The Other Fifteen

Consider this a lark with data; I wouldn't consider the conclusions definitive, or even necessarily meaningful. It's at least thought provoking.

First, I cobbled together a fascimile of a zone rating system based upon the work of Sean Smith on TotalZone. Let me be clear here: my zone rating system is probably the worst zone rating system in existence. If you want a Zone Rating system based on Retrosheet data, TotalZone or SFR are vastly superior; UZR and PMR are better still. And my system - let's call it SZR, for "Stupid Zone Rating" - only rates shortstops, making it even more, well, stupid. Or "special," if you're worried about hurting its feelings.

Here's how it works:

1. Shortstops are given credit every time they record an out or fielder's choice on a ground ball.
2. An "opportunity" to make a play is assigned for errors, and half of all ground ball singles hit to left and center field.

Stupid Zone Rating is simply Outs divided by Outs plus Opportunities.

So why invent the worst possible zone rating system? Because it lets me play around with the data a bit. In this specific case, what I wanted to know was simple. Aramis Ramirez had easily the best defensive season of his career last season. He also missed no small amount of playing time, which gives us a healthy amount of "non-Aramis" opportunities to compare to.

What I was curious about was, did A-Ram's big defensive season have an effect on the Cubs shortstops?

The average SZR of a shortstop from 2004-2007 was .766. During that time, the average SZR of Cubs shortstops when Ramirez didn't play was .801; when Ramirez played, the average SZR of Cubs shortstops was .761.

Now, we'll drill down to 2007. When Ramirez played in 2007, Cubs shortstops averaged a .762 SZR; when Ramirez was out of the lineup, the Cubs averaged a .797 SZR.

I have to go to my actual paying job now, so I'll leave figuring out what that data means as an exercise to the reader. The full spreadsheet is available to peruse.

(The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at 20 Sunset Rd., Newark, DE 19711.)

Labels: Aramis Ramirez, Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Defense, Mark DeRosa, Ronny Cedeno, Ryan Theriot

Let's assume for a moment that he's only going to be out a few days. That assumption means no callups. How best to deal with Soriano's injury? (When I say wins, I mean WAR over a full season.)

DeRosa in left, Fontenot at second?

This should come as no surprise to you - DeRosa is less valuable as a left fielder than as a second baseman - by about half a win. Fontenot, meanwhile, is somewhere between 1 to 1.5 wins worse than DeRosa at second.

Ward in left?

Ward is below replacement as a left fielder, given his atrocious defense in the outfield. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I don't like having Ward on the team. He makes the bench seem a lot shorter than it really is.

Johnson in left?

Probably the best option; it's, after all, why teams carry fourth outfielders. That means keeping Pie in the lineup, however, which the team has seem reluctant to do so far this season.

Labels: Alfonso Soriano, Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Felix Pie, Mark DeRosa, Reed Johnson, WAR

Felix Pie is being freed from the bench for at least one afternoon of baseball, according to Paul Sullivan. Not for good reasons like "defense" or "needing at-bats to develop." Nope. Because he's speedy!

Manager Lou Piniella said Pie sat so much because the Cubs faced four left-handers on the trip, and he expects him back in the lineup Tuesday night against Cincinnati's Aaron Harang. Piniella said he wants more speed in the lineup and to be more aggressive on the basepaths.

"The possibility there is to put as much speed as we can and force the action a little," Piniella said. "We've done that in a few games, but basically I've stayed with a set lineup."

The speediest Cubs lineup would include Pie in center and Ronny Cedeno at second, giving the Cubs four legitimate base-stealing threats, along with Ryan Theriot and Alfonso Soriano.

Of course, Pie and Soriano have to get on base to make use of their speed, and if Cedeno starts, Mark DeRosa would have to come off the bench.

I have no idea if Sullivan's remarks about Cedeno are indicative of all about Lou's thinking; the goal is certainly not to have Theriot and Cedeno in the lineup, so I certainly hope he's just idly musing about such things.

