Two Teams, One Cup

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2011-08-06T13:01:00.002-05:00

Sox Series Preview: April 5-6 at Kansas City

2011-04-04T13:30:00.006-05:00

Probable Pitchers
Tuesday - Gavin Floyd (0-0, 0.00) vs. Luke Hochevar (0-1, 4.76)
Wednesday - Mark Buehrle (1-0, 6.00) vs. Jeff Francis (0-0, 1.29)

The Royals have to be happy to see Gavin Floyd making the start, considering how well their current players have hit him. Small sample size, sure, but of the current roster that has seen Floyd before, only Mitch Maier has struggled to hit Gavin hard, posting a meager .200/.182/.200 line against him. Otherwise, just about everyone else has posted strong numbers against Floyd, especially Alex Gordon (.333/.385/.667 in 13 PA) and Melky Cabrera (.333/.400/.778).

More bad omens for Gavin, he is traditionally a slow starter. He walks more (6.09 BB/9), allows more baserunners (1.63 WHIP), and more runs (5.23 FIP) in March/April than any month and way above his career norms at those splits. I don't know if weather is the problem, but Floyd struggles to keep the ball on the ground early in the season. March/April is the only month of the year his ground ball percentage is under 40% and his flyball percentage is above 40%.

Thanks to the off day Monday, Mark Buehrle makes his 2nd start of the year Wednesday on a normal 4 days of rest. Barring a rain out, the first time the Sox will need to use their 5th starter, Phil Humber will be Saturday the 9th vs. Tampa Bay. Oh great, I have tickets for that game.

April 3: Indians 7, White Sox 1

2011-04-03T23:41:00.005-05:00

The WPA graph doesn't lie, Sunday's series finale can basically be summed up in two plays; in the top of the 4th, already leading 1-0 and with the first two batters of the inning on, Alexei Ramirez bunted into a 3-4-6 triple play worth nearly -.14 WPA and reopened the door for the Indians, who guided by Justin Masterson, kept the game close until John Danks finally made one key mistake, an 88 MPH fastball that was left dead over the heart of the plate that Orlando Cabrera crushed over the gigantic LF wall at Progressive Field. That play alone was worth .376 WPA for the Tribe, pushed their win probability north of 70% and they never looked back, bleeding 5 more runs out of Will Ohman and Matt Thornton as they salvaged the finale of this 3-game series.

White Sox MVP: Carlos Quentin is the MVP posting a .061 WPA for the day, though he owes a bit of that to Indians 3B Jack Hannahan whose throwing error on a slow, 75-foot roller off the bat of Quentin turned a tough, but not unrealistic out into essentially a double.

White Sox LVP: Alexei Ramirez, come on down! You can't bunt into a triple play without feeling the repercussions and his -.213 WPA was thanks primarily to the blunder worth -.138 on its own, but the Sox had plenty of chances to break this game open and, unlike Friday and Saturday, just could not convert. Ramirez had a few more key outs, in the 2nd and 6th innings, both times with runners in scoring position and both times inning-ending, but Adam Dunn, Paul Konerko, and Alex Rios all had opportunities at various points of today's loss to drive in meaningful runs to no avail.

Mystery of John Danks' Run Support Continues: Last season, the Sox scored 4 or fewer runs for Danks in 17 of his 32 starts and 2011 was no different. Danks had a good game today, pitching 6 innings, allowing 6 hits, striking out 8 and only allowing 2 runs. 66 of his 104 pitches were strikes, but the only one that matters was the one he threw to Cabrera, that cost him 2 runs, 1 more than he could afford to allow.

Looking Ahead: The Sox are off Monday before opening a brief, 2-game series in Kansas City. Gavin Floyd makes his season debut against Luke Hochevar for the surprising 1st place Royals.

April 2: White Sox 8, Indians 3

2011-04-02T15:49:00.006-05:00

Behind another impressive offensive performance, the Sox pushed their record to 2-0 for the 1st time since 2005 (COINCIDENCE?!?). Edwin Jackson was fine in 5 of the 6 innings he tossed and big games by Gordon Beckham and Carlos Quentin paced the Sox to 8 runs. The Sox again put the Indians in an early hole, pushing their win probability over 90% very early for the 2nd straight game, and while this Indian comeback actually had some teeth, in the end, the Tribe barely had more than a 33% chance to pull off the comeback.

Sox MVP: Edwin Jackson just nudged out Gordon Beckham in WPA this afternoon, .114 to .112 respectively. Beckham's games was fueled by one at bat, his 2-run double in the the 2nd the opened up a 2-0 to 4-0 and, in retrospect, gave the Sox all the runs they needed for the W today. Other than that, Gordon's day was relatively quiet, a single in the 1st inning here, a strike out there, a walk there. Jackson was solid, throwing 6 strong innings in his 2011 debut, allowing 3 runs, though 1 was unearned, but walking 4 and laboring through the 2nd inning.

Today's game seemed to be a pretty standard Edwin Jackson game. When he's on, he can be brilliant, but his lapses in command have always held him back from being an elite pitcher.

That is the 1st inning at bat for Michael Brantley, who struck out swinging on a devastating 84 MPH slider down and in. Set up by a pair of mid-90s fastballs called for strikes, Brantley meekly flailed at the off-speed stuff that had a nearly 10 MPH drop off from the heaters. For the entire game, Jackson's 2- and 4-seem fastballs averaged 92-93 MPH while the changeup and slider were down around 84-85 MPH.

Here's Brantley's at bat in the 2nd inning. This is Jackson at his very worst. Already panicking because the Tribe had scored 3 runs, with his defense failing behind him, he relied solely on his fastball and frankly could not find the plate. This is the challenge for Don Cooper and the Sox. Maximize his effectiveness and limit the wildness.

Sox LVP: For the 2nd straight game, Alex Rios draws the collar, 0-4 and a -.047 WPA, although at least 2 of his outs were well hit, the flyout to end the 1st traveled about 345 feet where the wall is 348 feet deep and probably would have left the yard if the wind had been blowing right to left instead. The line drive to end the 2nd was just an excellent defensive play by Jack Hannahan. If this seems familiar, it is, Rios started last year in the same funk, .174/.269/.391 through the 1st week of the year but only a .167 BAbip. No worries.

Indians MVP & LVP: Jack Hannahan posted a .061 WPA, best on the team, even though he only had 1 hit in 4 at bats, but it was a good one, driving in 2 of the Tribe's 3 runs. Carlos Carrasco's 6.2 innings of 7-run baseball earned him a -.280 WPA, by far the worst for the Tribe.

Looking Ahead: The Sox go for the sweep, John Danks takes the mound against Justin Masterson. The national sports media is taking note, Sox fans.

April 1: White Sox 15, Indians 10

2011-04-01T17:45:00.000-05:00

I know everyone is going to piss a fit about the Sox bullpen allowing a 14-run lead melt to 5 over the course of the final 4 innings, but a quick look at the game WPA graph shows the truth, the Tribe were never in this game. Their WPA was under 1% from the 4th inning on, and only hit 0.5% for one at bat, Shin Soo-Choo's inning-ending strikeout in the 8th inning.

Needless to say, the Sox offense looked phenomenal today, mercilessly pounding Fausto Carmona and Justin Germano. While the stats look ugly for the bullpen; 0.2 IP, 3 R for Will Ohman, for example, here's the one that sticks out to me: 1 walk. That's how you pitch when you have a big lead. You throw strikes, you don't mess around the corners, and you force the other team to make a comeback. Give the Indians credit, they made things a lot more interesting than I expected, and the fact that Matt Thornton had to get up and start warming maybe is a moral victory, but in the end, it would have taken a monumental comeback at basically any point in this game after the 4th inning.

White Sox MVP: Adam Dunn may be the traditional storyline today, it was his White Sox debut, and he was classic Adam Dunn; striking out with 2 on in the 1st and hitting a towering home run in his next at bat, but Carlos Quentin quietly had a huge day at the plate, posting a .166 WPA fueled by two of the biggest hits today for the Sox, his 2-out RBI single in the 1st was huge and then his 2-run homer in the 3rd turned this game into a blow-out.

White Sox LVP: Not hard to pinpoint this one, when your team pounds out 18 hits and you account for 0? Sorry, Alex Rios (-.075)

Indians MVP & LVP: Carlos Santana was the diamond in the rough for the Tribe, who went 3-5 with a HR, 3 RBI, and 2 R. How did they get this guy for Casey Blake? Shin-Soo Choo is your losing side LVP, posting a -.056 WPA, almost all thanks to one at-bat, his inning-ending double play in the 1st (-.051). By the time he stepped to the plate again, the Sox had opened up a 14-run lead and anything he did would have been essentially meaningless.

Looking Ahead: The 2nd game of the series is tomorrow afternoon at 12 o'clock Chicago time. Edwin Jackson, who was identified as a break-out candidate by MLB Rumor's Tim Dierkes, totes the rubber for the first time in 2011 against 24-year-old Carlos Carrasco, who will be making his 13th career start.

Sox Opening Series Preview: April 1-3 vs. Cleveland

2011-04-01T09:59:00.005-05:00

Probable Pitchers
April 1 - Mark Buehrle (0-0, 0.00) vs. Fausto Carmona (0-0, 0.00)
April 2 - Edwin Jackson (0-0, 0.00) vs. Carlos Carrasco (0-0, 0.00)
April 3 - John Danks (0-0, 0.00) vs. Justin Masterson (0-0, 0.00)

Weather Will be a Factor
The Sox's workout yesterday was notoriously cancelled thanks to several inches of snow that fell in Cleveland. Getting today's game in should be no problem, even if it's a bit chilly, but there are sunny skies today over Cleveland, however, the forecast for Saturday and Sunday are much less pleasant, snow, rain, and cold dominating the forecast.

Key Newcomers Are Hot
Brent Morel and Adam Dunn represent the only turnover in the Sox's Opening Day lineup from 2010 to 2011 and both started out spring very, very cold. The last few weeks of the Spring season have been very friendly to both, Morel especially who finished the preseason hitting .303/.338/.364. The million dollar question with Brent is if his bat will ever be Major League-caliber, but for now, the Sox seem to have enough pop in their lineup to hide the kid at the bottom of the order, so long as he's playing stellar defense at third.

Buehrle Passes Pierce as Sox's Most Prolifict Opening Day Starter
When Mark Buehrle takes the hill today in Cleveland, he will make his 9th Opening Day start for the Sox, breaking the franchise mark that he currently shares with Sox legend Billy Pierce. A look back at his previous Opening Day starts:

April 1, 2002 - White Sox 6, Mariners 5 - Coming off his breakout 2001 season, Buehrle opened the 2002 year by outdueling future teammate Freddy Garcia, pitching 6 strong innings, holding the M's (who won 114 games the previous year) to 1 run on 2 hits. The Sox's offensive MVP was Paul Konerko, posting a .205 WPA on the back of a 3-5 game with a big 2-run double in the 7th. Despite leading 6-1 going into the 8th, the bullpen nearly coughed the win up. Antonio Osuna, Gary Glover, and Damaso Marte allowed 4 runs in the frame and Keith Foulke loaded the bases in the 9th before getting Mike Cameron to fly out to right for the 27th out.

March 31, 2003 - Royals 3, White Sox 0 - A 2-run second was Buehrle's only blemish but ultimately doomed him and the Sox, who could not figure out Runlevys Hernandez en route to the shutout loss.

April 5, 2004 - Royals 9, White Sox 7 - The 1st game of Ozzie Guillen's tenure as Sox manager was a disaster. Buehrle had an OK game, allowing 3 runs (2 earned) on 8 hits in 6.2 innings, but left as the winning pitcher of record before the wheels fell off. The Sox entered the 9th inning leading by 4 runs, but a 6-run Royal rally off Cliff Pollitte, Billy Koch, and Damaso Marte spoiled the afternoon, with the loss punctuated on a 3-run walk-off homer by Carlos Beltran.

April 4, 2005 - White Sox 1, Indians 0 - In a win that foreshadowed the monumental season ahead, Buehrle outdueled Jake Westbrook for 8 strong innings, allowing just three baserunners. The Sox manufactured the game's lone run in the 7th, on a lead-off double by Paul Konerko, deep fly out by Jermaine Dye advancing the runner, and error on Indians 3B Aaron Boone on a sharply hit ball by Aaron Rowand. Shingo Takatsu pitched the 9th for the save in a game that lasted only 1 hour, 51 minutes.

April 2, 2006 - White Sox 10, Indians 4 - After raising the championship banner in a pregame ceremony 88 years in the making, the Sox showed no signs of a World Series hangover, pounding 10 runs on 9 hits against the Tribe, chasing CC Sabathia in the 3rd inning, and getting introduced to Jim Thome who crushed a mammoth 2-run homer in his White Sox debut. Buehrle had a shaky outing, allowing all 4 runs in 4 innings, but left the game early after a rain delay. Brandon McCarthy pitched 3 perfect innings for the win.

March 31, 2008 - Indians 10, White Sox 8 - Returning to the Opening Day role after a 1-year hiatus, Buehrle sure didn't look like an ace. After a 1-2-3 first inning, he allowed 7 runs before being yanked in the 2nd. Despite his poor outing, Buehrle didn't take the loss, as the Sox steadily clawed their way back into the game, highlighted by a 2-run double by Paul Konerko in the 7th, tying the score at 7. Octavio Dotel, however, served up a 3-run homer to Casey Blake with 2 outs in the 8th to seal the loss.

April 7, 2009 - White Sox 4, Royals 2 - Buehrle himself had a fairly mediocre game, allowing 2 runs on 6 hits in 5 innings and was in line for the loss, however, 4 innings of scoreless relief by Clayton Richard, Octavio Dotel, and Bobby Jenks kept the Sox in the game, who finally took advantage in the 8th inning, courtesy of a 3-run Jim Thome home run.

April 5, 2010 - White Sox 6, Indians 0 - A game that will be forever remember for Buehrle's spectacular, between the legs, falling down in foul territory flip to Paul Konerko in the 5th inning was one of his best Opening Day starts. He allowed 3 hits and walked 1 in 7 scoreless innings of work, as the Sox were again paced by Paul Konerko, who gave the them all the cushion they'd need with a 2-out, 2-run homer in the 1st inning off Jake Westbrook.

Today I am Jealous of the Cubs

2011-03-28T09:43:00.005-05:00

There's a phrase I rarely utter, but it's true, I am jealous of how the Cubs have handled the Carlos Silva debacle, granting the hefty starter his outright release and eating over $10 million he's owed barring some unforseen bidding war for his services.

Meanwhile, the Sox are carrying some dead weight of their own, yet seem content to go into the season with only 6 bullpen arms to accomdate Mark Teahen and the $10 million he is owed over the next two years. I don't think I need to tell you what I think about him.

Dear Ken Williams, Grow a Pair and Cut Mark Teahen

2011-03-11T16:00:00.002-06:00

With three weeks until Opening Day, it is feeling like an eerily quiet Spring down in Glendale. Aside from the post-separation name-calling between Ozzie and Bobby Jenks and the astounding progress being made by Jake Peavy, there doesn't feel like there's much to talk about regarding the Sox. There are no real position battles, most of the rotation is just about set, and really, the only question marks on the roster at this point are the last man out of the bullpen and who will end up the 4th outfielder.

All that being said, there's a pressing issue with the Sox that needs to be talked about. Mark Teahen. And not in the good, oh you're hitting .569 against mostly A-ball level quality pitching, but in the, someone give him his walking papers and get the him the hell off our team.

When the Sox acquired Teahen last off-season for Chris Getz and Josh Fields, it was a "meh" kind of a deal, but then they went and did something stupid like offer him a multiyear contract extension. So now we're on the hook for $4.5 and $5.5 million the next two years for a guy who can't play any defensive position adequately and hasn't had a good year at the plate since 2006. Brilliant.

He's already essentially ceded his starting job at third base to rookie Brent Morel, despite the fact Morel is hitting a robust .143/.250/.238 this Spring (yes, in Arizona), Morel is still at least an above average defensive third baseman. The Sox seem to have plenty of firepower offensively as it is, but need a steady glove at the hot corner when your pitching coach preaches pitching to contact as often as Don Cooper does. Teahen, thus far this Spring, has had 18 balls hit his way and committed 4 errors, plus tripped over the bag trying to catch a routine pop-up in foul territory.

But aside from his awful play and awful contract, what scares me the most about Mark Teahen... Ozzie Guillen, who has shown himself to be tremendously stubborn in the past and play guys far, far too often despite their pitiful performance. We've all seen this show before, Mark Kotsay was one of the worst offensive players in the American League in 2010, posting a -0.5 oWAR last season yet still got 359 plate appearances, 3rd most of the bottom 60 in the league behind only Baltimore SS Cesar Izturis and Seattle 3B Jose Lopez, although in fairness to those two, I should point out they were both adequate defensive players, off-setting their lack of production at the plate. Mark Kotsay's primary position? Designated hitter. I can't make this stuff up.

This has been going on throughout Ozzie's managerial tenure. So even though every indication from Teahen's time with the Sox points to him as the 25th man at the far end of the bench, you just know that's not how it will play out. As soon as Morel shows signs of struggle, Teahen will be right back in there, bobbling ground balls, sailing throws over Paul Konerko's head, and harmlessly flying out. Jerry Reinsdorf and Ken Williams have invest $125 million into this roster, with the assumption an exciting play-off contender will bring fans out in force. And yet, they allow mediocre talent like Teahen stick for no discernible reason other than he scored a sweet deal and they can't bring themselves to eat the $10 million it would take to kick him to the curb.

Look, I realize that the 2011 season doesn't hinge solely on Mark Teahen, but I'm also pretty convinced that had the Sox not bought out his arbitration years last off-season he would have been non-tendered and shown the door. You can correct your mistake, Ken Williams, and handcuff your manager's ability to make curious lineup moves, by hanging that pink slip in his locker.

Do it. Please.

Zack Greinke Fractures Rib

2011-03-08T17:44:00.001-06:00

Apparently, he did it playing hoops.

He won't miss much time, but still...

Rick Morrissey Says The Darndest Things

2011-03-05T10:56:00.000-06:00

I like Carlos Zambrano a lot. He's one of my favorite Cubs of all time, and one of the greatest pitchers in the history of the franchise. I've written a lot about him lately, but I don't want to give readers the false impression that this blog is an unapologetic supporter of Big Z, no matter the situation.

But holy shit, do the usual suspects in this town make it easy.

I’m here to defend the sorely misunderstood dugout skirmish and sing the praises of the cleansing clubhouse dust-up. I’m here to say that, yes, sometimes violence is the answer, as long as we’re not talking about dugout war criminal Carlos Zambrano.

First of all - "war criminal." Nicely done, not excessively hyperbolic in the slightest. But Rick, I'm afraid the rest is going to need some clarification. You say that a baseball season is a long, emotional ride and sometimes the tension between players just needs to be released. Except when Carlos Zambrano does it. Since you're a professional writer and all, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Please explain to me how Carlos Silva erupting on teammates during the fourth spring training game of the season is acceptable, yet Carlos Zambrano's eruptions, generally in June, are unacceptable?

I’ve excluded Zambrano because he’s his own category. He’s a serial smasher of Gatorade dispensers and a recidivist dugout exploder. He needs to stop that stuff.

I guess that makes sense?

Yeah, it would be super annoying if Big Z started smashing stuff between innings of every start, regardless of the situation. Except he doesn't do that. In fact, Zambrano's most famous "explosions" have been for the exact same reasons that you're espousing in this column.

I can understand why you would fail to mention that many people consider the Zambrano-Barrett fight the turning point of the initially dismal 2007 season that ended with a division championship. Or how after his skirmish with Derrek Lee in the dugout after poor defensive support in 2010, he was lights-out the remainder of the season. I mean, if someone were to point out that Z's most notable tirades (a) were inspired by poor team performance, and (b) had an overall positive impact on the team, which is exactly why you're defending the Silva-Ramirez skirmish in the first place, it would make this jab at Z even more inexplicable.

You're losing me Rick, but just because I like you I'll read your next sentence.

On the other hand, there’s a small voice in my head saying, “Yes, but didn’t he go 8-0 after his nasty altercation with Derrek Lee last year?’’

Oh...you did go ahead and mention it.

I have to hand it to Rick. It takes stones to blatantly not try this hard. How else can one explicitly contradict himself so many times within the same column and still have the balls to turn it in? I'll bet this is what his e-mail signature looks like:

Rick Fucking Morrissey.

