Cubs Stats Video Masterpiece: FIP vs. ERA

If you know what Fielding Independent Pitching is, you'll enjoy this video. If you don't know what Fielding Independent Pitching is, you'll enjoy and learn from this video. If you don't enjoy this video, I honestly don't know how I can possibly help you.

No matter the group into which you fall, I recommend you devote your time and attention to checking out Cubs Stats. It is a place of peace and enlightenment, and the genius behind that blog is also the visionary responsible for the aforeplayed video.

Fukudome: Not Just for April Anymore

What'cha gonna do, brother, when Fukudomania runs wild on you, brother? 

Kosuke Fukudome has a career OPS of 1.004 in the month of April. This excellent track record of starting the season on fire has earned him the nickname "April Kosuke." Unfortunately, that's not a compliment. While his April accomplishments are praiseworthy, the moniker is more of an ironic mockery of his alter ego: MayJuneJulyAugustOrSeptember Kosuke. Unlike Rex Grossman, whose Good-Rex/Bad-Rex routine was far more erratic, Kosuke has been fairly good at limiting the offensive explosions to April, hence the name. Or has he?

I've heard Kosuke called a bust, a platoon player at best, a disappointment, and just another of Jim Hendry's typical failed free agent signings. Kosuke praise has been sparse. I get the impression, and it's a pretty well informed one, that Cubs fans and baseball fans in general view Kosuke as a guy who just can't hit once the calendar turns to May. This year, according to what I hear, has been no exception.

One problem: that's a load of crap. Here are Fukudome's offensive splits by month in 2010 (obviously not including his three-hit, two-double performance to kick-off September):

The Cubs Home-Field Disadvantage: Is Day Baseball to Blame?

A few more night games might not be a bad idea.

Yesterday I looked at the Cubs' league-worst home-field advantage since 1970. Today I'm surveying the history of the Cubs at home since 1901. Obviously most of that (every year from 1914 on) is at Wrigley Field, but I threw in the numbers from before that as well simply because . . . well, because I have them.

Before I go any further, I just want to rehash a few main points from yesterday's post:

• Home-field advantage is legitimate in Major League Baseball. Every year since 1901 the home team has won a majority of the games played in baseball (a .540 winning percentage since 1970).
• A study of the 2004 MLB regular season showed that travel leading up to a game has no effect on win probability for either team.
• The study also concluded that home-field advantage is statistically relevant only in games decided by one run.
• Results over the years support that studies conclusion that home-field advantage matters the most in one-run games; the home team has a .608 winning percentage since 1970. The home team has still maintained an advantage in games decided by 2 runs or more (.511) or 3 runs or more (.518).
• Since 1970, the Cubs have MLB's worst winning percentage (.577) in all one-run home games where their advantage should be the highest.
• Explaining home-field advantage is considered one of baseball's most indiscernible mysteries.
• The Cubs, like every team in baseball, have an advantage when playing at home, but theirs has historically been less advantageous than that of any other team.

Most people who care to argue generally take one of a few main positions in explaining the home-field advantage in baseball. The first is that the structure of the game itself favors the home team. They'll argue that having the last at-bat either allows the home team a strategic advantage in one-run games (they know exactly how many runs they need to score in the 9th) or that it simply creates the statistical illusion of an advantage (if the home team is tied or trailing in the 9th, they'll almost always win by one if they win at all, and they never have the opportunity to build on their leads after the 8th inning). 

Wrigley: the Worst Home-Field Advantage in Baseball

I love Wrigley Field. I do. It's one of my favorite places in the world. I say that to inform you that nothing in this post is out of spite for the venue I revere as a mecca of the baseball world. And as much as I give Cubs fans a hard time, I don't really think they're worse than the fans of any other team. There are some great Cubs fans and some abominable ones just as any fan base is prone to including members from both ends of the spectrum of tolerability.

But the home-field advantage at Wrigley, for the last several decades, has been the worst in all of baseball, and I've got the numbers to prove it.

I started out investigating home-field advantage in general in the hopes of proving something about the significance of psychology in baseball. The first wave of research showed that as far back as I could look (1901) there always has been a home-field advantage league-wide. In every season of Major League Baseball, the home teams have, collectively, registered a winning record. There have been 4 seasons in which the teams of either the National League or the American League had a collective losing record at home, but it has never happened across baseball.

