DanTown
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Rizzo is too good a hitter to waste him as an OBP guy. Too many at bats for a good hitter with no runners on, like Bryant this year.
Rizzo is too good a hitter to waste him as an OBP guy. Too many at bats for a good hitter with no runners on, like Bryant this year.
beckdawg
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I have a couple comments. #1 people need to get over the idea of a "lead off hitter" with maddon. I realize Fowler basically always lead off but he was a split neutral switch hitter with great on base. If he had splits that weren't neutral joe would have moved guys around. Joe likes playing LH/RH match ups. So it's not going to be 1 guy who leads off unless by some turn of events they get another guy like Fowler was. With that out of the way, no I don't think you want Rizzo batting lead off because he's one of the few guys who the cubs have who doesn't have K issues. In fact he walked more than he K'd. The reason that is important is because when you have guys on base you want guys to put balls in play. So ideally he's your #3 or #4 hitter.
If we're talking LH pitching think there's an obvious answer here, Albert Almora. Cubs 3 best hitters vs LHP last year by wRC+ were Bryant(150), Contreras(137) and Almora(137). And in terms of OBP Bryant was #1 at .439 with Almora #2 at .411. While he's a low k rate guy and it'd be nice to put him behind some of the higher OBP guys he's also basically the best you got for OBP. So leading him off vs LHP makes perfect sense. It's also one of the reason I think trading him makes no sense. If the cubs lack a lead off guy they are going to cobble one together with multiple players and having someone who was on base 41% of the time vs LHP is basically as good as it gets. Almora was 29th in the league in OBP vs LHP with players who had min 100 PAs. Bryant was 11th to give you some idea os scope. So it's not like there's a huge gap between top 10 and almora. You're talking 29 points.
Now what do you do vs RH pitching as obviously that's not Almora's wheelhouse. This grouping is a bit odd. Rene rivera with 32 PAs lead the cubs in RH OBP at .484. Bryant was #2 at .400. Rizzo was #3 at .398. Avila was #4 at .396. La Stella was #5 at .390. Jay was #6 at .364. Montero was #7 at .354. Contreras was #8 at .339. Heyward was #9 at .338. Zobrist was #10 at .336. Happ was 11 at .334. Schwarber was #12 at .317. So a couple of thoughts... Contreras probably sits some vs RHP given it's the weaker of his two splits and he's going to need some days off. Plus do you really want him leading off? Heyward is interesting because he's sort of the prototypical type you'd want although supposedly he isn't comfortable leading off. Think you could make the case for him to suck it up and do it but if not him then you could look to get Austin Jackson or someone like him to replace Jay as the RH platoon of Almora. However given how the cubs are currently constituted you would imagine that RH split would largely be going to happ if pieces aren't moved.
So given all that I think realistically if Heyward isn't going to do it then you're looking at Zobrist or Hspp. Happ isn't ideal but I think you can make the case that if you're going to hide him in the line up that leading him off isn't the worst idea vs RHP. At .334 OBP he's not amazing but he's good. And while he strikes out a ass load the thing is I'm not sure that really hurts you as a lead off hitter. For one thing even if you K you're using a lot of pitches. So Bryant and Rizzo get to see the starter throwing before hitting. And assuming you bat the pitcher 9th that lead off spot is rarely going to come up with guys on. So if he's going to strike out it's best he does it when guys are unlikely to be on base.
What this also indirectly illustrates to me is the problem I have with Baez. He hit .258/.304/.443 which isn't god awful but Almora who was seen as a platoon player had a wRC+ of 81 to Baez's 85. And the thing is that was actually his career best wRC+ vs RHP. The idea is you obviously always want Baez's defense at 2B but the issue is he forces 2 of Schwarber, Zobrist, Happ, and Almora out of the line up. Given Schwarber hits .238/.344/.513 vs RHP(126 wRC+) you want him in LF. So that means if you want Happ to lead off vs RHP(118 wRC+) you're sitting Almora because there's literally no where else for Happ to play. That in turn means you play Happ next to Schwarber defensively in the outfield which isn't ideal either.
