I finished reading BP2010 and figured I could get through the Cubs Annual 2010 pretty quickly since I only had interest in reading Shawn's two articles.  Sorry Bruce, I skimmed your article and may eventually read the whole thing, but I was more interested in Shawn's work.

Shawn has a couple articles in the book.  The first one asks the question, Is Z an Ace? It's a good article and worth the few dollars the book costs just to read those few pages.  Shawn's other article is why I'm writing this.

The Soriano Effect

That's the title of the other article Shawn wrote.  I don't want to give too much of it away since the money for the book should go to the authors, but I'm puzzled by something.

Shawn makes some adjustments to Soriano's batting statistics for 2009 by attempting to remove the bad luck that Soriano had last year (low BABIP, lower HR/FB rate).  It obviously changes the picture quite a bit.  Soriano was still pretty bad, but not nearly as bad as he actually was.  Here's where I get lost:

Soriano hit plenty of fly balls in 2009: 174, which is more than he hit in 2008 (170), but because so few of those fly balls turned into home runs in 2009, Soriano's power numbers suffered.  if we adjust Soriano's HR/FB rate to his career norm (15.3%), he should have hit 30 home runs, ten more than his actual total.

Prior to that, Shawn points out that Soriano's HR/FB rate in 2009 was 11.5%.  He hit 174 fly balls and 20 of them left the ballpark.  That's 11.5%.  If 15.3% of them left the yard, that's 27 home runs.

That also means he would have had about seven more hits (because only 30% of fly balls are outs).  With the extra home runs and hits, Soriano's slash line would have been something like .252/.312/.482.

I think outs should be hits.  30% of fly balls are hits.  It's actually 26%, but 30% is close enough for a rough estimate.  What I don't understand is why he should have 7 more hits because we adjusted his HR/FB rate.  That adjustment adds 7 home runs (7 hits) and that's all.  Right?

I can't figure out what's going on here.  Shawn has 10 home runs added and another 7 hits, so that's 17 additional hits.  I can't get the numbers to add up.  Shawn's additional 10 home runs should improve his batting average to more than .252.  I add 7 and get .256.  If I make a babip and hr/fb adjustment, it adds about 14 hits (7 of them are home runs).  That gives him an adjusted batting line of .270/.330/.494.  Shawn is getting .268/.328/.503.  Those numbers are pretty close, but I'm still doing something wrong.  If I add 10 home runs like Shawn says and 7 more hits, I get .277/.335/.522.  I'm lost.

Shawn, can you help me out here?  Excellent articles!  I'm just too dumb to figure this one out.

''If he feels well and wants to keep going, we'll have an interesting conversation,'' Kenney said Thursday when asked about Piniella's status entering the final year of his contract.

If he feels well? Interesting conversation?

Are you kidding?

Well put, Gordo.  I don't remember where I read this quote from Kenney earlier today, but "are you kidding" is what came to my mind.  Gordo will write the occasional head-scratching article, but over the last year he's really become pretty good at his job.  Anybody who writes as much as these journalists do are going to say some dumb things.  We say dumb things around here every day.  We can't expect them to get everything right.

after what he's done for the organization the last three years, he's earned at least the clear assurances that he's wanted back, and more appropriately an extension offer -- even if it's nothing more than a written mutual contract option that takes some of the lame-duck stigma off the 2010 season.

I don't care about the lame-duck status.  That's only a story if these journalists write about it, which is something they really shouldn't be doing anyway.  But they will and it is going to be a story.  I agree that there's no reason not to give Lou some kind of contract beyond this season since he has said he is at least interested in sticking around if things go well this season.  Make it a mutual option so if the season sucks the Cubs can move on.

I'd also add that it's not just the 2 playoff appearances or 3 winning season in a row that has earned him some kind of assurance he is wanted back, but also that he is almost certainly a hall of fame manager.

Kenney and the Rickettses need to step up now, before the season starts, and offer Piniella the option to return after this year.

I couldn't agree more.  For all his faults, Lou is a really good manager.  As Gordo put it: "Lou deserves better."

As prone as we are to overreact as fans, the media is even worse.  I hope Gordo keeps those 3 words in mind if this season doesn't go as well as the Cubs hope.  If Lou deserves better, he doesn't deserve to have his passion or fiery-ness questioned if he doesn't run onto the field to throw bases after a poor call by an umpire as some did last year.

h/t to Rodrigo Ramirez

Sean Marshall has been in the swingman role for most of his career and 2010 may be no different.  The Cubs do have two spots open in the rotation with Ted Lilly beginning the season on the DL.  The locks for the rotation are Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster and Randy Wells.  Lilly will join the rotation when he's ready, which probably won't be any later than the end of April.

