The Cubs have DFA'd Blake DeWitt and re-caled Travis Wood who will start today against the Dodgers. I don't believe Berselius published a projection for Wood, but Oliver did project him to be worth 2.5 WAR at the time the Cubs traded Sean Marshall for him.
Wood has had mixed results so far at Iowa. He has struckout over 9 per 9 innings and his walk rate is below 3. Both of those are excellent. His ERA is higher than 5, but his FIP is 3.87. The ERA is not so good, but the FIP is pretty good. His BABIP is nearly .400 so I'm reluctant to put much weight into his ERA.
Marcel, ZiPS and Bill James all projected Wood to have an FIP under 4 this season. Travis Wood will face former Red Aaron Harang today at 1:20.
Will this game get in?
Al Yellon wrote:
Is that like asking if this game will be postponed?
What’s the status? Surely someone here follows Judd Sirott or Carrie Muskat on twitter.
The mlb.com scoreboard says they’re warming up.
They’re underway
Great PA by Campana
Albert Pujols ——–> HR
Bob complimenting Soriano’s defense
Jerry Hairston Jr. pulled the hell out of his hammy. I guess the Dodgers aren’t going to win the WS this year.
@ Berselius:
Yeah, nice hustling double. Why try to steal 3rd in that case, though?
*Chirp chirp*
@ josh:
Because the Cubs (and most MLB teams for that matter) don’t really understand that a player is already in scoring position at 2nd base. It’s quite odd.
Especially frustrating considering Campy could score on about anything hit into the outfield.
@ josh:
With his speed he might even be able to score on some things that don’t leave the infield.
cardenas up?
@ GW:
I’d assume they send Travis Wood back down and recall him, but who knows?
Nice 2-inning relief outing by Chris Davis. I can’t believe he struck out Adrian Gonzalez.
Adrian went 0-8 with 2 K’s. Chris Davis went 0-8 with 5 K’s.
@ mb21:
I don’t have a problem with stealing third as such, but he did a terrible job at it. You shouldn’t steal third unless you get a great lead/jump. I don’t like the “he’s already in scoring position” argument, though. His chances of scoring would have greatly increased if he were safe.
@ ACT:
True, but I’d rather guys lower in the order are stealing 3rd than in front of the middle of the order.
This game is suddenly exciting.
Terrible PA by Castro there
That seemed like a shitty send to me with only 1 out.
Dolis nearly got nailed in the face with that liner.
Imagine how much MGL knows about Dolis now that he’s seen him pitch TWO innings.
@ GBTS:
He’s probably figured out his SSN.
*facepalm*
Aggressive baserunning has really killed the Cubs this game. And shitty hitting from everyone not named Bryan LaHair.
That’s going to look crazy on the scoresheet.
If we can’t win this now, I’m turning this shit off.
WTF?
Bryce Harper ——–> Stole Home
@ GBTS:
He’ll have his genome mapped in one more appearance.
Ankiel has a pretty good throwing arm.
My lying eyes tell me this Harper kid is talented.
The funniest thing about the MGL/Dolis thing is that MGL is more than likely right in that Dolis has no business being a big league closer. Any other reliever on the roster is better at baseball than Dolis. There is probably at least 1 position player better than Dolis. We’re talking about a guy who had a 6.5 K/9 in A+ and AA and walked nearly 4.5. Only 17.2 big league innings, but he actually has walked nearly twice as many batters as he’s struck out. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that pitchers who have a .5 K/BB ratio in their first 18 innings haven’t stuck around in MLB too long. Just a hunch.
@ ACT:
I hope he makes the all-star team so he can hit a double and flip his helmet off around first base. (dying laughing)
@ mb21:
Yeah, but his fastball sinks a bit.
Oh, and according to Fangraphs and b-ref, LaHair is the MLB leader in WPA.
Just thought I’d nitpick the FIPer link that MB posted the other day.
.
Well, 0.09, which is better. Not sure if it is considerable or not.
0.14. If nothing else, this is more “considerably higher” than FIPer vs FIP.
0.03 We are getting to the point where the difference in the correlations are very hard to determine whether they are meaningful or not. How many HR’s in the data have to change for this difference to vanish?
…by 0.01. Considering all the advanced stats have coefficients between 0.43 and 0.49, I’d say they are all pretty equal. But the bigger question is if ERA is such a lousy stat, why bother trying to correlate to it? If a lousy stat is the benchmark, why try to predict it, rather than throw it out? If I have an old can of Shaeffer beer sitting in the sun for a few weeks, I’m not going to drink PBR, Blatz, Falstaff, Natural Light, Hamm’s and Genesee Cream trying to figure out which one tastes just as bad.