Columnist, Sun-Fucking-Times

Bitches.

Just for kicks, here are some other ideas Rick Morrissey column ideas from the past few days:

"The King's Speech was riveting and certainly deserving of the Oscar for Best Picture. It was a welcome change from the tired, British historical dramas from years past."

"To all those decrying the election of Rahm Emanuel as mayor because they think he is not a resident, let me remind you he was only gone for a few years serving the United States. You know who wasn't a resident? Gery Chico, who went fishing in the Boundary Waters from early April, 1986 to mid April, 1986."

"Someone needs to get Charlie Sheen's children out of that house. Kids should not be raised in that kind of circus environment. Unless, of course, it's fun as shit. If it is, then they can stay."

"You know what I love? Bacon. But you know what I can't stand? Bacon."

Dave Kaplan Jinxes Cubs out of the Albert Pujols Sweepstakes

2011-03-04T09:21:00.009-06:00

There's still 4 weeks until Opening Day and it seems like a pretty large chunk of Cub fans I know are just about ready to quit on this season. It's not hard to see why, the Cubs are coming off a 75-win year, they're already fighting in the dugout, and management doesn't seem to have any real, tangible plans for improvement, other than just waiting out the Alfonso Soriano deal.

Stop me if I'm wrong, but the biggest short-term fantasy here on the North Side centers on the 2012 off-season and the spending spree the Cubs will be able to afford. They can shed nearly $52 million off their current payroll by declining options on Aramis Ramirez and Carlos Silva and letting Kosuke Fukudome and Carlos Pena walk. Throw in the fact that the biggest fish in the free agent pond in 2012 is a superstar who is the face of your archrival, and well, it's easy to see where this is going...

To that effect, enter Dave Kaplan, of the Chicago Tribune and Comcast Sports Net, who ended the Cubs' hopes of landing Albert Pujols about 240 days before he can even file for free agency by unveiling his blue-pinstriped #5 jersey on Chicago Tribune Live yesterday.

At least you all know who to go Bartman on when Pujols signs a long-term, below market value deal to stay in St. Louis for the rest of his career.

Jake Peavy Returns, Dayan Draws a Walk (Updated)

2011-03-04T08:33:00.005-06:00

Jake Peavy makes his return to anything resembling competitive baseball this afternoon, starting against the Angels in Peoria, Arizona. Peavy is slated to throw 2 innings like Buehrle, Floyd, Jackson, and Danks before him. Normally this wouldn't be much more than a "Yay! Baseball's back" kind of story, except that we're still less than 9 months shy of Jake's last game (coincidentally, against the Angels) when he tore his lat muscle off his shoulder.

I thought today's start would have been blog-worthy enough until I read the ESPN Chicago fluff piece about the Sox starters still not allowing a hit in Spring yet when this bomb was dropped,

Peavy said he is shooting for an April 10 regular season return at home against the Tampa Bay Rays.

I was at the game last July when Peavy was injured and yeah, you could tell he was done for the year and probably more. I could see that from my seats out behind the bullpen in right field. Considering he is still blazing path on recovery that is completely unknown, you'll have to excuse me if I don't breath every inning he is on the mound this year.

Update... Sports Illustrated's Jon Heyman tweeted this afternoon that Peavy is telling everyone his target date to return to the Sox is May 1.

Dayan can Walk! The Sox beat the Mariners yesterday, 6-1 for their 1st win of the Spring, but after glazing over the box score, the big story is the strong start to Spring Dayan Viciedo is having, 2-3 with a run and a walk! This is huge news to anyone who has followed the kid's career and development thus far. In his brief stint in the Majors last season, Dayan walked twice in 106 plate appearances. Pardon my rudimentary math for a moment, but hitters in the American League averaged 1 walk every 11.77 plate appearance in 2010 (7,367 walks in 86,725 plate appearances). For 106 trips to the dish, that should have resulted in 9 walks. Add 7 walks to Dayan's numbers and his OPS is over 900, which is staggering considering his 22nd birthday is later this month.

Carlos Zambrano Fails Again

2011-03-03T18:18:00.000-06:00

In his recap of the Cubs 8-7 loss in Mesa, Paul Sullivan astutely points out that the fault lies with Carlos Zambrano. Z left after three innings of scoreless work and a 1-0 lead, but mentioned afterwards that his arm felt fatigued after the start.

There are two reasons why this loss is his fault. The first, of course, being that it is inexcusable for a starting pitcher to have a tired arm in the first week of spring training. In fact, it is unheard of. If Z is not in physical shape to throw complete game shutouts in early March, then he is of no help to this team. You know who is ready to throw complete game shutouts right now? Koyie Hill.

The second reason why this loss is on Z (and remember, this is clearly the most important story to be told from today's game) is because despite succeeding in not allowing any members of the opposing team to score, he himself failed to drive in any runs. Everyone knows that the Cubs are so bad on defense that a one-run lead is essentially worthless. If Z really cared about his team's chances of winning, he would have gone out there and knocked in a couple himself. Right Paul?

...okay, now I'm just confused.

Viciedo Shines in the Field... Wait, what?

2011-03-02T23:07:00.004-06:00

Though the return of actual baseball is always a welcomed relief from the dredges of winter, it's hard to get too jacked up for these games when the majority of the guys playing have numbers in the 90s and are on the chopping block between a plane ride to Charlotte or Birmingham.

All of this could be yours... If you fail.

That being said, there have certainly been a few things to capture the irrational sense of optimism this time of year nurtures (unless, of course, your team is already fighting in the dugout)... Juan Pierre is a workout machine and batting .500! Mark Buehrle, Gavin Floyd, and Edwin Jackson all didn't allow any hits in their 1st start!

That doesn't mean everything we learn in the early days of March is uninteresting. Take Dayan Viciedo, who turned some heads in Tuesday's game against Milwaukee by playing right field like a Major League right fielder, taking proper routes to balls and showing off his arm, nailing a runner at 3rd on a single to right. This is a critical step in the development of Dayan, who is now entering the third year of a four-year, $10 million contract that to this point has produced a total of 106 Major League plate appearances with very mixed results. Though Viciedo has played the outfield before in Cuba, he was a 3B and 1B in his two seasons in the Sox farm system, but has been essentially shut out from moving up the corporate ladder by Paul Konerko, Adam Dunn, and Brent Morel.

Though Baseball-Reference.com's contract section states Viciedo will remain under the Sox's control until the 2015 season, I'm not entirely sure how these weird international contracts always work, and since Dayan has switched agents from the Sox-friendly Jaime Torres to Jerry Reinsdorf''s Personal Satan, Scott Boras, I'm sure if there's a way out of this deal after it expires in 2012, he'll find it.

Still, the Viciedo to RF storyline is one of the more intriguing of the 1st week of the Spring season. Since the Sox obviously feel confident enough in the near-future of their corner infielders (sidenote: Also possible Viciedo was just too terrible defensively to justify any more playing time there) what does that say about their future plans at the corner outfield positions? Pierre is entering his contract year and Kenny Williams purportedly spent a chunk of the winter trying to move Carlos Quentin for pitching help.

Carlos Must Go

2011-03-02T17:49:00.002-06:00

UPDATE: I forgot to give a h/t to Aisle 424 for bringing my attention to the Rosenbloom piece earlier this offseason, cause I sure as hell don't read Steve Rosenbloom on my own.

By now I'm sure anyone reading this is aware that a dugout scuffle between Carlos Silva and Aramis Ramirez had to be broken up after a disastrous first inning against Milwaukee today. After giving up several runs along with three defensive errors behind him, Silva apparently returned to the dugout angry and words were exchanged.

Carlos must be held accountable. This type of behavior is simply unnaceptable on a major league roster, and after all, Carlos has a reputation. After a few spring training games, we can clearly see that nothing has changed with the addition of Carlos. Time to cut ties.

Yes, Carlos Pena must go.

You'll recall from the offseason that Pena was signed solely to play the part of Jaime Escalante in the rowdy, out-of-control Cub clubhouse. Steve Rosenbloom heard from former Playgirl model Steve Stone (h/t to Another Cubs Blog) why the Cubs shelled out $10 million for Pena:

The Cubs signed Pena to provide a strong Latin presence in a clubhouse screaming for something more adult than Zambrano’s screaming. But it’s more than Zambrano. There’s Alfonso Soriano, who supposedly ruined Felix Pie by teaching him every bad party habit. There’s Aramis Ramirez, who refuses to dive for balls, and isn’t that a great example? There’s a history here that goes back to kicking out Mark Grace and turning over the clubhouse to Sammy Sosa, the ultimate team play -- no, wait, never mind.

The Cubs recognized how the latin faction had overridden the clubhouse and posed a threat to their up-and-coming latin youngsters, Starlin Castro and Geovany Soto. They were still salvageable from the latin stink of Zambrano and company and still had a chance to be successful. So the Cubs went out and bought the happiest, friendliest latin that money could buy to protect them and change the poisonous clubhouse atmosphere.

There's the dangerous and selfish Carlos Zambrano who needs anger management to function as a human being. There's Alfonso Soriano, who the Cubs feared would teach Castro and Soto how to party all night at seedy latin clubs (instead of learning how to party the right way from Randy Wells: body shots off of Trixies at Red Ivy). Of course there's Aramis Ramirez, involved in the altercation today, who sets a negative example for the kids by just flat out REFUSING to dive for balls on defense:

Señor Pena, I'm disappointed. You were supposed to change things. The latins are as rowdy as ever. What are we paying you for? Won't someone please think of prospects?

"How do I reach deez keeds?"

Cubs Playoff Odds Expand By 17%

2011-02-24T15:20:00.000-06:00

Per Colin Wyers at BP, the Adam Wainright injury has further tightened the NL Central. The Cards' playoff odds have dropped from 58 to 44%. The Brewers and Reds each jumped four points to 39% and 23%, respectively. (How the Brewers are not favored to win this division, I don't know.)

Most importantly, the Cubbies playoff odds have expanded a whopping 17%, exploding from 11.1% all the way to 13%.

(East Side = Third Place)

2011-02-23T08:40:00.003-06:00

Does it make me a bad person if when reading the news regarding Adam Wainwright's elbow I heard this in the back of my head?

OMG INVERTED W

In all seriousness, this is serious. Wainwright is easily one of the top six or seven pitchers in the National League, and he's been a steady anchor for their rotation for years. When you add in Chris Carpenter's general inability to stay healthy, that equals a whole mountain of expectation and pressure on the young Jaime Garcia to repeat his rookie success.

This is sad news to fans of dominant pitching, and yet another swift kick to the nuts of the self-appointed "Greatest Fans in Baseball." There's no word yet on how severe the injury is, but the Albert Pujols Farewell Train might have just derailed.

Baseball Prospectus Projects a ".500 Kind of Summer" in Chicago

2011-02-18T12:33:00.003-06:00

Baseball Prospectus's annual PECOTA Projections for the entire league were fully released today and the Worldwide Leader in Sabremetrics wasn't particularly impressed with either the Sox or Cubs, projecting them to finish 82-80 and 80-82 respectively.

I'm going to pick up my copy of Baseball Prospectus 2011 sometime next week so I can start to look over their analysis of the Sox's roster.

Chris Sale to the Bullpen

2011-02-17T14:45:00.003-06:00

All it took was one semi-rambling post from me for the Sox to finally make a decision about Sale.

Assuming that Jake Peavy will not be ready Opening Day (and they have a plan for that, as they could go to a 4-man rotation for most of April and only need a 5th starter twice), the pitching staff should shore up something like this:

Rotation: Buehrle, Danks, Floyd, Jackson, Philip Humber/Lucas Harrell
Bullpen: Sale, Thornton, Ohman (yes, Cub fans, that's who you think it is) from the left; Santos, Pena, Crain, Gregory Infante from the right

Happy White Sox Day!

2011-02-17T08:54:00.005-06:00

It seems coincidentally fitting that on the same day Chicago is getting a break from a cold winter with a wave of Spring-like warmth, the Sox open camp today in Arizona. Yes, winter is on its last legs. Soon, spring and summer will be here.

Last year, the Sox won 88 games in an emotionally ravaging roller coaster of a season that saw the Sox fall as far as 9 games under .500, rattle off an 11- and 9-game win streak in June, lead the division at the All-Star Break, and unravel in September. At age 34, Paul Konerko had his best season at the plate, hitting .312/.393/.584 with 39 homers and 111 RBI en route to finishing 5th in the AL MVP voting, while Bobby Jenks' swan song with the White Sox saw him post career-worsts in IP, H/9 IP, and BB/9 IP before getting called out by Ozzie's son via Twitter on the way out the door.

In between all that mess, Jake Peavy suffered an injury so rare there is no established timetable for his return, the Sox posted the best record in the American League from June 9 on (when they hit their nadir of 9 games under .500), Alexei Ramirez turned into arguably the premier shortstop in the A.L., and oh hey, we replaced the Mark Kotsay/Andruw Jones Blackhole of DH Ineptitude with Adam Dunn.

There will be plenty of time for deeper analysis of this team as the spring rolls on, but for now we can just review some of the banner headlines for the (very) early 2011 season.

What to Do with Chris Sale
This time last year, Chris Sale was a senior at Florida Gulf Coast University. Now, the 13th overall pick of the 2010 Draft is at the Major League camp, working alongside the Sox starting pitching rotation. To date, Sale has 33.2 innings of professional baseball experience under his belt so to say his road to this stage has been extraordinary might be an understatement.

To be fair, one of the major reasons Sale's name is even in the discussion as the Sox's 5th starter is the uncertainty of Jake Peavy's status. Though his surgery and rehab (to this point) have been deemed successful, there's not much known about a detached latissimus dorsi muscle, so his return date is still pretty speculative.

Still, there's reason to worry about Sale's rush to the Majors. One of the main reasons cited for him falling to the Sox at 13 in last year's Draft was some concerns about his mechanics and frame. At 6'5''/170 it's not a stretch to compare him to another lanky, rail-thin starter, Brandon McCarthy, who also pitches out of the maligned Inverted W (Sale, McCarthy). Since bursting onto the scene with the Sox in 2005, McCarthy has had nothing but arm troubles.

Farm System Completely Barren
Last year's deadline deal that sent Dan Hudson to Arizona for Edwin Jackson has been called both a savvy acquisition and a desperate move, mostly depending on your opinion of Kenny Williams. Regardless though, it is fact that the Sox farm system is one of, if not the weakest in the game. The Sox simply do not have much in terms of tradeable assets, either in terms of young players or salary wiggle room. The departure of Hudson and the promotion of Beckham leaves the Sox with 1 blue chip prospect, Sale, who will likley be spending most of his summer in Chicago. Add the fact that signing Adam Dunn cost the Sox their 1st round pick in compensation to the Nationals and the White Sox don't pick until the Sandwich Round, 47th overall, this June.

Down on the farm, Dayan Viciedo proved to the world he could hit Major League pitching during his time in Chicago. The young Cuban slugged .519 in 106 plate appearances. Unfortunately, he also demonstrated he has no eye for the strike zone yet, striking out 25 times while drawing just 2 walks. Former top prospect Tyler Flowers crashed and burned in 2010, hitting .220/.334/.434 as a 24-year-old in a AAA bandbox. The supposed crown jewel of the Javier Vazquez deal seems to have played himself out of serious contention for playing time with the Sox. The only other interesting player of note is Jared Mitchell, whose 2010 season was lost during the last week of his impressive Spring performance when he broke his ankle making a play on a ball at the wall. Mitchell did return for the Arizona Fall League, but looked rusty and rushed as he hit a meager .163/.239/.200 in 24 games for the Saguaros.

And We're Back!

2011-01-11T16:11:00.005-06:00

Our long hiatus is finally over. For the remainder of the offseason, 2T1C will be back in business.

A sincere apology for checking out for so long. Rest assured, it was for a good cause: clawing my way through my first semester of law school.

Back-handed Compliment of the Week

2010-08-10T07:06:00.001-05:00

Courtesy of Mr. Brandon Emil Phillips:

“We have to beat these guys. I hate the Cardinals. All they do is bitch and moan about everything, all of them, they’re little bitches, all of ‘em. I really hate the Cardinals. Compared to the Cardinals, I love the Chicago Cubs. Let me make this clear – I hate the Cardinals.”

Word.

A Tale of Two Disgustingly Good Twenty-Year-Olds

2010-08-05T09:53:00.002-05:00

Batting Average:
Jason Heyward

Starlin Castro

OBP:
Jason Heyward

Starlin Castro

SLG%:
Jason Heyward

Starlin Castro

BB/K:
Jason Heyward

Starlin Castro

ISO:
Jason Heyward

Starlin Castro

wOBA:
Jason Heyward

Starlin Castro

As of August 5, Heyward and Castro have identical OPS numbers (.823) and according to UZR* have both been above average in the field, although Castro is doing it at a much more difficult and important position defensively.

Fangraphs has Heyward at 2.6 WAR. Castro is at 2.2.

Excluding pure results, we all know there are two criteria that baseball voters steer towards when deciding end of season awards:

1) "What have you done for me lately?"
2) Dramatic moments

The graphs above clearly show that Starlin Castro has been doing more for you lately, and quite frankly, a lot more. While Jason Heyward has been trending downwards in nearly every offensive category for several weeks (battling injury, admittedly), Castro has been on an absolute tear since July. If these trends continue, Castro will deservedly pass Heyward as the favorite for National League Rookie of the Year.

Unfortunately, as we all know, Jason Heyward won the ROY Award back on April 5 when he went deep in his first at bat in the majors. His three-run shot on opening day went a True Distance of 476 feet according to HitTracker, and it ranks as the third longest home run of 2010.

A three-run home run in the first major league at bat of your stellar rookie season? That kind of theater is an intangible that Starlin Castro just can't duplicate.

OH WAIT

You might not want to engrave Heyward's name on the ROY plaque just yet. Castro, along with Gaby Sanchez and Jaime Garcia, are making strong cases.

*OMG DID YOU JUST UZR WITH A SAMPLE SIZE THAT SMALL?!?!** LOL FAIL
** Yes, I did. They're rookies. What else do you want me to do?

Will Aramis Ramirez Opt Out?

2010-07-24T09:27:00.001-05:00

One of the big concerns for Cub fans going into 2010 (one of several, actually) was whether or not Aramis Ramirez would opt out of his contract. Ramirez has a base salary of $15.75 million this year, but can opt out and become a free agent after the season is over. If he doesn't opt out, he'd be due $14.6 million in 2011, and then another $16 million club option in 2012, with a $2 million buyout.

At first Aramis not opting out seemed to be the scarier proposition; the way he was swinging the bat, he looked like he wasn't going anywhere. After battling injuries and possibly still feeling the effects of his bum shoulder from 2009, Aramis was literally one of the least valuable players in all of baseball the first half of the season. When he went on the disabled list in early June, Ramirez had the lowest wOBA of all qualified batters in baseball (.231) and had been worth -1.2 WAR up to that point. Yes, there is a negative sign in front of that figure.

Lately though, he's been the Aramis of old. Over the last 30 days, his wOBA is .486, with an OPS of 1.171. He's back on the positive side of replacement level now as well, worth half a win for the entirety of 2010.

In fact, over the last 30 days, let's see how Aramis ranks in all of baseball in several offensive categories:

.486 wOBA - 1st
1.171 OPS - 1st
10 HR - 2nd
25 RBI - 2nd (Tie)
.437 ISO - 1st
12.4 wRAA - 6th
23.5 wRC - 8th
1.32 Cumulative WPA - 4th

So what's Ramirez going to do? ZIPS has him putting up a .365 wOBA the rest of the year. When the offseason rolls around his overall 2010 numbers won't be sexy. But he might be sexy on the free agent market, especially if he continues to hit like the top 10 third baseman he is.

A weak crop at the position may ultimately influence his decision. Here's a look at some of the notable names of third basemen near Aramis' age or younger that could be or will be free agents after this season (age in parentheses).

