RotoProfessor.com

I've started writing fantasy baseball articles for a website called www.rotoprofessor.com (no, I am not the RotoProfessor). Check out the first post on Starlin Castro's 2o11 fantasy value.

Resurgence of Soto

The summer of 2010 has not been kind to Cubs fans, some having labeled the year a lost season before the calendar read July, so nothing can make up for half a season’s worth of meaningless baseball. There are, however, more than a few reasons to continue watching Cubs baseball (see Starlin Castro, Tyler Colvin, the continued progression of Fukudome, etc.) but none is more exciting to watch than the return of Geovany Soto.

Put simply: Geovany Soto is having a better offensive season than Joe Mauer. Let that sink in. Three time batting champion and former MVP Joe Mauer has not been as productive (per plate appearance) as Geovany Soto, despite a typical .326 batting average on the year. Soto is batting a pedestrian but respectable .280 on the year, seemingly ending the discussion. Moving on to less cosmetic statistics, however, shows a different story.

A player’s weighted on-base average takes the concept of OPS (on-base + slugging) and improves on it by using linear weight values for each possible event (read the joy of wOBA at Fan Graphs). The stat is scaled to on-base percentage where .335 is about average, .300 is a poor player and .400 is a great player. Soto's wOBA clocks in at .384, leading all major league catchers. Mauer comes in second at .372, with Brian McCann following at .369. The only problem is that Soto doesn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify as a league leader.

The fact remains, though, that Geovany Soto is having the best offensive season by a catcher in Major League Baseball. His OPS (.894) and slugging percentage (.500), predictably, also lead all MLB backstops. Soto’s year as a whole in many ways is identical to his rookie of the year winning 2008 campaign.

	On-Base	Slugging	ISO	K%	BB%	BABIP
2008	.364	.504	.219	24.5	11	0.332
2009	.321	.381	.163	23.3	12.9	0.246
2010	.394	.500	.220	25.2	16.1	0.321

Soto’s slugging, isolated power (slug – average) and strikeout rate are carbon copies, with the only real difference between this year and ’08 being his vastly improved walk rate. It is clear to see that Soto's forgettable 2009 was based in bad luck, as his batting average on balls in play was over 50 points below league average, while lying even further below his career numbers.

One may counter that Soto will see his high BABIP come back down to earth, however, the high BABIP numbers of 2008 and 2010 are fueled by incredibly high line drive percentages. In 2010 Soto has a career high LD% of 24.8, which (if he had enough plate appearances to qualify) would be third among all Major League hitters (coincidentally one spot above Mauer at 24.4%).

At 27-years-old, Geo is comfortably settling into his prime, and there is nothing in the stats to say that his offensive output will slow down. The way his 2008 and 2010 seasons compare, the numbers he is putting up this year seem easily repeatable. He will always strike out more than the average hitter with the vicious way he attacks the ball, but with those violent swings, and subsequent misses, comes possibly the most powerful catcher in Major League Baseball.

If only he had enough plate appearances to qualify.

Len and Bob - 6/23/10: Brenly on Bradley

Milton Bradley strolls up to the plate, a chours of boos raining down around him from the Cubs fans who traveled to Safeco Field...

Len Kasper: Interesting reaction for a home player...Cubs fans letting him hear about it, some Mariners fans cheering him on.

Bob Brenly: Ha, they haven't seen enough of him yet.

Len: Swing and a miss. Oh for three with a walk last night and 0 for his last 15 overall.

Bob: Well I saw in the papers today a bar that has a "Milton Bradley Special," on Monday's you can buy a bottle of domestic beer for whatever Milton Bradley's batting average is.

Len: Did you buy one?

(Bradley grounds out to third)

Bob: Well, a couple more at bats like that I'll be able to buy a case!

Cubs coming up empty at the corners

To say its been a disappointing season so far for the Cubs corner men would be like saying Armando Galarraga felt a little let down by Jim Joyce's lapse in concentration on the would-be 27th out of his "one hit" performance last Wednesday night in Detroit. While Derrek Lee has clearly struggled, the stat line put up by Aramis Ramirez is downright terrifying. To date:

Derrek Lee: .238/.342/.369/.711

Aramis Ramirez: .169/.234/.287/.520

After posting an OPS above .900 in five of the last six seasons (.898 being the other season), a .520 mark from Aramis Ramirez in June is unimaginable. What's done is done, however, and the lack of production for both DLee and Aramis has been the major contributing factor to the Cubs less than inspiring 26-31 record. What matters now is how will these players hit moving forward.

