It's hard to believe that February is here, which means pitchers and catchers will be reporting to Mesa in a couple weeks. The position players won't be far behind. It's particularly hard to believe because the Cubs didn't have an active offseason. Not once have I actually looked forward to watching Cubs baseball. I have looked forward to watching baseball, but not baseball played by Chicago. I'll watch though. Maybe I'll even get excited for Cubs baseballa and the new and improved Cubs Way by the time spring training games begin.
The first thing we need to do is come up with a lineup. We will look at at the optimized lineup, but there's little chance any manager in baseball is going to use that lineup. The first thing we need to do is come up with a realistic lineup. We also need to consider off days and/or platoons. The Cubs starters at this point are Geovany Soto, Bryan LaHair, Darwin Barney, Ian Stewart, Starlin Castro, Alfonso Soriano, Marlon Byrd and David DeJesus.
Vs. Righties
- David DeJesus
- Darwin Barney (shouldn't be the number 2 hitter, but probably will be)
- Starlin Castro
- Bryan LaHair
- Geovany Soto
- Marlon Byrd
- Ian Stewart
- Alfonso Soriano
Vs Lefties
- Darwin Barney
- Starlin Castro
- Geovany Soto
- Alfonso Soriano
- Marlon Byrd
- Bryan LaHair
- Ian Stewart
- David DeJesus
That's good enough for me and probably not too unlike the lineups we'll see this year with a couple exceptions: off days and platoons. It's very possible we see David DeJesus platooned in RF. It's even more likely we'll see some type of lineup that gets Jeff Baker in there vs lefties. I wouldn't be too surprised to see Soriano lose playing time vs righties to Dave Sappelt, Tony Campana or eventually Brett Jackson (Byrd shifting to LF).
Calculating split projections is rather easy. The Book gave us the information necessary to do so and Berselius created a spreadsheet a couple years that accomplished it in a simple manner. CAIRO uses that took to provide splits projections. You can check out the Cubs splits projections here.
We'll eventually calculate BaseRuns in another post, but we'll start with simple wRC to get an estimate of runs scored.
| Vs. R | wOBA | wRC | Vs. L | wOBA | wRC | |
| David DeJesus | 0.345 | 54 | Darwin Barney | 0.311 | 21 | |
| Darwin Barney | 0.292 | 35 | Starlin Castro | 0.351 | 28 | |
| Starlin Castro | 0.326 | 47 | Geovany Soto | 0.359 | 29 | |
| Bryan LaHair | 0.343 | 53 | Alfonso Soriano | 0.341 | 26 | |
| Geovany Soto | 0.329 | 48 | Marlon Byrd | 0.333 | 25 | |
| Marlon Byrd | 0.318 | 44 | Bryan LaHair | 0.311 | 21 | |
| Ian Stewart | 0.321 | 45 | Ian Stewart | 0.321 | 23 | |
| Alfonso Soriano | 0.321 | 45 | David DeJesus | 0.306 | 20 | |
| Pitcher | 0.175 | -1 | Pitcher | 0.175 | -1 | |
| Total | 370 | Total | 191 |
I used 400 PA for each player vs righties and 200 vs lefties. PItchers were given a total of 200 PA. That's a total of 561 runs scored, but there are approximately 1000 plate appearances remaining. We can bump the 561 up to 650. We're not looking for precise numbers yet. We couldn't get those with wRC anyway. This is just a simple estimate.
It's in line with the latest CAIRO projected standings too.
Vs. Righties
DeJesus is the best hitter the Cubs have when a right-handed pitcher is on the mound. I'm hoping he leads off against them. I'm also hoping he gets a lot of days off vs lefties. Barney shouldn't even be playing vs righties and probably not even vs lefties, but I've heard Theo, Hoyer and Sveum talk about him as if he's the starter. There's even the possibility that he may lead off, which would be scary. Welcome to 2003-2006.
Castro could hit anywhere from leadoff to 6th against righties and I expect he'll hit in a lot of different spots. The same is likely true of Soriano, Byrd, Stewart and Soto.