Garrett Atkins (31) - Designated for assignment by the Orioles (the ORIOLES!!) in June.
Adrian Beltre (32) - Having an excellent year with the Red Sox, and holds a very cheap $5 million player option for 2010. If he reaches 640 plate appearances, which he might, it increases to $10 million.
Wilson Betemit (29) - Swinging a ridiculously hot (.480 wOBA in 70 plate appearances) and ridiculously lucky (.452 BABIP with an 11% LD rate) bat for the Royals in limited opportunities. A nice little player, but won't command anywhere near the money as Aramis.
Jorge Cantu (29) - Having a disappointing season in Florida (.319 wOBA, 0.5 WAR) after two nice seasons. Pretty bad defender at third as well.
Eric Chavez (33) - Injured since May, and even then he hasn't been any good for a while.
Bill Hall (31) - Playing okay in Boston but also is not going to be commanding a multi-million dollar salary.
Brandon Inge (34) - Two years older than Aramis with a worse bat.
Jose Lopez (27) - Solid glove, not to mention the youngest guy on this list. Too bad his bat is terrible (.264 wOBA, -19.5 wRAA).
Jhonny Peralta (29) - Working on an underwhelming season in Cleveland (.315 wOBA, 0.7 WAR)
Miguel Tejada (37) - Oldest guy on this list who is putting up his worst season since his sophomore year in 1998. The clock may have struck midnight on an excellent career.
Ty Wigginton (33) - Having an average year in Baltimore, and doesn't play third base very much anymore.

Can't say I'm exactly blown away. I could see Adrian Beltre hitting free agency again, considering he can make more than his $5 million player option and the Red Sox desire to add another bat and leave Youk and Victor Martinez at the corners. But after Beltre, Aramis Ramirez is the best 3B option, assuming he doesn't revert back to his sub-replacement level performance from the first half. The real question then becomes this: Is there a team that is going to give an over 30 third basemen with recent injury problems a long term contract worth more than $30 million?

Here is my hunch of what will happen:

Aramis exercises his player option and makes his guaranteed $14.6 million in 2011, then most likely gets bought out of his final year for $2 million and hits free agency before the 2012 season. He could once again be the big fish in a third base class that includes the likes of Casey Blake, Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and God.

I'm going to have a post in the near future that details Aramis' Ramirez immediate future a little more closely, including what teams will be his most likely suitors and what he can expect financially.

Raise your hand if you can make a guaranteed $14.6 million next year.

Once a Cancer, Always a Cancer

2010-07-22T09:40:00.001-05:00

Milton Bradley assaulted one of his teammates on the field last night.

No word yet if a suspension is coming.

July 18: This is What a Crash and Burn Looks Like

2010-07-19T10:02:00.003-05:00

Textbook. We will discuss yesterday's epic meltdown later.

W(ire)NBA

2010-07-08T20:49:00.002-05:00

Worldwide Wes

The figurehead at the top. All decisions go through him. No one even knows what he looks like.

Maverick Carter

The brains of the operation. Brings in the money. Wes and Carter are practically invisible on the streets.

LeBron James

The enforcer, directly beneath the two at the top. Has no problem sharing the load to get what he wants

Dwyane Wade

Has an established corner that he's not giving up. Likes to think he's in charge of everything.

Chris Bosh

Third banana, has never really done anything.

Michael Beasley

About to get popped for the good of the Barksdales.

Kobe Bryant

Cold-blooded assassin from far away with a reputation. On good terms with the Barksdales, but that can change quickly.

Joe Johnson

Lone wolf with no ties to anyone. A sharp-shooter who follows the money.

Derrick Rose

Up-and-comer, viable threat to the Barksdales with something to prove.

Carlos Boozer

Rose's enforcer.

Joakim Noah

Rose's androgynous enforcer.

Amare Stoudemire

"No one else came to New York? Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, well at least I got paid."

Charles Barkley

Obese black male.

David Stern

Everyone actually works for him.

NBA Players Union

Making it easier for players in The Game to get what they want. Good intentions, questionable results.

NBA Owners

Pass the buck and pretend they are powerless when things go south, even though they're the morons calling the shots in the first place.

College basketball/NBA Draft

It's really only a matter of time before it's their turn.

General Public

Walking the fine line between desperately seeking information, and just not giving a shit

Cavaliers Fans

Just cannot catch a break in life.

Knicks Fans

Same situation as Bubbles, but you enjoy their misery.

ESPN

Pretty much no reason to believe a single word they ever say about anything.

The NBA

At the complete mercy of all this bullshit.

The Dream Is Over

2010-07-07T18:58:00.001-05:00

I just came home to find this waiting for me in my sink:

It was a good effort, Bulls fans, but it's clearly over.

Your Interest Interests Me

2010-07-07T17:54:00.004-05:00

Apparently, a few weeks ago the San Francisco Giants were interested in acquiring Ryan Theriot, who is arguably the worst regular starter in the entire National League.

No, seriously. Ryan Theriot has the lowest OPS of any player in the National League who has had 300 plate appearances or more.

Ryan Theriot has the lowest cumulative WPA of any player in baseball.

Ryan Theriot has the lowest ISO of any player in baseball.

The only player in the NL with as many plate appearances as Theriot and a lower wOBA is Nyjer Morgan.

The only player in the NL with as many plate appearances as Theriot and less WAR is Raul Ibanez.

(Cub fans may also know Raul Ibanez as THE GUY WHO JIMBO SHOULD HAVE GIVEN $30 MILLION TO INSTEAD OF MILTON BRADLEY FIRE HENDRYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!)

If anyone is willing to give anything for Ryan Theriot, and I mean ANYTHING, the Cubs need to jump on it. Immediately.

In fact, if you're reading this Brian Sabean, I just want you to know that to save you airfare I am offering to personally drive Mr. Theriot to San Francisco should you trade for him. All I ask is that you split gas money.

(hat tip to PFD over at Another Cubs Blog)

July 5: Cubs 9, Diamondbacks 4

2010-07-06T12:43:00.000-05:00

After a long hiatus of holiday pleasure and, well, just not giving a shit about Cubs' baseball, I'm back with the Cubs' WPA recaps you've all come to know and love.

Cubs' MVP: Sean Marshall, .126 WPA
In a game with a lot of offense, Sean Marshall earned a surprising game MVP for extinguishing any hopes of an Arizona comeback. Marshall entered the game with one out in the seventh and pitched a perfect 1.2 innings, striking out three batters.

Sean Marshall has been good this year. Like, really good. He's currently eighth in WAR amongst all relievers in baseball, fourth amongst non-closers. His ERA, FIP, xFIP, and tERA are all comfortably under 3. He's striking out more batters than ever before, getting more ground balls than ever before, and has only given up one home run all season.

Marshall became arbitration-eligible for the first time this season. The Cubs would be wise to move him this year while he's still cheap to a contender looking for bullpen help. Boston, perhaps?

Diamondbacks' MVP: Chris Young, .214 WPA
Young continued his impressive 2010 rebound campaign by reaching base four times, scoring two runs, and stealing two bases. His disastrous 2009 season where he posted a .314 wOBA is looking like a thing of the past.

Last year Young struck out over 30% of the time and had a career high 55.6 fly ball percentage. His plate discipline rates and batted ball types are once again much more in line with his 2008 numbers, a season in which he was worth 2.2 WAR in 160 games. Through 81 games this year he's been worth 2.5 WAR, good for eighth amongst all NL outfielders.

Cubs' LVP: Andrew Cashner, -.104 WPA
For the first time since his callup, Cashner pitched on consecutive days. It wasn't pretty.

Cashner threw thirteen fastballs, but only three for strikes. He entered the game in the sixth and promptly got Stephen Drew to ground out, but couldn't retire any of the next three batters.

It's been a while since Cashner has had a good outing. He's given up runs in each of his last six outings (although the two he surrendered to Pittsburgh on 6/30 were unearned).

For those of you keeping score at home, Cashner has pitched 15.1 innings during his 36 days in the bigs. He's on pace to pitch around 110 innings in 2010, a season where he needs to get to at least 150-160 innings to continue a safe progression to starting pitcher. It's a way of life.

Diamondbacks' LVP: Ian Kennedy, -.399 WPA (-.377 pitching)
Kennedy got knocked around, giving up a week's worth of Cub offense in under six innings. The former Yankee gave up seven earned runs on nine hits, including a leadoff homer to April Fukudome. He did strike out six and walk none, but giving up seven runs to this Cub offense is a tradeable offense.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
With nobody out in the fifth inning, Kelly Johnson triples home a run off Tom Gorzellany to cut the lead to two (.146 WPA). He would be stranded at third.

Biggest Hit of the Game for the Winning Team:
With two on and nobody out in the second, Starlin Castro triples home two runs to increase the Cubs' lead to three (.144 WPA).

Biggest Out(s) of the Game:
1) With runners on the corners in the third inning of a 4-1 game, Mark Reynolds grounds into an inning-ending double play (-.118 WPA).
2) After Kelly Johnson's previously mentioned RBI triple, Arizona's win probability rose to 42.1%. After four straight batters failed to drive him in from third base, their win probability had plummeted to 23.4%.

It's Getting Difficult Just Telling People I Know You

2010-07-01T17:47:00.002-05:00

If you ever wonder if certain Cub fans deserve their "misery," just read through this thread.

White Sox Win BP Crosstown Cup

2010-06-27T22:04:00.001-05:00

Omar Vizquel and BP CEO Tony Hayward display their trophy at the team's championship parade just outside U.S. Cellular Field Sunday afternoon.

CHICAGO (AP) - The Chicago White Sox won the first annual BP Crosstown Cup this weekend, defeating the Chicago Cubs twice and winning the season series 4-2. The Cup, sponsored by British Petroleum, was awarded to the Sox after their clinching victory Saturday night. Afterwards, White Sox players were eager to pledge their support for BP.

"We really wanted to win this one for Tony (Hayward)," said White Sox designated hitter Omar Vizquel. "He said he wants his life back. Hopefully this will get him a little bit closer."

"I really hope British Petroleum paid a lot of money for this sponsorship," White Sox GM Kenny Williams added. "Like, a LOT of money. Better here than that little spill people keep talking about. I don't see what paying claims to some guy who used to catch shrimp has to do with baseball."

White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen added, "F$#@! s&;^*, and ^$$@!, you know? %**^!"

After looking horrible the first two games at U.S. Cellular Field, the Cubs pulled off an impressive 8-6 victory on Sunday to save face. Fans of the team were relieved to hear from the team's manager that their incompetence over the weekend wasn't so much bad baseball as it was a political protest.

"Look, we wanted no part of that Cup, and I think we demonstrated that with our play on the field," said Cubs' skipper Lou Piniella. "We didn't actually try to win a game until we knew the White Sox had clinched it. Sure, we won at Wrigley when Lilly almost threw a no-hitter, but we didn't even get a damn hit until the seventh inning ourselves. Then Marmol tried like hell to blow it in the ninth. We pretty much won that game by accident."

Also of note, President Barack Obama made a phone call to the White Sox clubhouse Sunday morning before their finale with the Cubs to express how proud he is of his hometown team for winning The Cup. He also admitted the exciting crosstown series in his home town has made him reconsider his handling of BP's oil spill.

"Look, if there's one thing I've shown consistently throughout my presidency, it's that I like sports. They're like, ahh, super important to me. I mean, three days after I gave that speech from the Oval Office about how I wouldn't rest until the spill had been resolved, I was sitting in a sky box watching my White Sox. They never come to Washington, I just figured it would be okay.

"After I phoned the team, I talked to Tony Hayward and let him know he doesn't have to set aside any money in that silly escrow account we talked about. I know he's good for it. If he's got the White Sox' back, that's all I need."

White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf said after the game that he was so thrilled clutching a piece of hardware endorsed by British Petroleum that he hopes to expand sponsored rivalry trophies to other opponents.

"We're in talks right now with the Minnesota Twins and Phillip Morris to get a nice gold platter to give to whichever team wins more games that season. Kinda like what they do at Wimbledon, except it'll look more like an ashtray.

"We're also working on a Nike-sponsored 'Child Labor Night' at the ballpark where all the ushers and vendors are the kids of season ticket holders, and they'll work for no pay with no bathroom breaks. But we may have to wait another year for that one."

Cubs' owner Tom Ricketts was also asked what he thought of adding more sponsored rivalry trophies to his team's schedule.

"Who is this again? Sorry, I'm kind of a fucking moron," he said.

You Know What, Let's Just Have Fun Out There

2010-06-27T14:50:00.005-05:00

Per Paul Sullivan, after yesterday's loss dropped the team to ten games under .500:

The Cubs lost the BP Cup and Saturday's game, but the mood in the clubhouse was upbeat without Carlos Zambrano around.

Well as long as they're having fun, who cares? I mean, that's all you can really ask from a professional baseball organization.

After a great losing effort, Lou Piniella announces to the team

they're all going out for ice cream.*

*Not pictured: the latin faction, now leaderless

Damn You, Physics!!

2010-06-27T09:09:00.002-05:00

Cashner was pumping HEAT last night...

...but when you make solid contact with a 100 mph fastball, it's going to go a long ways.

Still, Cub fans have to be pleased that Cashner is only getting 2-3 innings a week out of the bullpen on a team that never has a lead.

A Request to Mr. Selig

2010-06-24T13:23:00.004-05:00

The White Sox have won nine games in a row against the National League, and are 13-2 in interleague play. They're three games over .500 for the first time this season, and trail the Twins by 2.5 games.

At 37-34, they'd be just three games behind the Cardinals in the NL Central.

The Cubs are 31-40, nine games out of first and only six ahead of last. They're 6-8 against the American League this year.

Eventually the White Sox will have to stop playing AAAA teams and face the harsh reality that they are members of a superior baseball league. While they certainly hit like an NL Central team (.322 team wOBA, 22nd in baseball and 10th in the American League), their pitching has been elite. Their 3.86 FIP is the best in the American League as is their 4.12 xFIP, and their 7.53 K/9 is tops in the AL by a full strikeout.

This is a team that might actually matter if they switched leagues. They're essentially the San Francisco Giants of the AL, putting up similar numbers but doing so against superior competition.

The Cubs, on the other hand, are hopeless. The only way to make the 2010 season watchable at this point is a full fledged FIRE SALE, followed by a 60-65 win season that nets the team the first overall pick in the 2011 draft. The Cubs would be in position to select an impact player, like Rice 3B Anthony Rendon or TCU pitcher Matt Purke or UCLA pitcher Gerrit Cole to name a few. They'd have their choice.

Or they could draft a fourth round talent with the first pick and it would be hilarious. But either way, it'd be something.

By playing their remaining 91 games in the puny National League, the Cubs run the risk of getting "hot" and finishing around .500 by season's end. We can't take that chance.

Mr. Selig, hockey season is over in Chicago and the Hawks are already facing difficult decisions regarding fan favorites from the Stanley Cup champions. The Bulls are certainly in the LeBron sweepstakes but they are by no means a lock to land King James in free agency, and the last time the Bulls went fishing for a hot trio of free agents they caught Ron Mercer. The Bears are still months away and quite frankly, they'll probably suck again.

Swap these two teams, Mr. Selig. Make Chicago baseball interesting again. We don't ask for much.

"Look, what do you want me to do?"

June 23: Mariners 8, Cubs 1

2010-06-24T12:29:00.000-05:00

Cubs' MVP: ~~Marlon Byrd~~ Tyler Colvin, .080 WPA
Byrd technically accumulated more WPA, singling twice out of the leadoff spot. But most of that came on a fielder's choice/error in the sixth inning, which I'm not too comfortable crediting him with. So I'll give the MVP to Colvin, who crushed a Cliff Lee fastball into the seats for the only Cubs offense of the ~~day~~ series.

Mariner's MVP: Cliff Lee, .172 WPA
Lee went the distance, his only blemish the aforementioned home run to Colvin. He struck out nine and walked none, bringing his K/BB ratio this season the 76:4. Despite missing the entire month of April, Cliff Lee leads all pitchers in WAR (3.7) this season.

What makes Cliff Lee so hard to hit?

1) He throws nothing but strikes, like last night:

115 pitches, 90 strikes. Lee also throws a first pitch strike 72% of the time, the best in baseball. Second? Carlos Silva, at 70.2.

2) Not only does he throw nothing but strikes, he throws five different pitches for nothing but strikes, ranging anywhere from 76-92 mph:

Lee has had an astounding season thus far for the Mariners. If they deal him mid-season to a contender who is willing to sign him to a long term deal, Seattle is going to cash in bigtime.

Cubs' LVP: Randy Wells, -.327 WPA
Wells at least survived the first inning untouched for a change, but still gave up six runs and ten hits over six innings. He struck out just three while walking two, one of which was an inexcusable walk to The Great Michael Saunders with the bases loaded. You have to be careful with Michael Saunders when wimpy Ichiro is on deck. He served up an 88 mph meatball to Ichiro that Aaron Miles could have driven into center field, which effectively ended the game for the Cubs.

Although, really, it was over when Cliff Lee safely arrived at the stadium yesterday.

Mariners' LVP: Rob Johnson, -.119 WPA
Johnson struck out twice, including once with the bases loaded and only one out.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
With two outs and the bases loaded in the fourth inning, Ichiro singles in two runs to extend the Mariners lead to three. (.158 WPA)

Biggest Out(s) of the Game:
With runners on the corners and one out in the first inning, Xavier Nady grounds into an inning-ending 6-4-3 double play. (-.116 WPA)

Play That Paul Sullivan Genuinely Didn't Know How to Feel About:
In the bottom of the fourth inning, a ~~lazy~~ hustling Alfonso Soriano made a diving shoestring catch robbing ~~mercurial~~ Milton Bradley of a hit.

6/22: Mariners 2, Cubs 0

2010-06-23T17:11:00.000-05:00

Cubs' MVP: Alfonso Soriano, .139 WPA
Soriano was the only Cub who brought any offense to the table last night, collecting three hits. He led off the fifth with a bloop double, although he was promptly doubled off on some questionable baserunning. Soriao also had two singles late in the game setting up two-out RBI opportunities for Jesus Colvin, but the rookie couldn't get it done both times.

Yesterday's game brought his wOBA to a modest .341 in the past week, which is a big improvement from his overall .288 wOBA in June. Hopefully Soriano is breaking out of his little mini slump. Not because it means anything for the 2010 Cubs, but hopefully it will keep the boo birds of Soriano's back when Wrigley turns real ugly this summer.

Mariners' MVP: Jason Vargas, .376 WPA
Vargas threw seven innings of four hit baseball against the Cubs impotent offense. He walked only one and struck out seven. With Cliff Lee and Felix Hernandez next in this series, I think it's safe to say the Cubs chances of scoring a single run in Seattle are close to zero.

Vargas has had a surprisingly strong 2010 for Seattle. His ERA has now dropped to 2.66 in fourteen starts. He made fourteen starts all of last year for Seattle and 4.91 ERA. What's been the difference this year?

Is he striking out more batters? Nope. 5.91 K/9 this year, 5.3 last year.

Is he walking less batters? Nope. 2.36 BB/9 last year, 2.27 this year.

Are more of his fly balls staying in the cavernous park he calls home this year, where he's made 9 of 14 starts? You betcha! 12.7 HR/FB in 2009, a miniscule 4.9 in 2010. Is this a sustainable number? Probably not, especially considering 50% of the balls in play against Vargas have been fly balls this year (47.8 career). To be fair, his LD% is way down in 2010. He's not getting hit as hard as he used to. Giving up a lot of weak fly balls in Safeco is a recipe for success, but he's certainly a regression candidate to keep your eyes on.

Cubs' LVP: Tyler Colvin, -.272 WPA
Colvin ended both the seventh and ninth innings with a man on third base. His lineout in the fourth inning also resulted in a damaging double play. It was the third worst WPA performance by a Cubs' hitter this season.

I had starting writing a post on Tyler Colvin and what to expect from him the rest of the season. Then I stopped for a while. Then Foul Pole to Foul Pole pretty much wrote exactly what I had been working on. It's good. You should read it.

Mariners' LVP: Josh Wilson, -.082 WPA
Wilson went 1-4 with a strikeout and GIDP. Whatever.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
Franklin Gutierrez hits a two run home run in the second inning, the only scoring the game would see. (.175 WPA)

Biggest Out(s) of the Game:
In the top of the eighth inning with runners on first and second and nobody out, Marlon Byrd grounds into a 4-6-3 double play.

You're Doing It Wrong

2010-06-22T11:31:00.001-05:00

Jim Hendry, on Andrew Cashner's role for 2010, in Dave van Dyck's report yesterday:

"It's way too early to tell," GM Jim Hendry said. "We don't have to decide now. We're trying to win games. He's in the role he needs to be in.

"At some point, we'll have his input involved, too, but it won't be in the middle of the season. We'll address it this offseason."