One other question about trying to eliminate IP from the FIP equation. Assume a slow pitcher that lulls his defense to sleep (say Steve Trachsel) vs someone that works quickly and keeps his defense involved (say Greg Maddux). I guess that Maddux will compile more outs because the defense is more alert for him. He controls, in some sense, their performance, as does Trachsel, by the way they work. Shouldn’t the way a pitcher involves his defense, or is able to elicit a ground ball to 2b, for example, count for something?
@ SkipVB:
Maybe that should have gone in the forum.
Thanks for the server switch, MB, and others. I did notice some weird drags from time to time on updating and such. This site is too much fun to have it screwed up by a host.
Congratulations on the server switch. May your new blog home be 2 or 288 times better than the old one.
Also, did you guys notice that Len was discussing a modified version of the run expectancy chart during the broadcast? I thought that was cool.
SkipVB wrote:
well, fantasy baseball. but RA is just as noisy, and i’m sure you can see the benefits of correlating to that.
@ GW:
I like RA pretty well, better than fielding independent stats, because I think pitchers’ performance dictates at least a portion of defense–such as my Trachsel/Maddux example above. Opposite is true too. The original post about FIPer suggests sets up a team of Skip Schumachers as a straw man. If I were a pitcher on that team, I guess I’d want more fly balls and strike outs.
I only play head to head fantasy on a weekly league, because that fits my schedule. It’s a non-keeper league, so I think we spend less time with some of the newer stats and care less about correlations for the next year.
Sorry I’m late to the show, but would you say this (http://www.obstructedview.net/other-topics/our-dreamhost-review-they-suck.html) was a post about hosts?
KG
Gerardo Concepcion, LHP, Cubs (Low-A Peoria)
The Cubs rocked the scouting world when they signed Concepcion to a $6 million big league deal that included a $3 million bonus, and the 20-year-old Cuban has not exactly gotten off to a rollicking start. After allowing seven runs in one inning on Saturday, he now has an 18.90 ERA in three starts and the Midwest League is batting .514 (19-for-37) against him. That said, it’s not time to panic, as the money involved was the creation of end-of-market inflation, and not Concepcion’s talent. He throws strikes with an upper-80s fastball and has the potential for good secondaries, but as a command-and-control pitcher and not a stuff guy, it’s going to take time to figure out how to pitch, as well as to adjust to his new life in the United States. Patience, for now.
To Host Gator – a toast to the host who boasts the most roasts!
Len getting some love
http://www.fangraphs.com/not/index.php/sabermetrics-is-winning
(SFW)
It is the first in a series. The next will be a little friendly reminder about the importance of good hosting for posts.
Good news about yesterdays win: The bullpen didn’t give up a walk!
Plus none of our pitchers had an out at the plate (Wood was 2-2 with a run scored, and Samardzija had a HBP). Take your DH and suck it MB (dying laughing)
Cole Hamels —–> “Get off my lawn.”
http://espn.go.com/mlb/story/_/id/7899287/philadelphia-phillies-cole-hamels-plunks-bryce-harper-admits-aiming-him
So, Jayson Werth …. ALMOST made a nice catch.
@ josh:
When I saw the replay, I knew he broke his wrist. He came down with a lot of force on his wrist and the way it was bent back, I knew it was not good.
Bryce Harper is fast as shit. I’ve watched pretty much all of his at bats so far and that kid can flat out fly. Just thought I’d add that.
@ Mucker:
Yeah, did you see the replay of Harper stealing home after the HBP? He shot Hamels a look. Didn’t blow him a kiss, though.
@ Mucker:
He is like a better version of Tony Campana who has other tools and is a tool.
@ Mobile Rice:
As in, Tony Campana should try to become Bryce Harper when he grows up.
@ Mobile Rice:
Isn’t Harper like 15?
New shit, apparently: http://www.obstructedview.net/minor-leagues/the-children-are-the-future-cubs-minor-league-update-sponsored-by-post-it.html
@ josh:
Yeah I saw that. Hamels said he hit him on purpose and Harper probably knew it.
I don’t understand the hate for Harper. He’s only 19 and he gets booed and talked about relentlessly. If you listen to his interviews, he shows a lot of respect for the game and his opponents. To me, he just seems like a really intense competitor. But it seems like everything he does, the media or fans are all over him about it. I guess haters gonna hate. Personally, I think it’s exciting to see somebody so young making an impact.