Vs. Lefties
Soto and Castro are the two best hitters the Cubs have vs lefties. If Castro begins to develop more power I'd like him hitting 2nd, but if his power remains what it's been I think he'd be a good leadoff candidate vs lefties. There's a big drop off after those two. Soriano is at .341 and Byrd is above average at .333, but the rest are below average.
In year's past the Cubs had a lineup that could destroy lefties, but that's not true this year. They're a little better vs lefties than righties, but not much better. The Cubs have added some left handed bats that the team lacked in previous years so their strength vs lefties is somewhat diminished. They have improved against righties though.
Tomorrow we'll look at BaseRuns and get a more accurate runs scored projection.
Comments
False.
MishQuote Reply
Baseballa is my favorite game.
joshQuote Reply
@ josh:
I didn’t know what you were talking about at first, but then I figured it out. (dying laughing)
mb21Quote Reply
(dying laughing)
This team blows.
GBTSQuote Reply
*shudders*
BerseliusQuote Reply
I’ll probably be proven wrong, but I’d like to think that the Thoyer Era would be the end of the likes of Darwin Barney and other banjo-hitting infielders batting second with this team (at least against RHP).
BerseliusQuote Reply
I’d like very much to see Soriano at 1B and Reedz in LF against lefties. I don’t think the Cubs would try that though.
I want to be entertained.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
I’d like to think so too, but Sveum did say that Barney was a candidate to not just hit 2nd, but actually lead off.
Lou mostly ran out solid lineups. Quade was OK. Baker was terrible. Hard to know with Sveum, but based on what he said it’s not looking good.
mb21Quote Reply
Jim Tressel ———> Akron
[img]http://www.mytinyphone.com/uploads/users/jonnybravo/386922.gif[/img]
Apparently it’s a non-athletic, vaguely defined administrative job.
BerseliusQuote Reply
mb21 wrote:
I’m just going to pretend that Sveum left out “against lefties”, which makes it slightly better
/fan denial
BerseliusQuote Reply
Berselius wrote:
Don’t know if it means anything, but one of Bobby Bowden’s sons is the new coach at Akron.
XoomwaffleQuote Reply
I cant log in. Someone please email me. Very annoying
BubblesdachimpQuote Reply
Berselius wrote:
Might be something he was coached to say to appease the Cubs fans who are just in love with Darwin Barney.
There’s also the possibility that the front office mandates that Barney never hits above a certain spot in the lineup (a la Billy Beane, but maybe not as aggressive)
Rice CubeQuote Reply
This new place is unfamiliar and scary. Is there no “Refresh Comments” button?
XoomwaffleQuote Reply
Yet another article refuting the Verducci Effect: http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15962
Not really sure how many more of these we need. I think it’s already been shown to be nonsense, but whatever.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Bubblesdachimp:
Click the lost password link like we mentioned in the initial post.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Xoomwaffle:
No, there’s no way to accomplish that with WordPress.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
Don’t tell me what to pay for.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
To summarize it, the Verducci Effect guys over several years have actually performed slightly better than the control group.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Bubblesdachimp:
You have to mail in your subscription renewal fee.
GBTSQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
It’s only $389.99 for a limited time.
mb21Quote Reply
I’m one of the 5% using ie 7 (dying laughing) I blame work… although I do use IE at home as well. Does that make me a bad person?
WaLiQuote Reply
mb21 wrote:
That is an insult to our best customers who paid $500 before we re-launched on WP.
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
That’s what they get for being early adopters.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
You dudes who use IE at work. What’s stopping you from installing another browser?
Suburban kidQuote Reply
I’m guessing the browsers I use (Lynx at home, Mosaic at work) are too recent to be showing up in the stats.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
I’m more interested in those who are using Netscape. I didn’t even know it still existed. (dying laughing)
mb21Quote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
1) I’m not really sure what the benefit would be. IE doesn’t really bother me. In what ways are the other browsers better?
