(This is my first fanpost. Please tell me if I did well.)

Everyone has been saying that the Cubs are the favorites to win the division. They won the division last year relatively easily, and have not made any major moves to suggest that they will do much worse this year. But after reading an article written by a VEB blogger about the Cubbies rotation, I thought I'd compare the Cubs, position by position, to the next best team in the division: the Cardinals.

Starting Rotation

I thought this was a strong point for the Cubs, but with worries about Harden's shoulder, as well as Zambrano's arm, I think the Cubs have to be worried here. If those two don't pitch a full season, they will have to rely on Ryan Dempster who had his first good season as a starter last year, but has a career ERA of 4.92 as a starter in his career. They also have Ted Lilly who will be an innings eater for them and put up a season like last year. After that, it gets iffy. Sean Marshall will get some starts, but who else do they have who can start if Harden and/or Zambrano go down? RIch Hill? Garrett Olsen? On the Cardinals side, I think you have less of an injury risk with Wainwright, Lohse, and Wellemeyer. i think they can all be very good starters, even Wellemeyer. I will also take Carpenter's word and believe that he is healthy, and is able to pitch close to a full season as a starter. The Cardinals also have more options for a fifth starter with Pinata, K-Mac, Boggs, and Thompson all able to start. Overall, I think the Cardinals rotation is a bit better than the Cubs with health issues taken into account.

Closer

The Cubs acquired Kevin Gregg from the Marlins, but I am still waiting to  see whether he will be the closer, or if Carlos Marmol will get the job. Either way, I think the Cubs will have their issues in the ninth with Gregg not being a lockdown closer, and Marmol being unpredictable with control. Chris Perez or Jason Motte will likely close for the Cards, and while neither of them appear to be great closers yet, I think they will do good enough. Now that Jason Isringhausen is not here to blow saves, that number will go down considerably this year.

Setup

The Cubs will have either Marmol or Gregg as a setup man, depending on who is the closer. They will also have Samadzija there also, and I think the Cubs are OK on this front. The Cardinals shoud also do OK here because they will have Motte or Perez along with Franklin and possibly K-Mac. And don't forget Josh Kinney. He pitched 7 scoreless innings with 8 k's  in September. 

LH relief (LOOGY)

The Cubs have one good one in Neal Cotts. After that, they don't have much except maybe a starter who is forced into the bullpen. The Cardinals have acquired Miller, Ring, Manning and will give Ostlund a look too. The hope is that Miller will be the main man, and one of the other three will pan out to complement Miller. This is an uncertainty for the Cardinals with Miller's shoulder issues, but with the guys they got, they may do OK.

Catcher

Soto is clearly a better all around hitter than Molina, but Molina has superior defense and will hit for a decent average, and will not strike out at all. Molina will aso call a great game behind the plate. In my opinion, they are almost even in value if you look at every aspect of being a catcher.

First base

Pujols is the league's best hitter and plays a great defense too. Lee plays just as good on defense, but saw a late season decline in power, hitting just five homers after the all-star break. No contest here. Pujols is clearly better.

Second base

It appears that Aaron Miles is the starting second baseman for the Cubs. I think that if he is the starter for the Cubs, he will not do nearly as well as he did in St. Louis. His role is a super utilityman, and that's the role he thrived in, and I don't think that Miles has it in him to be a starting second baseman. He was the starter in '06, and did very little on offense for the Cards. He also does not play great defense, and may struggle if he is the starter. For the Cards, Adam Kennedy is not great either, but he plays great defense, and should hit better with more playing time this year.

Shortstop

Ryan Theriot proved to be a good leadoff man who can steal 20 bases and hit for average. He is a solid player for the Cubbies and should do well this year. Khalil Greene could do very well or could do terrible this year. I think that he has a lot of things going his way and I think that he will have a year more like '07 than '08. I think the change of scenery will help Greene a lot.

Third base

Aramis Ramirez regressed a bit in offense last year, and Troy Glaus put up numbers close to Ramirez'. Glaus plays a better defense than Ramirez, and should have a better start to the season now that he is more used to St. Louis weather. I think Ramirez edges Glaus because he is a few years younger.

