Cubs expected to be sellers?

[Guest]

Yankees scouts watched Carlos Zambrano pitch on the Cubs' recent road trip, writes Levine. Levine notes that these were not advance scouts, but rather top advisers to GM Brian Cashman. Hopefully they saw his start against the Cardinals rather than the Phillies. Levine is of the opinion Zambrano would waive his no-trade clause, as a friend of the pitcher told him earlier this month, "At this point Carlos would probably let the Cubs trade him to Siberia." As a 4.50 ERA guy in the National League with clubhouse concerns and over $28MM remaining on his contract through 2012, Zambrano would be a tough sell for any team.

Some of the Yankees top evaluators have more interest in Ryan Dempster, reports Levine, as you might expect. They'll get a look at him Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Dempster has $7.7MM remaining on his contract this year, as well as a $14MM player option for 2012. He also has full no-trade rights and strong ties to Chicago.

Alfonso Soriano told Levine he expects to stay with the Cubs (he's signed through 2014), but if the team wants to trade him he wouldn't stay. Soriano, who is owed about $64MM through '14, has a full no-trade clause.

I tackled the possibility of the Cubs becoming sellers earlier this month. They're ten games out in the NL Central and the wild card.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2011/06/cubs-rumors-zambrano-dempster-soriano.html

[Warner2BruceTD]

Still waiting for Garza to dominate because of the magical switch from AL to NL.

[FedEx227]

...I don't think anybody intelligent said Garza was going to dominate because of the switch. Everything I heard from anybody that is remotely smart was his fly ball tendencies were going to get severely exposed at Wrigley.

As far as the tounge in cheek "magical switch":

PITCHERS (AL to NL)
ERA: -0.41
K/9: +0.57
Example: Pitcher A from the AL has an ERA of 3.41 and a K/9 of 7.0 - he changes leagues and goes to the NL... if his previous statistics were backed up by his peripherals (he wasn't particularly lucky/unlucky), his new baseline becomes a 3.0 ERA with a K/9 of 7.57. These are significant gains for the pitcher.

More information: For a breakdown of how these numbers were reached, you can read Derek Carty's article on FanGraphs HERE... I used his article because it is detailed and explains it well. It's from 2008 but it still applies today.

This is, however, a generalization... other factors can influence it as well. For instance, how hard the pitcher throws and whether the pitcher is right-handed or left-handed can affect the K/9 ratio. This expansion on the conversion rates comes from Ivan Bezdomny's BLOG.
Hard-throwing lefties have the biggest jump: +1.2 K/9
Hard-throwing righties: +0.8 K/9
League-average lefties:+0.5 K/9
League-average righties:+0.4 K/9

Zack Greinke is the best example we have from this offseason as he went from the Royals (AL) to the Brewers (NL). Looking at his peripherals, Greinke's 2008 season seems to be the closest to his true skill-set. Here's what I would project for him if he were still in the AL.
Greinke's peripherals:
Projected ERA (in AL): 3.40
Projected K/9 (in AL): 8.20

As a hard-throwing righty, let's see what his new peripherals would be in the NL this season:
Projected ERA (in NL): 3.00
Projected K/9 (in AL): 9.00

This projection would make Greinke a top-5 starting pitcher for 2011... and as the 9th starter off the board on average in mock drafts so far, he was being undervalued. Too bad his rib injury will keep him out for the first few weeks of the 2011 season now, dropping his value out of the top 10.

KEEP IN MIND the inverse is then true of pitchers moving from the NL to the AL.
PITCHERS (NL to AL)
ERA: +0.41
K/9: -0.57
Example: Pitcher B from the NL has an ERA of 3.00 and a K/9 of 7.57 - he changes leagues and goes to the AL... if his previous statistics were backed up by his peripherals (he wasn't particularly lucky/unlucky), his new baseline becomes a 3.41 ERA with a K/9 of 7.00. These are significant losses for the pitcher.

http://rotosaurus.blogspot.com/2011/03/conversion-rates-for-pitchers-switching.html

Just like when we looked at hitters, we find that pitchers do better moving from the American League to the National League (as expected). In some cases, the changes are extremely significant. In moving to the NL, a pitcher's strikeout rate (K/9) would be expected to rise more than a half-point. That's huge. Walk rate is less significant at just an 0.05 difference.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/the-statistical-impact-of-switching-leagues-for-pitchers/

Sorry but it exists.

