The Cubs Chronicle

Cubs’ $80 million payroll not all spent wisely (Bruce Miles, Daily Herald, 8/31/2003) (thanks to reader Michael C. for the link)

The Daily Herald’s Bruce Miles on how wisely (and unwisely) the Cubs have spent their $80 million. Part of the “bad money,” of course, is Shawn Estes. The Cub Reporter puts Dusty Baker’s continued use of Estes in perspective – somebody pitching this poorly has just never continued to pitch for a contending team before. And Scott and Dennis at Northside Lounge examine Baker’s continued defense of Estes as someone who’s just been unlucky.

There’s one other thing I wanted to note from Miles’s article:

For now, we’re going to cut breaks to reliever Mike Remlinger ($2.63 million as part of a three-year, $10 million contract) and catcher Damian Miller ($2.7 million).

Remlinger hasn’t been himself, but he may yet turn it around. There’s no reason to believe Remlinger has been pitching in pain, but who knows what the Cubs will tell us after the season is over?

Did anyone else notice during Remlinger’s two inning stint in today’s game – in which he didn’t allow a run and continued to strike people out – that WGN was registering his fastball between 84-86, 5-6 MPH below what he normally throws? There’s no reason to think the gun was inaccurate; it appeared accurate for all the other pitchers. That’s a pretty big dropoff in velocity. As noted, though, it did not seem to affect Remlinger’s performance.

With Shawn Estes having allowed 5 runs in his first two innings of work, Dusty Baker is pinch hitting for him with Tony Womack in the bottom of the 2nd right now. The crowd gave Womack a cheer (which was really a cheer against Estes) that I’m guessing Womack hasn’t heard since his clutch hit in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.

Moises Alou is getting the day off today. After three straight months of solid performance (.857, .829, and .969 OPS in May, June, and July, respectively), Alou’s struggled in August, hitting .205/.305/.361, for a .666 OPS. (See splits.) There’s definitely been something wrong, as he’s struck out in 23% of his at-bats in August, which is twice the rate he struck out in April, his next highest month in terms of K rate. While batter strikeouts aren’t something us statheads normally focus on, considering them to be just another out, an increase in K rate like Alou has experienced could indicate some mechanical problems.

For the year, Alou ranks 13th among leftfielders in Runs Above Replacement Player.

The Tribune’s headline in its recap of Thursday night’s 3-2 loss to the Cardinals is “Cub pen fails again”. The headline, and Paul Sullivan’s recap, both ignore that the offense failed for the second game in a row, too.

AS IF WE NEEDED MORE EVIDENCE OF BAKER’S PREFERENCE FOR VETERANS: A separate Tribune article says that Baker has demoted Kyle Farnsworth to 6th and 7th inning duty. Antonio Alfonseca and Mike Remlinger will pitch the 8th inning now. Here’s Baker’s predictable reasoning:

“He’s young, he still has a lot to learn,” Cubs manager Dusty Baker said. “He never has been in this pressure cooker before. It’s different. You can say, ‘Hey, man, I know I can do this. I know I can handle this.’ But until you’re there. … He’ll be better because of this. I may have to reconsider things in the bullpen.
. . . .
Alfonseca came into Thursday’s game having allowed seven runs in 1 2/3 innings in his last two outings, but Baker said he has experience in pressure situations.

As I noted earlier, Farnsworth has been struggling, so this move could work out. But Alfonseca has been struggling all year. Remlinger has pitched better post-All-Star Break, but giving up game winning home runs to the Kerry Robinsons of the world isn’t exactly shutting the door. In short, the entire bullpen just needs to pitch better. Except Joe Borowski and Mark Guthrie, who are doing just fine. So why isn’t Guthrie a candidate to be the top setup man? I’m sure if you asked him, he’d say he could pitch to more than one batter. And he’s a veteran.

Baker can’t expect us to read the above comments and ever take seriously again any assertions he makes (like he was making in spring training) that he doesn’t have a severe preference for veteran players.

And it’s as if Baker didn’t even watch last year’s World Series, despite managing in it. Two rookie relief pitchers – Francisco Rodriguez and Brendan Donnelly – threw 16.1 innings against Baker’s Giants in that series, allowing just 2 earned runs. To top it all off, a rookie – John Lackey – was the winning starting pitcher in Game 7.

But young players can’t handle the pressure. Alfonseca, though, he’s been there. He can handle it. What’s that you say? Alfonseca was a rookie when he pitched in the 1997 World Series? Well who woulda thunk.

Dusty Baker has decided to change the rotation a bit, reports the Chicago Tribune:

Manager Dusty Baker announced Prior would be given an extra day’s rest to pitch against St. Louis at Wrigley and that Matt Clement will pitch Friday against Milwaukee, with Shawn Estes being pushed back a day to Saturday. Sunday’s starter hasn’t been announced, but it figures to be right-hander Juan Cruz, who then would be eligible for the postseason because he was called up Aug. 31.