Outfield

The Cubs outfield appears to be Soriano, Fukudome, and Bradley. Soriano and Bradley will hit, but play terrible defense. Fukudome had a bad year and is not what he was originally thought out to be. He may be forced into center field, and that may be hard for him. If he falters, Reed Johnson will take over for him. The Cardinals have plenty of depth in the outfield, and I think their outfield will be just as good offensively s the Cubs' outifeld with the exception of the stolen bases Soriano will provide for the Cubs. Ludwick will have another good season offensively and defensively, and I think Ankiel will have a complete year as an outfielder. I see him having 30-40 homers and perhaps being in the running for a gold glove. Schumaker will play, but Colby Rasmus will provide offensive skill similar to Soriano and will add great defense while taking playing time from Schumaker. Look out for Joe Mather to get  playing time against lefties. He is a solid offensive player too. And we may even get some production from Chris Duncan who, if you remember, hit 43 homers in just over 600 AB's from 06-07. Both teams have good offensive outfields, but the Cards have more depth and more defense that the Cubs here.

So, are the Cubs clear favorites, or are the Cards right up there next to the Cubs? Am I being an optimistic Cardinals fan, or am I accurate in these comparisons? Please comment.

 

Part two of four of "Curveballs."

For anyone that missed it, part one can be found at:  http://www.vivaelbirdos.com/2009/1/17/726610/curveballs-a-short-story-p

This part takes the story through approximately page 14 in the double-spaced Word document form of the story, so this serialization of the story should be a total of four parts, and I'll try to continue to post every 2-3 days for the next two parts.

Without going into too much plot discussion so as to reveal a spoiler, this 2nd section is where we see the main issues of the short story reveal themselves.

Anyway, without further delay, here is part two of the story.

Continue reading this post »

The Cardinals Caravan came to SIU Carbondale before the SIU vs Bradley mens basketball game on Sunday.  Jason Motte, Joe Mather, Brian Barton, and Brett Wallace were all in attendance.

 

I got a chance to get 1 on 1 interviews with each of these guys, so I thought I'd share them here with the VEB community.

 

Click on the links below to listen to the interviews.

First up was Jason Motte, who talked moving from catcher to pitcher, hitting 100mph on the gun, having faith in his slider, and the chance to pitch in the 9th inning this season.

 

Joe Mather- talked about his "Joey Bombs" nickname, and responds to the talk about potentially playing second base.

 

Brian Barton talks about the Rule 5 draft, and how his knee held up after his first big league season

Brett Wallace- Talks about staying at 3rd base, and what his playing weight might be in upcoming seasons.

 

All four guys were cool to talk to, and enjoyed watching the end of the Arizona Cardinals game after the interviews were finished.  Mather is a big gridbirds fan since he grew up in Pheonix.  Wallace is also a Cardinals fan after going to Arizona St.

...And the Salukis beat the Braves

A brief intro for anyone who hasn't been following my Offensive Ability Rating posts....

Basically I've been working on a new statistic, which encompasses total bases, stolen bases, caught stealing, hits, batting average, BABIP, ground into double plays, sacrifice flies, hit by pitch, and to a lesser extent pitches per plate appearance. So instead of looking at who's the best in one area, I'm attempting to wrap all of them up into one tidy little package, for anyone who's interested.

I'm going to make this shorter than last time... I have updated my equations, making stolen bases worth less than a single (.8), not punishing (statistically) as much for strikeouts and ground into double plays, as well as lessening the importance of on base stats and sac flies (though not by much for the on base stuff).

Thanks to everyone who gave me constructive criticism on my last post, especially haltz, Valatan, and kindred...

So in 2008, here's my rankings for our best hitters... this time I've included just about everyone on the Cardinals, so small sample size alert is in effect:

#1 Albert Pujols - 130.68

#2 Ryan Ludwick - 109.13

#3 Troy Glaus - 100.88

#4 Rick Ankiel - 94.68

#5 Joe Mather - 93.58

#6 Brian Barton - 87.84

#7 Chris Duncan - 84.5

#8 Skip Schumaker - 81.63

#9 Yadier Molina - 81.25

#10 Cesar Izturis - 75.95

#11 Jason Larue - 74.24

#12 Aaron Miles - 73.92

#13 Adam Kennedy - 72.93

#14 Brendan Ryan - 70.51

After seeing the numbers presented that way, I feel more of a sense of accomplishment with the stat, as I would probably naturally rank at least the top 9 hitters this way (well, actually, Duncan was a bit of a surprise, but his defense is still scary, and who knows how the injury recovery is going).

