The Cubs Chronicle

Bryan Stroh has his top 10 Cubs prospects up at The Cub Reporter. He lists second baseman / third baseman Brendan Harris at #9, one of the few top positions prospects the Cubs have. Harris should be the starting second baseman at Iowa this year.

But here’s something interesting:

I actually expect Grudzielanek will have a higher OPS than that this year for the simple reason of Todd Walker’s existence on the roster. Walker should get the vast majority of at-bats against righthanded pitchers, against whom Grudzielanek struggles. Grudzielanek hits lefties quite well (914 OPS last year; 814 over the past three). But what PECOTA suggests is that Harris would actually be the better platoon partner. Of course, that wouldn’t be the safe move, and Harris’s development might be better served playing full-time at Iowa.

UPDATE (2/2/2004 10:35pm): Cubs Pundit notes that Dusty Baker has made comments suggesting we shouldn’t be too hasty in assuming Todd Walker will get the majority of at-bats at second base.

Mystery of Baseball: Was William White Game’s First Black?: He Played a Big League Game In 1879 – Then Vanished; Mr. Morris Picks Up Trail (Stefan Fatsis, Wall Street Journal, 1/30/2004) (sub. req’d)

Fascinating Page One article in the Wall Street Journal today on SABR member Peter Morris’s efforts to track down the biographical data for William Edward White. Bill White played one game in the major leagues, filling in at first base for the Providence Greys on June 21, 1879. He went 1-4, scored a run, and made twelve putouts without an error. And he never played in the major leagues again. As the WSJ relates, “The Chicago Tribune reported the next day that Mr. White ‘played the position with remarkable activity and skill for an amateur.’ But even though the Greys’ regular first baseman was out for a month with a broken finger, Mr. White never returned to the lineup.”

Take a look at the photo, a picture of the 1879 Brown University baseball team. Bill White is the player directly behind the team manager. He appears darker complected than his teammates, but the photo isn’t completely clear. The WSJ notes that “Brown admitted black students, but Mr. White identified himself as white on the 1880 census.”

Brown records indicated that Mr. White’s father was an A.J. White. 1880 census records revealed an Andrew J. White, whose “household included a 35-year-old mulatto woman named Hannah White.”

Mr. Morris, the SABR reseracher, found A.J. White’s will in the probate records at the courthouse in Zebulan, Georgia. The will stated: “Item Fourth. All the balance of my Estate, both Real and Personal of Every Kind and description … I do hereby … bequeath unto William Edward White, Anna Nora White, and Sarah Adelaide White, the children of my servant Hannah.”

And there’s the proof. William White was mulatto.

Many people who study baseball history know that two black players – Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Welday – played in the major leagues for one year, in 1884, before Jackie Robinson re-broke the color barrier 63 years later. The Walker brothers played for Toledo of the American Association, a rival major league that merged with the National League after the 1891 season. The Toledo franchise only lasted that one year, 1884.

The Walker brothers had previously been thought to have been the first black players to play in the major leagues, and the only ones until Jackie Robinson in 1947. Add William White to that list, and call him the first. And credit the SABR, and its dedicated members, with another important find.

There has been some question about whether Corey Patterson would be ready to go by spring training. The last I reported on this was in September, when the Daily Herald reported Patterson should be ready. Today, the Rocky Mountain News‘ Tracy Ringolsby reports that Patterson “has received a clean bill of health.” Ringolsby doesn’t cite a source. Two weeks ago, MLB.com quoted Dusty Baker saying he was going to treat Patterson “gingerly.”

On another note, there’s a quote at the bottom of the Ringolsby column from Cardinals GM Walt Jocketty saying that he’s “irritated” with how much hype the Cubs and Astros are receiving.

There’s something about Ozzy Osbourne that leads to great quotes. Last August we had Doug Glanville’s take on Osbourne’s rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” And now we have Kerry Wood at the recent Cubs Convention after stating his prize souvenior possession is an Osbourne-autographed baseball: “It looks like he signed it with his feet.”