Looking at a hitter's batting average on balls in play will help determine whether or not that player has been "lucky" so far this season if his BABIP is well above the league average (.300) or unlucky if his BABIP is much lower than the average. Currently, Derrek has a BABIP of .287, not too far off the league average. However, looking at DLee's personal career BABIP of .322 and one can see where he may be a victim of well struck balls that just happened to be hit straight to the opposition.

We need to look beyond just a players BABIP to see the full story, as sometimes players are just putting a lot of poorly hit balls in play. One look at Derrek's infield fly ball percentage though, as well as his line drive rate, confirm his low batting average has been at least partially driven by bad luck:

IFF%: 0

LD%: 23.7

Zero infield pops and a line drive percentage that is higher than any single season LD% during DLee's illustrious career. With nearly a quarter of Derrek's balls coming off the bat as line drives, a .238 batting average is a clear aberration. Also, after leading the league in double plays in 2008, Lee is hitting less grounders (37.8% in 2010, 40% for his carreer) and has maintained his fly ball rate (38.5% this year to 38.9% career). The reason he only has 6 home runs on the season is a result of an abnormally low HR/FB rate of 10% in 2010 (16.7% career rate.)

Aramis has suffered from an even more striking collapse in homers per fly balls, hitting just 5 home runs despite an off the charts 60% fly ball rate (45% career rate). This has led to a severely bottomed out HR/FB rate of just 6.1%. This will correct itself, and fast as Aramis has a career HR/FB of 13.4%. The jump in fly balls correlates to a lower LD% and much lower GB% which has helped contribute to a National League worst .189 batting average on balls in play.

To put it simply, Aramis will not continue to hit .169 all year long, that much is obvious, the real question is not will he bounce back, but how far will he bounce back? The most troublesome stat on the back of Aramis' baseball card is a strikeout rate of nearly 25%, up almost 10% over his career mark of 15.5%. Logic may tell you then that Aramis could be reaching more, swinging at bad pitches and coming up empty as a result. Frighteningly, this is not the case. Aramis is actually swinging at less pitches out of the zone this year (29.5%) than he was last year (31.5%) and is close to his career rate of 26.1%. The problem is that when he gets his pitch, he is not hitting it as consistently as he has in the past. Repeatedly, pitchers have been able to either beat Aramis with the fastball or at least get him to foul it off before putting him away with a different pitch.

Aramis Ramirez is lost at the plate and it shows in the stats. From his peripheral numbers, he should definitely have a few more home runs and he is obviously not a .169 hitter. Is he a .300 hitting, 30 home run third baseman though? For tomorrow's game against the Brewers, I doubt it. Right now Aramis looks more like a .260 hitting 25 homer guy, but the season is still young and I expect Aramis to right the ship. However, even the biggest Aramis supporters (such as myself) will have to temper expectations.

I am all in on Derrek Lee though. Line drives are at a career high and he's keeping the ground balls to a minimum. Once the wind starts blowing out at Wrigley, look out for DLee. Better times are ahead, right now it's time to keep hope alive.

Lou-sing it: Z to 'pen

My mind has just been blown. Then again, how can one be surprised? In one of the most idiotic moves in Cubs history, the team has taken Carlos Zambrano’s value to the team and cut it in half as Lou Piniella announced before tonight’s game that Big Z will be moving to the bullpen. Bottom line, this move makes the team worse. No matter how good Zambrano is in the bullpen, the team has just taken a shotgun and blown a hole in its chances to reach the postseason this year.

The most valuable relief pitcher in baseball last year was Jonathan Broxton, who put together a 2.9 Wins Above Replacement (WAR). This was half a win higher than any other relief pitcher in the majors. Carlos Zambrano, in his “off year” of 2009 was able to scrape out a cool 3.6 WAR. Simply put, relief pitchers can never be as valuable as good starting pitchers, and contrary to the belief of some, Carlos Zambrano is a very good starting pitcher. A workhorse good for 180-200 innings, the Cubs will now be giving at least 100 of those innings to Tom Gorzellany and Carlos Silva. If you don’t gag at that sentence I’d check your pulse.

This is Lou Piniella, completely losing his mind. Lunacy is reigning supreme at Clark and Addison, as there is simply no explanation for this move. Yes, the Cubs do not have a setup man. Somehow it has taken 18 runs in 14 different 8^th innings this year for them to realize that no, John Grabow is not a setup man. He’s not even a good relief pitcher! He almost cracked 1 win above replacement last year with a “workmanlike” 0.2. However, it represented a great improvement over his -0.1 in 2008. His career best is 0.5 WAR in 2006. He probably drank half a beer with his buddies to celebrate. Forget wins above replacement; just look at how many batters he walks. His past three seasons he has posted walks per nine innings of 4.76, 4.83, and 4.38. That combined with a pitiful K/BB of 1.43 last year is a recipe for heartache in the late innings. As bad as John Grabow and the rest of the bullpen are though, this is a move of the most bone-headed proportions.

