Lovable Losers

It is a bit funny that while our team is on its best winning streak in the past two years, we have little to say. Is it because we aren't used to it? I doubt it, but this run of 6 in a row is nice to see. When JJ finally gets dealt, Lou will have assembled his team. The problem is that no one could have predicted that the Brewers would have the best record in the National League.
I have come across a few funny notes. First, I wanted to bring up John DeWan's Stat of the Week. The White Sox team OPS last year was 806. This year, so far, it is 670. If this number holds, it will be the greatest one year drop in OPS in baseball history! Not sure exactly how many team seasons have been around, but baseball stats are about 100 years old and there has been between 8 and 30 teams for that duration. So likely they will have the greatest drop in over 1000 seasons played. That is not a small sample size! Can it really just be bad luck?
Also, earlier I posted on how our guy Ryno has been tossed 3 times in the minors. He's now up to 4. I saw this article on the Eastern Sports Network's website:
Ryno's Passion

But, who the heck is Rob Bowen?

While the Cubs and Padres players were trading slaps on the field, the front offices were wheelin' and dealin'. When I heard about the Barrett deal in a 2 second blurb on ESPN radio today, I was enraged. I promptly text messaged CubsTattoo, BudFanCubsMan and the only reader of this site, Dapper Dre. How could the Cubs trade their 3rd best hitter!?!? How can you give "our guy" away for a backup catcher and a "hot minor league prospect" (to quote Colin Cowherd)? I was thinking this and then BudFanCubsMan verbalized it for me, if you don't want him, cut him loose at the end of the season for the compensation pick. Those picks are useful, no doubt about it. Draft picks are important in MLB because they aren't easy to come across (you can't trade them like in other sports).

Here's my breakdown of the trade. SO, who did we give up? I'm a Michael Barrett fan (as are both of my fellow bloggers here at MyCubbies.com). I like the scrap that's in him. Makes him and the team fun to watch. And he's been a stud over the last 3 seasons. Best of all, we didn't give up anything to get him (Damian Miller!). The calculations I did before the season for him are a 3 year average. His were .289/.334/.494 for an OPS of .828 (for the uninitiated, that is batting average / on-base percentage / slugging percentage). Really solid. One of the best offensive catchers in baseball. This year, so far, his line looks like this: .256 / .307 / .427. That is, quite bluntly, horrible. Michael Barrett is what he is. He's an offensive catcher. He's not exactly one of the "amazing catching Molina brothers". His defense is sub-par for the league, but it hadn't mattered because he killed the ball at the plate. Well, so far this year his defense is worse than ever and he is strugg-a-ling at the plate. As eluded to previously, his contract is up at the end of the season.

SO, what did we get? I have to admit, I'd never heard of this kid. I watch a lot of baseball. I loved Baseball Tonight (back when I had cable). And Peter Gammons is my personal hero. But, who the heck is Rob Bowen? Brother of the dirty player from the Spurs? Turns out he is a pretty able-bodied and young catcher from the Padres. I should have known him because he hammered a dinger against us last week. He might be a backup in San Diego, but he's got good numbers. His line for the season is this: .268 / .371 / .439 for an OPS of .810! You'll notice how despite this being just one season, his numbers this year are almost as good as Barrett's last 3 years.

That is a solid pick up. With Barrett about to hit the road anyway, if this kid pans out at all, that is a steal. Not only that, but getting younger with catchers is always a good idea and this kid is under a minor league deal for the foreseeable future (I couldn't find his contract details online). CubsTat pointed out that his splits against leftys are ridonculous (but that could partly be due to small sample size). We also got rookie league outfielder, Kyler Burke. Rookie league outfielders don't often make it to the bigs, so I'm not worried, but the Cubbies are obviously re-stocking their farm system (note all the college players taken in the draft, which I'll write a blog about soon). This kid was taken in the supplemental draft last year, so he is probably the equivalent of compensation for the pick they lost by not losing Barrett's number at the end of the season.

All in all, this was probably a deal that Barrett forced them to make. It sounds like the Cubs did what they could. I hope it works out. I'm going to miss Mike, but I will echo the sentiments of Jim Hendry when he said, "I'll be rooting for him all the time when he's not playing against us."

