Dwarf Grit Report as of 6/05/2008. More significant changes in the last two plus weeks, old closer, new closer, injuries, demotions, promotions, free agent additions.

gmLI              4/28  5/05  5/19  6/05  change
Eric Gagne        2.16  2.15  2.02  1.92  -0.10
Guillermo Mota    2.13  1.86  1.81  1.65  -0.16
Salomon Torres    1.51  1.42  1.29  1.43  +0.14
Brian Shouse      1.82  1.57  1.32  1.23  -0.09
Tim Dillard                         1.03 
Carlos Villanueva                   0.95
Seth McClung      1.12  0.94  0.63  0.77  +0.14
Julian Tavarez                      0.25
Mark Difelice                 0.60  0.21  -0.39
Zach Jackson                  0.13  0.17  +0.04    

David Riske       1.34  1.21  1.25
Derrick Turnbow   1.03  0.90
Mitch Stetter     1.32  1.13  0.80

gmLI: A pitcher’s average LI when he enters the game.
LI (leverage index): A measure of how important a particular situation is in a baseball game depending on the inning, score, outs, and number of players on base, created by Tom Tango.

data and definitions from fangraphs

c'mon, yost. i'm a fan of yours. but i have to qualify that, i'm a fan of you as a manager. yost, dude, you are making it way hard to defend you against the legions that call for your head. way hard. cause the self-righteous, defiant, holier-than-thou attitude we have to put up with over and over again makes us dislike you. and then we want you to fail.

can you just pretend to be on our side?

seriously. let's go through this... now, i'm going to have to make up the question, cause one of the tricks in journalism is to separate tasty quotes from the questions that were asked so that any kind of context can be created around it. for the sake of example, i'll pretend it's witrado asking the question.

Witrado: So, uh, Ned, do you like, worry about, like the credability of the blogs, when they suggest that, uh, like, uh, you know, you might get fired?

Ned (new palatable ned): Well, the fans have a right to be upset, so far this season the team has underperformed. It's not for lack of effort, but the results haven't been there. It's natural to want to hold somebody accountable, I'm not at all surprised that someone would, out of frustration, create a rumor to get a discussion going. Fans need to vent, too.

would that kill you, dude? man, it'd be a lot easier to get back to not intentionally walking too many guys, not sacrificing too often, using the hit and run, stolen base, and bunt attempts just enough to keep the other team guessing, and start winning some games. bottle it up, people want to see someone in control of their emotions, then they can believe you are in control of the clubhouse.

Dwarf Grit Report as of 5/19/2008. Lots of significant changes in the last two weeks, new closer, old closer, injuries, demotions, and through it all, Yost preserves bullpen pecking order! Meanwhile the team goes 4-9, and falls from 3rd to 6th place in the NL Central.

gmLI            4/28  5/05  5/19 change
Eric Gagne      2.16  2.15  2.02 -0.13
Guillermo Mota  2.13  1.86  1.81 -0.05
Brian Shouse    1.82  1.57  1.32 -0.25
Salomon Torres  1.51  1.42  1.29 -0.13
David Riske     1.34  1.21  1.25 +0.04
Mitch Stetter   1.32  1.13  0.80 -0.33
Seth McClung    1.12  0.94  0.63 -0.49
Mark Difelice               0.60 
Zach Jackson                0.13      

gmLI: A pitcher’s average LI when he enters the game.
LI (leverage index): A measure of how important a particular situation is in a baseball game depending on the inning, score, outs, and number of players on base, created by Tom Tango.

data and definitions from fangraphs

I took a tour of Josh Kalk's web based pitchf/x tool to get a sense of what to look for from Daisuke.

Here's what I came up with. I thought I had heard that Daisuke was a guy with a big repertoire, five, maybe six pitches, but Josh's tool really shows him as a guy with three pitches, fastball, slider, changeup. There's over 1400 pitches here, and I believe it's all 2007 data.

Daisuke's fastball sits at an average of 93 mph with decent tail in on right handed batters, his slider is thrown at a modest 84-85 mph and breaks away from right handed hitters. The changeup is thrown mostly in hitters counts to RHBs. Only about 10% of his pitches are changeups which looks like a subpar pitch.

first pitch: hitters want to sit on the fastball low and away, he'll throw that about 60% of the time. He'll start it off the plate and try to get it to tail into the strikezone.

hitter's counts: 60% sliders, mostly thrown for strikes so they'll start middle-in and break away.

pitcher's counts: daisuke will waste a fastball 0-2 high or outside, and try to get you to chase a slider outside on 1-2. Daisuke would rather challenge the hitters. 3-2 will be a low fastball.

recommendation: jump on the fastball 0-0 and 3-2, lay off the slider away 1-2, in the hitters counts take the sliders for strikes to get to a 2-2, or 3-2 fastball. Daisuke doesn't want to go 3-2, and doesn't want to walk you.

