SB Nation User Blog: Maddog

Best offense in the league?

Maddog — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 14:54:43 -0000

Baseball Prospectus finally released their depth charts today and it has the Cubs team hitting .275/.337/.460. The depth charts are basically the intelligent look through the team's PECOTA projections and assigning playing time at each position. No more Tyler Colvin or Mark Pawelek's in the projections. For example, BP has Soriano projected to get 90% of the playing time in CF followed by Felix Pie and Angel Pagan each at 5%.

The Dodgers had the highest batting average in the NL in 2006 at .276 (2nd best team was at .270). The .275 mark would rank them 2nd in average.

A .337 OBP would have them tied with St. Louis and Atlanta for 5th in the National League.

Atlanta had the highest slugging in the league last season at .455. BP has the Cubs team projected at .460 (easily the best in the league for 2006 standards).

Philly had the highest OPS in the NL in 2006 at .794. If you can add, you know the projected team OPS for the Cubs is .797. OPS has a very high correlation with run scoring. Philly scored 865 runs in 2006; 16 more than runner-up Atlanta and they were one of only 5 NL teams to score more than 781 runs.

So if these projections prove to be true and 2006 was an average season in the NL, the 2007 Cubs will likely have the best offense in the National League.

But hold on. Their projected starting 5 for the Cubs is Carlos Zambrano, Ted Lilly, Rich Hill, Jason Marquis, and Sean Marshall with Prior, Miller and Guzman as spot starters making 11, 11, and 6 starts respectively. They have a total of 18 pitchers pitching for the Cubs in 2007 (Jae Kuk Ryu included -- obviously these were completed before the trade). These 18 pitchers (8 starters and 10 relievers) combine to go 74-67, which is about right on line with what many of us have been suggesting the Cubs are capable of going (7-10 games over .500). That's probably enough to win the Central in 2007.

Based on these depth charts and projections, the Cubs are going to have a powerful offense and a very mediocre pitching staff (if not slightly below average). From a quick glance through, though, it does look like the offense will be enough to carry the pitching.

I spent about 5 minutes writing this as I was looking at the depth charts and checking 2006 stats so if I made an error, I apologize.

Mark Prior's comparables

Maddog — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 17:55:45 -0000

There isn't much to this diary. It took only a handful of minutes to do the research, but I thought it might be something that interests a few who frequently post on here.

As most of us know, much of the success in 2007 is going to depend on the health of Mark Prior. Perhaps not as much as the past couple of years, but a healthy and productive Mark Prior is, in my opinion, a necessity for this team to contend. That's not what this is really about though.

I got involved in a brief discussion last night and this morning on my blog about when a baseball player's peak year is. To sum up my opinions about the issue, I find it impossible to ignore the overwhelming amount of research that has been done that concludes a player's best years are between the ages of 26 and 28. Obviously this isn't true for everyone, but the average player can expect to have his best season around the age of 27.

Clearly, hall of famers, or potential hall of famers, are going to be quite different than the average player.

The discussion began as an attempt by me to point out how it's quite possible that Mark Prior's best years are behind him. I know that's difficult for some to stomach, but I say this with not just knowledge of Prior's injury history, but based on the peak years for the aveage ballplayer. Prior may prove me wrong. I sure hope he does, but if we're placing bets, the intelligent bet is that his best years are already behind him.

I wanted to take a brief look at Mark Prior's most comparable pitchers (using Baseball Prospectus as my source) and see at just what age his most comparables had their best season in their careers. This is what I found:

The top 20 comparables to Mark Prior and the age at their best season as measured by Pitching Runs Above Replacement (PRAR):

Tom Griffin: 26
Bobby Bolin: 26
Jim Lonborg: 25
Wayne Twitchell: 25
Stan Williams: 24
Tony Armas: 23
Rick Sutcliffe: 26
Ron Schueler: 26
Calvin Schiraldi: 24
Joaquin Benoit: 27
Eric Plunk: 29
Jim Britton: 25
Paul Moskau: 26
Melido Perez: 26
Arthur Rhodes: 32
Mike Corkins: 26
Dennis Rasmussen: 27
Steve Renko: 28
Ryan Rupe: 24
Barry Latman: 25

The average age is exactly 26.

age: number of comparables

Among the most comparables to Mark Prior, 16 of the 20 had their best season between the ages of 24 and 27. 14 of the 20 (70%) had their best season between the ages of 24 and 26. Only one comarable had his best season beyond the age of 30 (Arthur Rhodes). Only 3 comparables had their best season past the age of 27.