I really don't want this to go down another trade Baez tangent because I know some are fans. But if all he's giving you is a 85 wRC+ vs the big side of a platoon that's a huge issue. And I'm being generous there just using 2017. If you use his career marks he's a .242/.282/.398(4.3%/30.4% bb/k rate 76 wRC+) over 924 PAs. If for example you compare him as a 2B to Happ who would potentially be his replacement you're talking about Happ having a noticeable split but it was .276/.313/.476(98 wRC+) vs LHP and .243/.334/.529(118 wRC+). You're talking +22 wRC+ on the bad split and -3 wRC+ on the good split. Is Baez defense really worth effectively a 25% better hitter if you believe in the wRC+ stat?
beckdawg
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#1 - pitching more innings. He only threw 58.2 innings for the cubs last year largely because he wasn't needed that often in the first half. As a comparison he threw 67.1 innings in 2015 and 72 in 2014. Jansen threw 68.1. Kimbrel threw 69.0 innings. That's 15% more give or take. WAR's a counting stat and therefore the more you throw the more "value" you have. And he was fantastic in any sense of the word. he had a 2.30 ERA and blew 1 save all year.
#2 Lost velocity how? Fangraphs had him at 94.6. While he was at 95.5 in 2016, losing ~1 mph isn't uncommon year to year. if he were down 2-3 mph then sure you worry a bit. But frankly the loss of velocity isn't really important because velocity is means to an end(K's). How was his k rate in 2017? 12.12 was the second best rate of his career behind the 13.63 he put up coincidentally in his most valuable year of 2014.
With regard to the command that's a more legitimate concern to me. The simple answer is I don't know. I'd love to be able to tell you exactly what went wrong there but I really don't know. However what I can tell you is whatever was wrong happened in July and August. In the first half of 2017 his walk rate was 3.60 which is a little higher than his career 3.36 rate but not crazy. In july his walk rate was 7.88 and in August it was 6.52. It dropped back down to 2.77 in September but those two months made his second half walk rate 5.02 which effectively accounts for the when. Maybe he had a nagging injury that wasn't enough to send him to the DL. Maybe he just lost his release point. I'd have to dive way deeper than I feel like doing to give you a firm reason but I do recall July being a time when the cubs starters were shit and the bullpen got way over used. As an another example here Edwards walk rate in July was 7.94 and August it was 5.56. So my guess that they were over used seems plausible. But like I said, if you have a better answer I'm open to opinions.
#3 See every cubs pitcher? HR's were up across the majors not just Davis. You're talking about a 4% increase which isn't nothing but Jon Lester was up 5.6% over his career rate, Hendricks was up 4.1%, Arrieta was up 3.1%, Quintana was up 3.8%, and Lackey was up 7.8%. It wasn't just Davis that had that issue.
#4 What poor history for people his age? Even if he does decline from age 32-35 which I think you're vastly overstating it. He's not going to suddenly be washed up. You look at Trevor Hoffman 32-34 and 36(was hurt at 35) he put up 5.7 wins. Joe Nathan 31-33(was hurt age 34) put up 8.7 wins. Rivera was 9.3 wins 32-35. Billy Wagner 32-35 put up 7.1 wins. If you want to do this even more broadly there were 699 player seasons from 1990-2017 where someone 32-35 threw qualified innings. Best season was 2007 Rafael Betancourt at 3.3 wins If we can agree that 1.5 is a decent enough season there were 94 of 699 where relievers put up 1.5 wins or more(13%). If you say that 1 win is acceptable but not desirable there were 181 1 win seasons(25%). If we further narrow that to guys over 9 k/9 there were 150 player seasons over that same time period. 55 of that 150 were 1.5 wins or better(37%) and 85 were 1 win or better(57%). If we further narrow that to guys over 9 k/9 but also under 4 bb/9 there were 111 player seasons 53(48%) of which were 1.5 wins or higher, 75(68%) of which were 1 win or more. In other words, if you can concede that Wade Davis age 32-35 will have a 9 k/9 or higher and below a 4 bb/9(rates as a reliever are 11.67/3.24) I'm telling you're there's a roughly 50% chance he'll put up 1.5 wins or higher and a 2/3 chance he'll be at least 1 win. I'd hardly suggest those numbers indicate poor performance for players age 32-35.
