Statistical Analysis
The Cubs 2009 MVP and LVP Analysis
This is probably no more than a formality for 2009, but might as well go through the motions. Last year our wonderful readers voted Geovany Soto as the Cubs 2008 MVP, so let's see who we come up with this year (attempts to build suspense). You can vote in the post above, leave comments on this post though.
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About that Cubs Closer Battle
I recently purchased a copy of the Bill James Handbook 2009...I know, a little late to the party...but it does a great job of presenting information that isn't readily available, information I'll pass along as they become relevant throughout the season. I'm also going to get a subscription to BillJames.net to update everyone as the season progresses.
But thumbing through the book they have all kinds of stats on relievers and let's see if any of it will help Lou pick his closer on the year.
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Beware the BABIP
I harp a lot about BABIP (Batting Average on Balls in Play) and how it's a good indicator if a player is due for a slump or a rebound from year to year, and even within a season. The general guideline is that a player will generally settle within a range of .290-.320 on their BABIP, with the league average being .300 for a hitter and .290 for a pitcher. Now pitchers have much less control over their BABIP than hitters, that is unless they throw a knuckleball or particulary good change-up that is hard to get good contact on, but hitters actually can outperform or underperform that guideline quite significantly thanks to an ability to hit line drives, speed and a few other minor factors. That being said, they don't outperform it by that much. If you look at the 3-year leaderboard for BABIP on Fangraphs, only three players have topped the .360 mark (Jeter, Holliday and Chipper Jones with Ichiro just missing). Now those are some of the best hitters in the game and their career BABIP's are pretty high as well (except for Chipper who has a .328 career BABIP) and it's been shown that players regress more towards their own BABIP levels than the league averages. That all being said, when you see a player hitting anything over .340, you need to start worrying that it will fall back a bit unless they've been able to sustain it for a few seasons. On the flip side, if a guy is suddenly below .280 he's either had a really unlucky season or he's about to leave major league baseball (see Jones, Andruw).
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Did Cubs Make the Right (Field) Choice?
I did the bulk of the research for this article with the idea this would be a preview on whom the Cubs should prefer as their new right fielder. Then the signing became imminent and eventually a reality, so I decided to turn this into an analysis of the newest Cub outfielder, Milton Bradley. You've probably already seen a lot of these numbers in one way or another, but why let the work go to waste?
Let's start with a look at their offensive numbers...in beautiful table form. Their ages are their 2009 baseball ages, in other words using the July 1st cutoff for their birthday. The 3-year WARP averages are a simple average, just taking the last three seasons and dividing by three, rather than weighting it by games played or anything like that. Considering it's a cumulative stat, I actually believe that's kosher. I went with 2009 Bill James projections, but you can find MARCEL or CHONE on their fangraphs pages. Bold indicates the leader in that category.
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Cubs OPD Rankings: One Stat Will Rule Them All
This is a couple of weeks old, but Chris Dial at Baseball Think Factory came out with a huge spreadsheet rating every player in the league on offense and defense with the appropriately named metric OPD (Offense Plus Defense). It does not take into account baserunning though, and be aware that players are compared to those who play the same position. He briefly explains the methodology in that link and a further description of the defense can be found here. I didn't spend a lot of time assessing the merits of his system, but it seems solid enough. It tells me Albert Pujols and Joe Mauer were the best players in their respective leagues last year and well that certainly passes the smell test, although by no means is it the ONE stat that will settle every argument from now until the end of days.
The full Google spreadsheet can be found at this link and I've listed the Cubs team ratings and individual players below. It would have been nice to put a ranking next to each player so I didn't have to count them out, which I'm not going to do for every player, but I'll let you know that Soto was 17th in the NL and DeRosa 18th. The numbers are runs relative to average, not replacement or wins, and of course, a positive number is above average, negative is below average.The general sabermetrician's rule of thumb is that 10-12 runs is good for a win.
Cubs Pwned the First Half
I can say, with some fair amount of certainty, that very few Cubs fans that read this website have been witness to the outstanding level of play that our beloved Cubbies put up during the first half this season. .600 winning percentage, utter dominance at home, best run differential in the league, best starting staff in the NL, best offense in the NL, and top three in defense and overall pitching. And to all that, we just added an pitcher who could end up being our ace and are due to get back one of our best hitters, who has only played 53% of our games to date.
Gawk in amazement at our statistical dominance after the jump...
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Buy Low, Sell High
Anyone who has played fantasy baseball is familiar with the concept of trying to acquire players when they're slumping and trading players when they're on a hot streak. Let's take a look at the Cubs roster and see if we can spot any trends for the second half of the season. There are of course the traditional statistics such as ERA, wins and losses, WHIP, etc, but for the most part I'll be looking at some of the peripherals that are good indicators of what to truly expect from these guys. I'll begin with the starting rotation.