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Felix Pie, Mark DeRosa, Ronny Cedeno, Ryan Theriot

With the Cubs out of the race in '06, Baker often played veteran Neifi Perez over rookie Ryan Theriot, leading to criticism he slowed Theriot's development.

"I don't think that's a fair criticism," Theriot said. "Neifi was a great player, and a proven veteran, a guy that did a lot of good things for a long time. There's a flip side you never hear about. He could've thrown me to the wolves and it could've turned out bad. I learned a lot just sitting back watching. There wasn't very much pressure, so just sit there and understand the big-league life. I learned from guys like Neifi and Todd [Walker]. They taught me a lot. One thing Dusty did do, when he started seeing some confidence, a couple good games in a row, he kept throwing you back out there."

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Dusty Baker, Ryan Theriot

Let's take a look at the accumulated press reports and see if we can't divine what Lou's plans are for the day, shall we?

• Henry Blanco will start. Soto's a young guy, but he hardly leads the team in days off at this point, and it's a long season. I'd prefer it to be J.D. Closser as the backup, but what do I know, right?
• Hill is going to pitch in relief today. I imagine this will change if Marquis is having a complete-game no hitter or something, but other than that the idea is to get a few innings out of Hill and hopefully see an improvement in his ability to pitch in the zone.
• Gordon Wittenmeyer hints that last night's odd arrangement (putting Fukudome in left center and DeRosa in right) might become more common, as the Cubs try to work Mike Fontenot into the lineup so that we can have two lefties. (May I suggest Eric Patterson?) [Sorry about the mixup - I typed left and meant center for Fukudome. -CW]
• Expect to see either Johnson or Cedeno or both today; both have hit Moyers very well in their careers. (Which is something I don't care about but Lou does.) Johnson was probably a given anyways. The other Cubs who have hit Moyers well are D-Lee and Rich Hill. (Maybe that's why he's starting today.)

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Felix Pie, Geovanny Soto, Henry Blanco, Jason Marquis, Reed Johnson, Rich Hill, Ronny Cedeno, Ryan Theriot

I'll admit that I don't know, but I'm going to try to find out. Hopefully the fans at BCB (who, I'll admit, generally pay more attention to how much someone hustles than I do) will help me track this as well as possible.

I'm also going to throw this open to fans of other teams - if you're willing to keep track of this with enough data for me to track the data at season's end, I'll go ahead and look at it for you as well. If a bunch of Red Sox fans want to know how much it hurts to have Manny being Manny, let me know how often he does it and I'll figure it out for you.

Labels: Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Baseball, Chicago Cubs

Let's talk a bit about sample size and regression to the mean, shall we? I feel like I owe some actual examples of what I'm talking about given my recent screed on the topic.

Let's go ahead and do a throwdown-to-showdown, between Cubs centerfield options Felix Pie and Reed Johnson. (It's a hot topic of discussion among Cubs fans who aren't too busy pining after Ronny Cedeno.) And let's use OBP as our stat of choice for comparing them for the moment. How much more often will Johnson get on base than Pie?

We're simply going to focus on 2008 production for just a minute, because people seem to be much more excited about 2008 production to date than they are about the latest build of the ZiPS projections, for instance.

According to Baseball-Reference.com, Reed Johnson has a .478 OBP in 23 plate appearances; Pie has a .217 OBP in 23 plate appearances. Obviously Johnson is a better choice as a center fielder, just based upon OBP, right?

At 23 plate appearances apiece, we know no such thing. What we do know, on the other hand, is that both of them are major league baseball players, and the central tendancy of OBP talent among major league players is roughly .330. That's the mean; now we can regress to the mean. (A great primer on how to do that is available from Sal at Athletics Nation.)

Once we go ahead and regress Reed Johnson's OBP to the mean, we end up with a .338 OBP. For Pie, once we regress to the mean, we end up with a .321 OBP.

Fun, right?

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Felix Pie, Projections, Reed Johnson

It has to be hard to be a beat writer for the Cubs. Piniella mocks you in the post-game press conferences. The fans mock you on your own blog (unless you're Mariotti, in which case you can hide in your Hall of Doom while your lackeys do the dirty work). Sometimes you have to feel underappreciated.

