Soriano's 2007

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jim
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Post by jim »

98navigator wrote:
OK... that's a back slap. I wasn't optimistic at all going into last year. There is a reason to be encouraged this season.
It was in good fun, I assure you.

Yes, you actually do have some reasons to be optimistic besides the normal flower blooming stuff this year.

BTW - I was curious so I just went back a couple of years ago looking at Pitcher Abuse Points. Z was 2nd out of all MLB pitchers in 2006 and 2005 (Prior was 3rd in 2005), and 3rd in 2004. In 2003, Dusty rode Wood(2) and Prior(3) to money finishes.

Based on his genetics, body type, etc... it may mean that he is just an incredibly durable guy. But if I were a Cub fan, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the ghost of Dusty.

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98navigator wrote:
jim wrote:Even the most logical side of my brain, seeing all of the analysis, can't overcome that gut feel that somehow, someway, the Cubs will figure a way to screw it up again.
Now that Dusty is gone, I don't have that feeling at all.
This is sort of odd, considering that Dusty through 2004 had 8 straight winning seasons, including bringing the city of Chicago it's first postseason series win in 86 years, and the Cubs' first back-to-back winning seasons since 1972.

So was it Dusty's management, or Hendry's construction of a roster?

--P--

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Post by 98navigator »

jim wrote:
98navigator wrote:
OK... that's a back slap. I wasn't optimistic at all going into last year. There is a reason to be encouraged this season.
It was in good fun, I assure you.

Yes, you actually do have some reasons to be optimistic besides the normal flower blooming stuff this year.

BTW - I was curious so I just went back a couple of years ago looking at Pitcher Abuse Points. Z was 2nd out of all MLB pitchers in 2006 and 2005 (Prior was 3rd in 2005), and 3rd in 2004. In 2003, Dusty rode Wood(2) and Prior(3) to money finishes.

Based on his genetics, body type, etc... it may mean that he is just an incredibly durable guy. But if I were a Cub fan, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the ghost of Dusty.
I don't believe in ghosts (or curses). If he breaks down, I hope it happens before the Cubs sign him longterm. In either case, I'm not going to get down about what might happen. While I understand he has been abused, people have been projecting (incorrectly) his demise for a few years. It has yet to happen and it may not. I do know that Piniella has already said that he will not allow him to exceed 100 pitches on average (and not more than 115-120 pitches in any particular outing).

There is hope because he has shown better command this Spring.

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JL21
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Post by JL21 »

skmsw wrote:OK. I guess we were having different conversations then. My thoughts were regarding how some posts kept coming back to evaluating Soriano based on how overpaid he might be and what his weaknesses are that prevent hiim from being an "elite" player -- rather than on whether he actually made the Cubs a little, a lot, or not at all better on the field.

I suggest he probably makes them a lot better.

And not that I start from last year's record -- this year is different -- but it is soriano alone who added those 3 to 5 wins. Soriano is not the only player they added, or reasonably can expect improved poerformance from.
If Soriano hits his 3-year VORP average- which is a fair sample because it includes an average year, one of his worst, and his career year- then he reflects a 21 run increase over Pierre, who for all the bluster about how bad he was ran up an 18.0 VORP. And I suspect there's going to be a defensive gap in there, too (Soriano has the better arm clearly, but Pierre's range and instincts are much, much better). But I wouldn't think it'd be a huge gap. Either way, it's speculative so I'll leave it out.

DeRosa really isn't much of an upgrade at 2B at all.

Getting Lee back will surely help- much, much more than Soriano- but the question there is 'Which Lee will they get?'. Will he be the career average Lee that was good, but not great? Or will he be the 2005 monster? Given that he's coming back from injuries, I don't think it's a bad idea to think of the pre-2005 guy. And that's still an upgrade.

Lilly essentially replaces Maddux and one of Mateo/Rusch/Marmol/Guzman, and represents a decent upgrade. Marquis is the inverse Soriano; if he hits his three-year average instead of his 2006 numbers, then he's an upgrade, albeit a smaller one.

