Starlin Castro and Bryan LaHair will represent the Cubs as All Stars this year. Both players were voted in by the players.
Link: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20120701&content_id=34263550&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb
I’ll have more on this later.
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stercus ad temere intempestivo temporibus
SK, LaHair is 3rd in the NL in wOBA among 1st basemen. I thought he had a better chance than Castro. Castro is 7th at SS. Bad choice to be honest.
I thought Dempster and LaHair would go. Don’t think anyone else deserved it.
I think Demp would’ve gone as the lone rep had he not been injured. I thought Lowrie should’ve gone.
LaHair has been good but he has not been an everyday player. That’s why I was surprised about him. I would have just picked Dempster if it were up to me, but I’m not surprised to see Castro.
Carrie Muskat @CarrieMuskat
Both Castro and LaHair can thank their peers. Castro was 1st among NL SS & LaHair 2nd to #Reds Votto in player ballots. #Cubs
@ mb21:
LaHair had limited playing time and his numbers are skewed due to facing righties. Castro has been far more valuable overall.
@ Suburban kid:
Dempster couldn’t pitch, of course, but at least they’d get a compensation pick, as well as the benefit of not having any Cubs on the roster. Castro is a defensible choice, in my opinion. Depending on how improved you think his defense has been, he’s arguably been one of the better SS’s in the league this year.
LaHair is mostly in because of how shallow the 1B position is in the league after Votto. And just 2 years ago, Votto barely made the ASG at all.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Value is meaningless for this game. If you select based on value you’ll have a lot of outfielders. Not to mention that for one game defense and base running are silly to include. Would you even consider leaving Fielder out because he sucks at defense and base running? The best hitters at each position should go. I don’t watch the game but if I did I sure as hell wouldn’t turn it on to see the fielders and base runners. Neither do the fans. That’s why the home run derby gets so many people excited. Pretty sure nobody will tune into a fielding or base running derby. The should try that though.
LaHair and Castro are tied in oWAR. I think we can agree LaHair is a subpar defender (even for 1B). I don’t know how much Castro has improved this year, but all the metrics have sure come around on him.
@ mb21:
So, you’re calling it a bad decision based on your own criteria (which aren’t widely accepted)? I guess that’s OK, but don’t expect many others to be convinced. Most people do want the best players,and they do like baserunning and defense (see Smith, Ozzie). I also find it odd to say, “I don’t watch the game, but if I did, this is what I’d like to see.”
Castro has been a win worse than LaHair at the plate using Fangraphs metrics.
@ mb21:
Did you take positional adjustment into account? He’s been worth about 10 runs less before positional adjustments.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
They want the best hitters. I don’t think Cubs fans are going to tune into this game to watch the one ball Castro fields or the possibility of him running the bases. The fans keep voting in Derek Jeter for Christ’s sake. It ain’t to watch to ground balls going pasta diving Jeter. I don’t think so. Maybe they just want to hear Buck say it.
@ mb21:
They vote in Jeter because he’s a popular player. Just as they voted for Ozzie’s unremarkable bat and Ripken’s declining bat. Castro is arguably the most popular Cub now, and certainly more popular than LaHair.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
No, because that’s not part of hitting. That’s part of value. If I want to know who the better hitter is i look at wOBA, wRC+, or batting runs. If you need offense, who do you use to pinch hit: the guy with the higher oWAR or the better hitter?
oWAR shouldn’t include positional adjustment because nobody would consider the player’s defensive position as part of his offense. It’s important for overall value, but not to the player’s offense.
Bubbles just booked a trip to aruba
My transistor is broken. Does anyone know when this game will start?
mb21 wrote:
oWAR just needs to change the name. Otherwise, it’s fine. We already have a million LWTS-based measures for offense. Also, for the ASG, you need players at each position, and I think choosing LaHair over Goldshmidt was far worse than choosing Castro over Lowrie. Especially since Castro can be used to pinch-run and stuff. You know, like last year when he pinch-ran and swiped 2 bases.
Is this the 2nd rain delay in Chicago this week? We could really use some of that here.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
I agree but I’m not really surei see the point in combining positional adjustment with batting stats unless you also include defense and base running. Why not just have defense (dWAR if we need it), offense being oWAR and then some other WAR for the necessary adjustments? If I want to know someone’s batting WAR I definitely don’t want position taken into account. I’d rather just compare some type of batting runs, but including position makes it confusing to others. Just my 2 cents.
mb21 wrote:
Because it estimates what the player’s bat is actually worth relative to the position. Also, it’s a way of estimating a player’s value while being agnostic about defensive metrics (hence, Barney is not worth 3.4 wins halfway through the season). Also, it does include base running.
Anyone know what time the Cubs game starts?
Wait a sec! I just put a noun next to another noun creating an adjective!! Dear God I adjectivized a noun!
Language is ruined! Cancel language!
josh wrote:
Carrie Muskat said 2:15 40 minutes ago.They’re singing the national anthem now.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Okay, Pat and Keith have an assinine conversation going right now about colors, so I assume they’re still cleaning up the field.
@ Rizzo the Rat:
I guess that makes sense so it does need a new name. I just subtract defense from WAR if I’m looking for non-defense WAR.
I understand that it’s his choice but I’m kind of confused as to why Carlos Lee wouldn’t just go to LA for a couple months instead of sticking around in Houston. I guess when you have millions of dollars though you can do whatever you want.