Well, here's your opportunity to make up for that, in cold hard cash!

See this? This is the face of the President who freed the slaves and reunited the Union. He's valid legal tender, and he's all yours... IF you can do this simple favor for me.

Next time you're in a room with Lou in some sort of a Q&A forum, ask him if he's concerned about Theriot's slow start. Pie and Hill have been demoted for less, after all.

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Media, Ryan Theriot

The Cubs have had a wild ride the past few days, somewhat masking the fact that the Cubs have a four-game winning streak under their belts. They haven't been winning pretty, but they've been winning.

And while Lou calls it simply "playing his bench," I don't know how many teams are sitting two starters on back-to-back days in this early in the season. Ryan Theriot and Felix Pie have been sitting in favor of Ronny Cedeno and Reed Johnson. Both Cedeno and Johnson have been taking advantage of their opportunities; Johnson is hitting .375/.474/.438 so far, for an OPS of 912, while Cedeno hits .333/.400/.444, for an OPS of .844.

Meanwhile, Pie has a .200/.238/.200 line to his name, and Theriot is at an amazing .207/.281/.241 batting line on the season so far.

I don't think either Pie or Theriot have precisely lost their jobs yet - Pie is probably in a platoon situation for the time being, with Johnson eyeing more of Pie's playing time. His game-winning hit probably helped his cause some.

Theriot, on the other hand, needs to seriously keep his eyes open for some infield predation at this point. Pie was a top prospect who was held out of a lot of trading talks by the Cubs this winter; Theriot's no better than a lot of minor league journeymen at this point and is lucky to have a spot on a 25-man roster.

[Yes, there may be some wishful thinking in that paragraph. When June rolls around and Pie is either traded or at AAA, while Theriot is still our starting shortstop, I plan on eating my own arm off for fun.]

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Felix Pie, Reed Johnson, Ronny Cedeno, Ryan Theriot

Buster Olney chats, I criticize. Deal? Deal!

Gray (Chicago): Buster, with 12 Ks and only 1 BB thus far on the season, is this the new, mature Carlos Zambrano we have been waiting for? After that Tejada HR on Sunday, the old Zambrano would have walked the next batter and hit the one after that.

Buster Olney: Gray: Yes, this is the new and improved Big Z, the real deal. His emotional progress is the reason why I think they'll win the division; he's a great anchor to that staff.

Yep, emotional maturity. That's the only way you can explain a decline in a player's walk rate over two starts.

I understand it has to be difficult to talk about baseball for pay at the beginning of the season. It's probably not endearing to ones editors to say "I don't know what this means" 30 or 40 times in response to questions from paying customers during a chat.

But armchair psychology annoys the crap out of me. I only try to tell you what a player's talent level is based upon his performance, and even then I add in a qualifier now and again. I hardly think it's possible to tell what a player's emotional state is based upon his walk rate.

Brendan, NY: Whats your take on Sorianos proper batting order slot? Any chance they still get Roberts b/c they might resolve a lot of those issues and DeRosas looked pretty bad at second so far.

Buster Olney: Brendan: There is no perfect place to hit him, other than No. 7. he strikes out way too much to hit anywhere from 3-6, and you can't hit him eighth; he'd get less than nothing to hit. You can't hit him seventh, because the Cubs are paying him way too much money to stick him in that slot in the lineup, and he's made it very clear -- in Washington, and with the Cubs -- that he is most comfortable leading off. So Lou basically has to grit his teeth and write in Soriano at No. 1 until the Cubs get Roberts.

I'm not going to rehash Soriano's splits; I've done that already here and here, and don't plan on revisiting that unless something new comes to mind to say on the topic. Olney really puts too much weight on how often a hitter strikes out, though.

I love how Olney acts like it's still inevitable for the Cubs to get Roberts - no need to eat crow on that one!

