I noticed yesterday on Fangraphs that they had published the 2013 Cubs Oliver Projections. Actually, they'd posted all the teams in their projections section, but I was interested in the Cubs. Here they are.
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | Fld | BsR | WAR |
| Starlin Castro | 647 | .302 | .346 | .449 | .343 | 8.6 | -0.3 | 5.4 |
| Anthony Rizzo | 592 | .278 | .349 | .532 | .374 | 4.6 | -0.4 | 4.3 |
| Junior Lake | 565 | .256 | .308 | .414 | .314 | 4.4 | 1.4 | 3.2 |
| Welington Castillo | 421 | .249 | .325 | .433 | .329 | 0.5 | -0.2 | 2.8 |
| Luis Valbuena | 671 | .258 | .335 | .423 | .329 | -4.8 | -0.5 | 2.8 |
| Brett Jackson | 562 | .233 | .319 | .427 | .324 | -2.2 | 1 | 2.5 |
| Matt Szczur | 506 | .269 | .329 | .396 | .317 | 1.2 | 0.6 | 2.3 |
| David DeJesus | 519 | .264 | .345 | .402 | .329 | 3.5 | -0.4 | 2.1 |
| Christian Villanueva | 493 | .254 | .312 | .428 | .320 | 0.3 | -0.3 | 2.1 |
| Dave Sappelt | 640 | .272 | .324 | .401 | .316 | 5.7 | -0.5 | 2.1 |
| Dioner Navarro | 365 | .262 | .329 | .400 | .318 | 0.1 | -0.4 | 2 |
| Steve Clevenger | 400 | .258 | .318 | .404 | .314 | -0.2 | -0.6 | 2 |
| Darwin Barney | 573 | .268 | .315 | .359 | .296 | 6.7 | 0 | 2 |
| Ian Stewart | 381 | .246 | .326 | .442 | .331 | -0.3 | -0.2 | 1.9 |
| Alfonso Soriano | 557 | .238 | .305 | .427 | .314 | 5.3 | -0.5 | 1.8 |
| Nate Schierholtz | 379 | .271 | .338 | .441 | .336 | -0.1 | -0.4 | 1.5 |
| Scott Hairston | 378 | .258 | .323 | .452 | .332 | 0.3 | -0.2 | 1.5 |
| Josh Vitters | 543 | .259 | .309 | .437 | .322 | -8.2 | -0.5 | 1.5 |
| Logan Watkins | 552 | .252 | .325 | .371 | .308 | -4.3 | 0.4 | 1.4 |
| Jorge Soler | 276 | .254 | .310 | .401 | .308 | 0.1 | -0.1 | 0.5 |
Junior Lake with 3.2 WAR? A .314 wOBA? 3rd highest WAR among position players? That's not even the strangest projection. Not even close.
That honor just might go to the .308 wOBA for Jorge Soler who hasn't played a game above low A. He didn't even play that many games in A ball.
2.1 WAR for Christian Villanueva and it's not even primarily from his defense? 2.8 WAR for Luis Valbuena?
I understand that the playing time for some of these players is way higher than they'll actually get, but even the rate stats are silly. So is the WAR.
| Name | PA | AVG | OBP | SLG | wOBA | Fld | BsR | WAR |
| Aramis Ramirez | 645 | .289 | .380 | .518 | .386 | -3.4 | 0.3 | 4.7 |
| Mark DeRosa | 593 | .285 | .376 | .481 | .374 | 3.2 | 1.8 | 4.3 |
| Alfonso Soriano | 503 | .280 | .344 | .532 | .368 | 16.2 | -0.6 | 4.1 |
| Geovany Soto | 563 | .285 | .364 | .504 | .373 | -2 | -4.5 | 3.9 |
| Ryan Theriot | 661 | .307 | .387 | .359 | .341 | 1.7 | 3.1 | 3.6 |
| Derrek Lee | 698 | .291 | .361 | .462 | .360 | 6.8 | -0.5 | 3.1 |
| Mike Fontenot | 284 | .305 | .395 | .514 | .394 | 5.5 | 1.4 | 3.1 |
| Jim Edmonds | 298 | .256 | .369 | .568 | .397 | -7.4 | -1.8 | 1.7 |
| Reed Johnson | 374 | .303 | .358 | .420 | .344 | 0.9 | 0 | 1.6 |
| Kosuke Fukudome | 590 | .257 | .359 | .379 | .328 | 4.4 | 1.6 | 1.6 |
That's the 2008 Cubs and those are the only players who had more than 0.7 fWAR.
