Statistical Analysis
NL Central Smackdown : Center Field
Catchers | Poll |
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I'm jumping to center field because it's a bit of a mess and not nearly as interesting as left or right, which I'd like to save at least one of those for Monday.
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NL Central Smackdown : Catchers
Third Basemen | Poll |
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Before we head to the outfield, we take on the field generals. A difficult position to evaluate with the numbers just because there's just no great way to numerically measure a catcher's defense, leadership and ability to work with his pitching staff...but we'll do our best. I did want to note, I'll keep going with these through the weekend just so we can finish this up by early next week. If you take the weekends off from TCR, be sure to check back Monday and vote on the polls you missed.
The backstops after the jump...
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NL Central Smackdown: Third Basemen
Shortstops | Poll |
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It may seem I've been a bit down on our Cubbies in the first three installments, but do not fret, the Cubs and Aramis Ramirez runaway with the third base honors.
The hot corner after the jump...
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NL Central Smackdown: Shortstops
2nd Basemen | Poll We march on around the diamond. Today it's the double play partner of yesterday's vote. The Cubs so far have the 2nd best first basemen and second basemen in the division. Can Ryan Theriot keep the streak going? Answer - no! |
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Your scrap-tastic contenders after the jump....
UPDATE: Thanks to you wonderful readers, it was brought to my attention to check Tejada's projections since he revealed his true age. His WARP-3 three year projection is updated in the chart and went down from 4.13 to 3.2. I'd still rate him first though even though he now drops behind Hardy and Wilson in the WARP-3 projections.
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NL Central Smackdown: 2nd Basemen
I started off with the first basemen yesterday and I'll leave the poll up until I get through all the positions. If you need a primer on all this, be sure to check out that first post as well on the first basemen. Today though we move to the second basemen. While Hendry tries to win by sheer numbers, it's about quality, not quantity. Your contestants after the jump.... |
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NL Central Smackdown: 1st Basemen
I was going to try and get this up before the season started, but that clearly didn't happen for a variety of reasons. But that's no excuse to let the work go to waste. Basically I thought it would be fun to go through each position player in the division and the starting pitchers and see how we rank them. Who’s the best now? Who will be the best over the next 3 years? I'll be using Baseball Prospectus's WARP-3 numbers for the most part, which includes both offense and defense and most importantly for this exercise, projections for the next three years. Once we get through the eight positions and the starting pitchers, I'll finish it off with a Bill Simmons inspired (ripped off) trade value chart. |
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Here are the ground rules. We're trying to figure out who you'd rather have on your team. Do your best to take your Cubs bias out of the equation if possible (that shouldn't be hard for some of you). But we're also trying to figure out who has the best players on the their team right now, so I'm going to use the players projected to get the most playing time this year. Sure, Jay Bruce will eventually take over center field duties in Cincinnati, but who knows when. The chart after the jump includes their 3-year WARP-3 averages (2005-2007) and their projected 2008-2010 averages.The final column, appropriately labeled "Rob's Rankings", are simply how I ranked them before looking at any stats. For the most part I was pretty close to what the numbers bear out. I should also note that I did my rankings before the season started.
We'll start off with the toughest and most talented position, the first basemen. Your gladiators after the jump....
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Recipe for a 7-1 Homestand
- Outscore opponents 67-28 (41-9 over the last 4 games)
- Score first in 6 of the 8 games (they won 5 of the 6 games they scored first in)
- Out-homer your opponents 10-8
- Hit 342/436/535 as a team
- Walk 43 times, while only allowing 28 free passes yourself
- Hit .389 with 21 RBI's with the bases loaded
- Pitch to a tune of 3.25 ERA as a team
- Hold opposing team to a 219/300/364 line
- Bear down and hold the opposing team to 197/310/361 with men in scoring position
- Strike out 56 batters in 72 IP (7.375 K
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The All-Time Greatest Surprise Cubs Killers
A few of you were unimpressed by my previous post by telling me that it should be expected that the top hitters in the game were also the top hitters versus the Cubs. A fair assessment...