#5 By your own argument forecasting relievers year to year is difficult. So why are you using an individual year to assess judgement? Since Davis is likely to get a 4 year deal would it not make more sense to compare Davis to relievers the past 4 years? At 7.4 fWAR the past 4 years he's #6 in baseball behind Jansen, Betances, Miller, Chapman and Kimbrel. And even if you were to cut 20% off his performance those 4 years because he's "getting old" at 6 wins he'd still be the #11 reliever in baseball behind those names plus Giles, Cody Allen, Robertson, Britton and Osuna
#6 see #4 because it's literally the same question But if I narrow it just to 34 and 35 to humor your argument with the same caveats(9+ k/9 < 4 bb/9 years 1990-2017 over qualified innings) there are 42 seasons. Of those 42 seasons 17(41%) had 1.5 or higher fWAR and 23(55%) had 1 or higher fWAR. So sure, you're marginally worse 34-35 than you are 32-35 but is -7%/-13% that surprising? Losing half a win every 2 years after 30 its a pretty normal rule of thumb to go by.
#7 You realize Morrow has a significant injury history right and that the entire reason he became a reliever was he couldn't stay healthy? So to answer the question why would he revert back to 0, simple he gets hurt. He threw 16 innings in the majors in 2016, 33 innings in 2015, 33.1 innings in 2014. A typical reliever you want to hit at least 60. He hasn't hit 60 innings in the majors since he was a starter in 2012. As for McGee, he's the prototypical reliever you're talking about who isn't consistent year to year. He was worth -0.2 wins in 2011 over 28 innings, 2 wins in 2012 over 55.1 innings, 0.6 wins over 62.2 innings in 2013, 2.6 wins over 71.1 innings in 2014, 1.1 over 37.1 innings in 2015, -0.3 over 45.2 innings in 2016 and 1.5 over 57.1 innings last year. He's literally only had 1 time(2014-15) where he had back to back years over 1 win in 8 years in the majors. So, judging solely on his history he's just as likely to be bad next year as he is good.
We can play this game all day. There aren't going to be pristine relievers who have 0 questions because if that player exists he's either A) Mariano Rivera and locked up to the same team for so long you never see him in FA or B) he's a starter. But I'll humor you. Britton saw his k/9 drop from 10.83 in 2015 and 9.94 in 2016 to 6.99 last year while his bb/9 went from 1.92/2.42 to 4.34 last year. That's a far more concerning jump than Davis. Already talked about reasons to doubt McGee/Morrow so I'll skip them. Greg Holland? Saw his walk rate rise to 5.24 in 2015 then missed all of 2016 and it was 4.08 in 2017. His HR/FB rate went from a career average of 7.2% to 11.3%. He's also essentially the same age as Davis since you perceive that as an issue. Addison Reed? Saw his HR/FB rate go from 8.9% on his career to 12.5%. He's also a guy that is at 9 k/9 which is troubling for a reliever as mentioned with Ziegler/Melancon. Joe Smith? The cubs had him last year and how that work out? He's also going to be 34. Anthony Swarzak? Actually don't have that much negative to say about his 2017 but that was clearly a career year for him. He has no other year over 0.8 wins. Mike Minor? I don't hate him either but he's had trouble staying healthy. Missed all of 2015 and most of 2016. Bryan Shaw? He's ok but a career 8.03 k/9 is worrying and he's never been a closer really. Just a decent set up guy. Is there anyone else worth mentioning? Think everyone else at best is a set up guy.
Regardless, any team that is considering signing someone like davis who's over 30 is going to phase in regression as part of their offer. And I literally gave you that as an example. Him going from 7.4 wins the previous 4 years to 6 wins the next 4 is a 20% decline. That's a fairly massive decline in performance and even then he's still a top 15 reliever. In order for him to be outside the top 30 relieves he'd have to suffer a 52% decline in performance. And if you want to go deeper, Davis' soft contact was the highest of his career at 28% last year and his swinging strike rate was 15.5% which was also the highest of his career. In other words, hitters weren't handling anything he was throwing. The soft contact rate was 8th best among relievers with only Betances, Jansen, Peter Moylan, Matt Albers, Dan Jennings, Bryan Shaw and Ryan Madson better. The swinging strike rate was 22nd in the majors among relievers. That list has more surprising names than you'd expect but to put 15.5% in perspective, Andrew Miller was 16.3%. Giles was 16.4%. Jansen and Kimbrel were at the top at 18.2% and 19.8% respectively. Chapman was at 13.6%
Literally the only valid concern I see that you can levee against him from 2017 was the walk rate because batters were swinging thru more of his pitches than ever before and when they made contact he had the highest soft contact rate of his career. That's literally everything you want from a high pressure reliever minus the walks.