I realize this isn't really an apples to apples comparison. The Oliver projections include more than 1 player at the same position (Castro-Lake, Valbuena-Villianueva, etc), but you get the point. Even the best offensive Cubs team I've seen in my life is barely better than the 2013 Cubs Oliver projections.
My first thought was that maybe they had everyone projected to be way better than they really are. That doesn't seem to be the case. Starlin Castro is projected by Oliver to have the 10th best WAR among position players. He's tied with Robinson Cano at 5.4. Joey Votto is only at 5.7 WAR.
The Reds' Billy Hamilton has just over 200 plate appearances above A ball. He's projected to be worth 4.4 WAR. I can buy the +20 runs fielding and baserunning for him that Oliver is projecting if he was to play a full season, but I don't buy he's going to be among the league leaders in WAR in his first season without a full season above A ball.
This isn't the first time I've wondered what the hell was wrong with the Oliver projections. Last year, early on, they had the Cubs winning 82 games in the 2012 season.
You can compare the 2013 Cubs Oliver projections to their Steamer projections.
The Oliver projections are clearly just a guy named Oliver who is a big Cubs fan…right?
New aside
http://www.obstructedview.net/aside/all-time-ba-top-100-lists.html
Cardinals fans have discovered the Cubbie Facepalm.
@ Aisle424:
Can you sue?
@ Rice Cube:
We considered it. We then realized all they had to offer were their homes and we weren’t interested in owning a double wide trailer.
@ dmick89:
(dies laughing)
(dying laughing) (dying laughing) (dying laughing) at those projections. My guess is they pasted the Cubs names into the wrong spreadsheet column.
@ fang2415:
It makes you wonder.
@ dmick89:
(dying laughing) Good choice
@ dmick89:
I wouldn’t mind a double wide trailer. It would be twice as wide as my current trailer.
@ Suburban kid:
But not as wide as the double wide with a bump out.
@ dmick89:
It makes me wonder if they were somehow over-rating minor league numbers. It seems like the inflation happened most to players recently in the minors, and not the ones who have been in the bigs longer, as Soriano, DeJesus, and Stewart seem about in the right range.
@ dmick89:
Your knowledge of trailer widths is suspiciously Missourian.
Mucker wrote:
T Trent Williams, the guy who ran a 4.8 40 at 6’5″ 310 a few years ago.
For you NFC North fans, it looks like a few other OL prospects are pushing their way into your first-round range.
Joekel and Fisher will be long gone, and I think Lane Johnson moves into the teens after the combine.
But DJ Fluker lost nearly 20 pounds leading up to the combine, shedding the “G-only” label I had on him. Jonathan Cooper is versatile enough to play C and either G spot *Beavis and Butthead laugh*.
The one to keep your eye on is FSU T Menelik Watson. He is reportedly showing enough in drills to justify taking a chance on him in the late first. HUGE upside with this kid and could be elite with the right coaching.
This is simultaneously weird and cool…
http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/blog/eye-on-baseball/21742662/war-veteran-loses-eye-gets-cubs-logo-on-prosthetic-eye
@ Rice Cube:
My dad has a prosthetic eye. I should totally get him this for his birthday.
@ Rice Cube:
what???? so he’s like the guy from Last Action Hero?
@ EnricoPallazzo:
It seems that way. Maybe OV can send him an eyeball with the Cubbie Facepalm so he can swap it out when they lose.
This guy, of course, is a true action hero.
@ Xoomwaffle:
That could be it. There seems to be something else going on too, but I really don’t know. I normally don’t criticize projections, but these are horrible.