Dwarf Grit Report as of 5/05/2008. Yost preserves bullpen pecking order.

gmLI            4/28  5/05 
Eric Gagne      2.16  2.15
Guillermo Mota  2.13  1.86
Brian Shouse    1.82  1.57
Salomon Torres  1.51  1.42
David Riske     1.34  1.21
Mitch Stetter   1.32  1.13  
Seth McClung    1.12  0.94
Derrick Turnbow 1.03  0.90

gmLI: A pitcher’s average LI when he enters the game.
LI (leverage index): A measure of how important a particular situation is in a baseball game depending on the inning, score, outs, and number of players on base, created by Tom Tango.

data and definitions from fangraphs

I shot Al of bleedcubbieblue.com an e-mail not too long ago and gave him 5 questions to answer about the Chicago Cubs. Al's a passionate fan and replied very quickly with some good natured answers. Many thanks Al!

With the off-day yesterday, is there any chance that Hill gets protected from having to face the Brewers again and Zambrano takes his start on Thursday to face Yovani Gallardo?

That's exactly what Lou Piniella's plan is -- the Brewers kill lefties and Lou wanted to keep both Hill and Ted Lilly (whose turn wouldn't have come up anyway) away from them. Hill will pitch Friday in St. Louis.

I saw recently that you made it to your 10,000th game. That is awesome, congratulations! What are the odds you get to another 10,000 games before seeing a world series winner?

Ha-ha-ha. Funny! You've got two things confused. The Cubs franchise won its 10,000th game last week. I saw my TWO thousandth Cub game last Monday.

The rest of the question, I can answer this way: Who'll win a World Series first: the Cubs or the Brewers?

Which contract is going to hurt the most over the next few years? Zambrano at $18 million, Ramirez at $15 million, Fukudome at $14 million, Lee at $13 million, Lilly at $12 million, or Marquis at $10 million.

Probably Marquis, although you have the numbers wrong. Marquis is due $17 million combined this year and next. Lilly's deal is for $10 million a year.

The other four deals look pretty good right now, wouldn't you say?

Is it frustrating as a fan to see your ballclub make roster decisions based on just four games? On a related note, how frustrating is it to see the plug pulled on the Felix Pie experiment so quickly two years in a row? Is it possible that Pie's high strikeout rates in the minors are indicators that he'd never have success in the majors and no one in the Cubs organization recognizes that?

What roster decisions are you talking about that took only four games? I'm not sure which moves were made then. Do you mean sending Carmen Pignatiello down? He was only a temporary fix anyway.

I'm disappointed in what I've seen from Pie so far, because I think he has more talent than he's shown. He's never really had a chance to play every day for a couple of months to show what he can really do.

Strikeout rates -- really, who cares? Alfonso Soriano strikes out a lot, and that infuriates us at times. But Soriano can also carry a team. I'm not suggesting Pie is that good or going to be that good. But I think he deserves a chance.

Once again the Cubs have 30+ million in payroll advantage over any other team in the NL Central. Hendry's got a losing record as GM and yet always has one of the top payrolls in the national league to work with. You'd think he'd breeze into the playoffs like the Yankees and Red Sox do every year. How long does Hendry have to produce the winner, how quickly does the plug get pulled on the Hendry experiment?

That all depends on what happens this year with ownership about to change. Hendry may have a losing record, but he's also got two playoff appearances in his six years as GM (really, 5 1/2, because he took over in the middle of 2002 and had a playoff team the next year, his first full year). That's not so bad, is it? If the Cubs make the playoffs in 2008 and advance farther than they did last year, I can't see new ownership dumping a successful baseball operations department.

Editor's Note: Apologies on the mistake on Al's number of games attended, congrats to the cubs on 10,000 franchise wins, and congrats to Al on 2,000 cub games attended! Quite a feat!

On the contracts, I just picked a year near the end of the deal. So according to Cot's Baseball Contracts:

* Zambrano is due $18 million in 2012
* Ramirez is due $15 million in 2011
* Fukudome is due $14 million in 2011
* Lee is due $13 million in 2010
* Lilly is due $12 million in 2010
* Marquis is due $10 million in 2009

Thanks again Al for being such a a great sport!

Dwarf Grit Report as of 4/28/2008.

                4/14  4/28  change
Eric Gagne      2.11  2.16  +.05
Guillermo Mota  1.80  2.13  +.33
Brian Shouse    2.17  1.82  -.45
Salomon Torres  1.17  1.51  +.34
David Riske     1.59  1.34  -.25
Mitch Stetter         1.32    
Seth McClung    0.28  1.12  +.84
Derrick Turnbow 0.30  1.03  +.73

gmLI: A pitcher’s average LI when he enters the game.
LI (leverage index): A measure of how important a particular situation is in a baseball game depending on the inning, score, outs, and number of players on base, created by Tom Tango.

data and definitions from fangraphs

Now, having your number four hitter always walked isn't all that bad of a thing. Base runners are important. But when you've got your pitcher batting 8th, even with nobody out when Fielder is walked, you've got three chances to knock him in.

