The pitchforks and torches are out among many Cubs fans (and even the media) after Dale Sveum bunted with two men on and nobody out with a nonpitcher at the plate not once but twice late in yesterday's game. Even worse, ont of those cases was with the Cubs second best hitter, Starlin Castro. Sveum seems to have a fetish for bunting that was foreshadowed by his preseason bunting tournament, and you wonder why he was even hired in the first place given the analytic bent of the Cubs front office. That got me wondering though – does such a saber-friendly manager even exist right now? Not ordering stupid bunts is just one aspect of managing.
The hiring process lasted a long time, and both the Cubs and the similarly analytical Red Sox had pretty much the same list of candidates. They went through a long and winding process, doing mock press conferences and quizzing the managers on reactions to game situations and general philosophies of managing. One of the big pluses in Sveum's corner was his love of spray charts and defensive positioning, which seems to be working well with the Cubs.
Now that so many progressively analytic types have taken over front offices, why hasn't the same thing happened in the dugout? Joe Maddon gets props for his maverick managing styles, but as MGL likes to harp on there's certianly still plently of mistakes that he makes. If all of this stuff is so obvious to us, why hasn't it shown up in the dugout? Any idiot fan could tell you that Castro shouldn't bunt, but so far it looks like there isn't *anyone* in the market whose skill set lies in the Venn diagram of Not Making Stupid Bunting/Lineup Decisions, Keeping The Players Happy, and Keeping The Media Away, which is more or less the three main roles a manager has to fulfill. If only someone would clone Earl Weaver.
Fuck cloning. Zombie Earl Weaver would be the best manager, ever.
Also, just fucking cut Wood. Awful.
Mercurial Outfielder wrote:
I think it’s safe to add “leverage” to the list of shit Sveum doesn’t get. If he’s on the roster at all, Wood should be mopping up.
Mercurial Outfielder wrote:
Another Sveum idiot move. Kerry has no right to be in a 1 run game with the way he’s pitched lately…that’s so obvious.
@ uncle dave:
Agreed.
Cashner just struck out Harper with a 101 mph fastball to end the game. He was throwing bullets in the 9th.
@ uncle dave:
We should make a list of things Sveum gets.
uncle dave wrote:
Should have gone with Lendy Castillo instead? This bullpen fucking blows.
Kerry is done
The problem with LaHair is that he is 30 adn doesn’t have a long history of success. Now that he’s actually hitting well and starting to answer the questins about whether he is a AAAA player, he will have to start dealing with wondering when the decline will begin and how steep it will be.
I don’t know what value you would ever get for Bryan LaHair given the unreliability in assessing true talent level plus the unknown of his aging curve. The only good thing about him is the cost control, and I think that is a big plus for the Cubs right now. Somebody has to be a major league hitter on this team.
Cubs lose.
@ Berselius:
If you believe that TLR was right and relievers can only go one inning, you still have three guys who are better than Wood to pitch the 7th, 8th, and 9th in Russell, Camp, and Dolis. Yes, they blow, but that doesn’t leave him off the hook to find whoever sucks the least and put them into the highest-leverage situations.
Damn, and Russell is even usually death to lefties
@ mb21:
1.) Bunts
2.) Spray charts
3.) Sons of Anarchy character arcs
All done.
@ uncle dave:
Camp threw 2 innings yesterday, is probably unvailable
Bullpen —> sucks
Dolis is probably only “good” for one inning after throwing yesterday too
Aisle424 wrote:
Agreed. I think that he’d be most valuable on a team like the Pirates or some other club with severe payroll constraints, but that’s just the type of team who wouldn’t be likely to send away young, cost-controlled talent in return. I think you ride him as long as you can while he’s still cheap, unless someone is desperate enough to give you a legit return for him.
I feel that the Front Office isn’t trying to win. This (looked like) a seventy-win team.
The Cubs have spent the last five years playing with athletic free swingers. Sveum’s job for this year might be to develop, and not win, so he’s making these players reinforce skills (sacrifice bunting, plate discipline) in high pressure situations.
