official scorers have gone soft. Now where did I put my readers?!!??"
Sidenote, maybe Bellinger should be a little more careful against the Astros. That was the series last year that a play at wall put him on the IL.
crunch (view)
i hated the almonte pickup, but he's 9-10 out of 12 for good outings, following a great spring. hope he can keep it up.
i already miss cooper, but yeah...the thin OF roster backup the team seems to want to carry probably got wisdom preference over cooper. i could live without seeing wisdom at 3rd unless it's a blowout, though.
Childersb3 (view)
Things I've been wrong about:
-Tauchman is fine as a 4th OF. I knew that. I just want a better LH DH option and he was really the DH for us until Seiya got hurt. I'm glad Mervis is getting a chance at it. Caissie is coming for that job for sure. But Tauchman continues to be highly useful as a 4th OF with Seiya being hurt
-I wanted Yency to go to get guys at Iowa a chance. Guys like Palencia and Sanders or RileyT. Maybe even Hodge! But Yency has been better the last two plus weeks. He did hit 96 the other day. He was 93 in Texas to open the season.
-Leiter has his split working enough. It just needs to stay there
-I was surprised Jed picked Wisdom over Cooper. I wonder if this happens if Seiya wasn't hurt. Wisdom has more power. Cooper is the better hitter. Jed picked Wisdom and Wisdom had an option left as well.
-Palencia just doesn't miss enough bats. Similar to ManRod, just two yrs younger. ManRod is killing AAA for TB right now!
Things I got right so far:
-Hendricks. Sorry Kyle. You got paid though!
Jed, you missed there.
-Smyly. If Jed could've traded him before or during ST, then he should have and saved some cash.
-Mastro. Not a LH DH. Pinch runner. Defensive utility. Maybe he's better than Madrigal but didn't get a legit chance to prove it.
-Luke Little is good. He's had one bad outing. That's it. Needs to get better entering with guys on base. But he needs to stay in MLB.
-Oh yeah....Morel is doing fine at 3B! He'll get better as well!!