Odds are pretty decent that the opposing pitcher can get at least two of those three. Odds are also decent that the lone hit, if there is one, won't score fielder. What do you have now? 2 outs and the pitcher up at the plate.

The only time you'd be smart not to walk Prince is with someone on first base. Otherwise, it's a fairly safe bet that you'll get a double play, or be pitching to the pitcher with two outs, or maybe just end up having the pitcher lead off the next inning. Braun and Fielder need to be bumped up to second and third in the batting order with the pitcher batting 8th. You need the extra hitter between Fielder and the pitcher to help cut down the intentional walks.

Brian Shouse    2.17
Eric Gagne      2.11
Guillermo Mota  1.80
David Riske     1.59
Salomon Torres  1.17
Derrick Turnbow 0.30
Seth McClung    0.28

gmLI: A pitcher’s average LI when he enters the game.
LI (leverage index): A measure of how important a particular situation is in a baseball game depending on the inning, score, outs, and number of players on base, created by Tom Tango.

data and definitions from fangraphs

Marcel regresses the playing time based on the fact that Ryan Braun missed two months last year. Bill James, not listed here, likes Braun for a 1.042 OPS. We, the bcb community projection have him regressing quite a bit from the .324/.370/.634 he posted last year, but not as much as chone and zips. Lots of variety on this one. If he can lay off the high fastball that he'll be challenged with a lot in 2008 i'll take the over on the bcb community projection.

        pa  ab   h 1b 2b 3b hr bb  avg  obp  slg  ops
marcel 446 404 127 73 24  5 25 31 .314 .369 .584 .953
bcb    642 588 174 95 37  5 37 54 .295 .355 .561 .916
chone  565 519 152 87 32  3 30 40 .293 .350 .539 .890
zips       538 158 88 33  4 33 30 .294 .332 .554 .886

Find the projection systems here: marcel, zips, chone, bcb community projection

Corey Hart got one AB in 2004, and was an august callup in 2005, so he'll technically be entering his 5th season in the major leagues. He'll be 26 years old. He's got just over 2 years of service time so I belive he'll be arbigible™ beginning next year. A popular breakout candidate last year, he's also a popular darkhorse this year. Some referring to him as the most underrated outfielder in the game. He finished strong last season, despite collecting an unfortunately low 505 ABs, Corey hit .295/.353/.539.

Community Projection
Use any methods you want to make projections. Please submit them in the comments to the appropriate projection thread as a single line of comma separated values. For the hitters we'd like to project pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops.

For Example:
player,pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops
NLAverageHitter,650,585,153,102,31,3,17,65,.262,.335,.412,.747

I've created a player projection tool to help simplify the process. Fill out the values for Plate Appearances (pa), Singles (1b), Doubles (2b), Triples (3b), Homeruns (hr), and Walks (bb) and the rest will be calculated for you and outputted below in a comma separated string perfectly formatted for submission. Copy and paste that line to a comment. You are, of course, free and welcome to submit any projections you want in any format and we'll try to accommodate.

Voting is still open for Mike Cameron.

Results are posted for Jason Kendall, Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, Bill Hall, and JJ Hardy.

Some very varied projections for JJ Hardy. For the first time the bcb community is not the rosiest. Chone sees a .462 slugging, probably looking at the contact plus line drive rates, add that to the aging curve and power spike looks imminent. ZiPS on the other hand seems to weigh the injuries quite heavily projecting the equivalent of maybe, what, 125 games?

.       pa  ab  h  1b 2b 3b hr bb  avg  obp  slg  ops
chone  569 522 146 94 30  1 21 46 .280 .339 .462 .801
bcb    569 522 144 94 28  2 19 46 .276 .335 .448 .783
marcel 533 483 132 87 26  1 18 42 .273 .333 .443 .776
zips       435 114 76 22  1 15 36 .262 .318 .421 .739

Find the projection systems here: marcel, zips, chone, bcb community projection

Update [2008-3-8 12:42:12 by jacob]: Thanks to MadJimiBrewha's astute eye, the community projection has been updated to include EVERYONE's projections. Thanks MadJimiBrewha!