The point of Dave Sveuem is for the Cubs Players to learn how to take walks, steal bases, and play small ball. Home Run Hitters are expensive. Sveum wants doubles hitters. Castro may only hit 10-15 HRs. His ISO and .SLG both rose over the last two years. Batting Starlin third was an attempt to increase opportunities for extra base hits.
Double play ball with one out and we threw home? Or is that not what happened? WTF??
@ Berselius:
Fair enough.
The Cubs only chance to get real value for Lahair is going to be on a deadline deal for a team that has a sudden hole to fill at 1b down the stretch. MO is right that he’s not going to be a significant part of the next good Cubs team, unless they’re willing to shell out some cash in the near future
@ Aisle424:
I think that’s fair. But I don’t care how cost-controlled a 32 YO Brian LaHair is with a 30% k-rate and a normalized BABiP. (dying laughing)
@ Berselius:
I think that’s right, but if I’m Theo, the first thing I think about with LaHair is where I can move him.
He’s back baby!!
Remember when Soriano used to hit those more often?
Selfish HR!
@ josh:
It must have been a bad ball placement from Stewart’s point of view…I didn’t see the play.
Adolfo!!
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Strikeout rates regress too, fwiw
I bet Motte’s wife makes him leave his shoes outside the door because they smell like a sack of smashed assholes.
Aisle424 wrote:
I agree with 424 here. I think it’s going to take until next year before he has a lot of value and I think considering he’s league minimum the Cubs are better off keeping him around. If you trade him now you won’t be selling high on him because teams still don’t know what to think and will be cautious in what they give up. So if you sell now and get little in return only to find out in 2 or 3 years that’s he’s legit it’s going to look stupid. I don’t see any reason to trade Lahair unless some team offers a bunch for him and I don’t see that happening.
So…this Soriano guy.
@ Berselius:
He was at 27% in the minors (career), so I think 30% is probably about where he’ll be in the majors.
@ mb21:
Yeah. I think they’ll shop him at the deadline but if no one wants to give up much they’ll keep him
@ Berselius:
It’s already started. Last time I checked it was about 31% and I just checked and it’s 29%. I’m guessing it settles around 27%.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
He was at 20% the last 2 years in AAA. Add in the year before that and about 21%. Go back to 2006 and it’s between 20 and 21% in the minor leagues.
is it sad i 100% thought Barney would be bunting here?
The 27% I think MO is looking at is LaHair’s MLB career strikeout rate.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
Did he strike out a ton earlier in his career? His 6 years in AAA rates were
21.3%
20.8%
24%
22.7%
19.7%
21.2%
or are you talking MLE?
I fucked something up, his career MiLB rate is 21.4 %. So, yeah, he’ll probably end up somewhere between 24-27% in the majors. Decent walk rate, though, too.
I dunno. I just don’t trust these late bloomers. Especially not when they coast on risible BABiP numbers.
No. All good things must regress and all bad things must remain bad. Fuck you.
LaHair’s career MiLB K% is 21.6%. That’s over 4000 PA. In AAA it’s 21.7% and that’s in 2709 PA.
Looking forward to see this in the bottom of the 9th: “In play, run(s)”.
The difference in the 21.4% MO got and 21.6% I just posted is that I exclude intentional walks in the denominator when calculating K%.
Mercurial Outfielder wrote:
I don’t trust Lahair to post a .479 wOBA as he currently has, but I don’t see any reason he can’t post a .360 one (that’s his rest of season projection right now). I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s .340 and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s .380 the rest of the way either. He’s not a .479 hitter, but his numbers are so damn good that even if we regress other numbers they’re still pretty damn good.
jtsunami wrote:
What a play by Stewart!
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
All those HR aren’t factoring into his BABIP (dying laughing). He’s pounding the ball. I might take a look at trying to luck-neutralize his stats later this week and I think he’ll still easily outpace the rest of the team
What a play from Stewart. Wow.