Then I came across this study of the 2004 Major League Baseball season that went to great lengths to isolate the effect of both home-field advantage and travel on the probability of winning. I was happy to learn that travel was ruled to have no significant effect on win probability for either team and that home-field advantage is very real. However, the study also concluded that home-field advantage was statistically significant only in games decided by one run—but in those one-run games, it's pretty significant.

Swing Away, Ryan

Yes, Ryan Theriot swung at this pitch.

If I were to rank the complaints of Cubs fans this year on a scale of frequency and intensity of the rants, Ryan Theriot's approach at the plate would probably rank somewhere around the 4th spot in between Zambrano's tumult and John Grabow's existence. Honestly, the objections of this fan base are so voluminous and varied, ranking them would be almost as difficult as addressing them.

Ordered lists of grievances aside, we can all agree that Ryan Theriot's concept of patience has forced Cub fans to lose theirs. He swings at the ceremonial first pitch. He swings at bean balls. When the visiting team hits a home run, his biggest regret is not having a bat to swing when the bleacher bums throw the ball back. There's no question what the perception is: Theriot loves to swing at the first pitch. I guess my only remaining questions are, Does he? and Should he?

Does Ryan Theriot love to swing at the first pitch?
First of all, I think what really bothers everyone (justifiably or not) isn't that Theriot swings at the first pitch so much as that he puts the first pitch in play. You can see from Theriot's plate discipline numbers that he swings at a smaller percentage of pitches out of the strike zone than the rest of the league, so it's not a matter of Theriot swinging at bad pitches. So if he swings at a strike on the first pitch without putting it in play, the act of swinging really has no effect whatsoever other than maybe giving Theriot a better sense of timing. When Theriot swings, though, he makes contact 90.3% of the time (the 13th highest contact rate in the majors), so I really don't think people are complaining about his first-pitch whiffs so much as his short at-bats.

So let's just look at the plate appearances in which Theriot puts the first pitch into play, a pretty frequent occurrence. In 2010, just over 18% of Theriot's PAs have lasted exactly one pitch. League average is about 11%. For his career, almost 16% of Riot's plate appearances are one-pitch affairs, so he has definitely earned the reputation for hitting the first pitch more than the average player (and definitely more than the prototypical leadoff hitter). This year he's been even more slap-happy than normal, but not much. A 2% increase represents about 14 PAs per season, and I highly doubt anyone has noticed that Theriot is hitting the first pitch an additional eight one-hundredths of a plate appearance per game.

That being said, yes, Ryan Theriot does seem to love that first pitch. Is that so wrong?


Should Ryan Theriot love to swing at the first pitch?
There are those who would say no regardless of evidence to the contrary. Since Theriot has been semi-regularly batting in the leadoff position, the unwritten (but oft spoken) rule dictates that he should take as many pitches as possible. It's his job, I'm told, to work the count and get on base as often as possible. And in those cases when the pitcher just made the second out, he is required by law to take at least two strikes and foul off at least three pitches if necessary to give the pitcher at least a five-pitch time span in which to rest.

Forgive me for challenging the conventional wisdom, but I do think his main job is to reach base as frequently as possible and to advance as far along the basepaths as he can. I'd prefer to use wOBA, but without the split information for that particular stat I'll look at OPS first. If Theriot's on-base plus slugging numbers are better when swinging at the first pitch than in other situations, wouldn't it be advisable (or at the very least forgivable) for him to continue in his relative impatience?

Well guess what: they are. For his career, Theriot's AVG/OBP/SLG line is .349/.351/.453 when he hits (or gets hit by) the first pitch he sees, putting his 1st-pitch OPS at .803 (it's .807 this year, so let's just stick with the career numbers for better sample size). Now let's look at those numbers in plate appearances he allows to go more than one pitch. After the count reaches 1-0, Theriot's line is .287/.406/.387. Yes, his OBP goes up significantly, but his slugging plummets as well, yielding an OPS of .793. Keep in mind, that's throughout Theriot's career on all PAs that start with him taking a pitch and getting ahead in the count.