B) IT @ Work stops all installs unless they do it themselves.
WaLiQuote Reply
mb21 wrote:
Except by hitting F5
Suburban kidQuote Reply
@ mb21:
The last time I used netscape was on an iMac at a library like 10+ years ago (dying laughing)
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c0/IMac_Bondi_Blue.jpg/220px-IMac_Bondi_Blue.jpg[/img]
WaLiQuote Reply
mb21 wrote:
mb, it seems that if I leave my computer for some time (>60 minutes?) there will be new comments listed. Maybe there is a way to reduce this timer down to 10 minutes so there is somewhat of an auto-refresh?
WaLiQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
You can do this yourself –
Firefox Add-on
(or)
Auto Refresh from here without any downloads
cubsfan4lifeQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
I like adblock for Firefox or Chrome. I hate ads.
It seems like, in my experience, that IE is more vulnerable to adware and popups. Maybe I’m just biased because I’m just used to Firefox. I’ve been using Chrome at home lately.
joshQuote Reply
IE was also dead last in adopting tabs. That was a big advantage of Firefox a couple years ago.
joshQuote Reply
cubsfan4life wrote:
We’ve clearly already established that Wali is an IE dinosaur. (dying laughing)
GBTSQuote Reply
That’s a perfectly cromulent offense.
EddieQuote Reply
Chick-Fil-A = recruitment tiebreaker!
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaaf-dr-saturday/cassanova-mckinzy-spurned-clemson-because-didn-t-chick-015506961.html
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Chick-Fil-A is delicious. I can’t argue with him
WaLiQuote Reply
@ Suburban kid:
(dying laughing)
mb21Quote Reply
@ cubsfan4life:
The problem with those is if you’re writing a comment the page will refresh and the comment may be lost.
mb21Quote Reply
@ GBTS:
(dying laughing) this is true.
[img]http://www.crazyabouttv.com/Images/dinosaurs.jpg[/img]
I just don’t see the reason to switch. I use the internet to download .nzb files and come to this site and occasionally stream NHL Gamecenter (and soon to be MLB). That’s about it.
WaLiQuote Reply
@ josh:
I actually like Safari the best and use it frequently, but I also use Firefox. I wish Safari had more addons.
mb21Quote Reply
WaLi wrote:
I’ve noticed this too and just thought I must have refreshed the page at some point. I have no idea how I could find that. Anybody have any ideas?
mb21Quote Reply
Eddie wrote:
Yeah, it’s about 4 runs per game, which is pretty damn bad. If offense is higher in 2012 the Cubs will probably score more than that, but relative to the rest of the league they’re still going to be near the bottom in runs scored.
mb21Quote Reply
@ WaLi: What do use to download the files from an .nzb? I used to use Newsbin, but since I got a Mac I use Unison.
mb21Quote Reply
@ josh:
I don’t like ads either. I don’t think anybody does, but sites rely on that ad revenue so I disable Adblock Plus on any site I frequent.
mb21Quote Reply
mb21 wrote:
I just figured it had something to do with my own browser settings, but I know pages like Yahoo’s box scores have auto-refreshes built in so you’d probably have to go into a live game-center, find that line in its source code and see if that same line of code exists in your WordPress style sheet. It seems sporadic at best…I leave this page open as a tab while I do other things and sometimes don’t come back for two or three hours, sometimes it shows new comments from the last point I checked but other times it’s the same.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
I’ve noticed that too. I usually have about 40 tabs open in my browser and sometimes I’ll notice this site has refreshed and other times it hasn’t. I just assumed I must have refreshed the page at some point.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
I canceled cable which let me justify subscribing to Astraweb for $11/month. Not sure how much I like the service, I tend to have a lot (10%?) of failed downloads. I use nzbmatrix to search and Sabnzbd to download.