So Andrew Cashner, the Cubs' #1 pitching prospect, will most likely spend the remainder of 2010, a season where the Cubs have a 5% chance of making the playoffs, in the bullpen because the Cubs are "trying to win games."

In 2009 Cashner pitched 100.1 innings between Daytona and Tennessee, and 19.2 innings in the Arizona Fall League. He needs to reach at least 150-160 innings in 2010 to continue the path to starting pitcher.

He pitched 57 innings in the minors before his call-up the last day of May. In his 23 days with the big league club, he's pitched 8.1 innings.

He's on pace to pitch about 100 innings this season.

June 17: Cubs 3, Athletics 2

2010-06-18T08:56:00.001-05:00

Thousands gathered on Michigan Avenue late last night to celebrate the Cubs' two-game winning streak.

Cubs' MVP: Carlos Marmol, .310 WPA

Because it's a cumulative stat, you know that if a pitcher only gets two outs but leads the game in WPA, they were a pretty freaking big two outs.

Marmol entered the game in the top of the ninth inning, with one out and the go ahead man on third. The A's win probability at the time was 68.3%

He walked the first batter, because he's Carlos Marmol. But he retired the next two batters on three pitches to end the inning, dropping the A's win expectancy to 36%.

Marmol did fail to retire a batter via strikeout, however, and his K/9 has now "plummeted" to 16.43.

Athletics' MVP: Dallas Braden, .173 WPA, (.227 pitching)
Braden pitched six innings of one run ball, his only blemish a solo home run in the first inning by Jeff Baker. He struck out four and walked one.

Everyone knows Dallas Braden this season from his perfect game, his vendetta against Alex Rodriguez, and his free-spirited grandmother. It's been quite a season already for the the 27 year old pitcher, but ever since his perfecto he's been human.

In the last month before today's start, Braden's FIP is at 4.52, his WHIP is over 1.5, and teams are hitting over .300 against him. He hasn't been missing bats lately as teams are making contact 88.9% of the time against Braden the last month, good for sixth worst in the AL. His slider has been particularly bad, and Braden only threw it once today. His changeup is his best pitch and it was on today, getting eleven swinging strikes with it. A's fans should be encouraged by his start today.

Cubs' LVP: Alfonso Soriano, -.241 WPA
Soriano struck out with the bases loaded in the first, flew out twice, then struck out again in the eighth with a man on third and two outs with the game tied. Soriano's been in a funk the last two weeks, hitting .161/.291/.355 in that span, while striking out 29% of the time.

Athletics' LVP: Jerry Blevins, -.360 WPA
Blevins came in to pitch the bottom of the ninth after Bob Geren forgot that in the National League his closer Andrew Bailey would have to bat if he wanted to stay in the game. Blevins walked the bases loaded (one intentional) and the only out he could manage was Starlin Castro's sacrifice bunt. Kosuke would win the game with an RBI single.

A lot of people questioned the intentional walk to Koyie Hill, and I have to say I agree. Blevins completely owns lefties this season; his FIP against lefties is 0.51, and his K/9 is over 13. So they walk Koyie Hill and his .245 wOBA to face the right handed Theriot, then pull the infield in against the left handed Fukudome with speedster Geovany Soto at third. Brilliant!

Biggest Hit of the Game:
Mark Ellis' solo home run in the seventh broke a 1-1 tie late in the ballgame. (.192 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game:
With runners on first and third and only one out in the top of the ninth, Gabe Gross fouls out to Starlin Castro. (-.184 WPA)

June 16: Cubs 6, Athletics 2

2010-06-17T12:27:00.073-05:00

Cubs' MVP: Ryan Dempster, .120 WPA (.183 pitching)
Demp threw 6.2 innings, giving up two runs on eight hits. He struck out seven while walking just two. Pitch counts be damned, this was the fourth time this year Ryan Dempster has thrown at least 120 pitches.

Ryan Dempster's slider is good. A year ago it was called the best in baseball by Chris Harris at ESPN. Here is a visualization from Brooks Baseball of an overhead view of his average pitch from last night. His slider is the blue one, his fastball green.

Look how similar it is to his four seam fastball until the last ten feet or so. His slider looks like a weak fastball to hitters. It's understandable why it's so effective when he mixes them well. He got nine swinging strikes on his slider in yesterday's game alone.

And last night wasn't even his best display, as it was only deviating an inch or two. Check out the same chart from his May 25 start against the Dodgers, his best of the season.

Same pitch until the last fifteen feet, but about a six inch differential in where they ended up.

The pitch itself isn't overpowering, it simply catches hitters by surprise. Compare it to an overhead visualization of Zack Greinke's slider, which he doesn't throw as often as Dempster but has earned a reputation of being nasty:

Looks a lot different from Demp's slider.

How does their horizontal and vertical movement compare?

Dempster:

Greinke:

My limited understanding of pitch f/x is that the further from the 0,0 point on this plot, the nastier your pitch is. Dempster and Greinke's sliders resist gravity at similar rates but Greinke gets a lot more side to side movement. It's a harder pitch to hit.

If anything, Dempster's slider hovers around the 0,0 point a little too much. If he threw it repeatedly by itself, it'd probably get mashed. But by coupling it with his fastball, he's been missing bats effectively in 2010, compiling the best K/9 ratio (8.37) as a starting pitcher of his career thus far.

Athletics' MVP: Conor Jackson, .084 WPA
Oakland's newly acquired toy had two hits, a walk and a run scored in his second game with the team. Jackson was struggling with the Diamondbacks this season before the trade, after putting up two solid but not spectacular years from 2006-2008. Then he got "valley fever" and hasn't been the same since. It's hard to predict how a healthy Jackson will bounce back in a superior league and a cavernous stadium, but when one of the Brothers Patterson is getting plenty of time in your outfield, it's time to reevaluate things.

Cubs' LVP: Ryan Theriot, -.062 WPA
Theriot went 0-4 in the leadoff spot last night and saw a whopping total of nine pitches. I've heard some talk of Ryan Theriot's "resurgence" since his abysmal May (.236/.257/.245, .238 wOBA) because he's pieced together a few multi-hit games. So far in June he's hitting .275/.315/.294, good for a .283 wOBA. Improvement!

The only Cubs' regulars who have worse wOBAs in June than Theriot in June are Kosuke Fukudome (.258) and Starlin Castro (.191). At least those two have the excuses of calendar month and age, respectively.

Athletics' LVP: Gio Gonzalez, -.340 WPA (-.277 pitching)
Gonzalez gave up six runs on eight hits in five innings of work last night. He walked three and struck out three. Gonzalez has been a decent pitcher this year, earning a 4.02 FIP thus far. He gets a lot of weak infield flies and throws a pretty decent curveball, although he still walks plenty of batters.

Last night he spent more time in the middle of the strike zone than he probably would have liked, particularly his curveball, and the Cubs were able to make solid contact.

Internet Lord Harry Pavlidis wrote a small piece on some of his pitching tendencies as well.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
In the second inning, Derrek Lee homers off Gio Gonzalez to tie the game at 1-1. (.109 WPA)

Biggest Out(s) of the Game:
With men on first and second in the first inning and a run already on the board, Kurt Suzuki grounds into a double play to end the threat. (-.077 WPA)

It Was Over When:
Daric Barton grounded out with men on second and third and only one out in the seventh. A run scored, but the Cubs' probability of victory rose to 95.4% and stayed above 95% the rest of the game.

June 15: Athletics 9, Cubs 5

2010-06-16T11:55:00.000-05:00

Short Recap:

Painful, extensive WPA Recap:

Cubs' MVP: Chad Tracy, .105 WPA
Tracy walked to lead off the fifth inning, in which the Cubs scored two runs. He also doubled in a run in the sixth.

How exciting. I think I'll wet my pants.

A's MVP: Kevin Kouzmanoff, .312 WPA
Kouzmanoff compiled a whole lot of WPA without doing that much. He did reach base four times, but his two biggest contributions included an error by Tyler Colvin and a wild pitch by Jeff Stevens, both in the seventh inning.

For some reason I thought Kouzmanoff was having a great year, but his wOBA is only .324 and his OPS is an average .741. Defensively at third, he's been a vacuum though. In 63 games (small sample, yes) his UZR rating has him at 5.1 runs above average, trailing only Adrian Beltre for tops in the AL. So while his bat has been lackluster, he leads all Oakland position players with 1.6 WAR thus far, ahead of first baseman Daric Barton (1.5 WAR) and catcher Kurt Suzuki (1.2). Ugh.

The "emergence" of these three apparently has given the A's enough reason to DFA former ~~28 year old~~ young prospect Jake Fox. The predictable cries from the short bus of Cubs nation have already emerged to bring the beloved Fox back. Fox has been almost three runs below average on fastballs this season in Oakland, which have traditionally been his bread and butter as a hitter. I will admit, if he were to come back, his .264 wOBA and .327 slugging would fit right in with the Cubs' corner infielders.

Cubs' LVP: ~~Carlos Zambrano,~~ Derrek Lee
Big Z technically did compile the worst WPA (-.240) last night, but Zambrano was penalized for Derrek Lee's bases loaded blunders (yes, plural) in the fourth inning. Hardly his fault.

So last coupled with his 0-4 at the plate, I'm just going to hand last night's LVP to D-Lee. Because I can.

Athletics' LVP: Ryan Sweeney, -.118 WPA
The former White Sox prospect and pride of Cedar Rapids, IA went 0-5 on the night. He was also robbed by Marlon Byrd with the bases loaded in the fourth.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
With two outs in the sixth, Koyie Hill's RBI single makes it a one run game. Hill also advanced to second on the throw. (.136 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game:
With the bases loaded and nobody out in the seventh, Mark Ellis grounds into a 5-2-3 double play, and no runs score. (-.152 WPA) To keep things interesting though, Jeff Stevens wild pitched a run home the next batter, followed by Cliff Pennington's RBI triple on which he also scored on Tyler Colvin's throwing error. It's a way of life.

Biggest Out of the Game by the Cubs:
After Starlin Castro's RBI single cut the A's lead to two in the fourth, Ryan Theriot gets caught stealing third. (-.093)

For every day from here on out that Ryan Theriot is in the starting lineup, I will personally kick one puppy.

Crosstown Series Mega Recap

2010-06-14T12:51:00.002-05:00

June 11: White Sox 10, Cubs 5
White Sox MVP: A.J. Pierzynski, .259 WPA
I don't know what it is about Wrigley Field that turns A.J. Pierzynski into Johnny Bench, but the White Sox should find out what it is and bottle it. Pierzynski had a monster game, going 4-5 with three run scoring hits, including a late home run. Not too shabby for the catcher with a .649 OPS and .283 wOBA, both career lows.

Cubs' MVP: Alfonso Soriano, .114 WPA
Soriano tied the game at 2-2 in the second inning with his 300th career homer, and also "drove in" two more in the eighth inning on Jayson Nix's error. He finished the game 1-4.

White Sox LVP: Jayson Nix, -.080 WPA
Nix went 0-4 with four flyouts, and also reached base on an intentional walk in the fifth. Apparently a guy with no bat was on deck, because it's really the only excusable reason to want to not pitch to Jayson Nix, who is sporting a robust .219 wOBA in 53 plate appearances for the White Sox this season. He also committed the aforementioned error that allowed two (meaningless) Cubs runs to score late in the game.

Cubs' LVP: Randy Wells, -.326 WPA (-.301 pitching)
Wells yet again had major first inning issues, allowing four straight two out hits to open the game. He pitched five innings, giving up five runs and ten hits, walking three, and striking out six. Wells' ERA now sits at 5.15, but his FIP is a mere 3.47. He's striking out batters more frequently than his impressive rookie campaign, walking about the same amount of batters, and giving up home runs at nearly an identical rate. So what gives?

Wells' BABIP is a hefty .359. Some might call that an unlucky figure that will regress, but then you have to look at his 25.9 LD% as the culprit. Batters are making very solid contact against Wells' this season, and it's something that the Cubs might want to look into.

One last note about Wells: there are rumors swirling around the interwebs that Randy was out partying with the Blackhawks all night before his start. As far as I know there is no actual evidence to this beyond anecdotal, but as we all know hearsay and conjecture are acceptable forms of evidence in the Cubs' blogosphere.

So Randy Wells was DEFINITELY out partying all night, and on top of that my sources tell me he took home an uggo. I wish it weren't true, but I am afraid it appears to be so.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
With no outs in the fifth inning, Paul Konerko hits a two-run double to give the Sox the lead for good. (.182 WPA)

Biggest Out(s) of the Game:
Already trailing by two runs early, Ryan Theriot grounds into a double play in the first inning after Kosuke Fukudome had reached base. (-.077 WPA)

June 12: White Sox 2, Cubs 1

White Sox MVP: Mark Buehrle, .308 WPA (.395 pitching)
Buehrle was solid, although hittable, in the second game of the series. He pitched 6.2 shutout innings, striking out seven and walking none. The Cubs were able to get eight hits, but couldn't get a run on the board.

Buehrle is having another solid season by his standards, but there are a few things to take note of. His ERA is just shy of 5.00, although FIP has him at a respectable 4.07. His strikeouts are down this year (4.34 K/9, down from his 5.16 career rate), and his WHIP has jumped to 1.46, the highest of his career. Teams are manufacturing more runs against Buehrle this season even though his batted ball numbers are pretty much the same. He might be due for some regression.

Cubs' MVP: Marlon Byrd, .119 WPA
The ByrdMan went 3-4 with two singles and a double. Kudos also to Ryan Theriot (.082 WPA) for driving in the only Cubs' run, and to Carlos Silva (.117 WPA pitching) for throwing a solid game despite getting stuck with the loss.

White Sox LVP: Carlos Quentin, -.113 WPA
It's been a miserable season for Carlos Quentin thus far, and Saturday was no different. Quentin went 0-5 with two strikeouts. His OBP for the season has now dipped under .300.

Cubs' LVP: Alfonso Soriano, -.191 WPA
Soriano went 0-4, striking out twice. He also ended the eighth inning with a runner in scoring position.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
With two outs in the seventh inning, Paul Konerko "singled" to right field to drive in the eventual winning run. Xavier Nady briefly uprooted himself to make an attempt to catch the ball, one that Kosuke would have pitched a tent and camped under, with enough time to start a fire with his bare hands and make s'mores for the whole team. (.121 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game:
In the ninth inning and the White Sox holding a 2-1 lead, Bobby Jenks strikes out Chad Tracy to end the game. (-.100 WPA)

June 13: Cubs 1, White Sox 0

Now that's what I'm talking about!

Cubs' MVP: Ted Lilly, .385 WPA (.456 pitching)
This one's a no-brainer. Lilly pitched eight no hit innings before giving up a leadoff single to Juan Fucking Pierre to start the ninth. He was his usual fly ball self, inducing fourteen of them throughout the night. Lilly only struck out three but his control was excellent all night, and the White Sox just could not manage any solid contact whatsoever.

Lilly's fastball and sinker averaged 88 and 87 MPH, respectively, and Lilly was close to 90 with his fastball throughout the game:

As far as I'm concerned, Lilly's velocity issues are a thing of the past.

In case you're counting at home, the Cubs have now supplied Ted Lilly with an unimaginable sixteen runs of support in his ten starts.

Honorable mentions also go out to Carlos Marmol (.281 WPA) who managed to get out of a massive ninth inning jam of his own creation, and to Chad Tracy (.154 WPA) who finally did something useful since his callup from Iowa.

White Sox MVP: Gavin Floyd, .230 WPA (.236 pitching)
Floyd threw a helluva game himself, going eight strong innings allowing just three hits, and striking out nine. Coincidentally, David Golebiewski wrote a piece a few weeks ago on Rotographs about why Gavin Floyd was a solid candidate to show improvement as the season progressed.

Cubs' LVP: Starlin Castro, -.100 WPA
Castro went 1-3 with an inning-ending double play in the fifth, and was also caught stealing in the eighth.

White Sox LVP: Carlos Quentin, -.301 WPA
Quentin had his second straight 0-fer, with three flyouts and a strikeout. He could have played the hero in the ninth with two out and the bases loaded, but Carlos Marmol got him to pop up to shallow center to end the series.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
With two outs in the seventh inning, Chad Tracy singled in the only run of the game. (.201 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game:
Carlos Quentin ends the game on a flyout with the bases loaded.

Most Bizarre Play of the Game:

Seeing as how this is a Chicago baseball blog, I suppose there will be more content posted from this series, perhaps a few tidbits about what we learned over the course of the weekend from both sides.

Number of Wins for the White Sox to Clinch The Beloved Crosstown Cup: 2

How President Obama Feels About the Ideo of his Favorite Team Hoisting a Trophy With a BP Logo:

Fail Will Be Made

2010-06-13T12:26:00.003-05:00

Corporatism at its finest

2010-06-11T12:51:00.000-05:00

Two of the most shamed corporations in the world make their Wrigley Field debut today.

Don't miss "Bring Your Child to the Ballpark" day next week, sponsored by the Catholic church.

Koyie Hill: Cancer? Leader?

2010-06-11T08:56:00.002-05:00

Yesterday a prominent Cubs blogger posted a rumor that the Chicago clubhouse was a mess, divided amongst racial lines. I'm not going to post a link because I don't want to give him one more page hit than he deserves, but the rumor he's postulating as fact is summed here:
First of all, asshat, it's "Latino." With a capital L.

The blogger in question goes on to say that, despite not naming any sources or giving any evidence whatsoever, he has "absolutely no doubt" that this information is "100% correct."

You know what though, maybe we can trust this guy. He's the same anonymous blogger who first noticed the Cubs' bleacher crowd had gotten completely out of control, before anyone else did. He's incredibly perceptive.

Despite the fact that Bruce Miles himself posted multiple contradictions to this rumor on the blog in question, this Cubs blogger isn't backing down. He knows in his heart that it's true, and you can't argue with the heart.

So even though there is literally zero evidence, Cubs' fans must assume that the "latins" in the clubhouse have made things miserable for their more honorable teammates.

Which brings us to Koyie Hill, who was quoted as saying this after yesterday's abortion of a baseball game:

"It was a perfect situation for the Brewers," Hill said. "They had a guy up there at the plate [in Counsell] who takes a lot of pride in what he does and he practices those situations, so when it does come up, he gets the bunt down to the right side of the field. They have the perfect guy on first base [in Gomez], who is one of the fastest guys in the league, and they had one of the worst fundamental teams on the field, so it was a perfect situation for them."

Wow, pretty harsh words from Koyie there. He's pretty much throwing the entire team under the bus. Is Koyie Hill a clubhouse cancer, or a clubhouse leader?

"Koyie" sounds kind of ethnic, but I'm really not sure. He could be one of those sneaky latins. Let's check his Wikipedia page for clues:

Koyie Dolan Hill (pronounced 'Koy') (born March 9, 1979 in Tulsa, Oklahoma)...

What a leader.

"Mr. Hutz, do you have any evidence at all?"

"Well, we have plenty of hearsay and conjecture. Those are kinds of evidence."

June 8: Brewers 3, Cubs 2

2010-06-09T12:01:00.001-05:00

I have yet to post any thoughts on the Cubs' draft because, well, I don't really have all that much to say. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I know anything about these prospects beyond what is readily available online. At the very least, maybe later in the week I'll post a list of the Cubs' draftees with links to what people smarter than me think about them. I also have a few thoughts on the Cubs' controversial selection of Hayden Simpson in the first round and how deeply we should be looking into it in terms of the Cubs' financial future.

That being said, onward to last night's recap:

Cubs' MVP: Tyler Colvin, .233 WPA
Colvin was a late addition, replacing Soriano in the lineup in left field. He went 2-4 with two singles in an offensively challenged game, one of which drove in the first run of the game with two outs in the eighth inning.

It's no secret that Cub fans everywhere want their team to buy out Kosukue Fukudome so he can honorably return to Japan or DFA the lazy Alfonso Soriano to make room for Tyler Colvin. Quite frankly, and especially of late, he's earned the right to have his name penciled in the starting lineup a few more times per week. Not because it will help the Cubs' chances in 2010 (it certainly won't), but because the Cubs need to figure out if they have a versatile fourth outfielder in Colvin or a potential power hitting corner outfielder on their hands. This lost 2010 season is the perfect opportunity to do so. In the very near future I plan to take a closer look at Tyler Colvin and what we should expect from him as the season progresses.