@ mb21:
Yeah, he regresses to league avg/slighty above average now, yes? There’s no question he’s having a tremendous season. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying I don’t trust it. I don’t want LaHair to fail. The Cubs need cheap talent. I’m more afraid that his regression is going to happen so drastically that the Cubs could be tempted to call up Rizzo before they really need to call him up.
@ Berselius:
Oh, I’d guess he’s the best hitter on the team by a mile in that respect.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
It’s only a month until they can call up Rizzo
Oh well…a split works.
There it is.
spray chart fail
@ Berselius:
He has a 24.6% line drive rate so based on that alone we’d expect a .366 BABIP. His current BABIP is .444. There’s obviously some regression coming his way, but that’s built into the ZiPS rest of season projection. I remember asking Colin one time about neutralizing a player’s current stats and he said the best way is to look at the rest of season ZiPS projection. This was before PECOTA offered in-season projections (are they doing that this year?).
jtsunami called that one
Ugh. That is all.
@ Mercurial Outfielder:
I think he probably regresses to quite a bit better than average. There’s some caution considering his age, but LaHair just might be a very good ballplayer. Hard to believe. But sometimes, as Alvin would say, things just click. (dying laughing)
@ bubblesdachimp:
I’m sure Sveum will find a player to blame for that.
@ mb21:
Too bad they clicked at the end of his peak. (dying laughing)
@ mb21:
Now that we’ve heard about him it won’t happen
@ mb21:
I think I remember seeing an announcement about in-season PECOTA a while ago. but I don’t have a BP sub anymore.
LaHair’s updated projection is for a .360 wOBA, 24% strikeout rate
It would appear from Josh Beckett’s first two innings that he has not even thought of chicken, beer, or golf since his last start.
@ GBTS:
Are you and Anthony Bass getting an apartment together or what?
I just saw the Cubs signed Mike MacDougal to the minor league contract. I didn’t even know he was still pitching. I haven’t heard of him since he was with the Royals and that seems like a decade ago.
I’m not sure any pitcher has so consistently been at or above replacement level in an 11-year career in which they have only 3.4 fWAR. http://www.fangraphs.com/statss.aspx?playerid=612&position=P
mb21 wrote:
He was a closer I recently enjoyed.
I think he took a batted ball off his head a few years ago
@ mb21:
I’m setting his career wins over/under at 317.5.
@ GBTS:
And you’re taking the over, right?
@ mb21:
Is that how over/unders work?
@ GBTS:
He must be a helluva bunter.
I have to admit that I haven’t read a single comment from Dale Sveum since spring training. I have no idea what he said on bunts. (dying laughing)
@ mb21:
Basically that he knew he was taking the bat out of Castro and LaHair’s hands with men on 1st and 2nd and no outs, and that he thought it was worth it to stay out of the DP. Which of course ignores the fact that it did no such thing. LaHair’s walk cancels out the sac bunt. When this was pointed out to him, he blamed Castro for not getting the bunt down properly and insinuated that the team is in some sort of, to use srbutch’s term, “bunt slump.”
Then today he was pushed on it again, and told Sullivan he didn’t want to debate “cybermetrics” and said Theo never talked with him about that stuff.
The man is daft.
My main concern with the Castro bunt was that I don’t trust Castro’s bunting ability. It’s worth noting, however, that late-and-close with no outs and runners on first and second (with a groundball hitter) is one of the best times to bunt (see The Book page 283).
new shit: http://www.obstructedview.net/news-and-rumors/cubs-acquire-hunter-cervenka-to-complete-marlon-byrd-trade.html
I also think that the argument that they’d just walk LaHair after a successful sacrifice is a weak one. Bases loaded and 1 out has a higher RE than runners on fist and second and no out. You’d have to take into account the abilities of different hitters, of course, but I like that even a “mere” successful bunt improve RE in this situation.
Is Ryne Sandberg available?