The difference is extremely slight, but Theriot's ability to inflict damage on the opposition has been better when he hits the first pitch than when he gains the 1-0 advantage. What about after a first pitch strike? .266/.306/.309 with a .615 OPS. If  you'd rather see Theriot take that first pitch for a strike, you must really put a lot of stock into the benefit of "showing his teammates what the pitcher has to offer," because the difference between hitting and taking that first strike is pretty damaging to Theriot's chances.

All told, here's Theriot's career line in plate appearances that last longer than one pitch: .275/.352/.343 (.695 OPS). Here's the net difference in his line when a Ryan Theriot PA goes beyond the one-pitch mark: -.074/+.001/-.110. So, yeah, when Theriot lets an at-bat go any longer than the minimum, he actually decreases his OPS by .109.

Complain about Theriot leading off and I'll agree with you. Demand his trade and I won't bat an eye. But to those clamoring for longer Theriot at-bats, I beg of you to find a new tree up which to bark. Theriot's love affair with pitch 1 is well founded. Don't try to get in between those two. They will very likely both hit you.

Source of Silva's Luck: The Other Guy on the Mound

Silva avoids a pitch from the best pitcher he's faced all year: Dan Haren (who's having a sub-par year)

I've been wanting to post something about Carlos Silva for the last few weeks as his undefeated record begins to look more and more impressive (and the deal that brought him here appears increasingly miraculous), but I have hesitated because a) I didn't want to jinx it, b) I don't want to spew skepticism, c) I don't feel the need to diminish what has been one of the few feel-good stories of the season.

But let's face it, all of us have that nagging itch somewhere along the cerebral cortex telling us this won't last. You know how every cartoon has an episode in which the protagonist finds a map to some buried treasure or enter a contest with a ridiculously generous prize, and they come tantalizingly close to acquiring riches that will change their lives (and the nature of the cartoon) forever, but you know deep down the creators of the show will never ever allow them to get what they're after?

Such is Carlos Silva's season. We know he can't be this good, right? Well, watching him pitch, especially in his most recent outings, it's pretty obvious that he really is outpitching the expectations. That's not a fluke, it's reality. But the money stat everyone's staring at, the booty to Carlos Silva's J-Lo, is his 8-0 record. (His 2.93 ERA ain't too shabby, either.)

As much as any of us know that the Win stat is the most overvalued, meaningless number in all of sports record keeping, 8-0 still looks pretty darn impressive. I, for one (representing millions, I'm sure), am scratching my head trying to figure out how Silva could be so lucky. Because he's been good, but not 8-0 good.

Issue One: Suck or Cynic?

No, seriously, get off my lawn.

I hated it when I was a kid, but I've grown to love The McLaughlin Group. Led by curmudgeonly debating dictator John McLaughlin, this talking-head free-for-all might carry the blame for the parade of political punditry running through television around the clock, but that's only because they do it right. They step on each other's sentences and stumble their way through a bipartisan spectrum (composed of drastically slanted extremes). It's entertaining, informative, and everything a political talk show should be.

Be that as it may, Johnny has drawn lighthearted criticism for his less-than-subtle manner of implying his cynical opinions are superior to all others, a caricature made famous by Dana Carvey and imitated by Cub fans everywhere.

Is Aramis Back?

Aramis? Is that you?

After Monday's walk-off homer, Ron Santo declared Aramis Ramirez back (he has probably said it a half dozen times or so of late). For the record, A-Ram hasn't really gone anywhere. His bat has been missing. His look of determined competence was nowhere to be found. He appeared to be playing the role of Mike Fontenot's inept replacement at third base, but Aramis has been in the starting lineup for 36 of the Cubs' 40 games so far this year.

The hits haven't been there, though. Aramis has hit safely in just 22 of those 36 starts. Of his hitless games, he drew a walk (just one) in eight of them. He has three multi-hit games; one was opening day. The other two offensive explosions (two hits each) have come in the last five games. It's hard to say he is back, because he still hasn't had an extended stretch of productivity. But by comparison, he's definitely closer to being offensively relevant than he was at the beginning of the year.

Through his first 18 games (including one late-inning replacement) Aramis struck out 23 times in 79 plate appearances for a K% of PMET%*. Since then, he's fanned just 10 times in 84 PAs, a much improved (and much closer to his career 15.4% rate) 11.9%. So, yeah, Aramis is hitting the ball now.