beckdawg
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Also fwiw, ^ is the last I think i'm going to discuss on the matter of Davis because honestly you don't appear to have an open mind on the matter which i suppose is fine. If you don't like Davis that's not something I care that much about. All I'm honestly saying is dear god don't trade for Britton. In my view he's every problem you have with Davis only worse because he's coming off an injury that totally tanked all of his numbers to the point they are the worst of his career. I think he's going to end up being this year's Melancon that someone over pays for(prospects not money) because they failed to land Davis and they gotta have a guy. And the thing is he's never been a huge k/9 guy. Only had 1 season above 10. Guys like that worry me as relievers. And on top of it all he's still making $12 mil and is a 1 year rental.
Basically if you literally have to have an elite guy and you can't stand the idea of Davis for the love of god don't trade for Britton. Trade stuff to Tampa to help them reliever $5.5 mil of the $10 mil they say they want to cut by getting Colome. Clearly they are motivated to move pieces and they don't appear to want to move Archer. If you hate that idea I'd approach Toronto about Osuna. they are a 76 win team who's best two prospects are in A+. Do they really need a premium closer for the next 3 years? Frankly Osuna would be ideal given how young he is(22) though I have no idea what Toronto's plans are.
Basically if you literally have to have an elite guy and you can't stand the idea of Davis for the love of god don't trade for Britton. Trade stuff to Tampa to help them reliever $5.5 mil of the $10 mil they say they want to cut by getting Colome. Clearly they are motivated to move pieces and they don't appear to want to move Archer. If you hate that idea I'd approach Toronto about Osuna. they are a 76 win team who's best two prospects are in A+. Do they really need a premium closer for the next 3 years? Frankly Osuna would be ideal given how young he is(22) though I have no idea what Toronto's plans are.
chibears55
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Hoyer said they were looking for a leadoff hitter...
So..... im sure their looking into someone with good splits with a high obp and can play good defense in either CF or 2B
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Your comment about "getting over the idea of a lead-off hitter with Maddon" may not be as reasonable as you believe.
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anotheridiot
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I was hoping that was a message being sent to the team, somebody needs to step up.
DanTown
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It's a valid concern that he spent time on the DL in 2016.
It's a valid concern that his velocity was down as was his usage.
It's a valid concern his velocity dropped from the mid 96 range in 2014/2015 when he was one of the most dominant relievers in baseball to 94.6 last year.
It's a valid concern that you're projecting Davis to have no decline to his 2017 performance, in fact increase his usage while maintaining the same efficiency, for four years out.
I'll be blunt about Davis: if you held a gun to my head and made me choose over/under 5 fWAR for the next four years, I'd go under. If you made it six, I'd comfortably say under. The guys who were that valuable late in their careers either defied normal aging with regards to velocity (i.e Billy Wagner), had a dominant outpitch that guys couldn't hit (Rivera, Hoffman), or pitched 70+ innings a year. I have yet to see any argument or reason why Wade Davis won't see age related decline. I mean, its literally hitting us in the face
2014 - 3.1 fWAR over 67 innings (age 29)
2015 - 2.0 fWAR over 72 innings (age 30)
2016 - 1.3 fWAR over 43 innings (age 31)
2017 - 1.1 fWAR over 59 innings (age 32)
Every single year he's had worse performance. The argument that Wade will just shift and adjust his age curve is based on what? Developing a new pitch? He already throws like four pitches?
DanTown
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Jesse Rogers on ESPN said Alex Cobb to the Cubs at something like 14-15 AAV seems like a strong fit for both sides. Said there was an interview that Cobb did (MLBN?) where he talked about the culture, the manager, the pitching coach, and the ability to win as the things he's looking for and mentioned Joe and Jim Hickey by name as guys he liked.
TC in Mississippi
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Where did Hoyer say that? Not doubting you but Theo said clearly in his post-season presser that they weren't looking for one calling it a "luxury" as opposed to "necessity". If Hoyer has changed that tune I think that's significant.
DanTown
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I tend to believe that the Cubs hope that Happ/Almora can be a platoon in CF and at the leadoff spot. Happ had better power (.529 v .476) and OBP (.334 v .313) as a righty even though his BABIP as a righty was nearly 50 points lower (.301 v .348).
