Guest Column

Please feel free to add or make up your own.
Here's my attempt:

Reader Real Neal breaks down the first round of the draft in a variety of ways to see if there's an optimal strategy and how have the Cubs done relative to their drafting position.

Two topics are always in hot debate this time of the year, when it comes to the MLB draft. How have the Cubs done, and who should they pick?

With that in mind, I am taking a look at 10 years worth of first round picks to try and help answer those questions. I am only looking at the top 30 picks each year (yeah I know the Cubs draft 31^st), just to simplify things. The 10 year range I used was ’96 to ’05. It’s just too early to tell what is going to happen with highschoolers only drafted three years ago. I used WARP3, even though Baseball Prospectus has got something a bit wonky going on with their WARP3 scores for 2009, which seem exaggerated. I figured since the majority of these players are still playing, though, that the slight wobble could sort of build in a little projection.

To start off with, here is some general charts, which should be self explanatory.

There was a brief discussion in the comments earlier this week about general manager Jim Hendry's liberal use of the no-trade clause. Reader WISCGRAD did the legwork to see if indeed Hendry hands them out like a lollipop after leaving the doctor's office or if it's line with other ballclubs.

No-trade clauses in player contracts are controversial. On the one hand, they are often necessary to attract or keep high-value free agents. On the other hand, towards the end of player’s career a team may wish to trade a player whose skills have declined, but are unable to do so. No-trade clauses can range from full – where the player must approve any trade during the length of the contract – to limited – where the player has no-trade rights for a specified period of time or to specific teams. Making the issue more complicated, the current collective bargaining agreement between the Major League Baseball Players Association and Major League Baseball automatically grants a player full no-trade rights if he has 10 or more years of major league service time and has been with his current team for 5 or more years. The following table lists all players with no-trade rights for the entire 2009 season. This excludes those players who recently signed as free agents and cannot be traded until June. The information was taken from Cot’s Baseball Contracts, and each player was coded for the type of no-trade that applies to the 2009 season only. As one can see, with only a few exceptions, these are the cream of the crop of major league players (ed note - it's important to remember that the details of no-trade provisions or even their existence are not always made public and the information on Cot's Baseball Contracts should not be considered 100% reliable, but more as a good guide).

The other day I bought The Hardball Times 2009 Baseball Annual. I haven’t finished yet, but as of so far, I would say save your money.

In it, though, there is an article about titled “Fielding Breeds Winning” by a certain John Dewan, which goes into some detail about how the Fielding Bibles’ Plus/Minus system helps determine which teams have a real shot at the title. I’ve argued in the comments about inherent flaws in the Plus/Minus system, but there are a lot of people, famous baseball statistical analysts who think it’s the greatest thing since high socks. My main point of contention with it, is that we know that people are biased when it comes to evaluating fielding, based on some of the ridiculous Golden Glove awards handed out, yet we go from our 500 person sample size for those awards to 3 people sample sizes for the Plus/Minus system, and somehow conclude that the latter is more accurate. Really quickly, the system looks at all plays and says for each one – if any fielder in the majors missed a play you made, you get a Plus, and if you missed a play that any fielder made, you get a Minus. Add up your Pluses and your minues and you get Plus/Minus score for the season.

Well, you might be thinking, isn’t this article supposed to be about a Chicago baseball team, and preferably the Cubs, since that’s who I come here to read about? Well, yeah, it is about the Cubs, because according to this system, the Plus/Minus system, the 2008 Cubs were living on borrowed time.

Dying Cub Fan, the author of the three-part series on Ron Santo's Hall of Fame merits, returns with a look at the flaws of the Veteran Committee vote.

From Ron Santo’s standpoint, it’s hard to see how the 2008 Veterans Committee voting could have gone any worse, particularly when you compare the results to the voting results announced in February 2007. Due mostly to rules changes, there were 18 fewer ballots cast in 2008 than in 2007. Santo’s vote total this year decreased by 18 votes, perhaps not entirely a coincidence. In 2007, 25 electors that returned ballots did not vote for Santo. In 2008, the same number of ballots did not vote for Santo, again perhaps not entirely a coincidence. From 2007 to 2008, Santo went from being five votes short to being nine votes short, and his voting percentage dropped from 69.5% in 2007 to 60.9% in 2008.

On Monday December 8th, the Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the voting results of the Veterans Committee.  In a three part series, guest columnist and reader, “Dying Cub Fan” takes a look at the candidacy of former Cubs third basemen, Ron Santo. We ran this piece two years ago, but it's lost in Internet limbo and well, Santo deserves it, so we're running it again. Plus, the voting process has changed this year, as there are only 10 players for the committee to consider, so here's hoping this is the year.  You can join the revolution on Facebook as well.

Brooks Robinson

In 1964, third basemen won the MVP award in both the American League and the National League. Brooks Robinson won in the AL, playing for an Oriole team that won 97 games and finished third, and Ken Boyer won in the NL, playing for the Cardinals, who won 93 games and the pennant. The Cubs won 76 games and finished 8th. Santo had a better year than either Robinson or Boyer and finished 8th in MVP balloting. ⁶

On Monday December 8th, the Baseball Hall of Fame will announce the voting results of the Veterans Committee.  In a three part series, guest columnist and reader, “Dying Cub Fan” takes a look at the candidacy of former Cubs third basemen, Ron Santo. We ran this piece two years ago, but it's lost in Internet limbo and well, Santo deserves it, so we're running it again. Plus, the voting process has changed this year, as there are only 10 players for the committee to consider, so here's hoping this is the year.

“Red Sox Nation: In your opinion, who’s the best player not in the HOF?
Bill James: Ron Santo”

10/27/04 Interview with Bill James on RedSoxNation.Net, ¹
http://www.redsoxnation.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=11048

Ron Santo has a meritorious case for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. There are currently thirteen third basemen² in the Hall of Fame: Frank “Home Run” Baker, Wade Boggs, George Brett, Jimmy Collins, Ray Dandridge, Judy Johnson, George Kell, Freddy Lindstrom, Eddie Mathews, Brooks Robinson, Mike Schmidt, Pie Traynor and Jud Wilson (who was inducted in 2006). When compared to the ten major league third basemen currently in the Hall of Fame (leaving aside, for purposes of this discussion, the three Negro League players, Johnson, Dandridge and Wilson), Santo’s offensive numbers fit squarely in the middle of that group. The offensive numbers demonstrate that Santo was better than five of the major league third basemen currently in the Hall of Fame. The numbers indicate that Schmidt, Mathews, Brett, Baker and Boggs (in roughly that order) were better than Santo. Santo has a clear edge on everyone else.

During his career Ron Santo was a nine-time All-Star. He finished in the top ten in MVP voting four times. He had the fifth highest RBI total of all major league players during the 1960s (topped only by Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Harmon Killebrew and Frank Robinson). During that period no player in the National League drew more walks. ³ He won five consecutive Gold Gloves at third base, and led NL third basemen in putouts, assists, chances and double plays in many seasons. He was among the league leaders in on base percentage and slugging percentage throughout the 1960s; he finished in the top 10 in both categories in his league in every season from 1964 through 1967. He hit more home runs in his career than any third baseman currently in the Hall of Fame other than Mike Schmidt and Eddie Mathews. He combined power and defense to a degree that was unprecedented for third basemen. He coupled that with an ability to draw walks that added value in a manner that has often gone unappreciated.