I feel pretty confident in saying that the outfield situation should be something like Ludwick, Ankiel, Barton, and either Duncan or Skippy.... this is assuming, of course, that Mather will be converted to a badass utility player (maybe, the greatest ever?). And of course, Rasmus should be given a shot next year.

So now, I've decided to further test the stat and see how the offenses of all the National League teams stack up:

#1 Chicago Cubs - 91.77

#2 Philadelphia Phillies - 90.04

#3 New York Mets - 88.53

#4 Florida Marlins - 88.49

#5 Colorado Rockies - 87.48

#6 St. Louis Cardinals - 87.42

#7 Arizona Diamondbacks - 87.36

#8 Atlanta Braves - 85.94

#9 Milwaukee Brewers - 84.73

#10 Cincinnati Reds - 84.12

#11 Los Angeles Dodgers - 83.24

#12 Houston Astros - 82.67

#13 Pittsburgh Pirates - 82.33

#14 San Diego Padres - 81.3

#15 Washington D.C. - 79.77

#16 San Francisco - 78.82

Well, I can say that I am surprised the Mets are at #3... and that the Rockies are ahead of the Cardinals (perhaps the Coors effect). Marlins seemed kinda high, too. Other than that, I think I can live with it.

Well, I'll run the best hitters in the major leagues again at some point, probably scaled back a bit due to time issues. Thanks for the interest! Looking forward to seeing how the other stat is going as well that was posted around the time I last posted my OAR rankings (was it BPA?).

 

I know this isn't our usual topic of conversation here at VEB, but I think it is interesting and illuminating to take a closer look at our chief division rival: the hated Cubs. The Cubs are the favorite in the NL Central, and possessed a very good rotation last year; however, like many teams they do come into the season with some significant questions.

1.Will Carlos Zambrano be healthy?

Carlos Zambrano missed a number of starts last season; He pitched 120 innings with a 2.84 ERA in the first half and 68 innings with a 5.80 ERA in the second half. The cause? Shoulder soreness and later, rotator-cuff tendinitis and inflammation.Given our experiences with Mulder and Carpenter, we are intimately acquainted with the fact that shoulder injuries can be devastating to even the best pitchers. 
In an article for the Hardball Times, Carlos Gomez, the noted guru of pitching mechanics, notes in 2007 Zambrano seemed to be having shoulder issues:

"Zambrano has been asking for a lucrative contract extension. Considering his performance so far this year, his velocity loss and possible signs of arm trouble, the Cubs would be foolish to sign him to a long-term deal. Too many question marks there. I sincerely hope that what I'm seeing is not what I think I'm seeing."

Lo and behold, the very next season Zambrano goes down because of the shoulder.  A steady decline of strikeouts can be noted in the past three seasons, another indicator of arm/shoulder problems (the following is K/9):
     

• 2006- 8.83
• 2007- 7.36
• 2008- 6.20

In his last 5 starts of the season, he pitched only 24.2 Innings, allowing 22 hits, 15 walks, and an ERA of 8.03. This is including the one good game he had in this stretch where he threw a complete game no-hitter; taking out that game, he threw a miniscule 15.2 innings in 4 starts and allowed 22 hits, 14 walks, and had 22 ER. Clearly he was not right in the entire second half, but his performance deteriorated as the half went on; this suggests a worsening condition.

Could Zambrano bounce back and be fine next season? Yes.

Will he?

It's impossible to know, but if I were a betting man I wouldn't bet on Zambrano pitching a full season next year. Shoulder injuries are simply too pervasive to be confident about his continuing success, which leads us into our next question:


2. Will Rich Harden Be healthy either?


Rich Harden is as good as anyone when healthy, but we all know the story about him; he has pitched only 219 innings in the past three seasons combined.

We know how injury prone he is, and then this comes out, courtesy of the Chicago Sun Times:

"But sources also confirmed Saturday that Harden has a tear in the joint, just severe enough that some players might seek surgery but slight enough to be in a range often treated effectively with a strengthening program, therapy and a well- managed work schedule.