I like Prior being given extra rest. The return of Cruz was expected because of the double-header against St. Louis on Sept. 2. Estes pitched well in two starts the last time Cruz was in the rotation, so who knows? – Maybe that means he’ll pitch well again with his job in direct jeopardy again.

Lots of disappointing things in tonight’s 4-2 loss to the Cardinals – Moises Alou’s failure to drive home Sosa from third with 1 out in the top of the 8th, 3 relief pitchers brought in to get just one guy out in the bottom of the 8th and none of them doing the job, Ramon Martinez’s failure to turn two that resulted in the 4th Cardinal run, etc. All of which ended up wasting Kerry Wood’s strong performance after two straight bad starts.

The Cubs still had a good chance when Kyle Farnsworth entered the game in the bottom of the 8th with runners on first and second and no one out, but with the Cubs still up 2-0. Farnsworth, though, gave up a walk, single, wild pitch, and a sacrifice that led to both inherited runners scoring and two runs being charged to himself. After play on July 7, Farnsworth had a 2.13 ERA. Since then, he’s thrown 20 innings and allowed 14 earned runs, a 6.30 ERA. As the top setup man, the Cubs need him to pitch better.

UPDATE (8/28/2003 12:20pm): Is Moises Alou the anti-Shawn Estes? Here’s Alou in the Chicago Tribune on why he exited through the bullpen rather than head straight to the dugout when Baker replaced him via a double-switch in the 8th:

“It was the shortest way [to the clubhouse] and I was kind of embarrassed,” Alou said. “I played a bad game.”

When Estes pitches poorly, he has a habit of saying that he actually pitched well, the other team just got lucky. When Alou doesn’t play well, he admits it, which I appreciate.

Ivy Chat thinks so:

Where are the Cubs with Corey Patterson and without Kenny Lofton? Well, with Corey’s .224 strike out per plate appearence average and his penchant for base running mistakes, I’d say about 3 to 5 games back.

Lofton has played decent enough, hitting .295/.345/.400 in 27 games since arriving from Pittsburgh. And while that’s better than any of the alternatives – Tom Goodwin, Trenidad Hubbard, etc. – would have likely hit, it’s still 96 OPS points below what Patterson was hitting when he got injured. Including his time with Pittsburgh, Lofton has a 764 OPS, 75 points below Patterson. That’s a pretty big difference.

Looking at more advanced metrics, Lofton has a MLVr of .037 with the Cubs. Patterson had a .170 (second on the team to Sosa). If Patterson would have continued at that rate in the 27 games Lofton has played, he would have contributed 3.6 more runs to the team than Lofton. That’s not enough to make a difference in the standings, but it certainly makes it extremely hard to claim that Lofton has been worth 3 or 4 more wins than Patterson.

And it’s not as if Lofton makes up the difference with better defense, at least based on my subjective analysis. Additionally, the two have almost identical zone ratings this year (.869 for Patterson, .877 for Lofton).

In conclusion, all things being equal, the Cubs would have been better off had Patterson not injured himself.

The Chicago Tribune picks up an Orlando Sentinel report that Cubs’ minor league pitcher Jae Kuk Ryu has reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in the osprey beaning incident. He will pay a fine of $500 and perform 100 hours of community service.

ESPN.com’s Jayson Stark notes in his latest “Useless Information” column that the Cubs’ pitching staff is on pace to record 1,393 strikeouts this season, which would be an all-time record. Stark gets one thing wrong, though: The 2001 Cubs currently hold the record of 1,344, not the 2002 Cubs (who had 1,333). I last noted the Cubs’ pace on July 10, when they were on pace for 1,406. And back on May 16, they were on the absurd pace to strikeout 1,496.

Stark also notes that the Cubs’ pitching staff currently has 72 more strikeouts than hits allowed. No National League team has ever had more strikeouts than hits allowed, and the 1968 Cleveland Indians are the only team to ever do it (they were 70 above).

(Thanks to reader Michael H. for the tip.)

The Cubs’ low Single-A affiliate Lansing came to Cedar Rapids Monday night for the only time this year to take on the Kernels (an Angels affiliate), so I drove up and watched on a 95 degree night in Iowa.

I got lucky because Andy Sisco, one of the Cubs’ top pitching prospects, was on the mound for the Lugnuts. Sisco is a tall lefty, and he was good, though not great. The scoreboard radar reading consistently had him throwing 90-91 mph, and he changed speeds enough that the Kernels were often late on that fastball. But they were still able to hit Sisco. He finished the night after having thrown just 5 innings, allowing 3 runs on 9 hits (2 doubles, 7 singles), walking 1 and striking out 7.

