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WSN 3.40CHC 3.39
SDP 3.19
PIT 2.90
That of course isn't to say the offense hasn't been bad.
McCoy, I'm confused by the Sveum hatred, what is this based on? In limited sample size, I've become a big fan. I think his alignments are playing a sizable role in our league best defensive efficiency.
Rays Shifts
The starters have a .214/.248 against on groundballs.
The relievers have a .252/.306 against on groundballs.
Flyballs:
Starters: .210/.500
Relievers: .176/.490
Linedrives:
Starters: .574/.766
Relievers: .600/.864
I'd say a lot of the credit for the Cubs' defense should go to the Cubs' starters.
Re: Stewart, it's been touched on a few times on here. His luck on balls in play is so terrible it's stopped being funny. He has a .210 BABIP with a 19.5 LD% (Heading into today. With normal luck, he's league average.
I didn't understand this either, since outcomes on grounders would be a pretty straightforward application of BAbip, which doesn't have much of anything to do with who is pitching.
This year the team has induced slightly more groundballs and allowed slightly less line drives so far than they did all of last year. Doing this will produce better results. Starters as a percentage of total types of hits have induced a far greater % of their balls in play as grounders than the relievers have. 47% to 39% or 51% to 42% if you want to include bunts as well. The flipside of that is thus starters have given up fewer linedrives as a % of their total type of hits than relievers. 16.6% to 21%.
Now then for all their shimmying and shammying around the diamond with their precious shifts they've only kept 11 grounders from turning into hits this year as compared to all of last year's ratios but have only prevented 5 total bases as compared to last year's ratios. Though last year's team only allowed 12 ROE through their first 33 games while the Cubs have allowed 16 ROE. So the difference is even smaller than 11 hits and 5 bases.
Well, here's what's happened so far this year for the starters:
Name - GB/FB, LD%, BAbip (BAbip on GB)
Maholm - 1.36, 10%, .214 (.197)
Volstad - 1.06, 16%, .311 (.290)
Samardzija - 1.02, 14%, .311 (.269)
Garza - 0.85, 15%, .227 (.146)
Dempster - 0.58, 28%, .221 (.094)
Maybe we can just credit Dempster for the defensive improvement.
Baseball Info Solutions' DRS sees the Cubs as 6 runs above average overall which I believe is a distant second in the NL so far this year. It looks to me like Sean Smith's Total Zone numbers might just be broken on BRef right now so I don't know how reliable they are. They have the Marlins at something like 146 runs above average right now.
Groundballs are now at .229/.273. Which means that so far this year 11 more groundballs have been scooped up for hits as compared to last year's rates but the Cubs have only saved 2 total bases. Plus the Cubs have 5 more ROE than they did last year at this point in time.
Doesn't really seem like all these shifts are doing much.
And the outfielders shift, too, so I'm not sure why you're so hung up on just grounders.
The infield is the area that shifts the most and is the most extreme at it and yet they have been largely ineffective and quite possibly their shifts have cost them runs. Even if it turns out that outfield shifting has saved runs it doesn't mean that the infield shifting is doing well or that we can ignore the results of infield shifting.
PS: As for lineouts I'll work on that and report back.
What does that leave? 18 lineouts caught by SS, 2B, or 3B. So 28% of all lineouts were caught by those fielders. Last year those fielders caught 37% of all lineouts plus they fielded 2 other line drives but committed an error on the play which would bump the % up slightly. So on the surface it doesn't appear that the infielders are getting to more line drives either.
DRS has them at +6 runs so far which is pretty good and UZR has them at almost +11 runs which is pretty good but of course doesn't factor in catching which DRS says has not been very good so far for the Cubs. Last year they were at -43 runs and were led by Aramis and Starlin at -18 and -10 runs. Soriano last year was at -9.
This year Stewart is looking to be a big improvement over Aramis in terms of defense (going from almost negative two wins to simply average) and Castro's defense has improved. Soriano's defense according to DRS is on pace to improve tremendously. From -9 to +19 over a full season. I think that has more to do with simply getting Soriano to play deeper than anything else plus I have no idea if he can keep it up.
Barney is getting more playing time at second which means the weaker defenders like Baker and DeWitt are getting less time there. DeJesus, Campana, and Johnson are in the outfield instead of Byrd and Fukudome.
So I'm confused - you're saying that Stewart's a big defensive upgrade, that Castro is improved, and that the infield defense has benefitted from playing Barney more.