Mike (cleveland): Buster, Just finished "three nights in August"...the epilogue was very interesting. Buster where do you stand on the current pseudo-standoff between pure stat analysis and traditional scouting and player development? I see the value in both...but I have to say that experience is the best teacher in most pursuits, and I dont see how a statistics degree from MIT should add any level of expertise to scouting. You learn the game by playing it and/or managing no?

Buster Olney: Mike: I think there's a great mix to be found between the two approaches, a middle ground. Some scouts don't pay enough attention to the numbers, and some stats guys don't acknowledge that personality can and does play a role in what happens (for example, the long-held belief that a lot of relievers are interchangeable). The Indians and Padres are the best teams, I think, at combining the two schools of thought...

Bob, Chicago: Soriano had the third best OPS+ on the team. How can you say he can't bat anywhere from 3-6?

Buster Olney: Bob: This is a classic example of the whole scouting vs. numbers thing I just mentioned. The numbers say one thing, but if you've been around Soriano and watched his hitting with RISP, he just is not good in big spots, against good pitchers; he just destroys rallies...

And then, about face! It's not his strikeouts, its his personality!

Here's the thing: we keep score with numbers! If it's about winning and losing, then the numbers are what matters. You want to end the game with more of the right numbers than the other team.

I really hate criticizing Olney for analysis because I don't think it's central to who and what Olney is. But... Olney is bad at analysis. As a clearinghouse for information and sourcing he's good, but he's no Robothal.

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Media

So much for Lou sticking with Theriot. At least for today, Ronny Cedeno is playing shortstop. This demands that I play his theme music:

(For those of you just joining us - I call Cedeno the Great Destroyer because of his incredible .189 ISO last season, even - or especially - because it accompanied a .203/.231/.392 batting line. He doesn't walk enough to be a real Three True Outcomes kind of hitter, but I think he could be the closest a shortstop has come to that ideal in a while.)

I'm pressed for time, but this occasion really demands some Infield Predation. I'll see what I can do about that today.

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Ronny Cedeno, Ryan Theriot

Labels: Chicago Cubs, Ryan Theriot

1. Kansas City Royals
   
2. Washington Nationals
   
3. Milwaukee Brewers
   
4. San Diego Padres
   

1. Detroit Tigers
   
2. Atlanta Braves
   
3. Chicago Cubs
   
4. Oakland A's
   
5. Minnesota Twins
   
6. Colorado Rockies
   
7. San Francisco Giants
   

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs

This is really rushed - suffice it to say that I don't think a lot of people will be pleased with what I'm going to call the Kerry Wood Issue, and I don't have a good answer for you right now. Otherwise, I like what I'm seeing with our pitching staff.

This is park adjusted. Thanks to Sam Larson for some tweaks to the relief pitcher calculations.

I'm really not married to any of these forecasts, and hope to publish a revised set of both charts this weekend. I just know that if I didn't publish something, I would forget to do so entirely.

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Pitching, WAR

Hitters only. Let's get straight to the bidness:

Someday I'll look into actually putting these charts together in a more interactive format, but Excel outputs such awful HTML, and I really don't feel like messing with it myself at this point. (EditGrid and Google Docs don't support the fancier formatting, either.)

If you're late to the party, I explain WAR in a previous post. WAR stands for Wins Above Replacement, and it measures a player's overall contribution to team wins. WAR_650 is a new stat that prorates WAR out to 650 plate appearances. Offensive production is now park adjusted as well. [An updated version of the WAR calculator should be ready for release here soon, incorporating these refinements.]

These are all based on projected stats. For offense and wOBA, I made a composite of:

• The Bleed Cubbie Blue community projections
• PECOTA
• CHONE
• ZiPS
• Marcels

Defense is based on Sean Smith's defensive projections. Baserunning projections are very crude, and involve a bit of Kentucky windage; they're based on my baserunning metrics.

Things to draw from the chart:

• The Cubs look to have a very fine offense this season.
• They look to have a very good defense again.
• They're miserable at running the bases.
• I love to color-code things.
• Ryan Theriot sucks.

So, basically, nothing you didn't already know. I hope to get around to the pitchers by opening day, but no promises.