@ WaLi:
Make sure it’s a Cubbie facepalm. We’ll even provide it for free. (dying laughing)
Oh yeah, fuck this snow shit.
@ Rice Cube:
Just think how effective Colombo would have been with one of those!
http://deadspin.com/5985685/the-worst-free+throw-attempt-ever-explained-by-the-woman-who-took-it
Nice shot, dm.
@ Ryno:
So why did Williams punch him? Sore loser? Trash talking? Williams is the one who got tased and missed the pro bowl right?
@ Mucker:
Sherman likes to talk during games (and on Twitter). Trent Williams went to Oklahoma, so he’s a documented faget.
And yes on the tased incident. Like I said…faget.
@ Ryno:
nbd, the other team sucks too:
@ Ryno:
That’s crazy. It looked like he hit him pretty hard too. Sherman just laughed it off. My face probably would’ve fell off if I got hit that hard.
@ EnricoPallazzo:
Yeah, but that’s dudes. Women shouldn’t be playing sports in the first place.
@ Mucker:
Williams didn’t step into it or anything, but that’s still a quick 315-pound man’s punch.
That said, I think you’d be surprised by how well you can take a punch when the adrenaline’s flowing.
@ Ryno:
His voice definitely changed after he got punched. Like he was holding back tears or rage
@ WaLi:
I’m sure it was both.
One thing bugs me about Richard Sherman. He’s obviously very talented, yet he was only a fifth-round pick two years ago. That kind of thing happens all the time, but his college defensive coordinator and head coach jumped to the NFL the same year he did. Why didn’t they pick him up, especially when they drafted a FS to play CB two rounds earlier.
I refuse to believe Pete Carroll is that good, so it must be drugs.
@ Ryno:
It appears we have a feminist browsing the site.
Ryno, I was thinking if we have enough guys interested that we could maybe do a mock draft? I did a couple on some other sites and basically whoever wants to play will get assigned picks to draft and then choose from whoever’s left available. It takes a couple of days to complete but it’s pretty fun. And if we don’t get enough guys, then fuck em we can just do the whole draft. (dying laughing)
@ Mucker:
I’ve tried to start that kind of thing here before, and it usually ends up being me and one other person nearly finishing the first round.
I would think it would be easy to get CHI, GB and SF representation here.
So yeah, I’ll take care of SF and any other teams you want me to run. Set that shit up!
(h/t Bleacher Nation Brett)
@ Aisle424:
Man our pitching fucking blows. This sucks.
(dying laughing)
@ gbts22:
I’m surprised they don’t have him at 4.5.
@ dmick89:
I like how there are pitchers projected to have FIP’s over 4, but have a 0 ERA in 25 IP.
@ Edwin:
All those runs were unearned after Castro looked the wrong way.
@ Ryno:
I’d be in too, though there’s a nontrivial chance I’d be drafting the NFL equivalent of Hayden Simpson (dying laughing)
@ Berselius:
Unfortunately for you, it’ll be really tough to tell which underwhelming player is masking a nasty case of mono right now.
@ Edwin:
I don’t know why they’d project anybody to have an ERA of 0, but FIP measures something other than ERA. The formula for FIP is this: (13*HR + 3*BB – 2*K)/IP + 3.2.
IMO, BB should be NIBB + HBP – IBB.
Imagine a pitcher who throws a complete game shutout and his final line is this: 9 IP, 7 H, 3 BB, 4 K, 1 HBP, 0 HR. His FIP would be:
(4*3 – 2*4)/9 + 3.2 = 3.64
You can even have an FIP below 0. Kerry Wood struckout 20 on May 6, 1998 and walked nobody, allowed no runs. His FIP in that game would have been -1.24.
FIP is better at predicting future ERA than ERA is. It also separates what the pitcher did from what the fielders did. That guy who threw the complete game shutout with the 3.64 FIP had a very good game, but not a great game. He only struckout 4 and he put 11 guys on base. His defense helped him out tremendously that game.