But on the whole, Aramis is still way off his typical batted ball distribution. He typically hits 19.8% line drives, 35.2% grounders, 45% fly balls (13.4% of which wind up as homers), and 11.5% popups. This year, Ramirez has a line-drive rate of 14.7% (down a bit), groundball rate of 25% (way down), and a pop-up rate of 11.5% (almost exactly his average). The big difference? His flyball rate is 60.3%, a spike of almost 50% of his career average. Now that Aramis is actually putting the ball in play, most of those balls are going in the air. The real bad news: his homer per flyball rate is less than half his career standard: 5.7%.

So Ramirez is back in a sense: he's not completely lost at the plate anymore. Hopefully he can return to the guy who prefers hard line drives to towering moon shots, because he's pretty much an out machine right now. In his last five games, he's slugging .500. For the season: .288.

I like what I'm seeing out of Ramirez right now, and I have every reason to believe his last five games are more indicative of what we'll see than his first month and a half. We know the guy can hit, and we can see his slump wasn't permanent. Let's just hope the resurgence is neither too short nor too late.


*Pretty Much Every Time

Lucky Strikes: Baseball and Bowling

Baseball. Bowling. Homer. See what I did there?

I'm in a bowling league. I am not good. My form is awful. My entire game is inconsistent, from my approach to my release to my follow through. Sometimes the ball hooks like a drifting frisbee. Other times it sails straight as a hanging Grabow slider.

But the crazy thing about bowling is, you don't have to be good. I mean, if you're good, you will, with very few exceptions, always bowl  a better series than I do. I will rarely bowl a better game than a really good bowler does, but it happens. And there are plenty of frames in which I'll bowl a strike while a far superior bowler leaves a pin or two standing. I've seen five year olds bowl strikes (sans bumpers). I've seen guys with near-200 averages bowl gutter balls or even sub-80 games.

It's a simple fact of bowling that superior skill and even superior execution doesn't always yield superior results—it usually does over the course of time, but most definitely not every time, especially in smaller samples.

The more I bowl, the more it reminds me of baseball.

I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know when I say that superior skill and execution don't always yield superior results in baseball, because you know that luck rears its pretty or ugly or pretty ugly head all the time. But more often than not, we judge someone's talent level (or at least the quality of their execution in a specific instance) on results we know to be affected or even completely determined by luck. We know better, we just forget.

Here's an example from the lanes: aiming for the traditional pocket between the 1 and 3 pins, I miss my target to the left by almost a foot. The execution: bad. The result: awesome. I get a "Brooklyn" strike, landing the ball between the 1 and 2 pins. Oddly enough, if I had missed by just an inch, I could easily have wound up with the dreaded 7-10 split, one I have no hope of sparing. The uneducated observer would say I did well. The learned bowler would say I got lucky. But somehow everyone would look at the resultant score and go on thinking I was having a better game than the great bowler with the split.

Similar things happen all the time in baseball on both sides of the ball. Derrek Lee had the game-winning single  in Saturday's game against the Diamondbacks, and it was probably the second-worst hit he put in play, a ground-ball single through the hole at short. It could have easily resulted in a double play. His worst was his other single, a blooper to right center. Both his fly outs to right were hit harder than either of those two hits, but the results were worse. His strike out was a gutter ball (those pretty much never work out).

And that's just balls in play. You know how when a hitter fouls a ball straight back, we're supposed to take that as a sign he was "right on it" from a timing standpoint and "just missed it" with his swing location. Great. But I have to assume that if he had split the difference between absolutely nailing it (homer, maybe?) and just missing it (foul straight back), the result would have been a nice high pop fly. Hit it perfectly, it's a homer. Miss by a lot, it's a strike (but not the bowling kind that makes you happy). Miss by a little less, it's an out. Your degree of success does not reflect the precision of a player's execution.

Obviously the same breaks work for or against pitchers, too. Every now and then you'll see a batter take a fastball for a called third strike right down the middle, a pitch that was much more hittable than he expected. Everyone knows the pitcher got lucky, but no one curses him for his poor execution; we're happy with the results. Cue the announcer, "He found a way to work out of it."