Really, I don't think there's any doubt that the Cubs have made big strides this off-season. The question to ask is "Was it enough?". Adding it all up, I get right around a 12 to 13 win improvement. Any one of the following would push them past that:

-Soriano is closer to '06 Soriano than career Soriano
-Lee is closer to '05 Lee than career Lee
-Miller or Prior give decent seasons (HUGE if's there)
-Hill takes a big step forward

They made up a lot of ground..... but did they make up enough? I'm not sure they did.

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Post by 98navigator »

Popeye_Card wrote:
98navigator wrote:
jim wrote:Even the most logical side of my brain, seeing all of the analysis, can't overcome that gut feel that somehow, someway, the Cubs will figure a way to screw it up again.
Now that Dusty is gone, I don't have that feeling at all.
This is sort of odd, considering that Dusty through 2004 had 8 straight winning seasons, including bringing the city of Chicago it's first postseason series win in 86 years, and the Cubs' first back-to-back winning seasons since 1972.

So was it Dusty's management, or Hendry's construction of a roster?

--P--
Those Cubs teams won despite Dusty. The Cubs had the best starting staff in the League in 2003. They had a winning 2004 but they still underachieved thanks in great part to Dusty's poor in-game decisions (like sticking with LaTroy Hawkins even though he repeatedly blew games in the final at bats).

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Post by Popeye_Card »

98navigator wrote:
Those Cubs teams won despite Dusty. The Cubs had the best starting staff in the League in 2003. They had a winning 2004 but they still underachieved thanks in great part to Dusty's poor in-game decisions (like sticking with LaTroy Hawkins even though he repeatedly blew games in the final at bats).
Cub and Giant teams won for 8 straight years despite Dusty's in-game decisions? He won 3 NL Manager of the Year awards for being a dope?

Was it Dusty's problem that he kept sticking Hawkins in to close games, or was it Hendry's fault that the next best bullpen option available to Dusty was Farnsworth?

Blaming a 66-96 season on a manager alone is silly, IMO. The Cubs had a fatally flawed roster, and I think they still do in large part.

--P--

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skmsw
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Post by skmsw »

BTW - I was curious so I just went back a couple of years ago looking at Pitcher Abuse Points. Z was 2nd out of all MLB pitchers in 2006 and 2005 (Prior was 3rd in 2005), and 3rd in 2004. In 2003, Dusty rode Wood(2) and Prior(3) to money finishes.

Based on his genetics, body type, etc... it may mean that he is just an incredibly durable guy. But if I were a Cub fan, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the ghost of Dusty.
Some guys can just flat-out take it.

But Z, for what it is worth, is just now entering that traditional age bracket where pitchers who had an excessive workload at a young age often start to show the effects of it.

Personally, I love watching him pitch and hope he is invulnerable. I'm not sure that's where I'd put my money though. Quoting an excerpt of myself from a thread earlier this off-season:
Zambrano may be a legitimate ace to build around for 12 more years. Or, he may be the body type that does not hold up well. Or, he may even have already peaked, and begin the process of decline as early as within the next year or two. Or, he may suffer an injury that makes one year of any deal worthless, and returns him as a different pitcher.

Who knows?

There would be a lot to like about opening up the vault to lock up Big Z. For instance, all those things I already said in the first paragraph above. Secondly, the fact that entering age 26, he posted a career-high in strikeouts and an ERA+ of 133 -- still heading in the right direction, right? A lot of years ahead of him as the anchor of your rotation, right?

Probably. But there are reasons to let someone else be the one to roll the dice, too, and not jump in with both feet, or not be too disappointed if you miss out.

Those heavy workloads prior to age 25 loom large. For some players this is not a factor, but it is always worth accounting for, and he has been used extremely heavily -- 107 pitches per start at age 22 in 32 starts, 112 pitches per start in 31 starts at age 23, and 108 pitches per start in 33 starts at age 24 is simply a monstrous early-career workload, and I'd strongly suspect declines in effectiveness and risk of injury starting by around age 27.