[Warner2BruceTD]

I want to see statistical changes normalized and adjusted for each league. For example, I would suspect an NL pitcher will drop a half of a K per game moving to the AL just based on not facing opposing pitchers. That doesn't mean anything to me.

Basically, if Matt Garza is likely to finish 14th in the AL in ERA, I believe he would be likely to finish somewhere around 14th in the NL. His ERA dropping is not indicitive of performing better with no context.

Players are who they are. This isn't 1945, guys change leagues too often for massive power shifts to take hold. Garza was mediocre in the AL, he wasn't going to suddenly improve in the NL simply based on switching leagues. He's still Matt Garza.

[Guest]

I want to see statistical changes normalized and adjusted for each league. For example, I would suspect an NL pitcher will drop a half of a K per game moving to the AL just based on not facing opposing pitchers. That doesn't mean anything to me.

Basically, if Matt Garza is likely to finish 14th in the AL in ERA, I believe he would be likely to finish somewhere around 14th in the NL. His ERA dropping is not indicitive of performing better with no context.

Players are who they are. This isn't 1945, guys change leagues too often for massive power shifts to take hold. Garza was mediocre in the AL, he wasn't going to suddenly improve in the NL simply based on switching leagues. He's still Matt Garza.

Agreed completely. The Cubs gave up a lot for someone who is a #2 or #3 pitcher, and they expected an ace pitcher. His career stats are 3.99 ERA, 1.32 WHIP and .253 BA against.

This season, he is 4.14/1.42/.261, and the funny thing is, he's cut down on his home runs. That could be from moving out of the AL East and facing less capable hitters (on the whole.) Either way, he's slightly above his career numbers and is certainly not what the Cubs expected when they gave up what they did for him.

[Lanteri]

The Cubs may want to be sellers, but you can be sure as shit no one wants to buy what they're selling.

[FedEx227]

I want to see statistical changes normalized and adjusted for each league. For example, I would suspect an NL pitcher will drop a half of a K per game moving to the AL just based on not facing opposing pitchers. That doesn't mean anything to me.

Basically, if Matt Garza is likely to finish 14th in the AL in ERA, I believe he would be likely to finish somewhere around 14th in the NL. His ERA dropping is not indicitive of performing better with no context.

Players are who they are. This isn't 1945, guys change leagues too often for massive power shifts to take hold. Garza was mediocre in the AL, he wasn't going to suddenly improve in the NL simply based on switching leagues. He's still Matt Garza.

Again, who (besides retards) said Garza was going to improve?

Also they have normalized stats in both of the articles I posted. There's an almost -0.41 ERA drop moving from the AL to NL. That's pretty significant.

K/9
+-------+----------+
| wIP | AL -> NL |
+-------+----------+
| 18685 | + 0.57 |
+-------+----------+
BB/9
+-------+----------+
| wIP | AL -> NL |
+-------+----------+
| 18685 | - 0.05 |
+-------+----------+
HBP/9
+-------+----------+
| wIP | AL -> NL |
+-------+----------+
| 18685 | - 0.02 |
+-------+----------+

HR/FB
+--------+----------+
| wOF FB | AL -> NL |
+--------+----------+
| 19340 | + 0.21% |
+--------+----------+

BABIP
+-------+----------+
| wBIP | AL -> NL |
+-------+----------+
| 56796 | - 0.008 |
+-------+----------+

LOB%
+--------+----------+
| wDenom | AL -> NL |
+--------+----------+
| 23655 | + 0.47% |
+--------+----------+

GB%
+-------+----------+
| wTPA | AL -> NL |
+-------+----------+
| 55240 | + 0.33% |
+-------+----------+

IF FB%
+-------+----------+
| wBIP | AL -> NL |
+-------+----------+
| 59273 | + 0.11% |
+-------+----------+

LD%
+-------+----------+
| wBIP | AL -> NL |
+-------+----------+
| 59273 | + 0.37% |
+-------+----------+

RA

+-------+----------+
| wBIP | AL -> NL |
+-------+----------+
| 59273 | - 0.42 |
+-------+----------+

ERA
Approximated based on RA results
+-------+----------+
| wTPA | AL -> NL |
+-------+----------+
| 18685 | - 0.41 |
+-------+----------+

[Warner2BruceTD]

Again, who (besides retards) said Garza was going to improve?