The other factor is timing. Here's the bowling scenario: A good bowler begins the game with 3 consecutive strikes, a feat worth 60 pins plus twice the pinfall on the next ball and the pins knocked down by the ball after that. If the next two balls are also strikes, the total in the third frame would be 90 pins. Me? I bowl three strikes in the 10th frame, and I'm totally stoked. That feat nets me 30 pins. Same execution as the good bowler (for those three throws). One half, or possibly one third of the score. That's bad timing.

It's painful to revisit how this plays out for the Cubs. Wednesday against the Nats, the Cubs had 9 hits, drew 4 walks, and benefited from 1 Washington error. Cub pitchers yielded 4 hits, one walk, and no errors. Cubs lose 3-2, but who had the better game? Who exhibited superior talent? You could argue that the Nationals did, since two of the Washington hits were homers. But still, the Cubs did enough things right to score a lot more runs; they just did them at the wrong time.

I know this isn't all a matter of luck. Just like better bowlers will come through more consistently, better baseball players will post superior results because of their consistently superior execution, although they'll be rewarded for plenty of their screw-ups along the way. It's part of what makes baseball so fun to watch: it's unpredictable. Not only will inferior players succeed and bad teams win rather often, but sometimes it will be their mediocrity that causes the wins.

So why am I saying all this? Because it's hard to evaluate how well the Cubs are playing. They play well and lose. They play badly and win. There are stats that help tell the story a bit better, but I don't even want to talk about them right now. I just want to acknowledge that . . . well, that I'm not a good bowler. I'm not a good judge of baseball talent (or choosing baseball teams to follow, for that matter). Sometimes the best I can do is just enjoy it and try to learn from people who are better than I am.

Thank DeRosa for Small Sample Sizes

The truth hurts. So lie to me, Cubbies.

There's a reason baseball is so fun to watch. Well, there are 225,658 reasons baseball is so fun to watch, but one of my favorites is the way it can take so long for the true balance of talent to bear itself out. Albert Pujols is as good a hitter as you'll find, yet he makes outs in 53% of his plate appearances; despite that ridiculously good average, there were 15 games in 2009 in which he didn't reach base. Tim Lincecum yielded a .206 batting average to opposing hitters last year, but there were two games in which he gave up 10 hits.

The numbers of any one game or any handful of games is likely to tell you a big fat lie about how good any one player or team really is.

Some games are more accurate depictions of talent than others, but you don't really know which ones are telling you the truth until the season is over—and even then, most teams change composition over the course of the year, usually in an effort to get better, but often times due to injury, a player or team will get worse.

Statisticians can tell you the truth about any team, or at least a fair, objectively calculated, more-accurate-than-your-eyes judgment of a team's potential. But watching a game has a way of reinforcing your hopes or deepening your fears. The Cubs drop 3 of 4 to the Mets, they suck, and I knew it. The Cubs sweep the Brewers, and they are the offensive juggernaut to put an end to the juggernaut business. Their pitching is outstanding. Carlos Zambrano is in the bullpen because the Cubs have at least 8 Cy-Young-caliber pitchers.

I don't care about what's accurate. It's fun to watch the Cubs put a beating on the Brewers. It's a small sample size, but it's beautiful to behold. I might be furious, depressed, or elated when the sample reaches 162 games, but for this weekend I'm loving the lie.

Cubs and I Are Wishing on a Starlin

Starlin Castro has soared through the minor league ranks; is he ready to stretch his wings at the major league level? Photo by Amandy Rykoff (who has an amazing collection on flickr that I recommend you devote an hour or two to perusing)

I trust you've heard, read, talked, or written about 19-year-old Starlin Castro's arrival at Spring Training and his potential for being a legitimate force at shortstop in the not-so-distant future. How distant (and how legitimate) is still pretty fuzzy. Lou thinks he looks a little Renteria-ish and could even fill in right away for an injured Ryan Theriot if the need presented itself.

But I'm sure you haven't forgotten how the previous installments of this film series turned out. Corey Patterson. Felix Pie. The Hills both Rich and Bobby. We know the gap between highly touted prospect and holy-crap-is-this-guy-for-real All-Star vote getter is a deep and treacherous canyon through which the river of our disappointment flows freely. So how do we know what to expect? I ask because I don't like getting burned by failed expectations any more than you do. So should I risk the excitement or just dismiss this kid until he proves me wrong?