Mike Cameron signed as a free agent on Monday, January 14th, 2008 for 1 year from $6.25M up to $7M through bonuses based on plate appearances. He also has a club option for 2009 at $10M with a $.75M buyout. He's 35 years old and is beginning his 14th season. He plays a plus CF and when added to the roster set off a chain reaction that makes the brewers better on defense by pushing Hall to 3rd and Braun to LF. Last year in pitcher friendly petco park Cameron posted .242/.328/.431 to bring down his career line to .251/.341/.445. Cameron has not led the league in strikeouts since 2002, but he's finished in the top ten 8 times in his 13 seasons. He's 44th all-time, and top ten active at 1500... right behind Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Manny Ramirez.

Community Projection
Use any methods you want to make projections. Please submit them in the comments to the appropriate projection thread as a single line of comma separated values. For the hitters we'd like to project pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops.

For Example:
player,pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops
NLAverageHitter,650,585,153,102,31,3,17,65,.262,.335,.412,.747

I've created a player projection tool to help simplify the process. Fill out the values for Plate Appearances (pa), Singles (1b), Doubles (2b), Triples (3b), Homeruns (hr), and Walks (bb) and the rest will be calculated for you and outputted below in a comma separated string perfectly formatted for submission. Copy and paste that line to a comment. You are, of course, free and welcome to submit any projections you want in any format and we'll try to accommodate.

Voting is still open for JJ Hardy and Ryan Braun and both could use a little love!

Results are posted for Jason Kendall, Prince Fielder, Rickie Weeks, and Bill Hall.

Except for shooty babitt, and me on the low end, and Jeff on the high end, our projections for Bill Hall were between an OPS of .811 and .835. ZiPS and marcel agree for the most part with that assesment. Nobody agrees with Jeff's .866 and chone sees the same things that shooty babitt (.770) and I (.787) see, which is a falling contact rate. With a more potent lineup, pitchers will have to be going after Bill Hall, and i think the league is finding some pretty big holes in his swing. Compare Billy's '06 with his '07, what's different? The only thing really is the HRs. In '06 his HR/FB% was 19.4% and in '07 it fell to 10.3%. I think our projection has converted Hall into a hitter who'll hit for better contact and I just don't see that happening. I'll take the under on this one.

kingcharlesxii with a projection of .276/.337/.484 best represents the community's projection.

.       pa  ab   h 1b 2b 3b hr bb  avg  obp  slg  ops
bcb    564 516 142 80 37 3  22 48 .274 .336 .484 .820
marcel 512 465 124 68 34 3  19 47 .271 .335 .483 .818
zips       503 136 76 37 3  20 50 .270 .336 .475 .811
chone  549 499 128 75 32 2  19 50 .257 .324 .443 .767

bb for chone and marcel include hpb. marcel avg, obp, slg calculated by me.

Find the projection systems here: marcel, zips, chone, bcb community projection

Ryan Braun is 24 years old and entering his 2nd season in the major leagues. One of three first round draft choices in the starting lineup Braun will play 2008 for something near the league minimum. There have been whispers about a Tulowitzki like extension for the 2007 rookie of the year. Braun did what only uber-prospects do in AAA last season. In 34 games and 117 at bats he struck out only one more time than his homerun total. If i'm looking to accurately project success in the major leagues from minor league numbers, you can't help but get excited about a HR/K ratio that approaches one. He was inserted right into the three hole in the Brewers lineup when he was called up and set a rookie record for slugging percentage. It was an historic rookie season. For '08, it looks like, at least for the beginning of the season, Braun will be hitting without the protection of Prince Fielder. He finished 2007 with a line of .324/.370/.634 on 451 ABs

Community Projection
Use any methods you want to make projections. Please submit them in the comments to the appropriate projection thread as a single line of comma separated values. For the hitters we'd like to project pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops.

For Example:
player,pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops
NLAverageHitter,650,585,153,102,31,3,17,65,.262,.335,.412,.747

I've created a player projection tool to help simplify the process. Fill out the values for Plate Appearances (pa), Singles (1b), Doubles (2b), Triples (3b), Homeruns (hr), and Walks (bb) and the rest will be calculated for you and outputted below in a comma separated string perfectly formatted for submission. Copy and paste that line to a comment. You are, of course, free and welcome to submit any projections you want in any format and we'll try to accommodate.

Voting is still open for Bill Hall and JJ Hardy and both could use a little love!

Results are posted for Jason Kendall, Prince Fielder, and Rickie Weeks.

The most difficult thing for projection systems to project is playing time. The best they can do is assume that some pattern is being formed throughout the years, and when there isn't a pattern a projection system will create a new one. Only Weeks' health will keep him from approaching 700 plate appearances in 2008. We're not too far out of line with average and on base percentage, but we know that weeks last year spent some time in the majors protecting an injured wrist or hitting with bad habits from worrying about that wrist. Unencumbered, we know that he has excellent power. That can't be seen by marcel. Me, I'll take the over on both triples, and homeruns.