That's more than the Cubs let on last fall, even after the revelation that Harden had a cortisone shot for rotator [cuff] tendinitis."

His peripherals all looked very good last season and showed no sign of decline, but how can anyone be confident that an injury that can sideline any pitcher won't sideline the king of the DL?

Much like Zambrano, there is no way to know how much this will affect him. I have to ask though: realistically, is anyone optimistic?
I wouldn't bet on Harden pitching a full season, either.

(As a sidenote, as you probably noticed, Harden was initially diagnosed with rotator-cuff tendinitis, the same condition that Zambrano was diagnosed with last season. This can often lead to a tear, as it did with Harden. A glimpse into Zambrano's future?)


3. How good will Ryan Dempster be?

Ryan Dempster pitched 5 seasons as a starter before last season. He posted ERA's of 4.71, 3.66, 4.94, 5.38, and 6.54. His career ERA is 4.55 in 1425 IP, and his career FIP is 4.41. Last season he had a 2.96 ERA, and a 3.41 FIP. As you can see, 2008 was by far his best season.

 His peripherals also suggest that he had a great year that is outside his career norms:

                    2008             Career
K/9               8.14                7.54
BB/9            3.31                4.47
HR/9            0.61               0.96
BABIP         .288                .309      (20.1 LD% in 2008)
HR/FB         7.7%              9.9%

Every stat is better than his career numbers by a significant margin. Of special note to me are the drops in his walk and HR rates.

32 year-old mediocre starters that were converted into relievers and back into starters dont often turn into perennial Cy Young contenders. Given his peripherals and career numbers, all signs point to this being a career year for Dempster. I wouldn't expect him to continue at that level, and there's a good chance he regresses significantly.

(Seems that the Cubs disagree, as they fell into the Lohse trap: they awarded Dempster a 4-year, $51 Million contract for his great season. )

Conclusion


With Zambrano and Harden's  shoulder issues, it's entirely possible that the Cubs will be without their 1 and 2 pitchers for a significant chunk, maybe most, of the season. Considering that their number 3 is due to regress quite a bit, their pitching situation doesn't look quite as rosy as some portray it. Ted Lilly is a good bet to be a solid innings-eater type, but even he has had mediocre FIP's the past couple seasons.

 

What does everyone think about the Cubs' rotation this year?

I have never really thought about this since reading Will Leitch’s "God Save The Fan" last year and now, since I have had a few of St. Louis's greatest export, I thought I would post few thoughts...

What impact, looking back, did growing up with the 80's Redbirds have on our perception of race?  I will freely admit that my Grand-Parents, God bless them, were racist.  They were people that didn’t read much and were focused entirely on providing for their families...when it came to "race" (black folks), it usually began with one member of the local  African American community that was the "exception".  With the 1980's Cardinals it was interesting.

The first case that jumps in my head was my sister, Kasey.  I was the oldest and she was the youngest in 1986.  She was 5 years old and apparently tired of all the attention that I (I was a year older) shared with my father rooting for the Cards, she proclaimed that she was adopted. In fact her biological father, according to her, was Ozzie Smith.  I thought this was funny, not for anything relating to race, so I humored the thought.  My parents also thought it was funny, so they, while denying it, also kept reminding Kasey of her opinion that she was Ozzie Smith's long lost daughter.

In 1988 I read a whole bunch of books for a charity in the hopes of the grand prize: meeting Ozzie Smith.  I read 56 books (they were short) that summer and was rewarded with "dinner" with the Wizard.  Of course, when I showed up the "dinner" was Dominos Pizza with 150 other kids, but I met Ozzie (and Jim Hart, who I had never heard of) so I was thrilled (In fact, I am looking at a pic of the encounter on my fridge as I type). However, Kasey's reaction was something else...it was the first time (some how) that she had realized that Ozzie was African-American.  It was visible that it had hit her like a ton of bricks...she had always assumed that he looked like she did (being Caucasian) and she was embarrassed.  I never thought anything of it.

