Starlin Castro’s season is so bad it reminded me of Ronny Cedeno

In Commentary And Analysis by dmick8944 Comments

The other day I happened to think of Ronny Cedeno and how awful he was in 2006. I couldn't help but wonder how Starlin Castro's 2013 season compared to Cedeno's 2005.

Year Name PA BB% K% ISO BABIP AVG OBP SLG wOBA wRC+ Fld BsR WAR
2006 Cedeno 572 3.0% 19.1% .094 .296 .245 .271 .339 .263 47 -4.4 -0.8 -1.8
2013 Castro 326 3.7% 18.7% .090 .275 .228 .264 .318 .257 56 -6.6 -0.7 -1.1

I'm sure you never wanted to think about Cedeno's 2006 season again, but there it is, along with Castro's current season. Despite a better offensive batting line, Cedeno's wRC+ is worse because the league offense was higher in 2005.

Starlin Castro hasn't been as bad offensively, but he's been far worse defensively. In roughly 250 fewer plate appearances, his baserunner has been equally bad. They both played SS so they had positional adjustments on their side when calculating WAR. Despite that, were so bad that they were more than a win worse than replacement level.

Among qualified Cubs hitters since 2001, Ronny Cedeno's 47 wRC+ is the worst. Castro's playing time is considered to be qualified since we're not even to the halfway point yet. If he never played the rest of the season, he wouldn't be.

Including the 2013 qualified Cubs hitters, Castro ranks as better in wRC+ than only Ronny Cedeno since 2001. Both the in-season ZiPS and Steamer projections project Castro will finish the season below replacement level.

ZIPS projects he'll end the season with -0.4 fWAR, which would put him better than only Cedeno in WAR among qualified hitters since 2001. Steamer has him finishing with -0.2, which will tie him with Alfonso Soriano, better than only Cedeno.

Unless Castro is significantly better than the rest of season projections, he's likely to finish the year as having one of the worst seasons by a Cubs position player since 2001 (among qualfied players). The thing is, if you suck this much, you usually don't get that amount of playing time, but Cedeno was young and so is Castro. Castro has also shown he's much better than this.

I didn't want to stop at 2001 so I looked back to 1991. It didn't change Castro's current ranking.

If you go back to 1981, Ivan DeJesus' 1981 season takes the worst spot in wRC+ (42). Castro is 3rd worst. What amazes me about DeJesus' 1981 is that he had a 10% walk rate and only struckout 13.3% of the time. He also carried a .227 BABIP, which is a big reason why he was so bad.

As I mentioned, Castro has half a season left to play and his numbers should improve. Castro is still going to have one of the worst seasons among qualified Cubs position players when it's all said and done, but he should be able to brag that it's only the 3rd, 4th or 5th worst.

I went back to 1951 and found that Castro is now 4th behind Don Kessinger among qualified Cubs position players.

Since 1901, Castro currently has the 5th worst wRC+ among qualified Cubs.

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  1. Author
    dmick89

    Not that it means anything, there are apparently 3 team officials who are convinced the Marlins won’t trade Giancarlo Stanton. I know we’d talked about how awesome it would be if the Cubs went after him.

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  2. Suburban kid

    Unless Castro is significantly better than the rest of season projections, he’s likely to finish the year as having one of the worst seasons by a Cubs position player since 2001

    Fuck this shit

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  3. JonKneeV

    Anyone think it could be a partying problem? He did get in that unfortunate situation earlier this year.

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  4. josh

    So to recap: The team sucks. The AAA team sucks. The future leaders already on the team are getting worse. And it smells like skunk in my office. Anyone else want to pile on?

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  5. Ryno

    josh wrote:

    You know, I just realized that was two freaking years ago. Holy shit. This team will never be good again, will they?

    Umm…wut?

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  6. mobile svb

    Ivan deJesus was my first favorite Cub. Though looking back I think all those times my Granddad was shouting his name was frustration and not cheers.

    Cubs traded for him and traded him away and got the best of the deal both times.

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  7. mobile svb

    @ dmick89:
    I’m sitting in the Atlanta amtrak station and that discussion was going on behind me on the tv. I thought I misheard them. Now you’ve confirmed I didn’t. Damnit.

    I think he’s a spy. But I think the bigger question about government surveillance is totally being whitewashed in this discussion. Another failure by MSM. Let’s focus on if the guy has a mosquito net in Ecuador. That’s easier than the discussion about where the line is for freedom of speech and search and seizure.

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  8. Author
    dmick89

    I don’t know if he’s a spy or not. I’m leaning toward no, but really, it doesn’t matter to me. The actions of one or the actions of an entire government? I’m much more concerned about the latter.

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  9. Recalcitrant Blogger Nate

    Pretty disappointing that the only good players on the Cubs are scrap-heap pick-ups and short-term dudes: Sweeney, Schierholtz, Valbuena, Gregg, etc. and the “core” dudes like Rizzo, Castro suck. I guess Samardzija is doing good this year. Still, not encouraging. I’m hoping for a positive second half from Rizzo and Castro.

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  10. Myles

    Rizzo the Rat wrote:

    @ Myles:
    And 15th in WARP (1.0). Colin’s fielding metric doesn’t like him as much as MGL’s.

    Good to know, but honestly BP hasn’t been as good ever since Silver left forever ago. I would be interested in learning more about their defense metrics, though.

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  11. GW

    I’d take Colin over Nate Silver any day of the week. With Pizza Cutter, Ben Lindbergh (who is a pretty damned good writer), and 100% less Will Carroll, I don’t think the site has ever been better.

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  12. Berselius

    GW wrote:

    I’d take Colin over Nate Silver any day of the week. With Pizza Cutter, Ben Lindbergh (who is a pretty damned good writer), and 100% less Will Carroll, I don’t think the site has ever been better.

    I need you to qualify this with a red, yellow, or green light in order to properly interpret the changes.

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