I’m kind of new to the whole thing though so I’m not sure if I’m doing it right (dying laughing)
WaLiQuote Reply
This is basically what we’d need to do: http://matthewaprice.com/simple-jquery-ajax-auto-refreshing-div/
But I’m scared of javascript. (dying laughing)
The comments are already within a div tag (actually a section id tag, but I can add a div tag). If anyone can take that code and tell me where to place it I’ll try it out.
mb21Quote Reply
I see today’s topic of the day is internet browsers. (dying laughing)
MishQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
10% failed downloads? I’ve had some corrupted files before, but nowhere near 10%.
mb21Quote Reply
@ Mish:
And illegal downloads. (dying laughing)
mb21Quote Reply
http://twitter.com/#!/cwyers/status/165075371195236352
Ouch.
ACTQuote Reply
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/02/02/the-dh-has-tainted-hitting-records-really/
I liked this comment:
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Mish wrote:
ABCB
(Anything but Cubs baseball)
Suburban kidQuote Reply
mb21 wrote:
Yeah. I’ve been trying to download the LotR trilogy and I keep getting not enough repair blocks error or unable to join parts or something like that. The not enough repair blocks one is common. Maybe it’s not 10%, but it seems to happen often enough to make me want to switch from astraweb.
WaLiQuote Reply
Nats are shopping Lannan:
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/02/nationals-aggressively-shopping-john-lannan.html
Rice CubeQuote Reply
http://www.bleedcubbieblue.com/2012/2/2/2766556/cubs-baseball-academy-dominican-republic#storyjump
not sure if thats been posted but kudos to Tom for opening the checkbook.
dylanjQuote Reply
@ mb21:
True, So the best way is to keep two tabs open. One with Auto-Refresh on (Either with a plugin or using an external auto refresh page as I posted above) and the other without and use them for different purposes.
You need to use AJAX to refresh the comments dynamically at regular intervals if you do not want to refresh the entire page every n seconds (there by accidentally losing any comments typed in the text area).
cubsfan4lifeQuote Reply
[img]http://nbchardballtalk.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/espn-poll.jpg[/img]
Cubs belong in the “other” category too (dying laughing)
MishQuote Reply
Very interesting graphic about WAR distribution:
http://www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2012/2/2/2766665/the-distribution-of-position-player-war-by-team-2002-2011
Cubs have a lot of averageness.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ mb21:
Yes, that’s basically what we need to do.
1. Auto refresh the entire comments sub-section. This is simple to implement. However this is a bandwidth hog as you are fetching *all* the comments with every trip to the server.
2. Store the time stamp for the last comment somewhere on the page and periodically ping the server to see if there are any more comments posted after that time stamp. If there are any new comments the server would return those comments and your AJAX JS would simply append the new comments to the list. This way there is not a huge traffic going on between the end-user and the server.
If you want to implement (1) as indicated on the site, you need to first create a new page that just contains the comments. Eg:
comments.html
blah blah
You need to include all those ‘script’ tags in that example to the ‘head’ section of your page/template.
So ..
$(document).ready(function() {
$.ajaxSetup({ cache: false }); // This part addresses an IE bug. without it, IE will only load the first number and will never refresh
setInterval(function() {
$(‘#comments’).load(‘[replace this with path to your comments.html file]’);
}, 3000); // the “3000” here refers to the time to refresh the div. it is in milliseconds.
});
….
………..
…………
This is all you need to do
cubsfan4lifeQuote Reply
@ cubsfan4life:
All my html tags are either stripped (dying laughing)
mb21, I can email you what needs to be done if you are up for it.
cubsfan4lifeQuote Reply
Edwin Jackson ———> Nats
BerseliusQuote Reply
Jordan Zimmerman is the Nats 4th starter. They could really make some noise this year.
BerseliusQuote Reply
Rice Cube wrote:
Who the fuck did the Cubs have >7 WAR? I can’t find anyone per baseball reference –> Player Value Batting
WaLiQuote Reply
WaLi wrote:
Sammy’s 2002 season?
Aisle424Quote Reply
WaLi wrote:
I would have guessed Sosa, but looks like no. Also, holy shit, Moises Alou had a 6.1 fWAR season in 2004
BerseliusQuote Reply
Derrek Lee had a 7.4 WAR season in 2005. .446 wOBA!!