This is a very small sample size, but these are the most comparable pitchers to Mark Prior. None of them are Hall of Famers, a few were around only a short time, but most of them had lengthy careers. The average age, as I pointed out above is exactly 26 years of age for these pitchers having their best season.

So, based on historical data that tells us a player's peak years are between 26 and 28 as well as this tiny amount of research done into the comparables to Mark Prior, we get about the same age--26-28.

I have no idea what purpose this serves and I highly doubt it has any value of any kind beyond the obvious lengthy research that has gone into peak years that were done by people far smarter than I. But as this pertains to Prior, in reality, it has little value. There's just too little information here to come to much of a conclusion, but this does clearly show a pattern that's not so surprising--a player's best years are generally between the ages of 26 and 28.

While Mark Prior may have his best years ahead of him (let's hope he does), in all likelihood, his best years are behind him.

Negative VORP (An unfinished look)

Maddog — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 22:18:53 -0000

I'm not sure what this means yet and I meant to point it out a couple days ago as I was finally getting started researching team negative VORP. I've only got 2005 and 2006 done so far so it's going to be a few days yet until I have much to say about it, but one thing jumped out at me as I was tallying the team negative VORPs.

In Lou Piniella's final year in Tampa Bay (2005) his team, offensively (minus pitchers), produced negative VORP from 8 players, which is below average (not sure how much though yet) for a total negative VORP of -11.9; almost half of which came from catcher, Pete Laforest.

Also, 9.6% of the team's plate appearances were taken by people (non-pitchers) who produced a negative VORP. This number is so far below average it's remarkable for a team that wasn't very good.

Only two teams in all of baseball in 2005 gave a lower percentage of plate appearances to guys who produced negative VORP (Boston was under 4% and Atlanta was 9.5%). I'm not yet sure of the average, but I think it's in the low 20s and several teams were in the 30s.

The -11.9 offensive VORP the team had was the lowest negative VORP produced in 2005.

I hope this is a sign of what we can expect from Piniella, but i'll let you know as I get more information. Something tells me this is an outlier and that managing has little to do with team VORP.

For what it's worth, in 2006 (offensively), the D-Rays (Piniella's first season away from managing them) allowed a whopping 46.3% of their plate appearances to be taken by 15 players who produced a negative VORP at the plate for a combined total of -96.2 VORP (the most in baseball; the Cubs had the 2nd most).

So based on this minimal amount of information, perhaps Piniella doesn't stand for people who aren't producing at the plate. If so, and i'll have more information by the end of this week, then we can probably add 3-4 wins simply because of the managerial change the Cubs made this offseason.

2007 Cubs = 2006 Devil Rays ???

Maddog — Thu, 24 Aug 2006 23:18:42 -0000

I noticed a lot of positivity lately presumably because the Cubs have been playing better baseball lately.

If the Cubs can finish like they have played the last couple of months they will end up around 67-95 give or take a couple of games.......Does anyone know what Tampa Bay's record was last year? It was 67-95.

A healthy DLee, a healthy Prior and next year could be the exact same kind of season. What is to say that two of the rookies won't come back next year on fire .....how many Devil Rays fans thought their rookies were gonna be so good? I mean, besides Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, The Hardball Times, and all the other people that thought the D-Rays prospects were good.

So many posters on here (myself included) have voiced their opinions stating, "let the kids play" since the season is lost anyway. Well the kids are playing and they are going to take their lumps, the key is for them to become completely different players in the offseason...and to reflect. If Cedeno can learn to hit 30 homers play better defense while Murton learns to hit 40 homers this team is then only 12 or 13 players away from being really, really good.

I am not real knowledgeable about how Tampa Bay played as a team last year (I started taking drugs and drinking heavily last year) so let me know why you think that either the Devil Rays were in the same situation as the Cubs are or why they were better off than this years Cubs are heading into next season.