Just about everyone in the Garza trade thread, if you recall. We first debated this theory at that time, when people kept posting drivel like "well, he's in the NL now, so he's going to pitch better".

I guess if we are talking raw statistical comparisons, then yes, proof exists. I think we are talking about two different things. For fanatsy purposes, increasing K rates by striking out pitchers is important. For real world purposes, it doesn't matter, because everyone in the NL is striking out the same pitchers.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Just saw your edit.

I will dig into those links later. I'm posting from my phone while pretending to work.

[FedEx227]

Looking beyond K rates though, ERA is reduced by nearly a half a run and LOB% is reduced by nearly half... those are extremely significant in real world purposes.

[FedEx227]

Here's another article

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/sports/baseball/14score.html

Of the 29 pitchers moving to the N.L. from the A.L., their E.R.A.+ figures increased to 110 (10 percent above league average) from 97 (just below average). This smaller shift than in E.R.A. is nonetheless more significant: It indicates that starters of equal caliber are more successful in the less suffocating National League.

This almost certainly helped with last season’s emergence of Bronson Arroyo, traded to Cincinnati from Boston; and Chris Young, who went to San Diego from Texas. It also provides fuel to the recent argument that the N.L. lags behind the A.L. in the overall level of talent. Weaker competition results in better relative performance.

Pitchers found moving to the A.L. from the N.L. correspondingly unpleasant — the E.R.A.+ scores of the 28 pitchers decreased to 100 from 113, or to absolute average from healthily above. (The fact that the two groups moved 13 percentage points in opposite directions was purely coincidental.) A fair interpretation, then, is that moving to the A.L. is such a challenge that pitchers, at least temporarily, regress. Take the case of Boston’s Josh Beckett, whose 5.01 E.R.A. rose faster than the homers he allowed.

And to be fair, here's one of my contributions to the Garza thread:

Here's a decent SABR-skewed article on Garza and triggers one of my big concerns his FB rate which he can get away with at the Trop, but may not get away with as easily in Wrigley.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/index...s-perspective/

[Warner2BruceTD]

Looking beyond K rates though, ERA is reduced by nearly a half a run and LOB% is reduced by nearly half... those are extremely significant in real world purposes.

In comparison to other NL pitchers, or in comparison to previous AL numbers?

[FedEx227]

In comparison to other NL pitchers, or in comparison to previous AL numbers?

I used seasonal data pairs from 2004 through 2008 (i.e. 2004-2005, 2005-2006, etc). I examined all players who played in one league in year one and the other league in year two. The results I'll present are the aggregate of all data pairs included in the sample, which totals 415. Each player's contribution to these results were weighted based on the lower of his at-bat, plate appearance, or other such denominator total for each data pair.

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/fantasy/article/the-statistical-impact-of-switching-leagues-for-pitchers/

[Warner2BruceTD]

Fed, after reading the Hardball Times article, I'm still not buying it.

Yes, I agree that the pitchers induvidual statistics generally improve, but that's to be expected facing the pitcher, getting 'free outs' on increased sac bunts, and pitching around the #8 hitter. The 0.41 era drop is larger than the era difference in each league, but the K rate and other statistics are products of the factors I've mentioned, imo.

He normalizes for parks, but he is simply comparing induvidual performances from one year to the next. Its a fantasy article, performance relative to the league isn't relevent, so he doesn't dive into that.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Looking beyond K rates though, ERA is reduced by nearly a half a run and LOB% is reduced by nearly half... those are extremely significant in real world purposes.

Wouldn't you expect LOB to move in that direction though? I'm sure the league averages back this up. These P's don't pitch better/worse becase of the league, the numbers just normalize whatever they do to the new league.