.      pa   ab  h  1b 2b 3b hr bb  avg  obp  slg  ops
bcb    591 510 143 88 27  7 21 79 .279 .379 .483 .862
chone  482 405 106 65 22  4 15 77 .262 .380 .447 .827
marcel 494 419 108 70 20  4 14 70 .258 .364 .425 .789
zips       465 118 76 21  6 15 65 .254 .363 .422 .785

bb for chone and marcel include hpb. marcel avg, obp, slg calculatated by me.

Find the projection systems here: marcel, zips, chone,  bcb community projection

James Jerry Hardy is 25 years old and entering his 4th season in the major leagues. He's in his first year of arbitration and went to the wire before settling near the midpoint at 2.65 million dollars for one year. An all-star last year, Hardy was actually leading the NL in homeruns at points in the first half. Seriously, that really happened. April and May last year were similar to his September of 2005. He slugged over .520 in all three of those months. A line drive pull hitter who works the count well we haven't really seen him put it all together for more than a third of a season. On June 1st last year Hardy was looking at his line in the newspaper and it sparkled back .304/.350/.567. From that day to the end of the season he cooled to post a .277/.323/.463 that line still bolstered his career stats to .263/.321/.429

Community Projection
Use any methods you want to make projections. Please submit them in the comments to the appropriate projection thread as a single line of comma separated values. For the hitters we'd like to project pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops.

For Example:
player,pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops
NLAverageHitter,650,585,153,102,31,3,17,65,.262,.335,.412,.747

I've created a player projection tool to help simplify the process. Fill out the values for Plate Appearances (pa), Singles (1b), Doubles (2b), Triples (3b), Homeruns (hr), and Walks (bb) and the rest will be calculated for you and outputted below in a comma separated string perfectly formatted for submission. Copy and paste that line to a comment. You are, of course, free and welcome to submit any projections you want in any format and we'll try to accommodate.

Voting is still open for Bill Hall and JJ Hardy and both could use a little love!

Results are posted for Jason Kendall, Prince Fielder, and Rickie Weeks.

Prince Fielder's community projection looks lofty when compared to the other systems, but it's actually a downgrade from last year. Yes, it's only a difference of .011 OPS but given that Prince is only 24 years old projecting an improvement over last year can be legitimately supported. The major difference is the HR rate. bcb projects HR/AB of 8.3% (last year he hit a HR in 8.7% of his ABs) while chone, zips and marcel project 7.2%, 7.5%, 6.3% respectively. One look at hittracker allows us to confirm what we think we know already. Prince doesn't hit cheapies. I like our chances here to be more accurate than all three systems.

.        pa  ab   h 1b 2b 3b hr bb  avg  obp  slg   ops
bcb     659 569 168 84 36  1 47 89 .296 .391 .610 1.002
chone   635 542 157 83 33  2 39 82 .290 .394 .574  .968
zips        585 165 85 35  1 44 83 .282 .380 .571  .951
marcels 605 521 150 82 33  2 33 68 .288 .387 .549  .936

For marcels I calculated avg, obp, slg, ops using my projection tool.

Find the projection systems here: marcel, zips, chone
 

Bill Hall is entering his 7th season at 28 years old as a Milwaukee Brewer. He's in the second year of a 4 year deal that bought out his arbitration years, one year of free agency and a club option for a second free agent year. He'll make 4.8 million dollars this year. One of the longest tenured brewers, he was by many accounts rushed to the major leagues to fill roster space. In 2005 he made adjustments to improve his contact rate and plate discipline and hit .291/.342/.495 in 501 ABs as a full time utility player. In 2006 he played most of the year at SS and led the team in HRs with a line of .270/.345/.553. In 2007 Hall was moved to CF full time and by many measures struggled at the plate. Some attributed it to having to focus on learning a new defensive position. Some would suggest he opened up his batting stance too much. 2008 has him returning to 3b, and though promised by the club he'd be given one position, he's again starting the season adjusting to a new role on the team defensively.

Community Projection
Use any methods you want to make projections. Please submit them in the comments to the appropriate projection thread as a single line of comma separated values. For the hitters we'd like to project pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops.

For Example:
player,pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops
NLAverageHitter,650,585,153,102,31,3,17,65,.262,.335,.412,.747

I've created a player projection tool to help simplify the process. Fill out the values for Plate Appearances (pa), Singles (1b), Doubles (2b), Triples (3b), Homeruns (hr), and Walks (bb) and the rest will be calculated for you and outputted below in a comma separated string perfectly formatted for submission. Copy and paste that line to a comment. You are, of course, free and welcome to submit any projections you want in any format and we'll try to accommodate.

Voting is still open for Bill Hall and JJ Hardy and both could use a little love!

Results are posted for Jason Kendall, Prince Fielder, and Rickie Weeks.

As a community, the bcb projection is more optimistic about Jason Kendall than marcel, zips, and chone.