But the truth is, we don't know. We can listen to the scouting reports, but you can usually find a scout who will support whichever conclusion you're predisposed to believe. You can look to the minor league stats, which Bill James says are just as trustworthy as major league stats for their predictive powers. There's an interesting discussion in the comments at this Castro post at ACB about Castro's stats, what they tell us, how different experts interpret them, and what we should believe. (Indulge your curiosity and read through the comments, because there's great food for thought there.)

If you lack faith in the prophetic powers of stats, you can always just watch Castro play this spring and judge for yourself. I know I can't wait. But I do want to call your attention to just one thing: the kid is 19. Nineteen year olds are, as a group, not entirely dependable. They're just unpredictable creatures, those teenagers. As baseball players, the rate of development is pretty drastic. As people . . . same thing.

The reliability of the scouting reports is at the mercy of Castro's youth. They can be impressed by a kid's "makeup," but they can't know if he can handle the challenge of major league baseball in Chicago or anywhere else. And while I do agree that minor league stats can tell us a lot, I think they're really shaky when it comes to teenagers. Let me give you a non-saber stat line for a 19-year-old shortstop who played a full season at the A level:

Player X: 128 Games, 71 RBI, 5 HR, .295 BA, .376 OBP, .394 SLG, 56 Errors

The hitting looks decent, the error total is atrocious, and the overall product doesn't exactly scream future MVP. Keep in mind, these are single-A numbers we're talking about. Here's Castro's line from A+ Daytona and AA Tennessee:

Castro: 127 Games, 49 RBI, 3 HR, .299 BA, .342 OBP, .392 SLG, 39 Errors

I'd call those numbers comparable, no? Neither guy jumps out at you, and the defense suggests both players are actually Jake Fox. But Player X is actually a 19-year-old Derek Jeter.

Now, I know that these stats aren't the best predictors of future performance, but if you're familiar with the ones that are, you have already looked at Castro's. I'm not saying we should expect or even hope Castro will look like the guy who wears the #2 on his Yankee jersey. I can't even guarantee he'll be good enough to replace the guy who wears the #2 on his Cub jersey. 

But I will say that Starlin Castro is only going to get better. Stupid as I'm inclined to be, I'm expecting good things from the kid if he can impress Sweet Lou and ascend through the minors so quickly. I'll be watching with great interest when he plays semi-real games this spring, and something tells me I'll be easily impressed.

Consider my hopes officially raised.

A Biblical Guide to Baseball Prophecy

This post may very well be of no interest to anyone, which would hardly make it the first of its kind. If I could call any subject matter my niche, it would be things no one cares about enough to read. But to be more specific, in terms of sheer volume, the two topics I've written the most about are probably baseball and the Bible. The audiences for both are small enough, but the overlap between the two is impressively minuscule. But despite the almost nonexistent intersection of the disparate groups, this post is born out of their improbable similarities.

What I've noticed is this: there's a big similarity between biblical prophecy and baseball statistics and the way both have been received, dispensed, and interpreted.

Since I'm posting this on a Cubs blog, I'm going to focus on the baseball side of things, particularly the statistical realm. But since I know next to nothing about statistics, I'm going to weigh this sucker down with Bible talk. If the verbose introduction hasn't served as warning enough, I should also caution you that I'm not exactly a Bible scholar either. I mean, in the general community of Cubdom, I probably know more about biblical prophecy than most . . . but certainly not all. And among the people I know who would be most eager to discuss the translation of Isaiah 7:14 in the Septuagint, I don't know that any would give two craps about Fielding Independent Pitching.

So, chances are I could talk about either topic to the other audience without ever being exposed as a fraud. I'm okay with that. Now, on the off chance that anyone is still reading, I'll press on to something resembling a point.

Most people, biblically inclined or not, equate the term prophecy with the foretelling of future events. But the fact of the matter is, most of the content of biblical prophecy had less to do with judgments that lay ahead and more to do with sins that had already transpired and wayward beliefs and practices going on at the time. Sure, virtually every prophet predicted something about the future, but many of those forecasts were fulfilled in multiple manifestations separated by many hundreds and sometimes thousands of years. And some predictive prophecies are spelled out in fairly precise terms, while others leave room for infinite speculation and varying interpretations.