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Defense, Projections, WAR

I'll go ahead and be honest; baserunning is something I don't pay a lot of attention to. If a guy can hit the ball and field the ball, that's usually good enough for me. I mean, usually a guy has to be on the bases to run them, right?

But something that sticks in my craw is when people tell me that baserunning is one of the things "your stats can't measure." First of all, they're not my stats - I don't know that I've contributed one thing to the larger body of knowledge about baseball. Second - my damned stats sure as hell can measure your baserunning! And so that's what we're going to do here.

I should note that what I said above still holds true - I rely greatly upon the work and ideas of other, better people. I am not a sabermetrician, just someone that writes about sabermetrics. So it behooves me to say that I'm standing on the shoulders of giants here.

First of all, none of this would be possible without a database of play-by-play data. Therefore, the required boilerplate text:

"The information used here was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet. Interested parties may contact Retrosheet at 20 Sunset Rd., Newark, DE 19711."

Truly, Retrosheet is gold-plated awesome.

Second, many acknowledgements to Dan Fox; you can read more about his (far superior) EqBRR stats on his blog or at Baseball Prospectus. Also of great help was Lee Panas of Tiger Tales; I highly recommend his excellent series on baserunning metrics. And in case you haven't notice already, I rely very heavily on the research of Tom Tango.

Parsing the Retrosheet logs, I took a look at twelve different common baserunning events. Only the lead runner was considered; it's not fair to judge a runner based on how well the guy on base in front of him is running. (Dusty Baker infamously referred to this as "clogging the bases.")

Every time one of those events occurred, several things got recorded into a table. First, I noted one of three outcomes: the "normal" outcome, the XB, or "extra base," outcome, or the runner being thrown out on the play. I also noted how many outs there were in the inning - the correct decision on whether or not to run is dependant upon the number of outs in the inning, and heads-up baserunners will change their baserunning strategy accordingly. All of those things are then assigned to a baserunner and totaled up. [More accurately, there's a set of SQL queries and an Excel spreadsheet that does most of the work.] Balls not in play includes stolen bases, wild pitches and passed balls.

Every play is then assigned a run value based upon its run expectancy. We'll use the scenario Tango uses to explain this with. let's say you have a runner on first base with one out. According to Tango's run expectancy chart, an average of .573 runs scores in an inning in that situation. Suppose that the next runner hits a single. (That would be an event code 1B_2B in my system.)

If the runner on first advances to second, then the run expectancy increases to .971. A better baserunner will, depending on the situation, advance to third instead; the run expectancy with runners at the corners and one out is 1.243. Sometimes, however, a baserunner will get thrown out advancing to third; with a runner at first and two outs, the run expectancy drops to .251.

[Note that we assume that the trail runner stays on first in either the extra base or thrown out scenarios; that's a convenient abstraction, one that introduces a small amount of inaccuracy in exchange for avoiding a large computational headache.]

So, using the run expectancy formula, we assign run values to all of our event outcomes, based on the number of outs in the inning. For each runner, we multiply his outcomes by their run expectancy values, and sum up. Then, for a final step, we take a look at how the average baserunner would have performed given the same opportunities, and subtract that number from the sum. That gives us our +/- rating of runs above/below average.

Since I'm a miserable computer programmer, all of my SQL queries take about forever to run, so I limited myself to the years 2004-2007. Fair warning: single season performances are subject to sample size issues, especially with things like baserunning.

Okay, let's take a look at the top 10 best and worst baserunning seasons:

Makes sense, yes? Speedy middle infielders and outfielders run better than slow corner infielders and outfielders. Lee is a surprising entry on our trailers; he has a reputation for being a very good basestealer for a first baseman. But on the whole it doesn't seem very controversial.

What we also get here are the run values of being a good or poor baserunner. The difference between the best and worst over this four year period was about 23 runs, or roughly two wins. Now two wins is nothing to scoff at, but it pales in comparison to defense or offense; nobody would look at this chart and say, "Gee, I think that the Sox should try and see if they can trade David Ortiz for Aaron Miles."