Oh, also an honorable mention to Ted Lilly (.221 total WPA, .264 pitching) who threw his best game of the season. Lilly threw eight innings and only allowed four baserunners. He also struck out eight Brewers. His only blemish was a game-tying home run to Corey Hart in the bottom of the eighth. Lilly also displayed an encouraging increase in velocity, averaging nearly 88 mph with his fastball, much more in tune with his career average. Maybe Theodore is finally out of spring training mode, especially considering his off-season shoulder surgery:

Interesting side note: Lilly only threw his curveball once last night, continuing his year long trend. Lilly has only thrown his curve 7.3% of the time in 2010, noticeably down from 11.3% the last two years and his career rate of 15.2%. Statistically his curveball has been one of his least valuable pitches over the course of his career. I wonder if he's shelving it for good.

Brewers' MVP: Casey McGehee. .694 WPA
The former Cubs' prospect hit the game-winning two run RBI single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth off Carlos Marmol to give the Brewers a walk off win. McGehee now has 45 RBI on the season, which ties him with Troy Glaus for the NL lead.

Cubs' LVP: Carlos Marmol, -.792 WPA
Marmol had a disastrous ninth inning facing the meat of the Brewers' lineup, despite the fact the Brewers only hit one ball out of the infield. Marmol plunked Rickie Weeks to lead off the inning, and after a stolen base, intentionally walked Prince Fielder (the winning run) to face Ryan Braun. Braun grounded out, advancing the runners, and McGehee won it with a single up the middle. Notable was the fact that this was Marmol's second consecutive outing without a strikeout, the first time he's done that on back to back occasions all season (only four times overall). As a result, Marmol's K/9 rate has plummeted to an even 17.

The -.792 WPA is the worst single game performance of the season for the Cubs, allowing Esmalin Caridad to breathe a sigh of relief.

Brewers' LVP: John Axford, -.292 WPA
Axford pitched the ninth and momentarily surrendered the lead. After two consecutive singles by Koyie Hill and The Reason, Alfonso Soriano hit an RBI groundout.

I didn't know anything about John Axford until I saw a Cardinals-Brewers game last weekend. Last night aside, he's been pretty solid out of the pen this year for the Brewers, sporting a 1.80/2.74 FIP/xFIP. He's striking out over 11 batters per nine innings and has yet to allow a home run. His fastball also hits the mid-to-upper 90s.

The Brewers certainly have had issues with their bullpen the last few years. It's been pretty bad this year, accumulating a 6.12 ERA, 1.67 WHIP, ten blown saves, a BAA over .300, and 23 home runs allowed. They've already used fourteen different relievers this year, but it looks like Axford just may stick.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
Casey McGehee's game winning RBI single in the ninth (duh); .753 WPA

Biggest Out of the Game:
Carlos Gomez pops out to Marmol, failing to get down a sac bunt in the ninth; -.127 WPA
(*headdesk*)

Biggest Out of the Game by the Cubs:
Ryan Theriot grounds out with the bases loaded to end the fifth; -.096 WPA

On the first pitch.

After Yovani Gallardo walked Ted Lilly on five pitches the previous at bat.

Yes, Ryan Theriot is so bad at baseball that opposing pitchers are now walking career .117 hitters who swing like an eleven year old girl so they can face him instead.

Let that one soak in for a while.

Happy Draft Day!

2010-06-07T20:55:00.005-05:00

The Major League Baseball Amateur Draft is underway and we're currently just about to wrap up the first round. The Sox had one pick today, #13 overall, and by all accounts hit a home run when they selected Chris Sale out of Florida Gulf Coast University. A couple of teams ahead of the Sox definitely reached, probably due to some signability concerns, and Sale, #5 in Baseball America's Pre-Draft prospect board, lands with the Sox.

MLB.com has some video of him from last year's Cape Cod League. Sale is a tall lefty, 6'6'', 183 pounds, and 21 years old. He throws three pitches for strikes, and has solid control, striking out 135 against 12 walks in 96 innings of work, although, that should be tempered by the fact that the Eagles are in the Atlantic Sun Conference, so he was going head-to-head with such baseball powerhouses as Belmont University, East Tennessee State University, and Mercer University (exactly).

Still, the selection is being lauded both locally and nationally. So, I guess for now, we're in the good.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the guy who is likely the new #1 prospect in our farm system.

5 Sox Players Most Likely to be Traded this Season

2010-06-06T03:29:00.005-05:00

Hey, I'm back! After a week in North Carolina followed by a week trying to ignore the Sox as much as possible, it's time to start venting my frustrations again. There will be more discussion of Mitch Talbot's absolute domination of the Sox later, believe me, but for now I'll keep things a bit more "big picture."

Before this pathetically pathetic series with the Indians, Ozzie didn't mince words concerning the future fate of some current Pale Hose, essentially saying, "we suck, blow this thing up." So for those of you not as keen on the current state of the Sox, here are the 5 players most likely to be seen at O'Hare Airport with a one-way ticket in hand (and probably, a huge smile on their face).

1) MATT THORNTON

Why He'll Be Traded: Good teams always need quality, left-handed arms out of the bullpen, and Thornton has been one of the few overachievers on the roster thus far. Through 22 appearances and 23.1 innings this season, his WHIP is down to a ridiculous 0.676 and his strikeouts are up to a career-best 12.9 K/9 IP. Add that his contract is very reasonable, $2.25 M this season and a $3 M club option in 2011 ($250K buyout) and you have a prime candidate to be dealt.

Why He Might Not: I can see a scenario unfolding where Thornton is so valuable to the Sox, they simply don't feel they're being offered fair value for him. Williams and the front office have been committed to the idea of "rebuilding while competing," and if they continue to stick to that mantra, they may simply not get the kind of quality return they're expecting for Thornton. Though he will be 34 years old by season's end, he's only been a regular in the Majors since his late-20s and has only put 363 innings of mileage on his arm. Plus, though he has been an excellent, and consistent, setup man the past several years, he has very limited closing experience; in the past teams have not bent over backwards to deal upper echelon talent for a bullpen arm who doesn't close.

2) PAUL KONERKO

Why He'll Be Traded: If I would have sat down and made this list at the beginning of the year, I probably would have put Konerko on it, but not this high. Then the Sox tanked. Then Konerko got off to one of the most productive starts of his career. And then Angels (the constant destination for Konerko trade rumors for the past several years) 1B Kendry Morales hurt himself, possibly for the remainder of the season, celebrating a home run. It's the Perfect Storm to move Konerko, whose contract expires at the end of this season and has publicly stated he would waive his no-trade clause for a deal that suits him and helps the Sox.

Why He Might Not: For one, the Sox are loyal, sometimes to a fault, and the thought of them trading the guy who handed the World Series ball to Jerry Reinsdorf at the Parade in 2005 just does not compute. Additionally, he'd be the ultimate rent-a-player, playing out his contract to the end of this season, because I can't see anyone offering him salary arbitration and risk having to pay the guy $9.6 M next season. I know, I know, he's having a great year right now (currently 6th in the AL with a .592 Slugging Percentage), but otherwise, he's been remarkably consistent at being a below average bat at an offensively important position. Finally, it looks like it's going to be a buyer's market for 1B this trade season, as Konerko may be joined by such other names like Lance Berkman, Russell Branyan, Adam LaRoche, and maybe even Prince Fielder.

3) FREDDY GARCIA

Why He'll Be Traded: As the senior-most member of the White Sox pitching staff and the only one not under contract in 2011, Garcia was automatically the most logical choice to be jettisoned. He's basically the only thing keeping top pitching prospect Dan Hudson in Charlotte right now. However, he's also been arguably the Sox most consistent pitcher this year, as well. Though his cumulative stats don't look great, a quick glance at his game logs for 2010 shows that in 7 of his 10 starts this season, he's allowed 2 ER or fewer and has basically been everything you'd want from a 5th starter. Add in his reputation around the league as a "bulldog" and "big game starter;" how many teams are so deep with starting pitching they might not take a chance on him? If Jose Contreras can wind up in the middle of a play-off run last year, Freddy can, too.

Why He Might Not: Garcia makes the most sense to be dealt, but if the Sox really shake things up and go for a bigger return by dealing Gavin Floyd or Mark Buehrle, they may wind up keeping Freddy for another go-around at the Cell. The relationship between the Sox coaching and Garcia has been mutually beneficial for most of its existence, and again, if there's one thing this organization prides itself on, it is loyalty.

4) A.J. PIERZYNSKI

Why He'll Be Traded: I would have pegged A.J. the most likely to be traded this year if the Sox tanked; 33 years old, expiring contract, and blocking Tyler Flowers, the Sox's #1 Prospect. It seemed to make almost no sense to keep him. That's not a knock on AJ, who has had an incredibly solid, consistent run in Chicago, suiting up for 130-140 games every season, being an almost lock for a .280/.320/.420 year at the plate, and despite some concerns about his defense, anchoring a pitching staff that has generally been one of the American League's best during his tenure.

Why He Might Not: A complete double-whammy; A.J.'s looking like he's 33 going on 43 at the plate and the wheels have completely fallen off the Tyler Flowers bandwagon. He is currently hitting .209/.315/.418 for the Knights (who play in a bandbox, by the way) and absolutely does not look ready for the Majors... He's struck out 63 times in 178 plate appearances, for god's sake! As for A.J., the big dilemma concerning his future with the Sox is, coupled with his poor start, his 10/5 rights kick in next Monday, giving him full no-trade protection under the current CBA. Do the Sox sell low and early this week, or do they hold back and hope they can find a suitor later this season that offers a fair package in return and would be an attractive destination for Pierzynski?

5) CARLOS QUENTIN

Why He'll Be Traded: To be honest, I'm even having problems filling out this last slot. I'll give Quentin the nod (for reasons I'll explain in just a sec), but this could also very easily be Bobby Jenks, J.J. Putz, or even Alex Rios. Quentin, however, takes the cake because he appeals to everyone, not just teams in contention, as long as they are willing to take on his neurosis for the potential pay-off of a 27-year-old with legitimate MVP-quality production. Since busting out in 2008, Quentin has been terrible for the Sox; 146 games and an OPS+ under 100... in a power hitter's ballpark!

A lot of Carlos' struggles have been attributed to the fact that he's too intense and apparently, uncoachable. It wouldn't stun me if the Sox, tired of his antics, simply cut him loose and try to start over in the outfield.

Why He Might Not: First and foremost, there's really nobody to take his spot. The Sox's best two outfield prospects are Jared Mitchell, not nearly ready to play in the Majors everyday and out for the season with an ankle injury, and Jordan Danks, also having himself a strikeout-filled, poor season in Charlotte. Bailing on Quentin probably means a healthy dose of Alejandro de Aza, at least in the short-term. More than that, though, the Sox would absolutely be selling low on Quentin. The guy hit .288/.394/.571 two seasons ago! There's no way any team is going to offer anybody with greater potential than him. He's still young and not eligible to become a free agent until 2013. I can see him being dealt, but my gut says he stays.

June 4: Cubs @ Astros (Game 54)

2010-06-05T16:04:00.002-05:00

Cubs' MVP: Marlon Byrd, .174 WPA
The Byrdman finished 2-4 with two doubles, one of which knocked in the Cubs' only run in the fifth inning. Byrd's been in a big-time slump lately; he has a .539 OPS and .260 wOBA the last two weeks, and those two doubles he hit were the first extra-base hits for Byrd since May 16. He also has three walks since May 4. Naturally, Lou batted him leadoff last night. It's a way of life.

Astros' MVP: Felipe Paulino, .281 WPA (.333 pitching)
Paulino got his first win of the season last night after starting the year 0-7. In fact, in eleven starts this season Paulino has received a whopping sixteen runs of support, which for the Cubs is a solid offensive month. Paulino's peripherals, even traditional ones, indicate that he's been an OK pitcher: ERA of just 4.01, K/9 over 8, a FIP of 3.41 (but an xFIP of 4.46 due to his 2.8% HR/FB ratio, well below his career rate of 12.7%). Paulino had to get a win sometime, he might as well do it against the Cubs.

Cubs' LVP: Ryan Theriot, -.188 WPA
I don't know if words can describe how much I want Ryan Theriot off this team. I mentioned how Marlon Byrd has been slumping as of late. He looks like Honus Fucking Wagner compared to Theriot. Theriot's last thirty days: .213 OBP (zero walks, none since May 1), .196 SLG (zero extra base hits, none since May 4), and a .198 wOBA (Ryan Dempster's in that same time period is .217).

Theriot continued his ways of fail last night with an 0-4 night, which included his failure to drive in any runs in the third inning with men on second and third and just one out.

Astros' LVP: Pedro Feliz, -.096 WPA
Feliz went 1-4 in the game but ended two innings with the bases loaded.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
Jeff Keppinger hits and RBI single in the bottom of the fifth to give Houston the 2-1 lead. (.125 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game:
Ryan Theriot pops out with runners on second and third and one out in the third inning. (-.092 WPA)

It was over when...
Kosuke Fukudome led off the ninth inning with a groundout.

Bush League Play of the Year (so far)

Is Houston Mentally Prepared for Z?

2010-06-03T15:02:00.003-05:00

When Hurricane Ike rolled through the Houston area in September of 2008, their series with the Cubs was moved to Milwaukee to avoid the natural disaster. In the first game of the series, Z tossed a no-hitter. It was an incredible performance that punctuated the unforgettable 2008 regular season for Cubs fans.

The Astros handled it gracefully, humbly recognizing that the hardships of traveling one extra series over a 162 game season was peanuts compared to the hardships of Houston residents who had no Miller Park to flee to.

One might think that a feat as significant as a no-hitter would be void from scrutiny. But the lack of mental preparedness from the Astros has placed an asterisk on Z's achievement. Even the Chicago sports media (impartial friend of Carlos Zambrano) agreed:

As if to underscore that fact, Zambrano threw a no-hitter upon returning from an 11-day layoff caused by a mysterious shoulder problem last September. Never mind that he shut down an exhausted Houston Astros team that was escaping Hurricane Ike and playing a supposed home game in Cubs-friendly Miller Park.

That was from Sun-Times columnist Carol Slezak, almost a year after the performance in question.

Flash forward a year and a half, and the Cubs and Astros are playing once again amidst catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, and once again facing Carlos Zambrano, this time in his highly anticipated return to the starting rotation.

Sure, the slick of 39 million gallons of oil (and counting) isn't anywhere near the Houston shoreline, but it is close enough where if Carlos Zambrano pitches well tomorrow night, we can safely assume it's on the Astros' minds.

We won't know exactly how much the oil spill is bothering them until we see how Zambrano does. So to save columnists everywhere some time, I've compiled a list of headlines for Saturday morning's sports pages, depending on his performance.

W, 9 IP/0 ER/0 H/8 K/3 BB:
Zambrano tosses second questionable no-no against distraught club
Failure of 'top kill' leaves Astros mentally unprepared

W, 8 IP/2 ER/4 H/5 K/3 BB:
Z feasts on easy target
Carlos thinks of himself while Houston thinks of the marshlands

W, 7.2 IP./1 ER/4 H/10 K/2 BB:
Heavy minds equal heavy bats
Zambrano K's ten troubled 'Stros

L, 7.2 IP./1 ER/3 H/10 K/2 BB:
Back to the pen?
Zambrano fails in return against Houston

ND, 5 IP/3 ER/6 H/6 K/4 BB
BP can't stop oil, Big Z can't stop losing streak
Cubs non-ace tosses a junk shot of a game

L, 3.2 IP/7 ER/8 H/2 K/2 BB
Houston, we still have a problem
Same old Zambrano can't even beat woeful Astros

"I know it's easy for your mind to wander..."

2010-06-03T11:55:00.001-05:00

June 1: Cubs @ Pirates (Game 53)

2010-06-02T12:39:00.003-05:00

Cubs' MVP: Xavier Nady, .237 WPA
I wrote yesterday that Xavier Nady's batted ball numbers indicated that he was the unluckiest hitter on the team thus far. Nady had been hitting line drives 28% of the time with a minimal number of pop-ups, but was only batting at a .222 clip.

Well, that changed yesterday, as Nady had his finest offensive game as a Cub: four hits, including a double and a deep two-run home run to open up the scoring.

Pirates' MVP: Neil Walker, .449 WPA
The Great Neil Walker delivered the deciding blow of the game, hitting a two-run homer off Ted Lilly in the bottom of the eighth, his first career home run. Walker is a former first round draft pick back in 2004, and his journey through the minor league ranks was recently charted in a Rotographs article by David Golebiewski. He's dropped off in the last few years, but playing the Cubs tends to bring out the best in people. He looks to be a super-utility player, as he's spent a decent amount of time at nearly every position in the minor leagues. The Pirates hope they have a future Ben Zobrist type player on their hands, or perhaps (OMG) Mark DeRosa.

Cubs' LVP: Ted Lilly, -.231 WPA (-.182 pitching)
Lilly was cruising along in this one until the eighth inning, when he walked Andrew McCutcheon with one out. The next batter was the aforementioned Neil Walker, who homered to one of the deepest areas of the park. Just for fun, Lilly stayed in the game for the next two batters, walking one of them, before Carlos Marmol came in and did what he does best: strike MFers out. Lilly ended up pitching 7.2 innings, striking out six, walking four, and surrendering two home runs (the other to Garrett Jones, who has officially achieved Cub Killer status).

I said I'd keep an eye on Ted Lilly's velocity because it's been down for a good portion of this year. Brooks has his fastball and sinker averaging around 85 mph, which is right about where he's been all season. However, Lilly's velocity was peaking last night towards the end of the game, which is an encouraging sign. Just take a look at pitch speed charts from his last two starts:

5/27 against LA:

6/1 against PIT:

So there was still some gas left in the tank towards the end of the game this time around, though he wasn't throwing those pitches for strikes. Something to keep an eye on.

Pirates' LVP: Ronny Cedeno, -.158 WPA
Cedeno went 0-3 with a strikeout and grounded into a double play to end the seventh inning.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
Walker's home run. (.548 WPA)

Biggest Out(s) of the Game:
Cedeno's double play in the seventh. (-.113 WPA)

It was over when*:
Marlon Byrd struck out leading off the ninth inning. (Pirate's Win Probability: 96.4%)

*Play in which the result allowed the eventual winning team's victory probability to surpass 95%, and stay above that mark for the remainder of the game

Today's Reason to be Excited About Starlin Castro:

Toying with BABIP

2010-06-01T16:47:00.001-05:00

People always cite BABIP as a means of easily telling how lucky or unlucky a hitter has been. .300 is generally accepted as the average to which most (if not all) hitters regress with their BABIP. If you're over .300, you're lucky. If you're under .300 you're unlucky. Clear as day.

Quite frankly, it's an easy way to sound smart when talking about baseball. You're acknowledging that luck can play a large part in skewing a player's stats one way or another.

But not all BABIPs are created equal. For example, this season, Dan Uggla has a BABIP of .302. Pretty average. But he's only hitting line drives at rate of 10.1%, well below the league average of around 18-19%. So his average BABIP is in fact, pretty lucky. Contrast that with a guy like Derrek Lee, who has a below average BABIP of .275 but is hitting line drives at 23%.

I've always said you can't look at BABIP and draw accurate conclusions unless you couple it with line drive percentages. The same goes for judging the luck of pitchers.

There was discussion on the 126th best Cubs blog today about what Aramis Ramirez's woeful batting lines would look like if you regressed his BABIP and batted ball percentages to the average. Harry Pavlidis, Lord of the Internets, was quick to point out that regressing hitter's power numbers to the mean may not be the best idea because unlike pitchers, that's an individual skill.

I would tend to agree. But there's no reason to think that something as simple as batting average couldn't be normalized by taking a deeper look at BABIP and LD%.

The standard I've always heard to calculate expected BABIP (xBABIP) is LD% + .120. I've never completely comprehended the thinking behind that, but I'm sure someone much smarter than me came up with it. So we'll use that.

I also came across what I think is a better system on the Twins' blog Twinkie Town this afternoon. Essentially, you multiply the batted ball type (line drive, ground ball, flyout, pop fly) by the percentage that those batted balls typically fall for hits. The calculation for this expected BABIP, which we'll call eBABIP to avoid confusion is then as follows: (LD% * 0.720 + GB% * 0.231 + FB% * .171 + PF% * 0.019)

Using both of these methods, we'll take the average and find a new BABIP (nBABIP) that might be more representative because they're based on what types of batted balls the players are hitting.