The Kernels also put a lefty on the hill – Micah Posey. Posey fits more into the soft-tossing lefty mold (as opposed to Sisco, the big, hard thrower), and he did a decent job of keeping the Lugnuts off-balance, allowing 1 run before also leaving after 5 innings. (Of course, Lansing is a poor hitting team – 13th out of 14 Midwest League teams in runs scored. In many ways, they mirror their parent club. While they can’t hit very well, they are second in the league in ERA, and as a result, have a .500 record.)

Lansing was able to get to the CR bullpen, though. They tied the score at 3 in the top of the 6th with three straight hits from the bottom of the order – a double by Robinson Chirinos and singles by both J.J. Johnson (who’s had a terrible year, but looks like a baseball player, so will probably be given more chances) and Keith Butler. Then, first baseman Casey McGehee and catcher Jake Fox each hit solo homers in the top of the 7th to put Lansing up 5-3. McGehee’s was a line shot to left and Fox’s was a real blast way over the leftfield wall. Both McGehee and Fox were 2003 draft picks of the Cubs, Fox in the third round and McGehee in the 10th.

Unfortunately, the Lansing bullpen was just as shaky as the Cedar Rapids bullpen. While Frederico Baez (3.25 ERA in 63.2 IP coming in) didn’t allow anyone to score, he gave up hits to 4 of the 7 batters he faced, and one of the outs was a laser beam (hopefully Chip Caray won’t mind if I borrow that phrase) to left. Lefty Clayton Rapada (5.08 ERA in 39 IP) saved Baez in the 7th, but Adelberto Mendez (3.52 ERA in 7.2 IP) came on in the 8th and allowed the Kernels to tie the score at 5.

The Kernels had a runner on first with two outs when the rain and lightning came and the umpire (singular used for a reason, noted below) stopped play.

A few other notes from the game and from researching for this post:

Dusty Baker’s continued defense of Shawn Estes in Monday’s Chicago Tribune (see also his comments in Sunday’s Sun-Times, which Cubs Pundit links to and excerpts, and which Mike Kiley railed against in the S-T article) has two possible explanations: 1) Baker really believes that Estes’s poor performance this year is largely due to luck (or, rather, lack thereof); or 2) Baker doesn’t really believe what he’s saying, but is saying it anyway in order to keep Estes’s confidence high, which Baker believes is essential for any chance Estes might have of turning things around.

The first option is unfortunate because it essentially means that Baker doesn’t know what he’s doing. Given Baker’s history of success, that seems unlikely.

The second option is in line with some of the things that Baker does well as a manager: his eternal optimism and his defense of his own players. Viewed in that light, Baker could just be defending Estes to the media because he believes it will help Estes, even if Baker knows Estes stinks.

There is a problem with the second option, though: There is an alternative to Estes in Juan Cruz, which means that if Baker really does know Estes stinks, and he doesn’t replace him with the better alternative, then we’re back to the conclusion in the first option – that Baker doesn’t know what he’s doing – regardless.

Dusty Baker has been hitting Tony Womack second in the lineup against righthanded pitchers since his acquisition. As I noted here, Lee Sinins did a nice job of conveying how bad Womack has been this year. In Womack’s best season, 1997, he had an OPS 9% below league average. His continued presence is the lineup, let alone hitting second in the lineup, seriously hurts the Cubs. Factor in that Ramon Martinez, who doesn’t hit righties particularly well, has hit them better than Womack this year, and in the previous three years, and Womack’s starting is further evidence that Dusty Baker’s managerial strong suit is not lineup construction. (How’s that for understatement?)

(OK, you can now call me the master of the obvious for that headline.)

Read Rob Neyer’s column on the Cubs’ acquisitions, and then read the following passage in Mike Kiley’s article in the Sun-Times today:

And who is more deserving of NL Executive of the Year than Cubs general manager Jim Hendry? He has put together an impressive club with the late-season additions of Aramis Ramirez, Kenny Lofton, Randall Simon and Tony Womack . . . .

Wild Pitches: Ozzy on the loose (Jayson Stark, ESPN.com, 8/20/2003)

There are some great quotes from Doug Glanville in this column on Ozzy Osbourne’s “rendition” of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” An excerpt:

“I saw it as a call of the wild,” Glanville theorized. “I was looking around to see if some herd of wild emu or wild water buffalo were coming to meet their master. But it never happened – because he was so off-key. But I’m sure there are probably many wild habitats where, if you played that, they would have really felt it. They’d have formed all kinds of mysterious formations, I bet. So we need to take this tape and play it in various habitats and jungles, wild-animal environments, and see how everything responds.”

There’s more, and there’s also some good stuff from Glanville later in the column on the 8 hour game (rain delay included) the Cubs and Diamondbacks played August 1.

Baseball Prospectus’s Derek Zumsteg noted on Wednesday (subscription req’d) that Sammy Sosa is the first serious threat to break Reggie Jackson’s career strikeout record since Jackson’s retirement. Jackson had 2,597 career strikeouts. After tonight’s game, Sosa has 1,942. 150 per year over the next four seasons would put him real close.