Here are Sammy Sosa’s numbers from the past four seasons, along with his Baseball Prospectus PECOTA projection for 2004:

Year	Age	PA	BA.	OBA.	Slg.	OPS	OPS+
2000	31	705	.320	.406	.634	1040	169
2001	32	711	.328	.437	.737	1174	201
2002	33	666	.288	.399	.594	993	160
2003	34	589	.279	.358	.553	911	135
2004	35	517	.276	.374	.549	923	??

Interestingly, PECOTA doesn’t predict a further fall from 2003. Sosa is projected to have substantially the same OPS in 2004, albeit in fewer plate appearances. That makes sense. Sosa suffered at times last year, first as the result of the toenail injury, and then as the result of the loss of timing due to 1) going on the DL for the injury and 2) being suspended after the corked bat incident. Partly as a result, Sosa’s 2003 OPS was 9.4% below his 2003 PECOTA projection. Sosa should resume a more normal decline from his 1998-2001 highs in 2004.

After looking at Sosa’s production last year again, and his projection for 2004, I started to worry that perhaps the other Central division contenders had caught up with the Cubs in terms of offensive production out of right field. That would have created the unfortunate situation of the Cubs’ best offensive player not even being the best offensive rightfielder in the division. But they haven’t caught up yet. Here are the projections for next year using the more advanced metric (and thus a ballpark neutral metric) Marginal Lineup Value Rate (MLVr), which measures the number of runs per game a player produces above or below an average player:

Player	Team	MLVr	x150
Sosa	Cubs	0.21	31.5
Hidalgo	Astros	0.12	18
Kearns	Reds	0.12	18
Sanders	Cardinals	0.06	9

The right column is MLVr mulitplied by 150 games played. That gives us a projection of Sosa contributing 31.5 more runs to his team than an average player would over the course of 150 games played.

So we can expect Sosa will still be the best offensive rightfielder in the division, at least for one more year. Hidalgo’s and Kearns’s defense certainly help close the gap, but not completely.

For a reference point, Barry Bonds is projected to once again lead the majors in MLVr, at 0.75, almost twice the rate of any other player. Alex Rodriguez, Todd Helton, and Albert Pujols tie for second at 0.38.

I have added some Google Ads to the site. Perhaps they will help me cover the costs of running the site a bit. I hope they are not obstrusive. Please let me know if their location bothers you.

ESPN.com’s Rob Neyer on the National League Central: “The Cubs might have another big move in them. But if they don’t sign Ivan Rodriguez or Greg Maddux, the Astros are the team to beat in 2004.”

UPDATE (10:25pm): Ball Talk provides more analysis on the Cubs v. Astros, and concludes that the race will be much closer than Neyer believes.

The AP reported today that the attorney for Cubs pitching prospect Jae Kuk Ryu asked a Florida judge if Ryu could pay a $10 per hour rate in lieu of completing his 100 hours of community service for killing an osprey with a baseball last April. The judge denied the request. The article doesn’t say how many of those hours he has completed to date, but it gives the impression he’s got all 100 to go. And they have to be completed by the end of February. It’s going to be a busy February.

Bryan Stroh, formerly of Bryan’s Baseball Banter, returns with his list of top Cubs prospects over at The Cub Reporter. Nos. 21.-30. today, plus some honorable mentions.

Al Yellon has a good recap of his attendance at the 2004 Cubs Convention. Among other highlights is Dusty Baker humorously noting how much flak he would have received had he put Antonio Alfonseca in for Kerry Wood in Game 7 of the NLCS instead of Dave Veres.

If you want to read baseball blogs without browsing each individual blog, check out Baseball Blogs, which I’ve used regularly since discovering it some time ago. Baseball Blogs aggregates blogs using RSS, giving you the headline, a short blurb, and a link to the full post if you’re interested. You can even read blog posts by team. Here’s the Cubs. Unfortunately, just six members of the Cubs Blogger Army are RSS-enabled. MovableType, which I use to run this blog, automatically creates an RSS feed. If you use Blogger, Baseball Blogs has an RSS generator. It’ll both increase your traffic and make it easier for us blog readers to read your blogs.