This story has always made me think about the impact the 80's Cardinals had on my, and other folks, perception of race. I am from Southern Illinois (Murphysboro to be exact) and while I always had a diverse population of classmates, my family (or at least grandparents) were not exactly tolerant.   But I have always had posters of African Americans on my wall...Ozzie, Willie and Vince (and later, Bo Jackson).  Even then, when I focused on learning about the past Cardinal greats it was Gibby, Lou and Curt Flood.

It is clear to me now that baseball had a huge impact on me in regards to race. I am interested to hear your thoughts.

 

With this being the slow part of the year for baseball and with the lack of topics, I thought it might be fun to give everyone something different to read.

What I'm posting is a short story I wrote about 5 years ago while I was still getting my BA and was taking a creative writing workshop for my minor (creative writing, of course).  Luckily, I had two excellent editors to help me mold this into what I, and they, thought was a pretty good story.  One was my professor, who is at least a casual baseball fan and an expert on the writing side of the situation.  The other was a fellow student in the workshop who incidentally also worked as a high school umpire, which helped tremendously, since I had some issues with rules and with interactions between players and umps that were unrealistic on the high school level that he helped me with.

In Microsoft Word, the story is 29 pages, double-spaced, so I'll post about the story basically as a serialization over the next week or so probably.

Anyway, I'd like to think the story is pretty good.  At least as far as prose goes, it's the thing I ever managed to write.  Despite my opinions of it though, if anyone has critiques of the story, I'm always open to listening to what other people think of it. 

So without further discussion, below is approximately the first 6-7 pages of "Curveballs"

Continue reading this post »

Erik's post about the 2009 Cardinals WAR got me thinking about how hard it is to project how well a team will do.  The 2009 Cards especially have a lot of players coming off of breakout seasons that will have big impact next year and who could drastically change any projections.  I'm gonna look at some of those guys and try to ascertain whether or not they will improve or regress.

Kyle Lohse

Lohse last year was very good.  He pitched 200 innings, had a 3.78 ERA and 3.89 FIP.  That equates to roughly a 3 WAR season.  However his career numbers are a very uninspiring 4.67 ERA and a 4.54 FIP.  Almost all of the major projection systems like Bill James, PECOTA, CHONE and Marcel's expect Lohse to regress significantly from last year.  Also, most of us at VEB don't think he will do well either.  Judging by his underlying numbers last year I don't really understand all of the negativity.  His ERA and FIP matched pretty well, and his BABIP wasn't that out of line with his career norms.  The only things that improved were his walk rate, which was 2.21 last year vs. 2.73 for his career, and his homerun rate, which was 0.81 last year vs. 1.15 for his career.  Many pitchers over the last decade have improved significantly under Dave Duncan, and judging by Lohse's improvement in his rate stats last year and his durability over his career, I think that Lohse will have another season like he did last year.

Todd Wellemeyer

Wellemeyer is a little different situation than Lohse.  He was always a guy who had a good fastball, but never had success as a starter in his career before.  He was really good though with 191.2 innings pitched and an impressive 3.71 ERA.  That made him roughly a 1.7 WAR player.  However, his peripheral numbers weren't so good.  He improved his walk rate considerably from his career numbers before last year, but his homerun rate stayed the same and his strikeout rate fell by over 1 k per nine.  All that made his FIP a very average 4.51, almost a full run higher than his ERA.  Combine that with the fact that his BABIP was very low at .273 and his strand rate was very high at 76.9%, and I think that Wellemeyer will regress significantly from last year.

Ryan Ludwick

What a hell of year Luddy had.  A slash line of .299/.375/.591 and an ops of .966 and a wOBA of .406 and roughly a 5 WAR season.  He finished 2nd in the league in slugging (about 60 points behind Pujols) and he was an All Star.  Most projection systems think he will regress.  The worst is CHONE which thinks that he will have an .843 OPS.  And the best is our own VEB projection which is an .897 OPS.  Either way most people think that Ludwick won't be Studwick next year.  Overall I think that the offensive projections for Luddy are pretty right on (we have all talked about Luddy a lot and there's nothing I could say that is anything new), so I'm going to look at his defense a little bit.  Luddy before last year was a very good defender.  In 07 with us he had UZ/150 of 17.9 in the OF, however in 08 his UZR/150 dropped to a -4.4.  For his career he has a 7.4 UZR/150 in the OF.  Last year he spent more time in right, but with the overcrowed outfield this year, we can expect him to log a lot of innings in left and even center.  So while his offense might take a hit next year, his defense should improve considerably and give him close to a 10 run bump to his WAR.  All in all, he should have roughly the same WAR as last season and he will probably hit enough homers and RBI's to keep the fans happy.