Interestingly though, we are more pessimistic on the playing time. Estrada last year played in 120 games, and under Ned Yost, regular rest for the 'full time' catcher seems to be standard operating procedure. One of those things that the community can see that these projection systems cannot. We are also optimistic about his walk and contact rates having seen a big change in him between Oakland and Chicago and knowing that he's had eye surgery in the off-season.

.          pa  ab   h  1b 2b 3b hr bb  avg  obp  slg  ops
bcb       471 428 119  97 19 1  3  42 .277 .344 .345 .689
chone     555 500 132 105 23 1  3  44 .264 .337 .332 .669
marcels   520 464 123  98 21 1  3  39 .256 .312 .322 .634
zips          518 133 108 23 0  2  46 .257 .317 .313 .630

Rickie Weeks enters his 5th season in the major leagues at just 25 years old. He falls short of acquiring the necessary service time to qualify as a super two and,like Prince Fielder, will play one more season of minimum wage baseball. A popular breakout candidate every year 2008 is no exception for many baseball speculators. Currently, weeks is being plunked in over 3% of his plate appearances, a full percentage point over Craig Biggio's career rate. Last year Weeks got off to a slow start, and was sent to the minor leagues to work some stuff out. In 43 games to finish the season Weeks hit .273/.442/.553 to bolster his season line to .235/.374/.433.

Community Projection
We'll go through the 8 position players in order around the diamond, perhaps a couple of bench players and then starting rotation. I'll tally up the results in a spreadsheet for everyone to see. Use any methods you want to make projections, but please submit them in the comments to the appropriate projection thread as a single line of comma separated values. For the hitters we'd like to project pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops.

For Example:
player,pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops
NLAverageHitter,650,585,153,102,31,3,17,65,.262,.335,.412,.747

You are, of course, free and welcome to submit any projections you want in any format and I'll try to accomodate them.

I've created a player projection tool to help you create a projection. Simply fill out the values for Plate Appearances (pa), Singles (1b), Doubles (2b), Triples (3b), Homeruns (hr), and Walks (bb) and the rest will be calculated for you and outputted below in a comma separated string perfectly formatted for submission. Simply copy and paste that line to a comment.

Voting is still open for Jason Kendall and Prince Fielder

Prince Fielder enters his 4th season in the majors. This is his final year of minimum wage baseball. At just 24 years old he is one of the premiere sluggers in the game. Last season he posted his best line yet of .288/.395/.618 and blasted 50 homeruns. This was good enough to get him 3rd place in the NL MVP voting.

Community Projection
We'll go through the 8 position players in order around the diamond, perhaps a couple of bench players and then starting rotation. Every few days we'll look at a new player. I'll tally up the results. Use any methods you want to make projections, but please submit them in the comments to the appropriate projection thread as a single line of comma separated values. For the hitters we're going to project pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops. So, with the player's name first, here's what your projection should look like.

For Example:
player,pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops
NLAverageHitter,650,585,153,102,31,3,17,65,.262,.335,.412,.747 You are, of course, free and welcome to submit any projections you want in any format and I'll try to accomodate them.

I've created a player projection tool to help you create a projection. Simply fill out the values for Plate Appearances (pa), Singles (1b), Doubles (2b), Triples (3b), Homeruns (hr), and Walks (bb) and the rest will be calculated for you and outputted below in a comma separated string perfectly formatted for submission. Simply copy and paste that line to a comment.

Voting is still open for Jason Kendall

Jason Kendall signed a 1 year 4.25 million dollar deal with incentives and a vesting club option for 2009. He'll start the season as the primary backstop for the 2008 Milwaukee Brewers. At 34 years old, this will be Kendall's 13th season. In the off-season he had Lasik eye surgery. Last year he had a disappointing half season with the Oakland Athletics where he managed merely .226/.261/.281 in 80 games before being traded to the Chicago Cubs in a salary dump. Kendall rebounded a little in the NL Central posting a line of .270/.362/.356 in 57 games. Those 57 games had Kendall performing much closer to his career numbers of .297/.375/.394.

Community Projection
We'll go through the 8 position players in order around the diamond, perhaps a couple of bench players and then starting rotation. Every few days we'll look at a new player. I'll tally up the results. Use any methods you want to make projections, but please submit them in the comments to the appropriate projection thread as a single line of comma separated values. For the hitters we're going to project pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops. So, with the player's name first, here's what your projection should look like.

For Example:
player,pa,ab,h,1b,2b,3b,hr,bb,avg,obp,slg,ops
NLAverageHitter,650,585,153,102,31,3,17,65,.262,.335,.412,.747

I've created a player projection tool to help you create a projection. Simply fill out the values for Plate Appearances (pa), Singles (1b), Doubles (2b), Triples (3b), Homeruns (hr), and Walks (bb) and the rest will be calculated for you and outputted below in a comma separated string perfectly formatted for submission. Simply copy and paste that line to a comment.