Minor League Options Explanations

I know that I've asked a few people about this, but I finally found a good explanation of this mess. Here's the link to ESPN concise explanation of roster fun:

Transacation Explanation

Scapegoat Traded To Padres

Our feisty catcher has been traded to the Padres. I have never been a believer in team chemistry mattering much to a baseball team, but maybe that's the case here. I've been a fan of Barrett since he came here, if for no other reason than he cared when we lost. Last Spring when DLee went down, all of our hitters except Barrett went into the tank as we headed straight for the cellar. It is also of note that he is the only Cub catcher to win a Silver Slugger.
As for the scraps with 2 pitchers recently, I'm not sure I can side with the pitchers. First, Big Z is crazy and his logic ends with his statement, "Only God can control my temper". As for Hill, and any other pitcher for that matter, last time I checked, catchers don't get wins and losses and Michael Barrett never hung any sliders over the middle of the plate. I'm not sure if it was just the visibility of the fights, but these things have to go on all the time. Hell, I remember fights in high school locker rooms, and we only played 20 games, not 162, and I never cashed a single sports check in my high school days, or any days for that matter.
At any rate, I say good luck to Michael and hopefully we get something good back.

Them's Fightin' Words

As you probably know, there was another ejection Saturday. Derek Lee had a high and tight one come at his head and there was some jawing going on between Lee and Chris Young for the Padres. Much speculation is that this is in retaliation for Alfonso Soriano's admiration of a dinger he hit (instead of putting his head down and running the bases). It is being reported on Chicago radio that Young said "I wasn't aiming for your body. I was trying to take your ******* head off." Lee went off and threw some windmill punches that never landed. I was somewhat surprised when I saw it, because normally he's such a great contact hitter. Obviously he got run and so did the pitcher. Our hitting coach who was pulling Jake Peavy off Lee was also run along with Peavy (who stated the day before that he was upset with Soriano for the slow homer trot).

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/bobby-cox-you-are-ejected-please-leave-the-bench/

Here is an interesting article on getting tossed. Apropos considering our amazing amount of ejections the past couple weeks. It is about Bobby Cox (who I despise), but there were some Cubs stats in there as well. Piniella, Durocher and Frankie Frisch, are on the top 10 all time. As well, I found the World Series ejections particularly entertaining. The Cubs are rarely in The Series, but look at how many times players and/or managers have been tossed! 3 Players in 1935 and 2 in 1910 including manager and famed double play combo anchor, Frank Chance. That's 22% of all WS ejections. FYI: Bench jockeying is yelling at someone from the dugout (had to look that one up). I also loved reading the reasons for the ejections. Proof of the old adage that arguing balls and strikes will get you tossed (almost) every time. Almost half of Cox's ejections are for critiquing the home plate umpire's zone.

My Main Man Ernie

Ernie Banks sang Take me out to the ball game tonight. The crowd loved him and he said "now take a journey with Ernie and sing with me". He is so loved at Wrigley and the crowd ate it up. The customary 7th inning interview that followed was an utter disaster! It all began with silence that lasted forever, not even "Hi Ernie". LennyBob continued to announce every pitch and ignored Mr Cub. There were a few half hearted question, mixed in with "that low and away for ball 2". I thought they were interviewing the infield coach, not Mr Cub. Mr. Cub! Ernie ask Brenly something and Brenly "a swing and a miss for strike 2" went on and on! I realize these cats know him personally and its no big deal to be around Ernie but he is not all that visible to us regular fans. I watch a lot of games and think I have seen him sing once or twice (he's no Bill Murray) over the many years since Harry died. If I am going to do a TV interview "that pitch backed him off the plate for ball 3" with Mr. Cub, I prepare a few questions, throw him a fat one right down the middle, and then let him answer. Maybe: How is bb different today from when you played. One of the idiots finally did ask him about being at Jackie Robinson day "that's ball 4 for his 2nd walk tonight" and gave Ernie a chance to talk. "there is a ground ball to short, and a 6-4-3 double play" "Thanks for coming in Ernie!". The inning ended.

Ernie Banks - MR CUB

Ernie began his career at the age of 19 with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. The Monarchs were one of the premier teams in Negro Baseball and Ernie played for them from 1950 to 1953. Ernie at age 22 was the first black person to play for the Cubs and the Cubs were one of the last teams to integrate. Ernie played short until 1962 and then played first until he retired in 1971. I only remember him at first. He was the league MVP in '58 & '59. He is a lifetime .274 hitter with 512 HR, the most by a shortstop. He is an 11 year all star and was inducted into the Hall in 1977. He is a legend in baseball and to the Cubs and in an interview he should be given the proper amount of respect that he deserves. Lenny/Bob are idiots!