With a new BABIP, we can calculate the new number of hits that player should have, based on the number of balls they put in play (not counting strikeouts, walks, or home runs, but adding in sacrifice flys). By adding home runs and strikeouts back into the equation, we can get a new batting average (nAVG), a number that we can use to easily compare how lucky or unlucky a batter has been in terms of not getting out when they hit the ball.

I've also included dBABIP and dAVG to represent the difference between the current numbers and my adjusted numbers.

Using these numbers, you can see that Xavier Nady has been the unluckiest hitter on the team. He's batting .222 on the season but in a normalized situation he should be batting .313, 91 points higher.

It should be noted that Nady only has 72 at bats on the season, so these numbers aren't as reliable as other regulars on the team. The more at bats a player gets, the more representative his batted ball percentages will be, and the more accurate these adjusted numbers become. Take note of the aforementioned Derrek Lee, who by these calculations should be batting near .280.

The luckiest hitter so far for the Cubs has been Marlon Byrd, who's .299 average drops to .268 when we normalize his batted balls. Kosuke and Starlin Castro appear to have been lucky in the early going this season as well.

I'm not going to bother trying to normalize these player's power numbers, or try to adjust using UZR or park or anything like that. This exercise is purely looking at batting average, admittedly a flawed stat. This is something I'm going to try and update throughout the season. We'll see how these numbers change as the season goes on.

Memorial Day Mega Recap

2010-05-31T20:17:00.001-05:00

I'll be completely honest: I saw very little, if any Cubs' baseball this holiday weekend. Apparently, that was a good idea. I'm going to try and blow through this recap quickly before the Blackhawks game starts.

5/29: Cubs 5, Cardinals 0

Cubs' MVP: Carlos Silva, .315 WPA (.343 pitching)
Silva was flat-out dominant on Saturday afternoon, pitching seven shutout innings and allowing only two baserunners the entire game. He also rung up eleven Cardinals, a career high for the portly right-hander with a career 3.90 K/9. He even struck out Albert Pujols. Seriously.

Silva's sinker was superb. He threw it 50 times, 34 for strikes. The win dropped Silva's FIP and xFIP down to 3.80 and 3.86, respectively.

Cardinals' MVP: Brendan Ryan (.034 WPA)
This is a perfect demonstration of how dominant Silva and the Cubs were Saturday: Brendan Ryan improved his team's odds of winning by 3.4 percent...and that was the best on the team.

I'm not even going to bother writing up the LVPs of this game (Adam Ottovino and Derrek Lee, if you're keeping track at home) because quite frankly they didn't matter at all.

5/30: Cardinals 9, Cubs 1

Cubs' MVP: Alfonso Soriano, .129 WPA
Soriano's team-leading 10th game MVP was one of the lone highlights for the Cubs on Sunday. Soriano had a walk and a double in the fourth that put the Cubs right back into the game.

Cardinals' MVP: Albert Pujols, .276 WPA
Pujols officially came out of his "slump" belting three home runs, walking twice (one intentional), and driving in four. The one in the fifth inning went a True Distance of 446 feet according to HitTracker, the longest home run hit at Wrigley this season by someone other than Marlon Byrd. His shot in the first onto Waveland measured at 441 feet. An honorary mention goes to Adam Wainright, who compiled a .251 WPA (.313 on the mound) by pitching seven innings of one run ball.

Cubs' LVP: Starlin Castro, -.232 WPA
Castro had the worst game of any Cub despite going 2-3. He singled in the second inning, but Aramis Ramirez was cut down at the plate (-.048 WPA). Hardly his fault. But his double play with the bases loaded that ended the fourth inning essentially ended any chance the Cubs had of winning this game. That, and when Albert Pujols safely arrived at Wrigley Field. The .232 WPA is the third worst game performance for a Cubs' hitter this season.

Cardinals' LVP: Jonathan Jay, -.065
I'll be totally honest, I had never heard of Jonathan Jay before this game and I'm still not quite sure who he is. Jay went 1-5 with two strikeouts.

5/31: Pirates 2, Cubs 1

Cubs' MVP: Randy Wells, .290 WPA (.301 pitching)
Wells pitched an excellent game today, bouncing back from his woeful start three days ago. On Friday (albeit just sixteen pitches) Wells was tossing up batting practice pitches with very little movement:

Wells had significantly better location and movement in Pittsburgh today, and better results followed.

Wells only lasted five innings but was in line for the all important win before the bullpen surrendered the lead.

Pirates' MVP: Bobby Crosby, .276 WPA
Crosby had the biggest hit of the game, a two-out pinch hit RBI single in the eighth that was the difference in the game.

Props to the unhittable Ross Ohlendorf, who compiled a .278 WPA on the mound this afternoon. On the season, Ohlendorf is sporting an impressive 6.23 xFIP and a stellar 6.57 BB/9 ratio. Here's something else you may not have known: when batters swing at Ross Ohlendorf's pitches inside the strike zone, they make contact 95.8% of the time (Z-Contact%). That is the worst percentage of all NL pitchers with a minimum 20 IP.

So he walks almost seven batters per nine innings, and his stuff is hittable. Naturally, he threw seven innings of three-hit ball, walking only two, and struck out six. It's a way of life.

Cubs' LVP: Sean Marshall, -.259 WPA
Marshall gave up the aforementioned hit to Crosby, which turned out to be the game-winner. Kudos to Aramis Ramirez, who had another 0-fer today with two strikeouts (-.170 WPA).

Pirates' LVP: ~~Andy LaRoche, -.161 WPA~~
I can't in good conscience give LaRoche an LVP Award. While he had a poor game at the plate, going 0-3 and ending two innings with runners in scoring position, LaRoche made an incredible defensive play in the eighth inning to keep the game tied, which was the third act in another installment of "How Can We Not Score With a Man In Scoring Position And Zero Outs?"

I Heart Starlin Castro

2010-05-30T10:34:00.001-05:00

It's a holiday weekend. I'll have more of a write-up for the remainder of the Cards series later, but I just want to share this with everybody:

Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone.

May 28: Cardinals @ Cubs (Game 48)

2010-05-29T11:41:00.001-05:00

As always, data from Fangraphs

I'm just going to go ahead and keep this one pretty short, because there's just not that much to say about this game. You can see on the graph it was pretty much over before the Cardinals made their first out.

Cubs' MVP: Carlos Zambrano
After Randy Wells and his infinite ERA were pulled six batters into the game, the Cubs' move of Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen was finally validated. Zambrano entered and immediately stopped the bleeding by pitching six innings and saving the bullpen from a potential disaster. Otherwise, the Cubs might have emptied their entire bullpen in a meaningless effort and jeopardized their status for the rest of the series. The long relief appearance also allowed Zambrano to stretch his arm out further and get him that much closer to rejoining the starting rotation. Wells' outing was disappointing, no doubt, but for once having a solid, durable starting pitcher with a fresh arm in the pen paid off for the Cubs.

*Cue the flash-sideways noise from LOST *

In the real world, Carlos Zambrano threw one fucking inning, and the Cubs used five different relievers to get the completely inconsequential 27 outs that were required before they could stop playing this baseball game. James Russell threw four scoreless innings of relief, allowing only three baserunners. I guess he's the MVP. (.086 WPA)

Cardinals' MVP: Chris Carpenter (.151 WPA; .176 pitching)
Carpenter woke up yesterday morning in his Chicago hotel room and already had a five run lead. He would go on to pitch 6.2 innings, striking out five and giving up just one run, a solo home run to Tyler Colvin.

Cubs' LVP: Randy Wells (-.400 WPA)
Six batters, six hits, five runs. See for yourself:

Cardinals' LVP: Kyle McClellan (-.084 WPA)
Whatever.

What's Wrong With Geo?

2010-05-28T12:44:00.000-05:00

On May 15 against the Pirates at Wrigley Field, Geovany Soto singled in the third inning off Paul Maholm.

Two days ago, on May 26, Geo hit a line drive to left field for a pinch hit single in the bottom of the eighth.

In between these two events, Geo went 27 plate appearances without a hit, drawing six walks.

What has happened to the Cubs' catcher over the last two weeks? Should we be worried? Soto is still sporting an excellent .811 OPS and .374 wOBA, but those are numbers that have plummeted in recent times. There are lot of Cub fans who are terrified that after his unreal April, Soto is reverting back to his awful 2009 self.

Let's take a look at some of the numbers to try and determine if this is just a dry spell or something to really fear. I'm going to break down the relevant stats into three groups: April, May, and the last two weeks. All the numbers come from Fangraphs.

Batting (April/May/2 Weeks)

OBP: .500 / .329 / .250

wOBA: .458 / .293 / .193

BABIP: .385 / .238 / .158

LD%: 33.3 / 16.3 / 21.1

IFFB%: 8.3 / 17.6 / 50.0

While Soto's May has been pretty bad overall, he's been pretty unlucky as of late. I wouldn't expect a line drive rate of 21% to continue delivering a .158 BABIP. What is concerning though is his rapidly inflating infield fly ball numbers. The last two weeks, half of Soto's fly balls haven't reached the outfield. It makes that extremely low BABIP a little more understandable.

What's the root cause of that plummeting OBP? Let's take a look at some of Soto's plate discipline numbers.

Plate Discipline

BB%: 24.3 / 17.8 / 16.7

K%: 20.8 / 28.3 / 36.7
Swing%: 29.3 / 40.0 / 39.7

Contact%: 77.9 / 78.5 / 76.8

Zone%: 42.9 / 50.0 / 46.8

His walk rate has dropped by a third while his strikeout rate has exploded. Also of note is Soto's zone percentage; in April Soto was only getting pitches in the strike zone 43% of the time. He responded by only swinging at 29% of pitches, one of the lowest rates in all of baseball. Now he sees strikes closer to 50% of the time and in turn is swinging the bat more.

So Soto has been making overall contact at pretty much the same rate all season, but has been swinging at more pitches in the last month. It's possible that pitchers have been instructed to pound the zone on Soto since he started the year as one of the least aggressive hitters in the game. Let's take a closer look and see exactly what Soto swings at inside (z) and outside (o) the zone:

Expanded Plate Discipline

O-Swing%: 11.9 / 14.5 / 17.3

Z-Swing%: 52.4 / 65.5 / 65.2

O-Contact%: 35.0 / 52.4 / 53.9

Z-Contact%: 90.9 / 84.2 / 83.7

The glaring number here is Soto's O-Contact%, which has risen a substantial amount since his red-hot April. Soto is both swinging at and hitting more pitches outside of the strike zone. I don't have the numbers for this in front of me, but I would imagine he is fouling off a lot of pitches that he used to be taking for balls. Perhaps more glaring, though, is the fact that Soto is swinging at 13% more pitches in the strike zone yet making less contact with them. All of these numbers display how Soto has become a much less disciplined hitter, specifically over his slump the last two weeks. He's swinging much more than he used to and getting an extremely high amount of strikeouts and infield flies as a result.

We've seen pitchers are throwing Soto more strikes. Why is he not hitting pitches in the strike zone at the same rate?

Pitch Types
FB%: 59.1 / 43.0 / 36.1

SL%: 16.0 / 25.6 / 27.8

CT%: 5.3 / 8.5 / 8.3

CB%: 9.0 / 10.9 / 16.0

CH%: 10.6 / 10.9 / 11.8

Soto has seen a fewer percentage of fastballs than any other player on the team the last two weeks. He's also seeing the most sliders.

What has Soto been doing with the pitches thrown to him in terms of run value? The numbers here represent the number of runs above or below average for pitches of that type.

Pitch Value

FB: 5.3 / 1.1 / -0.9

SL: 1.1 / -3.1 / -2.5

CT: 1.1 / 0.1 / -0.8

CB: 1.2 / 1.5 / 1.5

CH: -1.1 / -1.2 / -1.2

Soto murdered the fastballs he actually swung at in April; he's done very little with the limited amount he's seeing now. And it makes sense that he's seeing more and more sliders, because he hasn't been good at hitting them. Soto didn't do much with sliders in 2009 either, as he was 3.39 runs below average/100 sliders when he was seeing them about 23% of the time. I'm actually kind of surprised it took so long for pitchers to revert back to the off speed stuff.

So what is wrong with Soto?

In my estimation, Soto received a large amount of fastballs to start the season for a hitter of his caliber, and responded with a near perfect approach at the plate. He was extremely patient and almost never expanded the strike zone. On the rare occasions when he did swing, he was mashing. I don't think anyone expected Soto to continue to rake at his April 33.3% line drive rate, but the fact that he was also walking nearly 1/4th of the time showed how well Geo was seeing the ball.

Since his torrid start, he's been seeing a LOT more off-speed pitches and the results haven't been pretty. Over the last two weeks only Ryan Howard has seen a lesser percentage of fastballs than Soto (31.6%, minimum 30 PA). He's now swinging more at bad pitches, swinging and missing at more pitches in the zone, and either striking out or making too much weak contact (infield fly balls).

If pitchers are going to refuse to throw Soto fastballs, then he has to refuse to swing at pitches outside of the strike zone. Otherwise, it's a recipe for disaster. As I pointed out before, he's been a bit unlucky lately with balls in play. He's still hitting a decent amount of line drives. But if he doesn't reclaim some of the patience at the plate that made him one of baseball's top hitters in April, it won't really matter. I don't care how unlucky you are, if you're striking out over 1/3 of the time your approach simply has to change.

May 27: Dodgers @ Cubs (Game 47)

2010-05-28T10:10:00.001-05:00

Cubs' MVP: Ted Lilly (.396 WPA, .448 pitching)
Lilly threw seven really strong innings today. The Dodgers loaded the bases in the fifth with two outs, and really had no other legitimate chances to plate any runs beyond that. Lilly allowed only three hits, walked three more, and struck out five. His .448 WPA pitching performance is the second best by a Cubs' starter this season, trailing only Ryan Dempster's stellar performance against the Dodgers two nights ago.

So results aside, the question was asked by a commenter (can't remember who) at the 126th best Cubs' blog of whether or not Lilly's decreased velocity this season is of concern. Fangraphs has his fastball averaging 85.9 MPH so far this season, down almost two full miles per hour from his career average. How did his start fare today? From Brooks Baseball:

Lilly threw 23 fastballs at an average of 85.54 MPH, which is right at his season average. His slider sat around 79-80, also right at his slightly-down season average. Lilly also threw 54 changeups averaging 80.13 MPH, which is above the norm for him.

Lilly traditionally is a slow starter in terms of his velocity, and with the missed time from his shoulder injury he may still be in spring training mode. Still, this already being his seventh start, it might be something to keep an eye on.

Dodgers' MVP: John Ely (.079 WPA, .155 pitching)

The 24-year old former White Sox draft pick threw a pretty good game himself, giving up one earned run in 7.1 innings. He struck out four, walked two, and gave up only four hits. On the season Ely has a superb 1.81 FIP along with a 3.23 xFIP. He's been striking out nearly eight batters per nine innings, has only six walks in 40 innings, and has already been worth 1.4 WAR. His changeup is his money pitch, which he threw 30 times today. Looking at his velocity chart, you can really see the diversity in the speeds of his 3 main pitches:

Ely has been one of the best rookie pitchers in baseball this season.

Cubs' LVP: Geovany Soto (-.127 WPA)
Soto went 0-3 with a strikeout, which came with a runner on third and nobody out in the 8th inning. Since May 15, Soto has one hit, a .193 wOBA and an OPS of .350. Is it time to start seriously worrying about Geo? This is something I'm going to hopefully look at in detail shortly.

Dodgers' LVP: Xavier Paul (-.206 WPA)
The Other Xavier had a miserable day in the field and at the plate. Paul went 0-4 with a strikeout, and ended the fifth inning on an infield pop-up with the bases loaded. He also has apparently never played in a baseball stadium with walls, as he misplayed two balls in the right field corner in the eighth inning that gave the Cubs the only run of the game.

When you're not even the best outfielder named Xavier on the field, you know you had a bad day.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
Mike Fontenot leads off the eighth with a triple (.217 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game:
Xavier Paul ends the fifth inning with a bases loaded pop-up. (-.096 WPA).

May 26: Dodgers @ Cubs WPA Recap (Game 46)

2010-05-27T13:15:00.000-05:00

Cubs' MVP: ~~Mike Fontenot (.158 WPA)~~ Jeff Baker (.139 WPA)
I normally stick pretty straight with the numbers when handing out the game MVPs, but you know what? Not this time.

Fontenot had a nice offensive game, doubling twice and scoring a run. He also had one of the biggest offensive plays of the game for the Cubs, pulling a Homer Simpson and getting plunked with the bases loaded in the third (.098 WPA). But Fontenot had one of the bigger blunders of the game that's not reflected in WPA: his throwing error in the second inning with two outs allowed Matt Kemp to come to the plate with runners on second and third. Kemp doubled to the left-center gap, giving the Dodgers a 5-0 lead early.

So I'm going to go ahead and give the MVP to Jeff Baker, who JUST missed a pinch hit three-run homer in the bottom of the seventh which gave the Cubs some brief hope. The triple was the biggest hit of the game in terms of WPA. (.139)

Dodgers' MVP: Casey Blake (.146 WPA)
Blake had a solid game offensively, hitting an RBI double in the first inning and adding a solo home run in the eighth. He's turning 37 this year but once again he's having a nice season. He's OPSing .846 with a wOBA of .367, both good for sixth overall amongst National League third basemen. (In case you were wondering, Aramis is dead last in both.) Blake is never really a name people come up with when they're thinking of the league's best third basemen, but he's been rock solid the last three years.

Cubs' LVP: Starlin Castro (-.227 WPA)
Rough night for The Reason (as in "the reason I watch the Cubs"). He came up with the bases loaded and no outs in the third and didn't get a runner home. He also struck out swinging in the seventh with a man on third and one out. In the field, Castro booted a ball for his sixth error of the season.

At least he still does cool stuff like this:

Dodgers' LVP: Ronald Belisario (-.084 WPA)
Belisario gets a tough LVP, as he did get Ryan Theriot to ground into a double play to end the sixth. He gave up a single to Derrek Lee in the seventh before Soriano blooped a shallow double in the vicinity of Manny Ramirez. He then left and would get charged with both of those runs after Jeff Baker tripled them home later in the inning.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
Jeff Baker's triple (.139 WPA)

Biggest Hit of the Game by the Winning Team:
Matt Kemp's ground-rule double (.103 WPA)

Biggest Out(s) of the Game:
With a man on first and one out in the eighth and the Cubs trailing by two, Ryan Theriot grounds into a double play. (-.100 WPA)

Least Direct Route to a Fly Ball:

Andrew Cashner Moving to the Bul - You Know What, I Just Can't Fucking Do This Anymore

2010-05-27T08:38:00.001-05:00

Fail.

Chicago Cubs top pitching prospect Andrew Cashner is so good, he's earned the right to go immediately to the bullpen, bypassing the usual route of earning a multi-million dollar salary and being the team's best starting pitcher for a decade first.

Ahh, The Human Element

2010-05-26T18:30:00.004-05:00

I would imagine all the people who object to instant replay or an automated strike zone in baseball because it removes "the human element" will one day sit their grandkids on their lap and tell them about the amazing show Joe West put on one Wednesday afternoon in Cleveland.

Balk #1

Balk #2, which actually does look like a balk, but with a bonus ejection!

We definitely know that Ozzie Guillen, who was also ejected, sure wasn't a fan of Joe West's human element today:

"He's a f---ing a--hole."

Well put, Oswaldo.

May 25: Dodgers @ Cubs WPA Recap (Game 45)

2010-05-26T11:22:00.004-05:00

I regrettably missed this game, because I love watching Clayton Kershaw pitch. His stuff on some nights can be electric, and he posts both gaudy strikeout numbers and depressing walk numbers (9.28 K/9 in his career, 4.69 BB/9). I've had him on my fantasy team for two years now and it feels like every start he's either giving you 7-8 shutout innings, or pulled after 4.2 innings at 116 pitches. One thing is for sure though: when Kershaw takes the mound, one way or another, you're going to get an entertaining game.

David Golebiewski wrote a pretty good piece on Kershaw's newly developed slider during last year's playoffs. He's throwing it almost 17% of the time this season, up from 9% when he first introduced it a year ago. His new slider has taken time away from his power curveball, whose usage has dropped from 23% in his rookie year to 17% in 2009 to just 9.6% so far this season. He's still walking way too many batters this year (34 in 59 innings), but if Kershaw can use this new pitch to start turning more of those walks into outs, the National League could be in for some trouble in the near future. Very early data this season shows his slider has been his most valuable pitch, 2.24 runs above average per 100 throws.