Jason Motte

It's fun to project rookies.  Motte makes it a little more fun considering how dominant he was in the bigs.  He only pitched 11 innings, but he looked like Mariono Rivero.  Also his minor league numbers support the fact that he could be a dominant reliever.  His FIP's in the AA in 07 and AAA in 08 have been 2.96 and 2.29.  His strikeout to walk ratio's in the minors and in his 11 innings in the bigs have been rediculous.  Judging by pure stats, he is probably the best relief prospect in the game.  However most projection systems project him to have an ERA and FIP in the mid to high 3's.  The main reason that nobody believes in the former catcher is the lack of an offspeed pitch.  Jason Motte throws his fastball around 90% of the time.  As shown In an intersting fanpost by redbirdnation8206, that is similar to another big league realiver, Grant Balfour, who is coming off season in which he had a 1.54 ERA and a 2.22 FIP.  However, Motte throws harder on average (96.6 mph vs. 94.6 mph) and in his breif stint in the majors, he's shown better strikethrowing ability (2.45 bb/9 vs. 3.7 bb/9).  Furthermore, Motte plays in a pitchers park with a good defense and he won't be put in many "high pressure" situations with La Russ as the manager.  So I think that Motte will greatly outperform his projections.           

References:

Fangraphs

Make that 85, maybe 86 wins.

That seems about right. 88 wins was too much of a Billy Mumphrey story for me. Sky at Beyond the Boxscore worked out whatever bugs may be in the old spreadsheet, making it more accurate and user friendly.  This time I pretty much went straight CHONE on the projections, hitting, ERA, and defense.

I had a few snags you all can help me with, and that is

• How many plate appearances should some of the bench players get? Seems like it is anyone's guess as to who is the utility infielder, and what about the outfield?
  
• Sky says 350 pinch-hits...any guesses as to what the avg. wOBA would be for those 350?
• To WonderBrad or to not WonderBrad? I'd lean towards not given that he's on shaky ground, but how would you allocate those innings?

I should probably make a Colby the starter version in a separate tab. Right now, I have Colby the midseason call up, but at least for now TLR is saying all the right things about playing from the get go Rasmus if he has a strong spring.

Anyway, I'd love any input you all would have to offer and will change the sheet accordingly.

One last thing: BEN SHEETS BEN SHEETS BEN SHEETS BEN SHEETS BEN SHEETS BEN SHEETS BEN SHEETS BEN SHEETS BEN SHEETS BEN SHEETS BEN SHEETS. 

That is all.

Chris Perez easily takes the number 4 spot with 60% of the vote.

1. Colby Rasmus

2. Brett Wallace

3. Jason Motte

4. Chris Perez

 

BA kicked out their Top Ten today.

1.	Colby Rasmus, of
2.	Brett Wallace, 3b
3.	Chris Perez, rhp
4.	Jess Todd, rhp
5.	Bryan Anderson, c
6.	Clayton Mortensen, rhp
7.	Daryl Jones, of
8.	Jason Motte, rhp
9.	David Freese, 3b
10.	Pete Kozma,ss They must really like Todd, Also check out their best tools list. Here are the next ten candidates. If there's someone else you think deserves it, say so in the comments, otherwise, vote for who you think is number 5. Also, feel free to make a pitch for who you voted for, and maybe spark some discussion about the future of our beloved team in the off season. Without further ado, the nominees for the Cardinals #5 prospect:

Poll

Who is the cardinals #5 prospect

1%

Pete Kozma

2 votes

2%

Clayton Morteson

3 votes

3%

Mitch Boggs

4 votes

35%

Daryl Jones

44 votes

24%

Jess Todd

30 votes

20%

Bryan Anderson

25 votes

0%

Adam Reifer

0 votes

8%

Jamie Garcia

11 votes

0%

Jon Jay

1 votes

4%

David Freese

5 votes

0%

Pete Kozma

0 votes

125 votes | Poll has closed