Berselius already took a look at how many times the 5th starter may be necessary in the early part of the season.  Over the next few days we're going to publish the projections for the 4 pitchers battling it out for those 2 spots.  Those pitchers are Tom Gorzelanny, Sean Marshall, Carlos Silva and Jeff Samardzija.  We've already covered the top 4 starters (including Lilly) so now it's time to see who those 2 starters should be.  Lou isn't going to look at any projections to make his decision so who knows who he ends up choosing?  I don't.

I've added another projection system.  Fantistics was the best system last year at projecting playing time.  As far as projecting OPS, it only trailed CHONE and ZiPS.

Marshall's 2010 projections

Befpre you start saying that Marshall's FIP is projected to be higher than Wells so therefore he should automatically be given a spot, remember that these aren't just innings as a starter.  We know that it's easier to reliever than to start.  It's about 1 run per 9 innings easier (.8 to 1 run).  A couple of the systems don't include games pitched or games started, making any adjustments very difficult to make.  Let's take the 2 systems that we know have projected Sean Marshall to be only a reliever.  Those systems are ZiPS (based entirely on innings pitched) and PECOTA (70 G, 0 GS).  The weighted means PECOTA had 55 G, 0 GS so unlike Caridad and others who have projected innings as a starter and a reliever that PECOTA makes no adjustments for, there are none needed here.  PECOTA projects Sean Marshall as a full-time reliever who sill post a 3.82 ERA and a 3.81 FIP.

The average between ZiPS and PECOTA is about 3.95 FIP.  This means that we can expect his FIP as a starter to be somewhere between 4.75 and 4.95.  We'll say 4.85.  Remember the 4.85 as a starter when we get to the other 3 candidates.

We projected Marshall would get 42 innings as a starter and 53 innings as a reliever.  We're using the 4.18 FIP that we have as the average, because that's what we've been doing for the player projections.  When we get closer to the season, we'll try to make some adjustments for bullpen and starting.

1 win out of Marshall who is making just under a million dollars is pretty good.

Although some have complained about Marlon Byrd's contract for reasons not understood, it was a very good deal for the Cubs.  David G on THT shows that it was the 3rd best multi-year contract signed by position players this offseason.  Only Marco Scutaro and Brian Schneider is projected to provide a better value per win than Marlon Byrd is using the Oliver projections.  Bryd's contract was 5th best if we include pitchers (Colby Lewis and Ryoto Igarashi have better deals).

In all, major league clubs signing players to multi-year contracts handed out a total of $550.25 million. With 116.2 projected wins above replacement coming from that cash, teams would pay about $4.73 million per WAR based on the Oliver projections.

The Cubs signed Byrd for 3 years and $15 million.  He's projected to be worth 6.5 wins making his $WAR ($2.31 million) slightly under half what the league paid out this year to players who signed multi-year deals.  Byrd's 6.5 projected WAR ranks behind only Matt Holliday, Colby Lewis, Chone Figgins and Marco Scutaro.

Get ready for lots of articles by the media about how Byrd is making a ton of money and should be better than they expected.

Fontenot is doing all he can so far this spring to live up to FonteYES's username. Coming off of last season all of us assumed that Jeff Baker was going to be the starter going into the year, despite the fact that the numbers probably dictated that Fotnenot should still get the strong side of the platoon. Fontenot is hitting .500/.529/.571/ in the oh-so-large sample size of 16 PAs, while Jeff Baker is hitting .077/.200/.077 in 15 PAs. I know evaluating these guys in that few PAs is useless, but the teams do tend to look at these things when guys are battling for a job in spring training, so it's good for Fontenot's chances to see him coming out of the gate so strong (or lucky, depending on how you look at it).

I know there are a lot of people on Team Jeff Baker, so let's take a look at their numbers side-by-side from the past 3 years.

Now, why don't we want Fotnenot, at least as the strong side? Fontenot was crazy lucky in 2008, especially against LHP (.467 BABIP!) which is what led to our high expectations going into last season. But Baker was equally (if not even more) lucky last season an posted a much worse line than Font's 2008. Here's what we can expect out of them this year

Add in the fact that Fontenot is also the superior defensive 2b, it looks like the Cubs are moving towards the obvious choice.