It would be nice if a young player that came up sans Bryant took a positive step in their development in year two and Happ could be that. If he cuts the K's from say 32 to 27% over a 400 PA sample, that would be 24 more balls in play. If he goes 7 for 24 (.292 BABIP) with just seven singles on those new at bats, his slash line against righties would now be
.261/.352/.543
Fowler last three years
.250/.346/.411
.276/.393/.447
.264/.363/.488
It would be nice if a young player that came up sans Bryant took a positive step in their development in year two and Happ could be that. If he cuts the K's from say 32 to 27% over a 400 PA sample, that would be 24 more balls in play. If he goes 7 for 24 (.292 BABIP) with just seven singles on those new at bats, his slash line against righties would now be
.261/.352/.543
Fowler last three years
.250/.346/.411
.276/.393/.447
.264/.363/.488
TC in Mississippi
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I hope Happ takes that leap. I have to admit I am not a fan and would prefer he be used in trade. I don't see him ever excelling at any one thing, instead being more of what they used to call a "lunch bucket" player. There is nothing wrong with that but the other other guys who are talked about as trade chips including Russell, Baez and Schwarber have star ceilings in one area or another and I don't see the same with Happ.
DanTown
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I'm high on Happ's hit tool and to me I think he could end up being, coincidentally, a Dexter Fowler type CF. While Fowler has never been a star player outside the first half of 2016, I think Happ could be a productive and solid CF. And while Happ doesn't have the same ceiling as those other guys, I think his floor is considerably higher.
TC in Mississippi
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I would admit that if you think that we'll ever see first half 2017 Schwarber again (which I don't tbh) that he has a lower floor than Happ, but Baez is already a great defender with power which I think is his floor. If his plate discipline improves he's a superstar.
DanTown
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Other thing that Jesse Rogers talked about was the potential for long-term deals and mentioned that Baez turned some down before last season I believe (he wasn't clear on the timeline) and that Contreras would be a good candidate for one since he's never had a payday at any level. Willson has five years left before FA and due to the advanced age it took for him to make the majors, won't be FA eligible until 2023/age 31 season. Would something like 5/45 to buy out the arb and then two years at like 18/20 MM as team options work for him? The Cubs paid 5/36 for Rizzo's arb years then two years at 16.5M each for options.
DanTown
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Happ is a full two years younger and has 1500 less PA at AAA+ than Baez.
Javy has 1250 PA in the MLB and another 750 in AAA. At what point are we done waiting on that next step in something like discipline? Is 2018 it? Is it 2019 too? I'm not truly asking to be flippant but I'm curious when waiting on Baez is going to end. The Cubs ran Soler in and out of town in less time than Javy's "advancing discipline".
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If Happ doesn't have a "star ceiling" then he isn't going to bring back the same return on a trade as one of these other guys you happen to like. Happ ias a batter defender, keeping ERA and pitch count lower, and is more versatile than Schwarber, who really has none. Schwarber is the one to trade.
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Some guys achieve that when they get older, but even if he doesn't if Baez played everyday he's probably a 3 WAR player. Until last year nobody thought Happ could play CF in MLB so one year of decent performance doesn't tell me much. They're all just opinions though. Maybe Happ is a consistent 4-5 WAR player, he certainly was a better run producer than Baez in 2017, and if he's better on defense than the scouting reports had on him coming up he could be the guy you think he is. They're all just opinions.
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I think people overvalue Happ, so I do think he's the one to trade. I think Schwarber is undervalued throughout the league with people thinking he's more slugger than hitter. I still think in his best years he slashes .270/.360/.580 or so with a 140-ish wRC+ and 45 HR.
chibears55
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I posted it above
http://www.chicagotribune.com
General manager Jed Hoyer said at the GM meetings there’s not one leadoff man on the current roster, which means the Cubs will probably will have to go outside the organization to fill the role.
“That’s a scenario we’ll keep looking at,” Hoyer said. “We didn’t have a perfect leadoff guy last year and there’s not one clearly on the roster.
“Every team doesn’t have one, but we definitely saw last year that for whatever reasons, some guys (are put in) the leadoff spot and it changes their approach on offense. Some guys just don’t like to do it. So that’s an area we’ll keep looking at.”
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