Almost as mystifying is the fact that Mt. Zambrano didn’t spew volcanic lava all over New York City upon hearing the news. In Zambrano’s own words, “Like Arnold Schwarzenegger says, ‘I’ll be back.’”

I sure hope so, but Lou is saying the move may not be temporary. 2008 first round pick Andrew Cashner has punched out 25 hitters in 17 innings at Double A Tennessee, and has the 98-MPH fastball and 88-MPH slider that would fit the 8^th inning like a glove. After posting a 3.39 ERA in Double A last year, and with a 3.07 ERA in 137 minor league innings, calling up Cashner would seem to be a much more logical and much last drastic move than turning the team’s supposed “ace” into a reliever.

Piniella said that Zambrano will be ready to come out of the bullpen starting Friday. Never a dull moment with this team, as they aimlessly wander through the season with no sense of direction at all, lost in Lou’s madness.

Carlos Marmol is...

The Magic Man!

Marmol K's two to close out a Cubs win on Friday, he now has 5 and 1/3 scoreless innings with 11 strikeouts to (this is the best part) two walks on the young season.

Washed Out at The Empty Bottle - 4/5/10

Walking into The Empty Bottle for the first time is an experience that should illicit a smile, as it dawns on you that this is almost an exact replica of the tiny, grimy bar that you would frequent every so often in college, and while that doesn't make it a great place to grab a drink, it sure makes it one hell of a nice place to watch live music. $1.50 PBR flowed like milk at an FFA convention and even with your back up to the bar, the intimate setting puts the viewer right in the midst of the action. You couldn't get away from the music if you wanted to.

And with Washed Out playing, who in their right mind would want to?

Ernest Greene (Washed Out) opened his set with some body shakers, and while the bulk of it was unreleased material, the songs were crowd pleasers as the bass felt as if it wanted to break free from the speakers and beat itself into the ground. This was a very good thing. Heavy bass, mixing with a thick layer of haze over the vocals made listening to actual lyrics impossible, but created a vibe that would carry over for the rest of the show. Greene’s unbridled energy for his music infected the crowd and grew as the show progressed. After the mood was established, Greene exited, saying he would be back to play the rest of his set with Small Black (who was actually headlining the show) as the backing band.

Small Black was an impressive mix of bass, drums and enthusiasm. The keyboardist and main vocalist shared the singing duties, with the lead vocalist twisting some knobs every so often. The music was more electronic than I had imagined, hearing only a couple of songs prior to the show, but it was an entertaining if not original sound and I was grooving along with the rest of the crowd. It did, however, leave me longing for Washed Out to come back on stage. The early Washed Out set was good, but it wasn't what I came to see. Once Greene took the stage with Small Black a new energy filled the small, dark room as the familiar sounds of the Life of Leisure EP came to life.

Straight out of the gate, one could tell the disarming "Hold Out" was going to be different than the preceding songs. The menacing bass line was heard (and felt) loud and clear. There was also a noticeable change in the way the crowd was reacting to the music, as if caught in a trance, while earlier it was just one big party. Small Black had a lot to do with this, as the bell-ringing guitar echoing throughout "Hold Out" is essential to the song’s attraction. While the euphoria that shot straight to my brain upon hearing the opening to the next track, “You’ll See It,” was sustained throughout the song, it seemed clear to me that “Hold Out” was the highlight of the show.

The most well received song was unsurprisingly Washed Out's most popular, "Feel It All Around," and it did not disappoint. As the opening salvo of bass vibrated up and down my spine, the crowd let out a roar of approval that dissolved into a sustained groove, captivated by the pure, chill essence of the song. The departure from dance-inducing bass to a stoning sense of calm was a chance to relax and soak in the surroundings. As the set drew to a close, Greene joined in on an exuberant version of Small Black's "Despicable Dogs," which he had remixed last year for a split EP (get the remix here, thank me later).

Overall the show more than met any expectations I had going into it. The venue was perfect, the bass and overall sound was cranked way up, and the bands seemed to have endless supplies of energy. The set arrangement was interesting but worked surprisingly well, how can you pass up a delicious double dosage of Washed Out? I couldn't help but feel some of the members of Small Black weren't thrilled to have their set cut short, but the way they played did not reflect this. Without Small Black, this concert would not have been nearly as good. As the two bands combined the show turned from guys turning knobs and cranking bass into a full-fledged crowd pleasing force, with both Small Black and Washed Out proving they are bands to take notice of.