Media Center • Scoreboard • Gameday

Cubs Lineup

• Theriot, SS
• Fukudome, RF
• Byrd, CF
• Millar, 1B
• Nady, DH
• Fontenot, 2B
• Soto, C
• Baker, 3B
• Fuld, LF
• Tom Gorzelanny, P
  

White Sox Lineup

• Pierre, LF
• Vizquel, SS
• Konerko, 1B
• Jones, CF
• Kotsay, DH
• Teahen, 3B
• Flowers, C
• De Aza, RF
• Nix, 2B
• Carlos Torres, P
  

Take it away, Tim.

What the fuck is wrong with you fucking people?  The guy comes over, has a good sense of humor about you ripping on him, answers your questions for fifteen minutes and when he turns his back, you spit on him?  I know it must have been difficult being raised in a family where the family tree doesn't fork, but seriously, you fucking hocked a loogy on a guy for no other reason than he was wearing a hat indicating a different sports team from your own.  It's people like you that make me wish I could strangle people with my mind.

Where the fuck is it ever OK to spit on someone and not expect to get your ass kicked all over creation?  If you went to your job smuggling heroine balloons shoved up your ass and some giant gangster-looking pimp in withdrawal spit on you, you'd probably still be mad enough to try to smack him around a bit.  Why the fuck would you ever think in your demented, alcohol soaked head that spitting on someone is acceptable at all?

Those who have visited this site more than once know we're on Tim's side here.  Cubs fans are unfathomably stupid and those who claim that this type of nonsense is just an isolated incident are part of the problem.  I'll give those people the benefit of the doubt and assume they aren't the ones spitting on players, throwing beer on them or calling them racist names, so there's no harm in admitting what is so obviously true.  After all, it's not you who they are calling out.  Or is it?  The only reason to take offense to something like this is if you are part of the problem.

One of the thing baseball fans love most is when a player comes "out of nowhere" and surpasses all expectations.  Randy Wells had an excellent rookie season in 2009 few knew anything about him.  They say he came from out of nowhere

CHONE projected a 3.9 ERA and a 3.7 FIP out of Randy Wells in 2009.  He was projected as a reliever so add about .9 to that and make it 4.6 as a starter.  Wells FIP last year was 3.88, which was nearly a run higher than his ERA.  Wells has good control, but doesn't strike too many hitters out.

If the fans are expecting a repeat of 2009, they'll be disappointed, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't expect him to be good.  Below are his 2010 projections.

A 4.22 FIP is above average and there's still some upside.  Perhaps what he showed last year is legitimate?  Obviously he's not going to be as good as he was (FIP nearly a run higher than ERA and that probably doesn't happen again), but it's possible his FIP is as low as 3.9 or so.  I wouldn't bet on it.  We projected 170 inings from Wells.

The maximum number of innings someone projected was 200.  That would make him worth 2.9 WAR.

Although this will undoubtedly be ignored by nearly every Cubs fan, Morgan Ensberg had a few things to say about Cubs fans.

I was talking to a group of 7 and they started ragging me, but I got them to laugh and the conversation quickly turned into a Q & A session.  After 15 min I told them I had to hit.  When I turned my back I heard a guy spit and felt phlegm hit my left temple.

As I jogged into the dugout my eyes were watering up.  I took 3 or 4 deep breaths and regained my composure.  It took me over an hour to stop feeling humiliated.  Someone just spit on me because he thought it would be funny and instead it burned a memory into my heart that I will never forget.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  Not every Cubs fan blah blah fucking blah.  Morgan Ensberg has not done a thing to Cubs fans so just imagine how they've treated someone like Barry Bonds or even their own players like Alfonso Soriano and Milton Bradley.

h/t to GBTS

Via a report in the Phoenix Business Journal, the controversial 'Cubs Tax' on Cactus league tickets has been scrapped. No worries that the team will move to Naples though - according to Crane Kenney they can get the money from other means (mainly upping the rental car tax and some bond measures)

This was all part of a larger press conference/meeting that Kenney had with the media today. Muskat gives the rundown here.

• The Triangle building should be finished by 2014. This seems later than I remember.
• They're doing their superficial improvements to the stadium (bathrooms, etc.) There is $100m budgeted for stadium restoration + improvements
• The Cubs added ~900 more season ticket seats that were previously held by the Trib, 200 of which are bleacher tix. Seriously - the trib had control of 900 tickets? Maybe this was the block that they were 'selling' to their ticket broker shell company
• The Cubs are looking into selling advertising behind the LF bleachers. I'm not sure what this means - signs? Ads on the buildings themselves? I can't remember where, but I read someone mention today that they could maybe put up 'virtual' ads on some of the buildings, kind of the like the green screens behind home plate so the advertising appears on TV.

h/t to wv23 and doc_blume