The Cubs today signed Joe Borowski to a two-year, $4.3 million contract. Borowski had been eligible for arbitration.

There has been increasing recognition, even within the game, of the limited value of the save stat. That said, Borowski’s new contract still serves as a useful reminder of its power.

In 2002, Borowski pitched close to 100 innings out of the bullpen, posting an adjusted ERA 48% above league average and putting up a 3.3/1 K/BB ratio. Yet in 2003, the Cubs gave Borowski just a $410,000 contract. And that was after he just barely made the team thanks to Antonio Alfonseca’s injury.

Last season, Borowski had another fine year. He had an adjusted ERA 61% above league average and another stellar K/BB ratio. But he did it in 27.1 fewer innings. Of course, in 2003, he had 33 saves, 31 more than the previous year.

Thus, a multi-year, multi-million dollar contract. Of course, Borowski is being rewarded for showing consistency – back-to-back good years – and not just for the saves. But there’s little doubt that saves are what brings in the money for relief pitchers.

In any case, I’m glad to see Borowski rewarded, and I’m glad to see he will be with the Cubs for at least two more years. His solid K/BB ratios should lead to continued success.

Baseball Prospectus’s recent “Transaction Analysis” (sub. req’d) covers the National League Central, and makes a mistake (maybe – see update below) in discussing the Cubs’ acquisition of Jose Macias:

Omar Minaya is entitled to pick the pockets of each GM once during his tenure in Montreal, and retrieving anything for Jose Macias qualifies. Hopefully, the Cubs are inoculated from further loss going forward. What other reason can there be for a deal for a soon to be non-tendered utility man that does not discernibly do anything but force David Kelton to consider housing options in Des Moines?

Macias is not going to be non-tendered. In fact, as I noted in my original post on him, Macias signed a 1-year, $750K contract with the Cubs on the very day he was acquired by them. My source was the Associated Press. The Daily Herald’s Bruce Miles reported the same thing in the next day’s paper. The Cubs are stuck with Macias, even though they’ve got another utility guy in Ramon Martinez and had Todd Walker fall in their laps. The Cubs aren’t exactly known to understand the notion of sunk costs.

I generally enjoy BP’s Transaction Analysis, even when I don’t agree with them, but I think there’s something about trying to analyze every transaction for every team that makes one prone to errors. I’ve noticed errors like this before. And while this is a minor error, we’re left with a paragraph that’s analyzed from the wrong angle, and thus a paragraph I would have rather skipped.

Lest you think I’m being unduly critical of BP, I just want to say that I stand by my previous statements that BP Premium is worth subscribing to. I’ve also ordered their book – Baseball Prospectus 2004 – for the first time, and can’t wait to read it.

UPDATE (1/14/2004 9:15am): As a commenter notes, it’s possible BP meant that Macias was about to be non-tendered by the Expos, not the Cubs. If that’s true, then I’m the one who made the error, and my post was the one not worth reading. But the passage really isn’t clear (a further example of why one should avoid passive voice). I still take the statement about Kelton considering housing options in Des Moines to mean that the Cubs just want to make him sweat, not that they’re really going to send him to Des Moines. (With Macias on the roster, there’s no room for Kelton.) And teams have been known to make trades for players only to non-tender them once they realize they aren’t needed or can’t come to contract terms with them. But I certainly admit I may have been wrong about BP making an error.

I like the name I chose for this blog, but I think there’s something about the name that makes some people think I actually live in Chicago. This happened just recently, when a MLB producer contacted me about possibly interviewing me about the Cubs for an upcoming ESPN program. Of course, she was going to be in Chicago, and she hadn’t realized that I didn’t live in Chicago. That sort of thing has happened before. I suppose given how newspapers are named, that’s an easy mistake to make. But the name of the blog just refers to the fact that I talk about what happens at the corner of Clark & Addison. I don’t actually live near Clark & Addison; I live in eastern Iowa, closer to the Iowa Cubs than the Chicago Cubs. What do you think, is the name of the site deceiving?

Just in case anyone was wondering why I voted for Northside Lounge as best Cubs blog, read this. Well done, Dennis.