BerseliusQuote Reply
Adolfo had a 7.0 fWAR year in 2007, though a big part of that was his crazy UZR that year due to teams running on him.
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
I assumed it was Sammy Sosa but he didn’t even have >7 fWAR. Neither did Derrek Lee.
I stand corrected…Lee had 7.4 fWAR in 2005 when he had that monster season.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
Fangraphs has Derrek Lee’s 2005 season at 7.4 WAR. B-Ref has him at 6.8.
Aisle424Quote Reply
the NL East is pretty stacked
dylanjQuote Reply
Berselius wrote:
False. Everyone knows Soriano is, and always has been, terrible.
Aisle424Quote Reply
Berselius wrote:
Rafael Fucking Furcal should die a horrible death.
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
I was thinking Sosa too, that wasn’t it. I skipped over the 2005 season because it sucked (dying laughing). Oops.
WaLiQuote Reply
@ Aisle424:
Am I looking at the wrong shit?
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/l/leede02.shtml
I see Lee in 2005 with a 5.7 WAR.
WaLiQuote Reply
WaLi wrote:
That BtB study used fWAR, WaLi
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
fWAR
MishQuote Reply
Maybe the Angels stumbled upon something Todd Rickets could do, though it would be in crayon:
http://deadspin.com/5881715/angels-gm-now-mailing-handwritten-replies-to-fans-who-send-him-trade-ideas
WenningtonsGorillaCockQuote Reply
@ cubsfan4life:
This should have been a Fanshot.
GBTSQuote Reply
@ cubsfan4life:
Would you know how to do this?
mb21Quote Reply
@ cubsfan4life:
Can I send you an email about this stuff?
mb21Quote Reply
@ cubsfan4life:
Please do
mb21Quote Reply
@ Berselius:
Ah, I didn’t realize the difference was so drastic. Thanks.
WaLiQuote Reply
http://www.mockingthedraft.com/2012/2/2/2766928/5-round-nfl-mock-draft
Wright would be great, but I’d have a hard time passing on Brockers if he fell.
Dr. Aneus TaintQuote Reply
WaLi wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLrpBLDWyCI
GBTSQuote Reply
@ cubsfan4life:
What would it take to implement a refresh comments link like we had previously? I think an auto-refresh would eat way too many resources, but obviously the link we had before did not.
mb21Quote Reply
@ mb21:
If I remember correctly the old site implemented option (2) from my post up above. I think it only fetched comments newer than the last fetched comment.
I don’t know the specifics behind how this blog works. Do you pretty much have access to the server? Or do you only work at the page level (kind of like blogspot etc) on an Admin panel?
cubsfan4lifeQuote Reply
@ cubsfan4life:
It’s a WordPress blog. I believe I have access to the server. We have a VPS account. I’ve never done anything with the server specifically other than creating databases and using the cPanel. WordPress is just one thing that’s installed on the server. There’s also a survey, poll and chat database installed.
Yeah, the Joomla site only fetched new comments when one clicked the refresh button.
mb21Quote Reply
Is everyone dying of daily facepalm withdrawal? This was my plan all along.
AndCountingQuote Reply
@ AndCounting:
Correct.
WaLiQuote Reply
Wouldn’t it be possible to use the same or similar code that we used on the Joomla site?
mb21Quote Reply
New non-facepalm shit: http://obstructedview.net/chicago-cubs/cubs-training-facility-in-dominican-republic-looks-freakin-sweet.html
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ AndCounting:
I’ve had to self-facepalm to get my fix. Damn you.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
http://baseballcrank.com/archives2/2012/02/baseballpolitic_20.php
GWQuote Reply
@ mb21:
Who is your hosting provider?
cubsfan4lifeQuote Reply
@ cubsfan4life:
Hostgator. We have a Level 3 or 4 VPS. Can’t remember which one.
Is the email you used for this comment your email?
mb21Quote Reply