Carlos Zambrano - 8-3, 3.13 ERA, 5.76 K/9, 3.05 BB/9, 1.89 K:BB, 0.59 HR/9, .297 BABIP
There are three areas of concern with Big Z. The 5.68 ERA he put up in June, the alarming decline in his strikeout rate and of course, the shoulder strain that put him on the disabled list. Yeah, he'll be back by Friday, but anytime a pitcher goes down you have to worry about re-injuring himself. You can try and chalk up June to just having a bad month and maybe his shoulder was acting up on him before he actually told anyone, but what you really have to be worried about his is the 5.76 K/9 rate he's sporting this year.
It seems to have been a conscious decision on his part to go less for the strikeout and gain some more control on his pitches. His walk rate has dramatically improved to go along with the decrease in his strikeout rate (3.05 BB/9 this year compared to 4.20 and 4.84 the last two seasons). And you can't argue with the success he's had for the most part this year, but there's not a lot of pitchers that can put up ERA's in the low three's with that low a strikeout rate...I mean, we're talking almost Jason Marquis territory here. His groundball to flyball ratio has improved as well with his new approach and I think he can still dial it up whenever he needs to, but I' d sure feel a lot more comfortable if he got that K/9 rate above six at least.
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NL Central Smackdown: The Aces
Left Fielders | Poll |
I had to take a little break to bash Brenneman yesterday, but NL Central Smackdown is back. I was going to just try and cover all the pitching in one post and have you guys vote on the pitching staffs as a whole. But who really want to decide between Brandon Backe vs Braden Looper. On the other hand, the crown for the best staff ace is worthy of discussion.
Let's see how it breaks down...
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NL Central Smackdown : Left Fielders
Right Fielders | Poll |
<a href="http://ballhype.com/story/nl_central_smackdown_left_fielders/&a… - NL Central Smackdown : Left Fielders</a> ballhype_story_widget_276034(true); |
Before we examine left field, I remind you to check out and vote on center field and right from this weekend if you missed it. As for the left fielders, I think it's an intriguing group and something that should really test the "homer" vote that's been going around in the previous installments. I think Soriano is as good as they get out there in the division, but he seems to be quickly falling out of fans' good graces as of late.
Let's see how it breaks down...
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NL Central Smackdown : Right Fielders
Center Fielders | Poll |
<a href="http://ballhype.com/story/nl_central_smackdown_right_fielders/">… - NL Central Smackdown : Right Fielders</a> ballhype_story_widget_276029(true); |
I'll save the left fielders for Monday since it's a pretty and talented group. Your right--field warriors after the break...
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Recent comments
Arizona Phil (view)
azbobbop: Yes.
Mike Wellman (view)
I’ve got Tim’s The Last Out too, along with some other prints of his work.
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
Very well played game all around tonight.
crunch (view)
best starter and 2 top hitters from the team gone...and they keep on winning.
little ahead of myself here, but the RSox got 9 outs to find 6+ runs.
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
Richard Gallardo just left the Smokies game with an arm injury after going to the ground following a pitch. Doesn’t sound good at all.
azbobbop (view)
Phil, do you think Wiggins will start out in ACL?
azbobbop (view)
The level of conversation on this site is intelligent, reasoned and informative. Miles ahead of other Cub sites.
Arizona Phil (view)
This was Jaxon Wiggins previous "live" BP on 4/5:
JAXON WIGGINS:
ONE INNING (20 pitches - 10 strikes)
one batted ball in play (F-9 by Stevens)
one walk (B. Davis)
one HBP (B. Davis)
two strikeouts (Peralta & Escobar - both looking)
three swing & miss
two fouls
four called strikes
nine called balls
Arizona Phil (view)
Prior to the Cactus League game at Papago Park, three Cubs pitchers threw "live" BP on Field 1 at the Cubs Sloan Park complex, including RHRP Ethan Roberts (June 2022 TJS) and Cubs 2023 2nd round draft pick RHP Jaxon Wiggins (February 2023 TJS).
Wiggins last threw "live" BP three weeks ago before being shut down for a couple of weeks, and this was the first time Roberts has thrown to hitters in almost two years.
JAXON WIGGINS:
ONE INNING:
25 pitches (11 strikes)
no batted balls in play
two walks (Suriel and J. Diaz)
three strikeouts (Carico, Lubo, and Escobar - all three swinging)
six swing & miss
two fouls
three called strikes
14 called balls
one WP
ETHAN ROBERTS:
ONE INNING
15 pitches (7 strikes)
two batted balls in play (G-3 by Carico and L-9 by Suriel)
two walks (Lubo and Carico)
no strikeouts
no swing & miss
two fouls
three called strikes
eight called balls
one WP
Mat Peters was bumped by Justin Steele from his scheduled game work at Giants, so he threw two innings of "live" BP with Wiggins & Roberts.
MAT PETERS:
TWO INNINGS
44 pitches (23 strikes)
five batted balls in play (F-7, L-7, F-7, G-6, G-3)
three walks
two strikeouts (both Lubo and both looking)
six swing & miss
three fouls
nine called strikes
21 called balls
three WP
crunch (view)
wall stole a HR from busch...double. nice to see him destroy a curve ball.
upon further viewing, that might not have been a homer in too many parks...it had a lot of hang time, though.