The Sabermetric Dictionary

I was reading the weekly column from Studes on The Hardball Times and I ran across a couple interesting things.

In line with my article a couple days ago, Dave writes:

This was a shocker to me: the best fielding team in the majors has been the Cubs, at +41 runs overall. The only fielder with a negative UZR is Cesar Izturis (-3), the Gold Glove winning shortstop. Alfonso Soriano (!) leads the team, with +9 runs (all in left field). In limited play, Felix Pie already has +6 runs.

There is also great sabermetric dictionary in plain english. Probably funnier for nerds like me than non-sabr dorks. The best was:

Park/league/era adjustment: Suppose that you had been born 20 years earlier than you were, in Kazakhstan. What would life have been like? Different, right? Now, suppose Babe Ruth would have been born 70 years later. As a Colorado Rockie.

Clutch Hitting Continued

This quickly got too big for a comment, but is in reference to CubTattoo's article earlier today.

You won't believe this, but we are actually batting .293 with RISP, which is the best in the NL (3rd in MLB behind Seattle and Detroit). Our team batting average is almost .270 (.011 above NL average) and we are scoring 4.65 runs per game. In fact, we are at or above average in every major offensive category (OBP, SLG, P/PA, GIDP and BABIP).

SO it must be the pitching... Nope, not that either. Same as above. Runs/game 4.29 (a 0.36 runs per game discrepancy vs. our offense!). ERA is 0.13 below average. Homers per game are only very slightly higher than average, but our homers per fly ball are below average. Ks per game are up and BBs per game are average.

Hmmm, what could it be? Well, we do have quite a few errors. Yea, 1.125 error above average, on the season (that is virtually nothing). So, we are hitting well, we are pitching well and our fielding might look bad, but it is not resulting in errors. Stolen bases are above average and CS% is below.

Not to get too "mathy", but our Pythagorean Difference is -6. This means with the amount of runs we score vs. the amount we give up, you should take 6 losses off the board and tack on 6 wins. This basically flip-flops our record and would put us toward the top of the NL Central (if you factor the +2 games of the mildly lucky Brew Crew, we'd be leading).

The scientific explanation? We suck. When you look at averages, they weight two games where you score 5 runs the same as one game scoring 9 and the other game scoring 1. Well, in baseball, consistency is the key. And the Cubs are anything but consistent. Look at the losing streak:
1-2, 3-5, 4-9, 0-9, 5-8, 3-5, and then wins 10-1 and 7-2. You can just see how our averages are on track, but we lost almost every game. Over 8 horrible, pathetic games, we only scored 1 less run per game than we gave up, but we went 2-6.

Now I'm out of stats and we have to try to draw conclusions. I blame the bullpen a lot, because they make a game we could come back during, a blowout. But you have to share blame with the hitters, who are also really inconsistent. Maybe it is the line-up (Lou shuffles it every day). Maybe mis-use of the bullpen (they all suck anyway). Unfortunately they just aren't getting it done consistently. I like shuffling the line-up, but I have never thought that we were using it to its best ability. You can't bat Soriano 1st just because he's fast! How many runs are you leaving on the field when he hits a dinger?!? Sorry, sore subject.

As always, I use the Hardball Times as my resource for stats.

Clutch Hitting

Seems one major problem the Cubs have is not getting the clutch hit. The last 2 games we got the big hit and of course won. After the Cubs took a 1 run lead yesterday Soriano hit the big 3 run blast and that changed the game completely. TT your the statistic guy, are we leaving more men on base than other teams and how are we hitting with men on base, compared to the rest of the league. I realize sometime we expect every guy on to be driven in and are dissapointed when that does not happen and in reality we may not be any worse than the rest of the league.

A Chicago Streak

May I be the first to congratulate the Cubbies on their winning streak! 2-0 in our last 2 games! Viva la Trammell!

Charging Ryno

After a weekend of several interesting major and minor league suspensions, I thought that this was an funny note. The normally gentile Peoria Cubs Cubs Manager, Ryne Sandberg, has been ejected 3 times this year and suspended once! That's 2 more ejections than Lou! Too bad Vegas does give odds on this sort of thing.

At Least God Understands Big Z

Michael Barrett did an interview with a local TV station Sunday night, but I did not see it and cannot find any post-fight pictures. From accounts heard on the Score, his face looked like a combination of a pepperoni pizza and a road map. Reports say that Zambrano landed 8 punches in the Rumble in the Clubhouse. My question is, how did these punches get counted? I can think of 2 explanations:

1. They counted the fist imprints on Barrett's face afterward.
2. People were watching this fight go on and not stopping it right away.