I think Fukudome's pecota projection is ridiculous.

Here's a look at why i think that. Take that pecota projection, and fukudome's career numbers, and lets look at rates for singles, doubles, triples, homeruns, bbs, and ks.

    career  pecota   diff
1b  15.1%    13.5%    1.7%
2b   5.9%     6.5%   -0.6%
3b   0.8%     0.9%    0.0%
hr   4.3%     3.2%    1.0%
bb  12.7%    15.1%   -2.4%
so  19.7%    20.2%   -0.6%

1b: drop off in singles, ok.
2b: He's going to beat his career rate in doubles?
3b: 4 triples? sure, hard to argue that.
hr: over 1% drop in HR power, that makes sense... drops him from a per/600 PA 26 HR hitter to a 19 HR hitter... seems a little further might be in order from the anecdotal evidence we have...
bb: Pecota actually thinks he'll see an increase over his career walk rate, pecota thinks his reputation as a premier hitter will translate to the majors. and this is where pecota is broken.
k: only a minor (~4Ks/600PAs) increase in his K rate. so pitching in ML is only a little tiny bit harder to hit?

let's look more at the huge problem pecota presents with his walk rate projection. look at fukudome's BB% from 1999-2004: 10%, 12%, 13%, 9%, 13%, 12%

now, 2004 was his 27 year old season. Peak power year, his HR% for '03 and '04 were 5.5%, and 5.7%. Before that from 1999-2004 his HR% was 3.2%.  once his power developed what happened to his BB%? can you guess? 2005-2007: 15%, 13%, 20%

And what does pecota say for 2008? 15.1%, which is simply a weighted average (by PA) for his last three years, and a slight adjustment for aging. but it contains zero adjustment for his reputation. unless he comes over here and starts whacking homeruns, he doesn't get the bump in his walk rate that being an elite hitter gives you.

My projection would imagine he was starting over in a new league, thus he gets no walk rate bump from pitchers working around him. My projection would also account for aging, so his 31 year old season will look like his 24 year old season. back then he was hitting HRs at rates of 3.2%, and walking at about 12%.

So, off the cuff, here's my projection:

BABIP: .320 (-.030 from career rate... better pitchers, better defense, also, just simply regressed towards the mean which any good projection will do. using this project 1b%: 14.7%)
2B%: 5.5%, (.4% drop from career, probably not enough, as i think the disappearance of the HR power means more outs, not more doubles.)
3B%: 1%, (+.2% from career, bigger parks, plus i just feel like giving him something nice.)
HR%: 2.5% (pre-power HR rate -.7%, bigger parks, better pitchers)
BB%: 12%, he gets his pre-power walk rate, the eye is for real.
K%: 21% (career k rate +1%)

you take all those rates and run them up against 600 Plates appearances and here is my projection:

PA   1B  2B  3B  HR  BB  SO    BA     OBP     SLG
600  88  33   6  15  72  126  0.265  0.360  0.448

This is better than pecota because i, by hand, zap his HR power, and consequently his WALK rate, and normalize his BABIP. That's it. PECOTA is broken in that it is so tuned for ML projections it ignores the consequences of switching from Japan to America, which is, from all anecdotal evidence a loss of power.

You gotta know when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em. The "Hot Hand" method of managing a baseball team is really just professional pathological gambling. You may sit down at a roulette table, or a blackjack table for entertainment, when you do that you have a certain amount of money you are willing to lose for the excitement of playing. You pay for the chance at winning. Then when your money is gone, you get up and go do something else.

Those who have a problem gambling, actually cannot stop despite a desire or even need to quit.

The professional gambler, on the other hand, has a strategy, or a method to even the odds as much as possible, and will take a crack at beating those odds for a streak, and then quit. Because the professional gambler is playing to win, you have to, as the saying goes, quit while you are ahead.

A baseball projection system, any projection system really, sets the odds for you. The "Hot Hand" strategy is the equivalent of hitting a streak of good fortune.

For example, Gabe Gross:

Marcel Projection: .265/.353/.433

Basically, the way we can use that is that we have a 50% chance to perform above those levels and a 50% chance to perform below those levels.

Ok, let's sit down at the blackjack table and play for a bit...

Gabe Gross 8/16 - 8/24:
25 Plate Appearances: .440/.440/.920

Ding, Ding, Ding, winner. 25 plate appearances of 1.360 OPS baseball. Nice! Let's play again.

Gabe Gross 8/25 - 9/4:
26 Plate Appearances: .292/.346/.417

Ok, break even, essentially matched the odds we had. Let's see, good streak, even streak, what's next? Let's pick up our chips and cash out... what... one more? Ok, a one or two more hands...

gabe gross 9/5 - 9/14
25 Plate Appearances: .100/.280/.200
BUZZER, loser. 25 plate appearances of .480 OPS baseball, ouch, that essentially wipes out our winnings.