But you're also saying that there's been virtually no difference in outcomes on grounders or lineouts in the infield. So what's left? Is all this improvement coming from increased efficiency on pop-ups?
EDIT: That sounds snarkier than I intended but I meant it as a serious question.
The Cubs don't really appear to be doing that much better of a job if better at all in snagging groundballs. Where the Cubs are doing better at is in line drives and flyballs and I don't really know how much of that is because of the positioning of fielders and how much of that is because we have different fielders and pitchers. For instance pitchers have only allowed one homer on 164 line drives which is about twice as good as the Cubs pitcher's rate was last year and flyball home runs are off by about a third this year. Looks to me like the pitchers are inducing a lot more weaker contact than they did last year.
DeWitt outrighted to Iowa.
So far this year the Cubs on groundballs and bunts are at .248/.294 with 18 ROE. Last year they did .259/.280 and they had 12 ROE by this point.
Groundballs and bunts:
2011: .247/.259 12 ROE in 413 at bats
2012: .243/.280 17 ROE in 445 at bats
So the Cub pitchers have induced 32 more grounders this year than they did last year but the defense and their shifts haven't done a better job converting those groundballs into outs. The difference between the two so far is that the 2011 team with their rates would have given up 2 more hits, 12 less total bases, and 5 less ROE so far. Really doesn't look like the shifts are an improvement over regular defense at all.
Apparently he's very low in work ethic and very high in greed.
Mike MacDougal is a kind of answer... unfortunately, the question is "Which has-been reliever who was never very good to begin with makes absolutely no sense to sign?"
The odds of him ever pitching for the (Chicago) Cubs are very small. He makes sense to sign if you just need someone to fill a roster spot in AAA. Every team has guys like him in their organizations, just for that reason.
Are you sure about that? Wood will be gone after today. Marmol might stay on the DL, get cut or get traded at some point. Dale doesn't look impressed with Bowden so far. I doubt Parker is going to be up here for long. Volstad has been sent down. There just isn't a lot of sure fire gonna stay on the staff all year long candidates up on the roster right now and there isn't much down in the minors either.
Awkward.
Hill has put up this line so far this year at AA Pensacola 195/230/341 (44 AB)
Wow, that seems harsh. I assumed Koyie Hill at least had the "good clubhouse guy" and/or "calls a good game" intangible thing going for him. Because otherwise, I'm baffled that he's even still in the league. His career OPS+ (50) is worse than Jeff Mathis's (51).
I believe Dempster was cracking a joke about his friend.
Sounds possible, though I hadn't thought of that. Do you have any evidence this is so, or just a hunch?
BPJ was still pretty good yesterday. Frankly, I'm much more worried about the bullpen than the rotation. The rotation's still keeping them in games, or at least they would be if the offense could score with any consistency.
I am a little concerned how Dale will divvy up the playing time. I've given him the benefit of the doubt so far, and various things I've disagreed with (bullpen usage, batting order, etc) haven't fully formed my opinion of him yet. But this could go a long way towards how I evaluate him.
Answer: Darwin Barney at 1.7 WAR!
If Clevenger looks like he'll be back soon, they might just DL Castillo.
Otherwise, I dunno.
Or maybe that's coming later, when Marmol is activated. I don't see Dolis going the whole year without a AAA stint, though.
WAR sucks. Sveum sucks. Hoyer sucks. Theo sucks.
I am trying not to let this season depress me, how am I doing?
Just think about how great the 2013 draft pick is going to be!
The Twins really need to heat up soon.
This apparently just happened. I don't understand what they saw in Dolis that made them think "closer". It was hard enough to see what they saw that made them think "major-league pitcher".
But in the Youk thread, looked it up and damn -- Soriano actually had a really, really fine May. No one's touching him without the Cubs eating almost everything left on that deal, but at least he might have worked himself back into the realm of "OK, we take him for a bag of balls so long as you pay virtually all of the contract". As of the end of April, I don't think he would have even fetched that.
Someone remind me on Monday morning...
Their April was so bad that May included a 12 game losing streak and it still had a better record.
Cardenas is in a tough spot right now. He's basically blocked at SS/2B and appears to be a butcher at 3B so Dale is PH him to death. What's weird is that when he does get a hit it is usually a double.
In other news Alfonso Soriano is batting .282/.352/.600 over his last 30 games.
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