@ Ryno:
You could set it up on the forum and we could tweet and post that shit to facebook. That’s about the only way I know of to get others.
@ Ryno:
I could take the Lions. But I’m almost sure to be at work or otherwise unavailable when you want to do the draft, and I don’t know squat about NFL or the CFB prospects. However, that doesn’t really matter much, because you can just program an auto pick for me, like in Fantasy Baseball. Here’s how it works.
1st pick. Best available WR. Why? Because every Lions draft I’ve paid attention to, that’s what they do. If one of the top 5 ranked WR is named Rogers, draft him, regardless of whether he is best.
2nd pick. Best available defensive player with a reputation to play dirty. Have to have someone to take the heat off of Suh.
Every other pick: Take a prospect ranking and choose the 4th best available at that point in time, regardless of whether the Lions have that position covered or not.
I’m pretty sure this summarizes the Lions draft strategy since about 1960, or whenever the draft started if later than that. They have produced extremely consistent results. No sense fooling with that.
let me know if anyone’s interested in a mock wnba draft.
also, the wall street journal has the cubs at the #2 most improved team of the offseason (behind toronto) based on the key pickups of edwin jackson and carlos villanueva. they based their ranking according to +/- WAR over last season.
@ EnricoPallazzo:
It would be really easy to add WAR after a 61 win season. Even if they added nobody they probably would have added about 5-6 WAR.
I figure I’ll wait until at least after the combine and free agency begins to gauge interest. Free agency is usually good to get guys excited/discouraged about their teams and it might get more guys interested in the draft. I’ll set up a forum topic to gauge interest in a couple of weeks and maybe we can start the mock around early to mid April. I’ll set up another forum topic for the actual mock and people can just go there and post there pick when their teams are on the clock.
AZ Phil’s recap of the intrasquad game:
http://www.thecubreporter.com/02212013/cubs-play-long-ball-themselves
@ Aisle424:
If the performance in Day 1 Intersquad is any indication, Chris Rusin is well on his way to locking up that spot on the AAA roster.
Aisley–here’s the phone you need. Best of both worlds.
@ SVB:
@Aisle424: Now that I’ve had my Galaxy for about 6 mo, I can tell you that I miss the keyboard of the blackberry. I don’t miss anything else about the blackberry though.
@ SVB:
Aren’t those a little big? I tried one out at the store awhile back and it was just too big for me. I think the iphone 5 is a little too big. I’d have preferred a larger screen on the same sized device as the 4s. But lighter like the 5.
Just watched The Sessions. Very good movie. Anyone else seen it?
@ dmick89:
I got a Galaxy Rugby Pro, which integrates a tough case in the design, since I’m out in the forests around here a lot. Supposed to be waterproof, which is helpful too. It’s based on the Galaxy 2. The Galaxy 3 is bigger. I could probably text/type better on a 3, but it was $200 when I was looking, and I wasn’t going to pay more than $100. It is about the same size as my wife’s iphone 4s, but a little thinner after she put her Life-(something) case on. The touchscreen keyboard buttons are bigger than the i4s.
@ SVB:
What kind is that?
@ Aisle424:
Unfortunately, it’s still a concept phone. But maybe you can get one from the designer (see comment 53). How’s your Korean?
@ SVB:
Damn it. That looks fucking awesome. I’m using an iPad for work occasionally and I’m not hating the touchpad as much as I thought I would, but it’s also much bigger than a phone would be, so I still don’t know. I’m due for an upgrade in 2 weeks so i’ll have to figure it out sooner or later.
EDIT: to hell with it. i suck at embedding video
dmick89 wrote:
right, that’s why i was surprised that they used that methodology. if i understand it correctly, the biggest underperformers will start out with the biggest net positive WAR differential.
