Continuing our series, it's time to look at the 2013 Cubs Projections for Darwin Barney. Last spring Barney talked about hitting for more power. We knew he wouldn't be a power hitter or anything, but it was clear he and the Cubs wanted him to hit for a little more than he had.
He did to some extent. He hit 7 home runs, which was 5 more than the previous season. He had a few more doubles too. His ISO was up from .078 in 2011 to .100 last year, but his overall slugging percentage remained the same. That's becasue his batting average took a hit last season.
Barney isn't much of a hitter. He had an 80 wRC+ in 2011 and last year it was just 75. He's not going to wow anyone with his bat and is best left in the 8th spot in the National League and if he's to play in the AL, the 9th spot.
He does do two things very well and those things are what make him valuable. It's his defense and baserunning that leads Jed Hoyer and other Cubs front office executives to talk about Darwin Barney, not as an afterthought, but as someone who is going to help build the Cubs into a contender.
And his defense is good. Really good.
In 2011 his UZR was 6.1 and it was 13 last year. That's a bit misleading. He didn't get much playing time in 2010 and if you add his +4 UZR to last year, you get a more similar 10.1. He played 1164.2 defensive innings in 2010 and 2011 combined and last year he played in 1270.1. UZR likes Darwin Barney a lot, but not as much as Baseball Reference's fielding.
BRef had him worth +7 in 2010 and 2011 (combined) and then a ridiculous 29 last year. Baseball Prospectus' FRAA had him worth 8.6 over 2010 and 2011 and 11.3 last year. It's safe to say there was something wrong in the way BRef was evaluating Barney's defense. Maybe it was the positioning. I don't really know, but it's very safe to say he wasn't worth 30 runs defensively last year. It's rather absurd to suggest it.
He's essentially been a +10 defender per season over his two full seasons (including 2010's small amount of playing time). That's a full win defensively, which he needs because of his bat.
He didn't only add value in that way though. He added more than 6 baserunning runs from 2010 to 2011 and added over 4 last year. He's adding nearly a win and a half in ways that his bat cannot.
It's not exactly exciting looking at his 2013 Cubs projections, but here they are anyway.
| Darwin Barney | PA | H | 2B | 3B | HR | BB | SO | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
| CAIRO | 524 | 127 | 23 | 3 | 4 | 28 | 64 | .259 | .303 | .346 | .289 |
| ZiPS | 607 | 153 | 26 | 5 | 5 | 29 | 69 | .270 | .308 | .360 | .292 |
| Average | 566 | 140 | 25 | 4 | 5 | 29 | 67 | .265 | .305 | .353 | .291 |
ZiPS projects +10 runs defensively and CAIRO projects an average defensive runs saved of +9 (13 DRS, 7 UZR and 8 ZR). We'll call it average of 10 because, as you know, I'm an optimist.
We can probably put him down for about 5 runs on the bases.
Offensively, he's worth about half a win, Add in the 10 runs defensively and 5 runs on the bases and you get about 2 WAR.
Below are his percentile forecasts using CAIRO.
| Darwin Barney | ||||||||||||||||||
| % | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | CS | BB | SO | GDP | HBP | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA |
| 80% | 629 | 586 | 85 | 166 | 33 | 6 | 7 | 59 | 13 | 1 | 40 | 67 | 8 | 7 | .283 | .339 | .397 | .328 |
| 65% | 576 | 537 | 74 | 146 | 28 | 4 | 6 | 51 | 10 | 1 | 34 | 66 | 9 | 6 | .272 | .321 | .370 | .308 |
| Baseline | 524 | 488 | 63 | 127 | 23 | 3 | 4 | 43 | 8 | 2 | 28 | 64 | 10 | 4 | .260 | .303 | .344 | .289 |
| 35% | 472 | 439 | 53 | 109 | 19 | 2 | 3 | 36 | 6 | 2 | 23 | 61 | 10 | 3 | .249 | .286 | .318 | .270 |
| 20% | 419 | 390 | 44 | 93 | 15 | 1 | 2 | 29 | 4 | 3 | 18 | 58 | 11 | 2 | .237 | .268 | .292 | .250 |
Speaking of Darwin Barney, I want to start a new fantasy baseball league this year as follows:
NL only. You field a daily lineup of 10 position players. There are only two categories: home runs and errors. Each is worth +1. At the end of the season, whoever accumulates the LOWEST total points wins, but you have to have at minimum 5000 plate appearances for the season for your team or else penalties apply. For every plate appearance that your team ends up under 5000, that’s an additional +1. This ensures players who actually play will be selected.
Anyone interested? Darwin will be the Babe Ruth of this league.
gbts22 wrote:
That sounds exciting.
A movement is accomplished in 6 stages.
@ dmick89:
Now I have to put that album on. Thanks.
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/14/carl-crawford-regrets-signing-in-toxic-boston
/CrawfordWatch
@ Edwin:
Piper at the Gates of Dawn or Workingman’s Dead? I changed two things. (dying laughing)
http://deadspin.com/5984242/is-trevor-bauers-terrible-new-rap-song-a-diss-track-directed-at-miguel-montero
(dying laughing)
Is there an mp3 version of this available anywhere?
@ dmick89:
I used to have this on an old cassette tape (recorded from GD radio), but I can’t find it and would like to have an mp3 version.