Anyhoo, on to the recap:

Cubs' MVP: Ryan Dempster (.579 WPA)
Dempster was absolutely marvelous last night, pitching eight shutout innings, striking out seven, and only walking one. Only one Dodger got to second base, and none reached base after the fourth inning. Dempster's .579 WPA is tops for a Cubs' pitcher this season.

On the season, Dempster now sports a 3.30 ERA with a healthy 3.80 FIP and xFIP. For some reason I thought Dempster had been getting burned by home runs at an increased rate this year, but his HR/9 sits at 1.02 and his HR/FB sits at a pretty normal 10.5%. Both of those are just fractions above his career norms. ~~He only has three wins though, so he's not an ace.~~ He's been the Cubs' ace this year, already worth 1.4 WAR.

"Oh hey der, Ryan. Say, can Jonathan borrow your ID so he can go boot

some Molson? Nobody will sell to him with that weak beard of his."

Also, Derrek Lee deserves a big shout-out for one of his finer offensive games of the season: he reached base all four times and drove in all the Cubs' runs.

Dodger's MVP: Clayton Kershaw (.168 WPA)
Good Clayton showed up at Wrigley last night and threw six innings of four hit baseball. He struck out four and only walked two, which might earn him a parade outside Dodger Stadium when the team returns to California. The only run he gave up was unearned, after Ryan Theriot reached base in the sixth on a Rafael Furcal error.

Cubs' LVP: Xavier Nady (-.136 WPA)
Zaveeyay Nady went 0-3, twice ending innings with a runner in scoring position.

Dodgers' LVP: James Loney (-.121 WPA)
Loney ended the first inning by grounding into a fielder's choice with a man on second. Little did we know at the time it would be one of the prime scoring chances of the night for the Dodgers. He also had two flyouts to finish the night 0-3. An honorable mention goes to Rafael Furcal, who had two errors in the game, one of which led to the Cubs' first run of the game.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
With one out in the sixth, Derrek Lee hits an RBI single to center for the game's first run. It was all the Cubs would need. (.136 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game:
With runners on first and third and just one out in a scoreless game, Alfonso Soriano strikes out swinging in the bottom of the fourth (-.080 WPA).

10 Epic Wrigley Home Runs, 1-5

2010-05-24T18:12:00.001-05:00

See 10-6 here

#5 Marlon Byrd
4/30/10 off Kevin Mulvey
True Distance: 463 happy feet

#4 Milton Bradley
5/12/09 off Jake Peavy
True Distance: 464 mercurial feet

#3 Prince Fielder
9/16/08 off Ryan Dempster
True Distance: 465 feet

#2 Adam Dunn
4/16/08 off Kevin Hart
True Distance: 467 feet

#1 Adam Dunn
7/10/08 off Jon Lieber
True Distance: 486 feet

The 10 Most Epic Wrigley Field Home Runs, 2008-Present (10-6)

2010-05-24T18:11:00.002-05:00

Courtesty of Hit Tracker, here are the 10 longest home runs at Wrigley Field since the start of the 2008 season. Why 2008? Because that's the earliest year where I can pull video of the actual home runs, and let's face it, nobody wants to read about really long dingers. People want to see really long dingers.

Hit Tracker uses atmospheric and observational data to determine how far a home run would have gone if its path was unobstructed and landed back at field level. The method to their madness is detailed here.

So nobody has a brain aneurysm from all the gifs, I've split the post into two. Here's 10-6. Follow the link at the bottom for 5-1.

Click on the player's name to see the full video. Click on True Distance to see Hit Tracker's flight representation of the home run.

And away we go:

#10 (tie). Carlos Lee
7/27/09 off Carlos Zambrano
True Distance: 451 feet

Chris Young
10/2/09 off Tom Gorzelanny
True Distance: 451 feet

#9 Alfonso Soriano
5/14/08 off Jake Peavy
True Distance: 453 happy feet

#8 Derrek Lee
7/02/09 off Chris Smith
True Distance: 455 happy feet

#7 Marlon Byrd
April 15, 2010 off Jeff Suppan
True Distance: 457 feet

#6 Lance Berkman
5/16/09 off Kevin Gregg
True Distance: 460 feet

5-1 here

May 22-23, Cubs @ Texas WPA Recaps (Games 43 & 44)

2010-05-24T12:25:00.001-05:00

May 22: Cubs 5, Rangers 4

Cubs' MVP: Randy Wells (.307 WPA)
On Saturday Randy Wells was pretty darn good, pitching into the ninth inning and only allowing three earned runs. He did give up two home runs in the fourth inning but was superb after that, retiring 14 of the last 16 batters he faced. Wells' FIP and xFIP this season stand at a very healthy 3.32 and 3.35, respectively. He's ready for the bullpen.

Rangers' MVP: Nelson Cruz (.196 WPA)
Nelson Cruz continued his beastly season, going 2-3 with an RBI single and a solo home run. This year Cruz has a .478 wOBA and is OPSing 1.154.

True story: at an Iowa Cubs game in 2008, Nelson Cruz hit an opposite field home run directly at my friend Kevin because Kevin told him to. He also wanted Cruz to point directly at him while he was rounding the bases. Cruz didn't point during his home run trot, but he did when he returned to right field in the bottom half of the inning. Later in the game he hit a mammoth home run to left. That one was all his idea though. I swear this happened.

Cubs' LVP: Aramis Ramirez (-.156 WPA)
It's getting to the point where I can almost copy and paste this daily. In the second inning with a man on second and nobody out, Ramirez popped out in foul territory to Justin Smoak. This would be the offensive highlight of Ramirez's day. He struck out in his next four at bats, including in the bottom of the 10th with the bases loaded. If hitting baseballs were sex, Aramis Ramirez has been neutered.

Rangers' LVP: Darren O'Day (-.388 WPA)
Darren O'Day has been a decent reliever for the Rangers this year, with a 1.02 WHIP and a .219 BAA. He was anything but on Saturday, coughing up the lead in the 10th and giving up hits to all three batters he faced.

Biggest Hit of the Game
Tyler Colvin leads off the 10th inning with a double (.169 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game
Sean Marshall strikes out Matt Treanor looking with two men on to end the ninth inning (-.117 WPA)

May 23: Cubs 5, Rangers 4

Cubs' MVP: Sean Marshall (.305 WPA)
Marshall retired Josh Hamilton with the bases loaded to end the seventh inning, then pitched an uneventfuly eighth with two strikeouts to get the ball to Marmol in the ninth.

Rangers' MVP: Michael Young (.270 WPA)
Young supplied most of the Rangers' offense, hitting a two-run home run off Silva in the third then adding an RBI double in the seventh to cut the Cubs' lead to one.

Cubs' LVP: Bob Howry (-.112 WPA)
Gas Can Howry didn't waste much time getting his first LVP as a Cub this season. Nursing a two run lead, he gave up an RBI double to the first batter he faced. He did get a huge out in getting Ian Kinsler to pop up on the infield, but overall Bob Howry did the most to damage the Cubs' chances of winning.

Rangers' LVP: C.J. Wilson (-.255 WPA)
Wilson got knocked around a bit, giving up five runs and allowing 10 baserunners in 5.2 innings.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
Michael Young's double off Bob Howry

Biggest Out of the Game:
Ian Kinsler's pop out in the next at-bat.

May 21: Cubs @ Rangers WPA Recap (Game 43)

2010-05-22T12:07:00.001-05:00

Cubs' MVP: Tyler Colvin (.136 WPA)
Just in case you were wondering how little of an impact the Cubs' offense had on this game, Tyler Colvin was the only player on the team to post a positive WPA at the plate, and that's probably because he didn't get multiple at bats to screw up. In his only plate appearance Colvin ripped a one out double in the top of the ninth to give the Cubs, for a second day in a row, a decent chance to tie the score in the final frame. But for the second day in a row, that just didn't happen.

Fun fact: In the last seven days, Colvin has the team's worst contact percentage at 58.8, but a 50.0 LD% and .625 BABIP. He's swinging and missing a lot, but when he hits the ball he's really whacking it.

Rangers' MVP: Colby Lewis (.261 WPA)
Colby Lewis continues to impress in his second stint with the Rangers. His slider was a big reason the Cubs' offense remained impotent for most of the night, as he only allowed one run and five hits over six innings, walking three and striking out four. Lewis' FIP stands at a healthy 3.45, and his xFIP doesn't stray too far at 4.01. Lewis has probably been the best starter this season for Texas. C.J. Wilson has been good, and his ERA is prettier, but they have similar FIP, an indentical WHIP (1.15) and Lewis strikes more batters out. Dave Allen at Fangraphs wrote a good piece a few weeks ago regarding his slider.

Cubs' LVP: Kosuke Fukudome (-.183 WPA)
After leading off the game with a walk, Kosuke finished 0-4 last night with a strikeout. He ended the second inning by grounding out with a man in scoring position, then ended the game on an infield pop out, again with the tying run in scoring position.

An honorable mention to the Cubs' infield defense, who did this.

Rangers' LVP: David Murphy (-.085 WPA)
Murphy went 0-4 with four groundouts, two of which came with a man on second.

Biggest Hit of the Game: Tyler Colvin's aforementioned double in the ninth. Yes, a non-run scoring hit for the team that never led the game was the biggest swing of the game in win probability. That probably tells you how boring this game was. (.136 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game: With runners on second and third and two outs in the eighth, Frank Francisco strikes out Mike Fontenot looking. (-.151 WPA)

Our Shortstop Born in the 1990s is Probably Better than Your Shortstop Born in the 1990s

2010-05-21T18:18:00.005-05:00

When top prospect Starlin Castro was called up a few weeks ago, one of the biggest question marks was his plate discipline. Kevin Goldstein, from Baseball Prospectus:

Castro still has some holes in his game, the biggest one being plate discipline. Castro has drawn just two walks this year, and since the beginning of last season, has worked just 31 walks in 136 games. He's a free swinger who needs to learn how to work the count against more advanced pitching. (4/19/2010)

Let's take a very early look at Starlin Castro's plate discipline through his first two weeks as a major league shortstop.

I first thought of taking a deeper look at Castro's swing and contact percentages after seeing this RBI single last week against the Rockies:

Here's Castro's swing percentages for pitches outside (O) and inside (Z) the strike zone this season, with league averages in parentheses:

O-Swing%: 25.6 (27.5)
Z-Swing%: 61.8 (63.6)
Swing%: 43.5 (44.7)

(All data from Fangraphs)

He's certainly not a hacker (or "free swinger") by any means, either inside or outside the strike zone. Contrast him with another Cubs' rookie, Tyler Colvin, who swings at 37% of pitches outside the strike zone. Also of note, the only Cub who swings at less pitches inside the strike zone is Geovany Soto, who quite frankly doesn't swing at anything (33.3 Swing%, 2nd in all of baseball).

So in terms of the pitches he chooses to swing at, Castro is right in line with league averages thus far. How does he fare in making contact with those pitches?

O-Contact%: 90.0 (65.4)
Z-Contact%: 91.5 (88.2)
Contact%: 91.0 (80.9)

The number that obviously stands out is his ridiculous O-Contact rate. Among players with a minimum 50 PA this season, Castro ranks fifth in all of baseball. The average MLB hitter so far this season has made contact 65% of the time when they swing at a ball outside the strike zone. Castro has 90% of the time. His 91% overall contact percentage is tops on the Cubs.

So in his first two weeks in the major leagues, Starlin Castro has been swinging at pitches both inside and outside the zone at a perfectly acceptable rate, but has been making an above-average amount of contact. Has Castro been harmed by making more contact with "bad" pitches? His .405 BABIP, 21.5 LD% and .408 wOBA seemingly say otherwise.

Is Starlin Castro just whacking easy pitches to hit? Not only has he spent nearly all of his two weeks in the majors batting 8th, but only Alfonso Soriano (45.3%) and Jeff Baker (50.5%) have seen fastballs at a lower rate than Castro (51.9%). He also gets sliders 20.9% of the time, highest on the team. So...no, he isn't feasting on simple pitches.

These numbers seem to confirm what a lot of smart people in the Cubs community think: Starlin Castro is just really freaking good at hitting baseballs, and doesn't draw a lot of walks because of it. Perhaps one of the reasons he wasn't taking many free passes at AA is because he was too busy OPSing .990, and hitting the crap out of everything in sight because he can.

The sample size is obviously small here, but the combination of my eyes and my spreadsheets tells me that Starlin Castro, at age 20, is not in any way overwhelmed by major league pitching. Maybe that will change over the season as teams get better scouting reports on him (early numbers show us he struggles with cutters and changeups).

The one area that he obviously can improve in is power*. Castro only has one extra base hit since his ridiculous debut in Cincinnatti. But again, he's freaking 20 years old. He was born five months after the Berlin Wall came down. Let's let that frame build a little. If in five years he has the plate discipline of Luis Castillo but adds some of the power of Miguel Tejada, I'll certainly take it. It'll be more than worth the wait.

*OMG WAT you statf*g did you even watch his debut?

May 20: Angels 6, White Sox 5

2010-05-21T06:15:00.005-05:00

After putting together three really nice starts to open the month of May, Jake Peavy faceplanted last night at the Cell, essentially putting this game out of reach by the 3rd inning following an RBI single by Kendry Morales and sacrifice fly from Hideki Matsui. Peavy is quickly becoming the poster child for the "AL > NL" debate, the guy is just struggling in his first full season in the Junior Circuit. And it's not like he's just been facing a plethora of really, really good teams, he's had two starts a piece against Kansas City and Cleveland who are currently jockeying for that #2 overall pick in the 2011 Draft behind Baltimore, two more against the middle-of-the-road Blue Jays, and now a dud against the Angels, who have been good in recent memory but entered this series struggling as much as the Sox offensively. The only two really above average teams he's faced so far this year have been the Rangers and Rays. And yes, he was terrible in those two games, a combined 10.2 IP, 13 H, 12 BB, 12 K, and a slash line of .295/.446/.432 and ERA of 10.97. It has been a rough year for Jake.

After the game, he told reporters that he felt wholly responsible for last night's loss. So at least we all can agree on that; Peavy was easily the LVP last night, posting a -.271 WPA after his shaky 6 innings of work punctuated by a 2-run Juan Rivera HR in the 6th inning that really put the game away because, as it turned out, the Angels' bullpen needed every one of those runs.

The Sox MVP for the game was A.J. Pierzynski. Pierzynski posted a .131 WPA fueled by a 2-run, ground-rule double in the 8th inning that brought the Sox back within 1. That hit was worth .202 WPA and was, far and away, the biggest of the game. My only complaint: how does Juan Pierre not get awarded home? You're going to tell me that, with two outs, Pierre doesn't score from first if that ball just rattles around in the corner? Please. I'm so jaded about this Sox team, however, that all that call did was probably save us from losing an hour later. May as well save the arms for interleague, we stand a chance to win a few there!

Pierzynski's hit was immediately followed by a fly-out to center from Andruw Jones, worth -.173 WPA and the biggest out of the game. Jones posted a -.214 WPA and was completely ineffective at the plate last night; his only positive at bat occurred in the 1st when he drew a walk, otherwise, the Sox were worse off every time he stepped to the plate. Jones' renaissance was one of the big, positive storylines of the early 2010 season, but over the last few weeks, he's really hit a wall; since May 4, Jones is batting .170/.259/.298. This is especially troubling considering that it was about this deep into last season when Jones' renaissance in Texas fell apart, as FanGraph's Joe Pawlikowski points out.

Sustained Mediocrity: Maybe this happens more often that I realize, but now that we're 40 games into the season I find it very interesting that the Sox have been 4-6 in every 10-game block so far. 4-6 after 10, 8-12 after 20, 12-18 after 30, and now 16-24 after 40. They've been remarkably, consistently mediocre, especially over the past 20 games, which has to be the lamest roller coaster ride ever; since sweeping Seattle at the end of April the Sox have yet to win consecutive games, have only lost consecutive games three times, and haven't lost more than 2 in a row. It's basically been win-loss-win-loss, which, I suppose, makes me confident for tonight's game against Florida.

May 20: Cubs @ Phillies WPA Recap (Game 42)

2010-05-20T18:00:00.003-05:00

As always, stats and graphs from Fangraphs

Cubs' MVP: Mike Fontenot (.330 WPA)
Fontenot didn't exactly light up the box score (two singles, one stolen base, no runs or RsBI) but he racked up the most WPA for the team, and by a pretty wide margin as well. Seems pretty strange Fontenot put the Cubs in a better position to win today than say, Kosuke Fukudome, who hit a game-tying solo home run in the top of the eighth inning (.238 WPA).

What this shows is the massive barrel of FAIL the Cubs opened in the top of the ninth inning. The Phillies had an 82.9% chance of winning when the top of the ninth began. After Soriano got plunked in the first at bat, their win probability dropped to 71.4%. After Fontenot's single put men at first and third with nobody out, it dropped all the way down to 44.7%.

You're reading that correctly. The Cubs were down a run in the bottom of the ninth yet found themselves favored to win the game. Two strikeouts and an infield pop up later, WPA as an entity formally apologized for not properly calculating the effect of the Chicago Cubs batting in favorable situations late in the game.

Phillies' MVP: Jimmy Rollins (.308 WPA)
Rollins only had one hit this afternoon but it was the biggest of the game, a three run homer in the bottom of the sixth with two outs to give Philadelphia a 4-1 lead.

I would also like to point out that Rollins' home run came on a 3-0 fastball, belt-high. My biggest pet peeve in all of baseball is a good hitter taking all the way with a 3-0 count. I have no idea why this is a common practice beyond high school baseball. As a hitter, if you run the count to 3-0 and the pitcher throws you ANYTHING but a fastball right in your wheelhouse, by all means take it. But if you get this:

Swing the f away. And he did.

Cubs' LVP: John Grabow (-.265 WPA)
Grabow continues to inexplicably get placed in high leverage situations. Today he coughed up the lead in the bottom of the eighth inning, walking two before giving up an RBI single to Raul Ibanez.

Phillies' LVP: Antonio Bastardo (-.238 WPA)
The Best Name In All of Baseball opened the eighth inning by giving up a game-tying home run to Kosuke Fukudome, the only batter he would face. (And it's not even April!)

Biggest Hit of the Game
Rollins' home run (.305 WPA)

Biggest Out of the Game
Aramis' Ramirez strikes out on a pitch 16 feet off the plate in the top of the ninth (-.210 WPA). Soto's pop-up to end the game with the tying and go-ahead runs in scoring position earns an honorable mention. (-.206 WPA)

May 19: Angels 3, White Sox 2

2010-05-20T00:27:00.008-05:00

I could have made my first post about the Sox this season yesterday's impressive win over the Tigers, but something about that didn't feel genuine, considering how extraordinarily impotent the Sox have been all year. Thankfully, they returned to form tonight and essentially played a case-study of this woeful season in Wednesday's 3-2 loss to the Angels.

Statistically speaking, Paul Konerko wins tonight's Pick To Click contest, posting a .148 WPA fueled by scoring the team's two runs, the first on a sacrifice fly courtesy of Carlos Quentin in the 2nd inning and the second on an ultimately meaningless solo home run to lead off the 9th. A quick glance at the box score, however, makes a strong case for John Danks, who posted a pedestrian .013 WPA only because his offense so thoroughly failed him (again), as the Sox score 3 or less for the 5th time in 8 starts. Seriously, he is pitching as well as he ever has in his career, and only has a 3-3 record to show for it.

Meanwhile, the White Sox offense hit another new low tonight, getting completely baffled by Joe Saunders. Joe F-ing Saunders. Yes, a guy who entered tonight's game with a .287 BAA, .364 OBPA, and .517 SLGA silenced the Sox bats to a tune of 4 hits and a single run over the course of 7.2 innings of work. As you might expect, there's plenty of blame to go around; Alex Rios gets the distinction of posting the team-low -.268 WPA thanks to an 0-4 night highlighted by an inning-ending fly-out in the 6th leaving the bases loaded while the Sox were still down by 1. Andruw Jones nipped his heels posting a -.229 WPA by also going 0-4 and striking out twice, once as the tying run to end the 8th inning. Alexei Ramirez had the single worst out of the game, the game's final one, a strike-out with the tying run on 2nd base. And who can forget Jayson Nix, who was quiet at the plate (0-3) and only posted a -.097 WPA but really put this game out of reach in the 8th with his brutal defensive play at third, bobbling a grounder and then throwing it to right field. Getting charged with two errors on one play and allowing what was ultimately the winning run to score? Thaaanks!