@ Aisle424:
FWIW, i picked up a droid 4 as my first smartphone. i bought it because i wanted a keyboard, but i figured that i’d transition to the touchscreen by forcing myself to use that every once in a while (i wanted to prepare for the time when all devices are touchscreen). i still absolutely despise using the touchscreen. maybe i am so reluctant to give up a keyboard because i work with computers all day? not sure. but i really hate it. if you’re a keyboard person, i think you’ll really dislike not having one. oh and i have a tablet which is obviously a touchscreen input. i don’t mind that nearly as much…the bigger screen makes using a touch keyboard a lot more tolerable.
i should add that i’m not entirely sure what you guys were talking about so maybe this whole comment is way off point.
@ EnricoPallazzo:
You are right on point. About 6 mo ago, my POS blackberry was dying, and I was debating on whether to go keyboardless or not. I did, it’s OK, but my error rate in texting has gone from pretty high, to very high.
424 sends about 800 tweets a day, as I recall, so the keyboard was a big deal for him. The Korean concept phone reminded me of our 6 mo old discussion.
EnricoPallazzo wrote:
Has Phil Rogers published his +/- rankings yet?
@ dmick89:
It might be best to just have 5-6 of us drafting. 28+ people will make this thing take forever.
@ SVB:
That’s not a bad strategy.
@ Mucker:
I think we should do two. One in the next few weeks just as a dry run. And then the second after free agency when we know what teams need.
That’s all you need.
Here’s how rapidly the NFL is changing…
Three years ago, all people could talk about concerning Dexter McCluster was how small he was. At 5086*, 172, people said he was way too small to play in the NFL every day.
This year, all people can talk about concerning WVU’s Tavon Austin is how quick he is in space and what a weapon he’ll be. Yesterday, he measured 5084, 174.
*For those of you who don’t know, that’s the format for height used at the combine. 5086=5’8″3/4
The nfl is hyping 5’8″ WRs? Wow. Things have changed.
Suburban kid wrote:
He’s still crunching the numbers on that one.
@ Berselius:
Quality work like that takes time. Patience.
@ mobile svb:
Well, more the analysts and scouts than the NFL, but yeah.
It’s just like the read option. They said it wouldn’t work in the NFL, but there’s no reason why it wouldn’t.
@ dmick89:
It took me several hours but I figured out the calculation. It’s basically about the arrival and departure of “projected starters”, starting pitchers, 8th or 9th inning relievers, and guys Rogers has generally heard of, so it’s pretty tricky.
Therefore, the Cubs are a big -2 for this offseason.
While they gained Jackson, Baker, Feldman, Hairston, Schierholtz and Villaneuva, they lost big league SPs Dempster, Maholm, Volstad and Wells, as well as four All-Stars in Soto, K. Wood, Byrd and LaHair.
Kyuji Fujikawa might have made it -1, but Rogers hasn’t heard of him yet.
I put up a forum for the mock draft for all those interested. If you are, go on there and let me know and tell me which teams you are interested in picking for.
@ Mucker:
I’m officially in for SF and any other team you need.
MB, on my forum everytime I edit the topic, it lists it on the screen. Is there anyway I can turn that off?
@ Ryno:
Cool, do you want to do the entire NFC West?
@ Mucker:
I’m not sure. Let me check it out.
Below the text box when you’re editing, scroll down. You’ll see tags, forum, sticky and maybe something else. Uncheck keep a log of this edit. Not much to do about the other ones though.
@ Mucker:
Sure.
dmick89 wrote:
When I edit the topic, it takes me out to WordPress to edit it where before it let me edit it right here on the site. I don’t have the same edit functions I did when I first started the post.
@ Ryno:
Thanks.
Jesse Rogers @ESPNChiCubs
Interesting (sort of) two players (garza/stewart) who rehabbed all winter hurt themselves early in camp…rehab one thing hurt another?
Damn you, human body! Why can’t you just work?!
@ Suburban kid:
(dying laughing) i would say that this is exactly how rogers does it. i would bet money that jackie harvey is writing phil rogers’ columns.
Thanks for the tip, GBTS. It’s awesome that you update your blog so frequently.
Naaaaaaa
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20130222&content_id=41880936&vkey=news_mlb&c_id=mlb
@ Mucker:
I’ll write some simple CSS later on so those don’t show up in that thread.
@ dmick89:
Ok, thanks.
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