And, since this is ostensibly a Cubs blog - your 2007 Chicago Cubs!

This will come as a surprise to nobody who watched the Cubs last season, but good Lord the Cubs sucked at running the bases. Daryle Ward was saved from himself on the basepaths by aggressive pinch-running by Lou Piniella; the same couldn't be said for Lee, Ramirez and Barrett. Oh, and that number for Soto in just 17 opportunities? Ah, catchers and their appreciable lack of knees.

The numbers on Soriano and Lee surprise me. Soriano was below average in 2006 as well (possibly a byproduct of an excessive amount of caught stealings that occurred chasing the mythical 40/40), but was very solid the previous two seasons. Lee, on the other hand, has been a below-average baserunner the past four years.

Oh, and I just have to add - Ryan Theriot is a below-average baserunner. That is all.

Spreadsheet available for download.

The next step is to work out a Marcels-like projection system using this data, so that I can incorporate it into my WAR depth chart.

Labels: Alfonso Soriano, Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Derrek Lee, Ryan Theriot

Okay, so there's talk of the Cubs acquiring Felipe Lopez. On the surface, this looks pretty dumb - if the Cubs were going to acquire a guy that plays shortstop, there were a lot of better options available earlier in the offseason. And Lopez provides more value than Theriot according to my new, park-adjusted WAR chart (which I'm still cleaning up, in addition to some other projects) but not to the extent where I thing it would show up in the standings -a tenth of a win isn't much to write home about.

But let's think outside of the box here. Lopez had a bad season last year at the plate, but even so still outhit Ryan Theriot after you adjust for park effect. Of the two, Lopez is a better bet to hit well. On the flipside, Ryan Theriot is the better defensive player. If you combined Lopez's hitting with Theriot's fielding, you might have a legitimate major league shortstop.

Well... can we do that?

Let's take a look at some of the Cubs pitching staff. For example, last season, 46.9 % of the balls put into play off Carlos Zambrano were ground balls. With Rich Hill, only 36.0 % of his balls in play were grounders. Here's the breakdown:

• Zambrano, 46.9%
• Lieber, 43.8 %
• Marquis, 49.5 %
• Dempster, 47.1 %
• Lilly, 33.7 %
• Hill, 36.0%

Do you see where I'm headed with this? Give Lopez as much time as possible playing behind Hill and Lilly, and give him plenty of time off when whichever of Lieber, Marquis or Dempster are on the mound, and have they pretty much split time with Z (whose high strikeout rate lets him overcome defensive inadequacies behind him). You might end up with a halfway to decent shortstop that way.

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Felipe Lopez, Ryan Theriot, WAR

Cesar Izturis sucked. The Bush Administration sucks. The season finale of
Project Runway sucked.

Ryan Theriot is a solid, young player with speed, attitude and
perseverance.What's your beef with him?

I mean, I can see "Ryan Theriot should be a bench player" or whatever, but,
geez, lighten up, Francis.

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs, Ryan Theriot

It's late, and I'm really uninspired right now - so it's a good opportunity to reheat some old content and serve it.

Bleed Cubbie Blue, the Cubs site where I got my start writing about the team, has recently switched to a new hosting platform. The upshot - at least for this post - is that all of the "diaries" I posted over there are now available as a blog.

I'll go ahead now and highlight some key posts - ones that I don't entirely grimace to read later.

The Official Ryan Theriot Sucks Diary - "But it is to say that the Cubs would be reckless and stupid to go into 2008 with nothing but Ryan Theriot and a bunch of prayers at shortstop. He's just not very good." As true today as it was then! (Sadly.)

2008 Offseason Guide - Looking over it, I think I did pretty well - Ohman and Jones got traded, Fukudome got signed. I was wrong about pitching - the Cubs got Lieber, and actually it wasn't a bad deal. The market didn't go quite as crazy as I expected.

...yeah, not a lot of output there. In good news, the huge archive of morning headlines should help me whenever I think "Hey, I remember an article that said..."

Labels: Baseball, Chicago Cubs