Sox Biggest Hit of the Game: Konerko's home run off Brian Fuentes to lead-off the 9th.

Failed Opportunities: Despite losing, the Sox actually had 7 of the 10 biggest plays of the game according to WPA, and not just from one inning, they had chances to bust this game open in the 2nd, 6th, 8th, and 9th. The problem: The Angels top 2 plays netted them 3 runs. The Sox top 9 plays only netted them 1.

Sox Biggest Out of the Game: A.J. Pierzynski gunned down Bobby Abreu trying to steal second in the 7th inning, worth -.063 WPA and indicative of Pierzynski's increased ability to limit opponents on the basepaths this year. In the past, A.J. has had all kinds of problems keeping other teams from running on him, but with Abreu and Torii Hunter's CS earlier, that is 16 stolen bases off AJ now in 24 attempts, only a 33.3% CS% but that's nearly in the Top 5 for the whole American League and much better than the usual low-20s, high-teens CS% he was producing for most of his time in Chicago.

May 19: Cubs @ Phillies WPA Recap (Game 41)

2010-05-19T22:17:00.001-05:00

Charts and data from Fangraphs

Cubs' MVP: Tom Gorzelanny (.400 WPA)
Gorzo was ridiculously good tonight, throwing 6.2 innings and only allowing five baserunners. He also struck out five. It was the best individual WPA outing by a Cubs' pitcher this season. He had to leave in the seventh inning after getting nailed by a Carlos Ruiz line drive, but apparently x-rays were negative.

Phillies' MVP: Chase Utley (.101 WPA)
Utley walked and singled late in the game, going 1-3 overall. Honorable mention to The Ageless Wonder Jamie Moyer, who threw a pretty good game (.126 WPA) but nearly negated all of it at the plate by striking out with the bases loaded to end the second inning.

Cubs' LVP: Aramis Ramirez (-.097 WPA)
Aramis' offensive struggles continue with an 0-4 night and two strikeouts.

Phillies' LVP: Jayson Werth (-.234 WPA)
Did not see this one coming. Werth has been one of the best hitters in baseball this season, posting a .452 wOBA up to this point. But tonight, he was more like Jayson Werth-LESS. (Ha!) Werth went 0-4 and ended two innings with runners in scoring position. He also struck out twice.

Biggest Hit of the Game: It's a tie! Xavier Nady's two run single in the ninth and Jeff Baker's RBI single in the seventh were both worth .121 WPA.

Biggest Out of the Game: With two outs and a man on second in the bottom of the eighth, Jayson Werth grounds out to shortstop; -.101 WPA

Most Impressive Throw By A 20 Year Old Shortstop:

May 18: Rockies @ Cubs WPA Recap (Game 40)

2010-05-19T17:50:00.005-05:00

As always, stats and charts from Fangraphs.

Cubs' MVP: James Russell (.167 WPA)
After Esmalin Caridad walked the only batter he faced, Russell pitched a perfect seventh inning, striking out two and preserving the Cubs' 3-2 lead.

Rockies' MVP: Todd Helton (.147 WPA)
Helton hit a two run homer to chase Carlos Silva in the seventh inning. In terms of WPA it was the biggest hit of the game (.161).

Cubs' LVP: Esmalin Caridad (-.070 WPA)
Caridad walked his only batter in the seventh. Not an abysmal performance by any means, but he earned the lowest Cubs' WPA last night.

Rockies' LVP: Seth Smith (-.182)
Smith went 0-4, and also grounded into a double play immediately after Carlos Gonzalez led off the game with a single.

Biggest Hit of the Game For the Team That Actually Won
With nobody out and a man on first, Marlon Byrd singles in the fourth inning for .105 WPA. Whatever.

Worst Out(s) of the Game
In the top of the fourth with a man on first and nobody out, Troy Tulowitzki grounds into a double play. (-.090 WPA).

Play of the Game
This:

The Cubs were in command throughout most of the game. Helton's home run made things interesting, but the Cubs' bullpen shut things down while the offense gave them some breathing room. No, that last sentence was not a typo.

Things That Are Just Weird

2010-05-19T15:59:00.003-05:00

We're starting a new series at Crosstown Cup where we bring attention to certain stats or splits that, for lack of a better term, are just plain weird.

Exhibit A: Marlon Byrd.

Anyone who actually watches baseball games and doesn't spend all their free time with their nose in spreadsheets knows how good Marlon Byrd has been this season. He's batting .340 with 7 home runs and 25 RBI in 39 games.

People who do spend good amounts of time actually watching baseball games AND analyzing spreadsheets have an even better understanding of how good Marlon Byrd has been. His .414 wOBA is seventh best in the National League, although I would like to note that Alfonso Soriano's lazy .423 wOBA is fifth. Even more impressive is Marlon Byrd's 2.2 WAR, trailing only Chase Utley for best in the NL thus far. Byrd signed for three years and $15 million this past offseason. He's played 39 games and already has been worth $9 million.

The combination of his bat and glove have made him a legitimate MVP candidate so far in 2010. That being said, he has been incredibly lucky at the plate as of late. According to Fangraphs, the last seven days Byrd has posted a team high .412 BABIP (minimum 10 PA). The Byrdman continues to rake, right?

During the same time span, Byrd has a team low LD% of just 5.6%. Apparently when Marlon Byrd hits a ground ball, it's harder to track down than a greased-up chicken on roller skates.

I realize it's an incredibly small sample, but even in the span of a week: team low LD%, team high BABIP. That's just weird.

May 17: Rockies @ Cubs WPA Recap (Game 39)

2010-05-18T15:51:00.008-05:00

Cubs' MVP: Aramis Ramirez (.311 WPA)
Ramirez started the run-scoring with a two out RBI single in the first. The big knock, of course, was his two run walk-off home run in the bottom of the 11th (.363 WPA). Ramirez made a lot of solid contact this game, and earned his first Game MVP of the season. Hopefully there will be more.

The Cubs' pitching staff not named John Grabow also deserves a big thumbs up in this game. Randy Wells was fantastic (.333 WPA) and would have earned MVP status if we don't factor in his hitting. Sean Marshall and Carlos Marmol compiled .511 WPA with 3.2 scoreless innings in relief.

Rockies' MVP: Todd Helton (.186 WPA)
Helton had a solid day at the plate, reaching base four times.

Cubs' LVP: Derrek Lee (-.277 WPA)
Lee was so bad at the plate yesterday that by the end of the game Lou should have seriously considered telling him to not even bring a bat to the plate. Lee struck out swinging with a man on 2nd in the first, grounded into inning-ending double plays in the third and the fifth, struck out again in the 8th, then made another out in the 11th (albeit a line-out) just before A-Ram's heroics. Five at-bats, seven outs. Yikes.

Rockies' LVP: Ian Stewart (-.473)
Ian Stewart was also allergic to baserunners last night, and was so bad he made Derrek Lee look like Mickey Mantle. In the fourth inning with one out, he struck out with the bases loaded. Then in the eighth he grounded into an inning ending double play, again with the bases loaded. He finished 0-5.

Biggest Hit of the Game:
Aramis' walkoff (.363 WPA)

Worst Out of the Game:
Stewart's double play in the 8th (-.287 WPA)

Big-Time Play That Easily Gets Lost In The Box Score:
In the top of the eighth, with men on first and second and nobody out and the Cubs clinging to a 2-1 lead, Marlon Byrd makes a terrific diving grab on a low liner from Troy Tulowitzki (.123 WPA).

Andrew Cashner Round 2

2010-05-18T14:04:00.001-05:00

Gameday

FIRST INNING

1) Line drive single to center field
2) Line drive to second base, caught, double play
3) Groundout to third on a 2-0 pitch
10 pitches, 6 strikes

SECOND INNING

1) Ryan Roberts pops out to second base "softly"
2) Flyout to right field
3) On a 3-1 pitch, Chris Rahl lines out to right field
12 pitches, 6 strikes

THIRD INNING

1) Ground ball single up the middle
2) Force out at second base
3) Another force out at second base
4) After a wild pitch (pitch #2), a harmless fly out ends the inning
12 pitches, 9 strikes

FOURTH INNING

1) Throwing error by Chad Tracy after an 0-2 pitch
2) Doug Deeds walks on six pitches. During the at bat, Pedro Ciaraco steals second.
3) Cashner gets a 1-6-3 double play on a 1-1 pitch
4) One pitch, 6-3 groundout. Reno has stranded a RISP the last two innings.
13 pitches, 8 strikes

FIFTH INNING

1) Chris Rahl leads off the inning with a ground ball double to left
2) Cashner's first strike out of the game (swinging). Beef Castle turns it into a double play by throwing out Rahl attempting to steal at third.
3) Flyout to left field on two pitches.
9 pitches, 6 strikes

Iowa then sends nine men to the plate in the top of the sixth, so Cashner has a long delay in the dugout.

SIXTH INNING

1) Two pitches, groundout to third
2) Single to right field
3) Infield single on a ball hit to Darwin Barney, who then gets charged with a throwing error allowing Drew Macias to advance to third
4) On the first pitch, Doug Deeds lines a single to right field, scoring a run
5) After going 2-0, Cashner gets a popup in foul territory on the infield
6) Flyout to left, ending Cashner's night
14 pitches, 9 strikes

TOTALS
6.0 IP, 1 R, 6 H, 1 K, 1 BB
70 pitches, 44 strikes

In terms of efficiency, this start was almost identical to his last start, just quicker. That happens when you get timely double plays and batters out without lengthy strikeouts.

In his last start, Cashner threw 56 of 89 pitches for strikes (63%). Last night, Cashner threw 44 of 70 pitches for strikes (63%).

Last week, Cashner threw first pitch strikes to 11 of 23 batters. Last night, Cashner threw first pitch strikes to 11 of 23 batters.

So while Cashner still seems to have slight difficulty getting ahead of hitters on the first pitch, he improved greatly on the second pitch. I noted last week that Cashner went 2-0 to seven different hitters in his AAA debut. He dropped that number to three this time around. In fact, Cashner only reached three balls in the count three times in the whole game.

The strikeout numbers obviously went down, but Cashner's outing was probably even better than the last. Reno was aggressive last night, swinging at over half of Cashner's pitches (36 of 70). You get the idea they weren't going to wait around and let him compile big K numbers as he's been doing all season. Again, without pitch f/x data I have no idea what to make of his velocity or movement, but the fact of the matter is Cashner continues to pound the zone and just get hitters out.

May 14: Pirates @ Cubs WPA Recap (Game 36)

2010-05-14T17:17:00.006-05:00

Charts and data from Fangraphs

Cubs MVP: Alfonso Soriano (.133 WPA)
Soriano's two-out "double" in the first scored two runs and tied the game at 3. It would stand as the biggest hit of the game for the Cubs, worth .170 WPA.

Pirates MVP: Garrett Jones (.473 WPA)
Jones was a force at the plate today, compiling five hits and driving in five runs, including the go-ahead three run home run in the top of the eighth. Honorable mention has to go to Andrew McCutcheon, who reached base six times and hit a home run of his own. McCutcheon accumulated .371 WPA.

Cubs LVP: Carlos Zambrano (-.412 WPA)
This one's a no-brainer, as Zambrano surrendered the lead in the top of the 8th inning, giving up three runs on four hits.

Pirates LVP: Brian Burres (-.402 WPA)
Just over a week ago, Burres shut the Cubs out for seven innings in a winning effort in Pittsburgh. Today, he fared much worse, giving up five earned runs in four innings. The Cubs made solid contact throughout the day, including Marlon Byrd's solo home run in the fourth inning.

Biggest Hit of the Game
With two on and nobody out in the top of the eighth, Garrett Jones takes Big Z deep and gives the Pirates a late three run lead (.262 WPA).

Worst Out of the Game
After leading off the bottom of the sixth with a single, Mike Fontenot is picked off first base when fellow Cajun Ryan Theriot can't get a sac bunt down (-.084 WPA)

By looking at the graph above, it's easy to see that after a wild first inning, this was a game that was completely up for grabs until Zambrano's disastrous eighth. Gorzellany (-.216 WPA pitching) gave up three runs in the first, but when you're a starter you've got the opportunity to bounce back and try to redeem yourself. Bullpen pitchers don't have that luxury, and it's something Zambrano will probably learn pretty quickly when the newspapers call for his outright release tomorrow morning.

Updated Cubs WPA Game MVP Leaderboard:

The Wrigley Field Bleachers: Evolution of a Zoo

2010-05-13T21:06:00.004-05:00

Today a prominent Cubs blogger put up a large front page post regarding the zoo that is the Wrigley Field bleachers. He offers some advice to the new Cubs' management on ways to fix the out-of-control outfield seating area, mainly focusing on increasing security presence, reducing overall alcohol sales, and ending discount ticket pricing for college students.

(You did read that last one correctly, he really does want to make sure those pesky college kids have to pay the full $25 for a bleacher ticket instead of $17. That'll show 'em! If there's one thing college kids are known for, it's making wise financial decisions regarding alcohol consumption.)

The gist of the article can be summarized with this:

It's not a party. It's a baseball game, and most of us are there to watch the baseball game. We should not have our afternoon or evening ruined by drunks who, essentially, are paying a $40 or $50 cover charge to sit in bleacher seats (or worse, stand and block everyone's view) and drink until they are plastered.

Yeah! It's not a party! It's a baseball game! The stealthy transition of the Bud Light Bleachers into a lewd and debaucherous fraternity atmosphere may have slipped past some of you, but not everyone.

We all know that as of August 15, 2009, there were no widespread problems in the Wrigley Field bleachers. Why? Because the same prominent Cubs blogger told us so:

(Names and faces have been blurred to protect the ignorant)

But things have changed. It is no longer August of 2009. It's May of 2010. The world has changed. There was an earthquake in Haiti. Google pulled out of China. We know who Jacob from LOST is, kind of. And the days of family fun in the Wrigley Field bleachers are over. We've gone from this:

to this:

A freaking zoo, people! I only wish we could go back to that innocent time back in August of 2009, just days after lovable bleacher bum Johhny Macchione kindly offered to share an Old Style with Shane Victorino. But that's a Friendly Confines that just doesn't exist anymore. Wake up, everyone. Times have changed. That was a whole 39 home games ago.

So thank you, anonymous Cubs blogger, for having the courage to stand up to these animals who have invaded Wrigley Field since the end of last season. They caught us all off guard. You wouldn't know this if you're not there every single day, but a lot can change in nine months.

Cashner AAA Recap

2010-05-13T11:04:00.000-05:00

Andrew Cashner pitched six strong innings last night in his AAA debut. He allowed one earned run, struck out six, and only walked one batter. Most importantly, he got the win. Ace!

Let's take a look at the batters he faced, inning by inning, via Gameday.

FIRST INNING

1) Cashner goes 2-0 on every Cub fan's wet dream (a Hoffpauir that plays middle infield) before getting the infield pop up.
2) First pitch infield pop up.
3) Cashner misses with his first two, then runs the count full before getting Brett Wallace to ground out. Inning over.

SECOND INNING

1) Flyball out on a 2-0 pitch.
2) Single.
3) Infield pop out, 2-2 pitch.
4) Cashner starts Chris Aguila 2-0, gets two foul balls up in the zone, then strikes him out swinging on a pitch in the dirt.

THIRD INNING

1) Three pitch strikeout (looking).
2) "Soft ground ball" single on an 0-2 pitch.
3) Little Hoffpauir walks on 5 pitches. Might have been squeezed a little.
4) Cashner gets the inning-ending double play on two pitches.

FOURTH INNING

1) Brett Wallace fouls off a couple of 0-2 pitches before lining a single to left.
2) Fly out to left on a 2-0 pitch.
3) Castro strikes out Brian Dopirak swinging on seven pitches, the longest at bat thus far.
4) Cashner starts another hitter 2-0 before giving up a base hit.
5) On a 1-1 pitch, Chris Aguila lines a run-scoring double to right.
6) Groundout, inning over. Las Vegas strands two in scoring position.

FIFTH INNING

1) Groundout, two pitches.
2) Cashner strikes out Hoffpauir swinging on seven pitches.
3) Jeremy Reed flies out on a 2-2 pitch. 1-2-3 for Cashner, his first since the first inning.

SIXTH INNING

1) Strikeout looking
2) One pitch groundout
3) Swinging strikeout. 1-2-3 inning on 10 pitches.

Cashner's night was done after the sixth after throwing 89 pitches, 56 for strikes. He stayed strong throughout the game, retiring the last seven batters he faced in a pretty efficient fashion. He probably could have gone another inning. I obviously don't have any data on his speed or movement, but the results speak for themselves.

Really the only criticism one could find with Cashner last night was a failure to regularly get ahead of hitters. He threw first pitch strikes to less than half of the hitters he faced (11 of 23) and started seven at bats with a 2-0 count. Las Vegas didn't capitalize on some hitter's counts, and Cashner didn't let these minor control problems hurt him. Considering the overall strength of his outing, whining about the lack of first pitch strikes would be like complaining after a great sex session that your partner took too long to undress.

Cashner certainly has set the bar pretty high for himself by throwing some absolute gems in AA this season. Cub fans have to be encouraged that he's started his AAA career with more of the same.

WPA Season Update

2010-05-13T09:57:00.001-05:00

May 12: Marlins @ Cubs WPA Recap (Game 35)

2010-05-12T21:51:00.002-05:00

As always, graphs and data from our friends at Fangraphs

Cubs MVP: Marlon Byrd; .176 WPA
Marlon Byrd's one out double in the 5th inning put the Cubs up 3-2, a lead they never relinguished. That hit alone accounted for .175 of his WPA, and was the biggest one of the game for the Cubs.
Marlins MVP: Ronny Paulino; .076 WPA
Paulino's two out single in the fourth plated two runs and tied the game at 2. The hit itself was worth .184 WPA, the largest of the game.

Cubs LVP: Geovany Soto; -.098 WPA
Soto went 0-3 with a walk, and ended the third inning by grounding into a double play with two men on. Not a terrible game by any means, but the lowest on the team.
Marlins LVP: Chris Volstad; -.197
Volstad surrendered four earned runs through six innings. Eleven Cubs reached base (four walks), and he struck out five.

Biggest Cubs' At-Bat
Marlon Byrd's aforementioned double (.175 WPA)
Biggest Cubs' Pitch
Carlos Marmol strikes out Hanley Ramirez looking to end the game (.142 WPA)

Andrew Cashner AAA Watch

2010-05-12T20:09:00.000-05:00

Top Cubs' pitching prospect Andrew Cashner makes his AAA for the I-Cubs tonight in Las Vegas against the 51s. Fangraphs actually ranked Cashner the team's #1 prospect in December, ahead of ~~future bust~~ Starlin Castro:

Cashner has been a huge find for the organization. Mainly a reliever in college, the right-hander has proven his durability (and repertoire) as a starter. His 1.50 ERA in high-A certainly looks shiny, but his FIP was 3.18 (still good, just not great). At that level, Cashner allowed just 31 hits in 42.0 innings, while showing average control with a walk rate of 3.21 BB/9. His strikeout rate was respectable at 7.29 K/9. He then moved up to double-A, where he allowed 45 hits in 58.1 innings. Cashner’s walk rate increased (4.17 BB/9) and his strikeout rate dropped (6.33 K/9). On the plus side, his ground-ball rate remained around the 47% mark, and he allowed just one home run all season. Cashner will likely begin 2010 back in double-A, with a shot at contributing in Wrigley Field in the second half of the season.

Cashner received a well-earned promotion from AA last week, showing flashes of brilliance while compiling a 42:13 K/BB ratio in 36 innings. Those 42 Ks are good for third in all of AA. He's held opponents to a .176 BAA as well.

~~He's only won three of his six starts though, so he's probably not an ace.~~ It's no secret that the PCL is a hitter's league, but if Cashner continues to perform at this level he'll probably find himself pitching in Chicago in no time.

First pitch is at 9:05 CDT tonight. I'll post a write-up tonight or tomorrow.

Gameday

Cubs' minor league pitcher Andrew Cashner pitches during spring training. Cubs' fans can only hope Cashner fulfills his potential of dominant #1 starter, where after 7-8 years of solid, healthy production he can sign a large contract and move to the bullpen.