Muskrat reminds us that the 08 Cubs had eight all stars
@ Berselius22:
The 2008 Cubs were definitely at least four times better than the 2012 Cubs.
@ Rice Cube:
The Angels have a pretty big hurdle of Texas. Maybe he figured they didn’t have much of a chance of getting to the post-season. Without that, it’s pretty much all negative for him.
@ josh:
Did you hear Pat’s “theory” yesterday on why redheads are so called?
@ josh:
I thought he was going to the Dodgers, I didn’t hear about an Angels rumor?
@ Suburban kid:
I did not. Sounds hilarious though.
@ josh:
He said LA, not Anaheim of LA.
@ Rice Cube:
Oh right. Well, hell, the Dodgers suck, don’t they?
Wait, a NATIONAL league team wanted C-Lee? You can see why I was confused.
Actually the Dodgers should be wrecking that Division.
@ josh:
Pat has been developing a theory as to why people are called redheads, even though nobody really has red hair. He thinks their hair is more of an orange color, which makes it odd that they are called redheads. His theory is that the reason for this is that it’s just easier to say “redhead” than “orangehead”. Red is a short word, and orange is longer. And, it doesn’t rhyme with head. Are you with me?
@ josh:
I can see why it’d make more sense to send Carlos Lee to Anaheim although they aren’t exactly lacking for DH types either.
@ Suburban kid:
I’m sorry I asked.
@ Rice Cube:
I just heard “LA” and assumed, I guess. I seem to recall them talking about the Dodgers yesterday. I’ve slept since then, I guess.
Perfect game going on for Wood
Perfect game going on for Wandy
No more perfect game for Wandy. I thought for sure we’d see a double perfect game.
@ mb21:
You might have double jinxed them.
@ mb21:
Valbuena’d.
Pat Hughes just triple jinxed Travis Wood by stating the three perfect innings.
Travis Wood is solid
Wow, Rizzo just swung at and grounded out on a pitch that was like two feet out of the zone according to Gameday.
3 pitches 2 outs for the Cubs. That’s surprising.
It’s not. That’s called irony.
@ Rice Cube:
Totally loving the Twinkies in there, nice nod to Zombieland. Always remember to Double Tap.
@ BubbaBiscuit:
I gotta work on my Cardio for sure.
@ Rice Cube:
Yeah, my current cardio means I lose, so I need to work on that as well.
Where did this Plouffe guy come from?
Travis Wood —> not a TOOTBLAN
Nice.
A real RBI guy comes in with a man on 3rd and less than 2 outs and hits a sac fly, none of this ground ball single shit. Rizzo needs to learn the unwritten rules and fast, savior my ass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr_eB5hA-RM
(dying laughing)
Rizzo, huh? Difficult not to get excited.
Marm was filthy today.
SO is Travis Wood good? He has been pretty awesome lately.
@ bubblesdachimp:
Not particularly. He hits well for a pitcher, though.
OK statsdudez, Keith Moreland believes that the difference between a good hitting and good fielding pitcher and a bad hitting and bad fielding pitcher is two pitcher wins.
A) Is he out of his mind?
B) or is it pointless because pitcher wins are stupid?
Keith Moreland also says mennally, Wanday, and left fill, center fill, etc.
/i still like Keith
@ Suburban kid:
He sometimes makes me want to stab my eardrums out. His calls leave something to be desired. He’s definitely much improved over last season though.
@ Suburban kid:
A win is generally a difference in 10 runs. In other words, say a player is worth 50 batting runs, we might say he provided 5 wins. Obviously replacement level matters, but ignoring that for a moment, to add two additional wins the pitcher would have to be better by 20 runs or his defense would have to be about -20 in 30 or so starts. So yeah, Moreland is nuts.
As far as pitcher wins themselves, I don’t have any idea. They are useless, but I cannot imagine that a bad fielding pitcher costs himself 2 wins. He just doesn’t play enough to have that much impact.
My wild-ass guess is that a bad hitting pitcher is worth about -2 to -3 runs compared to the average hitting pitcher and probably about the same for fielding.
Matt Garza is an especially bad fielding pitcher though.
@ mb21:
I think Keith was making a point about Wood, who is known to be a good hitting pitcher and showed baserunning skill in today’s game. Could be he was contrasting him with Garza but he didn’t mention him.
Travis Wood’s game:
http://chicago.cubs.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=22764967&c_id=mlb&topic_id=vtp_star_of_the_game
Only four strikeouts but never really in danger.
@ Suburban kid:
To give you an idea, Carlos Zambrano has been worth 6.2 rWAR in his career as a batter and he’s one of the best hitting pitchers I’ve seen. That’s basically half a season per win so I would think fielding is close to the same. Maybe. So it’s possible a great hitting pitcher and great fielding pitcher is worth 1 more WAR than an average fielder and hitter. Travis Wood was worth .2 rWAR in his rookie season, -.2 last year and .2 so far this year (not including today’s game). I’m assuming replacement level hitting for a pitcher is average so overall Wood has been a bit better than average.
Average OPS+ (or wRC+) is slightly less than 0 (-5 so far this year in the NL). Wells has a career 26 OPS+ and a 14 wRC+, not including today’s double, so he’s been above average (given the sample size). His minor league hitting numbers are relatively good, too: .191/.265/.292. He’s no Zambrano, but he’s probably above average.
@ mb21:
You haven’t watched Garza try and throw the ball to 1st base much.
New Comic: http://www.obstructedview.net/comics/rizzomania.html (Still feels weird posting here).