@ dmick89:
i can almost certainly find it when i get home (can’t look it up from work). if you haven’t heard from me by 8 or 9 pm, email me a reminder.
@ EnricoPallazzo:
I will. Thanks a lot. I look around for this periodically, but haven’t had any luck. I’m not a big fan of torrents (prefer the newsgroups) and can’t find an nzb download for it.
@ dmick89:
Piper. Am I mixing up my Floyd album covers?
@ Edwin:
No, that’s what it is, but I didn’t know if you meant the avatar or the profile. I updated the profile to show the Piper cover and my profile with some lyrics to Dire Wolf.
@ dmick89:
I’m guessing vertical axis is value and horizontal is age?
These don’t seem like surprising results. It would be a lot hard to run the bases while chained.
Also love the Dire Wolf. Ready for a digital tape swap?
Screw you all, my bizarro fantasy baseball league is gold.
@ gbts22:
Calm down, I’ll join.
Who the fuck is Brent Lillibridge
@ Suburban kid:
i had actually thought people were still talking about football?
@ Suburban kid:
apparently he’s got a career 628 OPS+ which is amazing! where’d they find this guy???!!?
@ Suburban kid:
Awful 2012, but a pretty decent 2011 in limited at bats.
@ Suburban kid:
A player who seems to have picked Dmick’s second option regarding steroids, and should soon move on to Enrico’s third option.
Sveum says Feldman is the #4 starter.
@ gbts22:
Is this league called “Let’s pretend we own the Royals” or what?
EnricoPallazzo wrote:
The White Sox.
@ dmick89:
To be fair, having chains around your ankles really slows you down.
@ Edwin:
(dying laughing) (dying laughing)
@ gbts22:
I said it was exciting.
Not really surprised about the Lillibridging, seeing as Vitters and Valbuena are the other bench IF options.
If Feldman really is guaranteed a rotation spot that must mean Baker is for sure not healthy, right?
@ gbts22:
I don’t think anyone except Baker expects Baker to be ready opening day. I think it says more about ambivalence towards Wood/Villanueva for the last spot.
I assume Travis Wood will be the 5th starter to start the season. I’m pretty sure he’s out of options and the Cubs already have a lefty in Russell in the pen. Wood would be completely useless in the bullpen. I then expect Feldman to be moved to the bullpen when Baker comes back because he’s the worst starter on the roster.
According to Sveum, Villanueva will likely be in the bullpen and Wood has the edge for the 5th starter’s spot.
@ dmick89:
I think it will be Wood in the rotation too. For what little it’s worth, I saw something this week that said he’s been throwing the ball really well this spring (getting better spin).
Wood is totally transformed.
Not to break up the baseball conversation or anything, but I thought this map was interesting—what if we had 50 states with equal population?
Vogelbach is getting thiiiiiiinner!
Download | Convert YouTube to MP3
via http://boysofspring.com/daniel-vogelbach/
@ SVB:
It would be so awesome if Obama just did this unilaterally one day. (dying laughing)
@mb – i checked for that fire rap and couldn’t find it anywhere reputable. i checked for GD radio hour #500 too and came up empty. might it be under another name?
@ SVB:
That’s pretty cool. I’d vote for that.
@ SVB:
that is interesting. also interesting is where the guy talks about how he came up with the names of all of the new states, and he mentions that Orange (currently Orange County, CA) is named after a person. a wikipedia search tells me that Orange County, CA is not in fact named after the fruit, but after Orange County, VA, which was named after William III of England (aka William of Orange). I’ll be darned.
@ SVB:
I can see Russia from Rainier State.
Best part of that video, hands down, is the fact that Vogelbach CLEARLY says “fuck me in the ass” after one of his swings.
bbref has vogelbach at 6′ 250 lbs. anyone know how up-to-date their minor league stuff usually is?
@ EnricoPallazzo:
I think that’s the only place it was ever played (GD hour 500). It may have been played live once, but to my knowledge it isn’t on any bootlegs or Dick’s Pick’s. I’ll contact a good friend who used to have hundreds of cassettes of the GD hours.
Mickey may have played it live 8 or 10 years ago, but I’d really like that 1974 version
Anyone know of any good apps for the Mac to convert youtube to mp3?
@ EnricoPallazzo:
The use the same data provided by the teams. They haven’t updated it and it appears he’s lost significant weight.
Whoa
Want to have a good start to your day? Watch any/all of these: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOHbM4GGWADc5bZgvbivvttAuWGow6h05
Cubs playoffs ———–> 12.5% chance http://www.baseballprospectus.com/odds/
@ JonKneeV:
I love how it is True Facts about:
Angler Fish
Baby Echidnas
Sloths
Seahorse
Morgan Freeman
(dying laughing)
@ dmick89:
Cubs WS Win ——> 0.5% Chance!
WaLi wrote:
WaLi wrote:
SK ——————-> bookies
WaLi wrote:
Fish don’t fry in the kitchennnnnnnnn……
Funny how the bookies don’t give you those odds (for the Cubs anyway). My third grade math skillz tell me that 0.5% is the same as 200 to 1. But my bookie is only offering 150 to 1.
new shit: http://www.obstructedview.net/news-and-rumors/scott-feldman-will-be-the-4th-starter.html