Any early signs of this so far? Most reasonable observers would say no; he continues to post good ERAs, he continues to strike out batters, he continues to be hard to hit. But as everyone knows, I am not a reasonable observer. So I'd offer a small possibility that there does lie within his data a cautionary tale. A small one, and one that possibly means nothing, but one that I personally would not ignore.

In 2006, amidst another great season, his walk rate went up by 33% over his previous three seasons. That kind of difficulty with command can just be an erratic year, it happens. But it can also be an early warning sign.

There's no doubt that in 2006 batters found it easier to get the ball in the air against Big Z, too; coming into 2006 he had a career GB rate of 1.89, one of the highest in baseball. In 2006 it was 1.31, basically a neutral pitching tendency and slightly below average. This again could clearly, obviously mean little other than the way his stuff happened to be moving in 2006. But a change like this also could be an early warning sign.

I've found that often peripheral stats and linear weight stats change before on-field results catch up -- Big Z's FIP went 3.63, 3.72, 3.88 -- and now 4.19.

In short -- Big Z would seem to be about as low-risk an investment as any pitcher out there could be. Given the things I've pointed out above, this would seem to be another way of saying that long term deals for all pitchers are risky -- if he is about as low-risk as it gets, and is not really ALL that safe himself, pitchers must inherently be risky.

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JL21
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Post by JL21 »

With each year, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that Z went to the Livan Hernandez Finishing School for Pitchers and just has one of those arms that can absorb the abuse.

That said, steve- you make some good points about warning signs.

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Post by 98navigator »

Popeye_Card wrote:
98navigator wrote:
Those Cubs teams won despite Dusty. The Cubs had the best starting staff in the League in 2003. They had a winning 2004 but they still underachieved thanks in great part to Dusty's poor in-game decisions (like sticking with LaTroy Hawkins even though he repeatedly blew games in the final at bats).
Cub and Giant teams won for 8 straight years despite Dusty's in-game decisions? He won 3 NL Manager of the Year awards for being a dope?

Was it Dusty's problem that he kept sticking Hawkins in to close games, or was it Hendry's fault that the next best bullpen option available to Dusty was Farnsworth?

Blaming a 66-96 season on a manager alone is silly, IMO. The Cubs had a fatally flawed roster, and I think they still do in large part.

--P--
I'm talking about his entire 4 years with the team. Most of what you've pointed out is fluff; his manager of the year awards have nothing to do with managing the Cubs. The team was unable to reach it's potential in any of his years. Again, 2003 happened despite him. Another manager would have been able to, at the very least, get the team to the WS (in 2002 he figured out a way to blow that series as well). Dusty Baker has always been a very shaky in-game decision maker--his strong suit is supposedly handling clubhouse personalities and being the friend of the players...

There are many people that were never sold on the hiring of Baker so it is hardly hindsight. Whether or not the roster was flawed in 2005 & 2006, it is clear that he is not the kind of manager that gets the most out of his roster.

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Post by Popeye_Card »

98navigator wrote:
I'm talking about his entire 4 years with the team. Most of what you've pointed out is fluff; his manager of the year awards have nothing to do with managing the Cubs. The team as unable to reach it's potential in any of his years. Again, 2003 happened despite him. Another manager would have been able to, at the very least, get the team to the WS (in 2002 he figured out a way to blow that series as well). Dusty Baker has always been a very shaky in-game decision maker--his strong suit is supposedly handling clubhouse personalities and being the friend of the players...

There are many people that were never sold on the hiring of Baker so it is hardly hindsight. Whether or not the roster was flawed in 2005 & 2006, it is clear that he is not the kind of manager that gets the most out of his roster.
That's a heck of a lot of revisionist thinking.

All those folks saying "In Dusty we trusty" were wrong?

Dusty made Bartman mess with that ball, made Gonzalez make the error, and made Prior blow up allowing the Marlins to take the lead?

Dusty improved the Cubs by 21 wins from 2002 to 2003, and he didn't do enough?

Other managers would have gotten more wins out of that 2004 squad? The one that missed over 20 starts from it's best two pitchers, had Hawkins as it's closer because it had no better options, and still won 89 games?

I'm sure the manager was the problem.

--P--

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