I know professional boxers can rip off punches with lightning speed, but every fight that I have seen first hand has been at a much slower pace, with grasping and missed punches in between landed blows. If people followed them back in the clubhouse and heard the storm brewing, how can this happen? Barrett has always been the least hated starting catcher in town, but maybe that's not the case any more.

Furthermore, Zambrano was quoted as saying that the fight was his fault, but in later interviews he mentioned that "only God can stop my temper." Now, that's the kind of responsibility I like to see my pro athletes take! Maybe we lump Zambrano in with Mike Vick
and Tony LaRussa and have a pity party. I'm not sure what kind of punishment you can give Z, since it will likely hurt the team, but comments like that just pisses me off.

Oh Captain, My Captain

Well, Lou's well-timed blow-up yesterday might earn him a couple days off. According to a Yahoo Sports article, he is out indefinitely. I do not think this is an entirely bad thing. Makes him a bit of a martyr to the players, since it was basically a fairly normal tirade (par for the course). It can accomplish his goal of rallying the team and hopefully gives them a new focus in a very tangible way (not having their skipper).

I think the article overlooked something pretty major. The article describes the tirade, but burries the reason he will be gone in the third paragraph, bumping the ump. You can't do that. Lou is not being suspended for kicking dirt or throwing his hat. Contact with an umpire will get you tossed and suspended for sure. But like I said, I'm not sold that it is a bad thing.

Also of note is that the savior, our top minor league prospect, Felix Pie has been recalled by the big club. Daryl Ward is out on the 15-day with a hip issue.

He bLOU his top

After our runners repeatedly cowered at the arm of Jeff Francoeur, Angel Pagan decided to tray and take 3rd with 0 outs on a catcher with 14 letters in his last name. It was a close play, but he appeared to be out. However, Sweet Lou blew his lid just for the sake of it, and hilarity ensued. He proceeded to break out the dirt kick and the ump hat swipe. The fans were hoping for a base toss, but had to settle for tossing their commemorative mugs on the field.

I know it's easy to second guess, but base running mistakes can occur even when you don't get thrown out. Earlier in the game, Ramirez failed to take third on a slow single through the infield and Pagan should have already been at third after roping ball into the corner. Having watched a few Marlins and Twins games this past week, it's upsetting how much better some organizations are at training ball players through the system.

At any rate, it won't be too long before the levee breaks. A move probably would have already been made if the NL Central wasn't so damned bad.

The Rumble in the Dugout

My Cubbies are on a slide. The season has not started out as everyone had hoped. Highest expectations were a 90 win team and average expectations were they could win 81 - 85. Unfortunately, the bullpen (a relative strength last year) has fallen apart. There has been no timely hitting and while 3 starters have been solid (Hill, Lilly & Marquis), the ace of the staff (Crazy Carlos Zambrano) has struggled. Things boiled over yesterday while Zambrano was in the middle of a meltdown. Big Z's ERA this season is a hefty 5.62, while he has never had a season ERA over 3.66 in his career.

Zambrano threw a pitch low and outside while Barrett was obviously expecting it inside. Michael ole'd the catch and let it pass. He then had a throwing error in to the outfield. When the inning was over, Carlos came at Michael, pointing to his head as if to say, "Where is your head?!?" Michael then pointed to the scoreboard and likely said something to the effect of, "Those 15 hits weren't my fault." The two came to slap-fight blows before they were very quickly broken up. Apparently the ruckus boiled over again in the clubhouse and Barrett went to the hospital for stitches to his mouth after the game.

2 things here:

1. Never fight a Cubs pitcher. Anyone remember when Farnsworth football-tackled Paul Wilson of the Reds who decided to walk towards the mound? Farnsworth pummeled him! The guy left with a shirt full of blood. Have you seen Carlos after a good inning or bad at-bat? The guy is nuts! He breaks bats on his knee and fist pumps like he's Ali. And Barrett? His last fight, he threw a sucker punch and failed to even phase Pierzynski. Bet on Crazy Carlos.

2. This had better energize the team. Carlos has already taken full blame for the fight and I think the two of them will be fine as it comes to teammates. But, Lou Pineilla had better get his stuff together. These guys need a fire under them and if Lou can get everyone together and really energize the team, they could string together some wins. He needs to throw a tantrem during a game, and soon. Get tossed. Throw bases, cuss at umps. I know he's got the fire. Energize and rally your team around this and get us some wins!

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