So who were the most unexpected Cubs killers? In other words, who saved their best to drive some nails in the Cubs' coffins? Reader "big_lowitzki" did the research for us and provided me with the list.
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The All-Time Greatest Cubs Killers
After Carlos Lee beat up the Cubbies again this weekend with a 5 for 12 series, a homer and couple of RBI's (pretty low-key for him), I thought it would be interesting to take a look at some of the all-time biggest Cubs killers. So thanks to some of the wonderful tools over at Baseball Musings, I looked at which players had the highest all-time OPS while facing the Cubs with at least 350 Plate Appearances. Their database only goes back to 1957 as well. | <a href="http://ballhype.com/story/the_all_time_greatest_cubs_killers/">… - The All-Time Greatest Cubs Killers</a> ballhype_story_widget_250534(true); |
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Cubs 2007 Pitch Tracking: Pictures Worth a Thousand Curves
One of the latest and most exciting developments in baseball research is the measurement and analysis of individual pitches. For instance, the Pitch f/x system created by the company Sportvision tracks the in-flight movement of pitches from two different cameras, thereby assessing a pitch's velocity, horizontal and vertical movement. A bit less than 1/4th of all pitches from last year were so assessed, and MLB has made the raw contents of that data available at this location. Better yet, there are several bloggers who, unlike me, have the talent and dedication to transform that heaping mess of data into meaningful findings. Most notable, Josh Kalk has been developing player cards, a la what's available at baseball-reference or fan graphs or baseball cube, except with graphs incorporating this incredible new source of information on pitch selection and pitch behavior. He also has developed a remarkable application where you can select any player and any pitch with just about any limiting parameter you could want - say, Bob Howry fastballs to right-handed hitters on 0-2 counts with a velocity above 93 MPH that resulted in swinging strikes - and then view the results on a handy X/Y graph.
As if that's not enough, there's the more user friendly if less revolutionary pitch data commercially available at Baseball Info Solutions which is being applied by the talented folks at Fan Graphs. Fan Graphs now offers data on individual players' pitch selections and velocity, all thoroughly sortable. For instance, Tim Wakefield and Chad Bradford feature the two slowest average fastballs in the major at 74.2 and 78.6 MPH, respectively, while no one threw a changeup with greater frequency last year than Matt Wise, at 54%
There's a gold mine of potential information available at our fingertips, with The Baseball Analysts and The Hardball Times leading the way in this sort of analysis. With far less sophistication than what those guys can offer, let's see what it can tell us about the Cubs' staff.
Recent comments
hellfrozeover (view)
I would say also in the bright side column is Busch looked pretty good overall at the plate. Alzolay…man, that hurts but most of the time he’s not giving up a homer to that guy. To me the worst was almonte hanging that pitch to Garcia. He hung another one to the next hitter too and got away with it on an 0-1.
crunch (view)
amaya blocked like 6-8 of smyly's pitches in the dirt very cleanly...not even an exaggeration, smyly threw a ton of pitches bouncing in tonight.
neris looking like his old self was a relief (no pun), too.
TarzanJoeWallis (view)
In looking for bright spots the defense was outstanding tonight. The “stars” are going to need to shine quite a bit brighter than they did tonight offensively though for this to be a successful season.
Eric S (view)
Good baseball game. Hopefully Steele is pitching again in April (but I’m not counting on it).
crunch (view)
boo.
crunch (view)
smyly to face the 2/3/4 hitters with a man on 2nd in extras.
this doesn't seem like a 8 million dollar managerial decision.
crunch (view)
i 100% agree with you, but i dunno how jed wants to run things. the default is delay. i would choose brown.
like hellfrozeover says, could be smyly since he's technically fresh and stretched.
anyway, on a pure talent basis....brown is the best option.
Childersb3 (view)
Use pitchers when you believe they're good. Don't plan their clock.
I'm sorry. I'm simply anti-clock/contract management. Play guys when they show real MLB potential talent.
If Brown hadn't been hurt with the Lat Strain he would've gotten the call, and not Wick.
Give him a chance.
But Wesneski probably gets it
crunch (view)
alzolay...bro...
crunch (view)
wow. what a blown call. go cubs, i guess.