Again? Really? Ok, Deal 'em
9/15 - 9/23
18 Plate Apperances: .176/.222/.235
Ouch, lost again. Too late to quit while we're ahead. Oh, we're quitting? Ok.

Gabe Gross 8/16 - 9/23:
94 Plate Appearances: .267/.330/.477

This is the beauty of baseball. Over the long haul, the odds are much better that you match your projection totals than you continue a hot streak or cold streak. The tricky part is when you try to ride those streaks, you really have no idea when they'll start or when they'll end. Someone could go 8 for 12 over one series and 1 for 12 over the next. A hot or cold streak can end at anytime, there is no statistical probability that a player in the middle of a streak will continue it. Knowing that, unless you are a pathological gambler (play till you lose) or a professional gambler (quit while you're ahead), aren't you always going to go with the most favorable odds, or the best player?

Pitch Identification Tutorial
by John Walsh

Awesome article. That's all I really have to say about it, just wanted to make sure that you guys saw it, especially some of you interested in this stuff like dixie and grobbins.

9/6: "I'm going to manage every game like it's the last game of the season," said manager Ned Yost

9/10: The game is essentially over at 4-0 in the bottom of the seventh (LI: 0.13, WP: 3%). So it's a good time to save your bullpen and let your LOOGY face a RHB. Unless of course you are managing like it's the last game of the season. Then you'd never, ever want this matchup:

Brian Shouse (LHP)
vs. RHB .304/.388/.451
vs. LHB .214/.273/.330

Freddy Sanchez (RHB)
vs. RHP .290/.330/.404
vs. LHP .380/.414/.532

So, Yost, let's acknowledge, (A) that we are not managing every game as though it were the last of the season, or (B) you really don't get platoon splits after all.

Wait, he did what? He didn't let Shouse finish the inning to save the bullpen? Huh. Weird. Why did Shouse start the 7th then if you weren't giving up on the game?

Was it to gain the platoon advantage against McLouth, or Laroche? Cause maybe you forgot to look at their splits first before making that decision... The only platoon advantage to start the inning was a RHP vs. Sanchez...

Pick one and stick with it Yost, try to win, or try to save the bullpen. It seems to me that you manage not to get blown out.

Hey, great game last night. It's the same game they've been playing all season, putting up six runs, extra base hits, a baserunning gaffe, followed by excellent baserunning. The thing missing from all those other games was the weird inning where the anti-midas gets matchup after matchup wrong and the other team posts 6 or 7 runs in the blink of an eye.

A very welcomed absence.

Best play of the game. Weeks' slide into second in the 7th inning. It should've been an inning ending double play as DeRosa and Theriot easily had Weeks at second with time to make a play at first but Weeks' hard slide scared the cub SS so far from second he had no play at the bag or at first. Taking the hit are the kinds of intangibles that a guy like Theriot needs to have to continue to succeed in the major leagues with his very limited skill set. Win probability added, only 3.7% but without that slide the rally doesn't happen.

Clearly the Brewers found a weakness with Theriot and his softness around the cornerstone as Corey Hart later dropped him again right before possibly the worst throw to first that resulted in an out. It triple hopped and rolled to a stop in front of Derrek Lee who had to go get the ball and go back to the bag. Estrada couldn't crawl up the line fast enough to beat that out. Why is he ever hitting with a man on first when the DP is that easy?

Runner up for best play of the game. Fielder's double to open the 4th, bouncing right back after the Brewers allowed 1 in the 3rd. Nice to see the passion out there as he pumped his fist at the center ring of the chicago circus act. Clearly pay back for showing him up in the first inning. Braun got in the act himself, as his hit ultimately closed up the circus for the night.

Great win, great to have sheets back, maybe this is the start of a run where the bounces start going our way.

Let's Go Brewers!

Game #1 in a slightly important three game series at the friendly confines.

Brewers	Cubs
Jeff Suppan 4.68 K/9 3.14 BB/9 0.77 HR/9 45.5 GB% 20.8 LD% 33.7 FB%   7.4 HR/FB% 4.85 FIP .324 BABIP	Rich Hill 8.46 K/9 2.97 BB/9 1.40 HR/9 35.0 GB% 22.2 LD% 42.8 FB% 13.3 HR/FB% 4.49 FIP .271 BABIP
Weeks 2b Hart rf Fielder 1b Braun 3b Mench lf Hall cf Estrada c Hardy ss Suppan p	Soriano lf Theriot ss Lee 1b Ramirez 3b Floyd rf DeRosa 2b Jones cf Kendall c Hill p

Check out dixieflatline's excellent series preview for more!

Go Brewers!