The big problem comes in the way people handle what they know, what they think they know, and what they don't care to know. Some scholars obsess over the minutiae to the contempt of the faith and the division of their ranks. Many well intentioned people project historical anecdotes onto completely unrelated current situations and future speculations. Others focus so intently on the future that they become myopic to their current travails or joys. And the masses just want to know enough Bible to feel good about themselves and roll their eyes at the mention of prophecy. But, whether any such people exist or not, the best among us have the wisdom to learn from past declarations, draw conclusions from clear predictions, and allow for the uncertainty of peering into the great beyond.

If you've yet to see a correlation between all of that and the way baseball fans view their stats, I applaud and pity you for making it this far. But I've observed a similar phenomenon among Cub fans and sabermetricians the world over.

In a debate taking place far above my level of understanding, there are statisticians on many sides of many different arguments about concepts I can hardly begin to understand. I won't go into them, I just know that there's a lot of projecting and computing and regressions and standard deviations and . . . hell, a lot of stuff I don't know. But the people who do know it can get pretty heated about their methods to the point you wonder how a game can cause smart people to act so foolish.

On the plane where commoners like me reside, there are old-school, lowbrow minds who devoutly swear by stats like Wins, ERA, batting average, and fielding percentage, and they'll tell you that the basic triple-crown stats tell you everything you need to know about a player's performance and his potential. They don't see the difference between the stats that describe the past and the ones that predict the future. Like a close-minded pastor using Habakkuk 3 to tell you rock & roll is of the Devil, they'll tell you that any stat invented after 1908 was contrived for the sole purpose of polluting young minds with the perverted rites of the cultic Epsteinian overlords.

Then there are the occasional saberlovers who are so infatuated with advanced stats that they look with disdain upon conventional numbers. If they had their way, games would no longer be decided by a statistic so rudimentary as runs but by a park-adjusted comparison of  team xBABIP, xFIP, EqA, and UZR or a sum of each player's Win Probability Added. Keith Law comes to mind. He got publicly lambasted (called an idito more than once, if I recall) for valuing FIP above ERA in his Cy Young balloting, and I can understand why. FIP is designed to ignore the factors of luck and the defensive skill behind a pitcher—but baseball isn't so kind to pitchers. Should the batting title go to the hitter with the highest xBABIP?

Crap, I'm afraid I've lost my last interested Bible reader. If you care for an overview of some of these stats . . . ugh, look them up. It's 4 in the morning, I can't post every link in the world. Or go here.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Of course, Wrigley Field welcomes plenty of visitors who have no intention of examining stats beyond finding just enough to confirm the positions they already hold about players, managerial decisions, and player acquisitions. They're mad. They're happy. They love a guy. They hate a guy. Find a stat that helps you feel better about that feeling . . . or don't. Whatever. You're definitely not reading this.

But the thing that I've learned from everything I read about baseball statistics is that some stats are really good at predicting the future and evaluating talent, even when they paint a different picture than the old-school stats that tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt what happened in the past. The typical stats are determined by tons of luck and teammate-dependent factors, but baseball is hugely affected by those factors. The advanced metrics may tell you who the best man is, but the old stats will tell you who wins.

But that doesn't mean you can dismiss the prophets who understand the stats better than you. I'll admit, most statistical methods give me a headache. I understand what's going on to some degree, but I will always need help knowing what the numbers mean, how they're computed, and where they're headed. I do know that no matter how good they are, they won't stop strange things from happening. You just hope that eventually, they'll stop stupid things from happening (cough, Aaron Miles, cough).

Prophecy, stats . . . they have nothing and everything to do with each other. Neither is necessarily predictive. Neither is necessarily relevant. But both of them will tell you the truth in a way you can't otherwise understand.  And I'll say this for sure: in life or in baseball, if you ignore the truth, you'll more often than not find yourself walking into big piles of suck left and right.

Trade This: Z Shouldn't Swap Teams. Catchers Maybe

For one night at least, Carlos Zambrano looked like a guy who deserved every penny of his $91.5 million contract, let alone the right to stay on this Cubs team. He might not be that guy, but he sure looked the part as he outpitched de facto Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum on Friday night. Carlos matched the Giants' two hits and drove in two more runs than they did during his complete-game shutout. And it left Len, Bob, and the depressed Cub faithful wondering why he couldn't look like that more often.

As Koyie Hill congratulated him on the too-late gem, I wondered how much difference Koyie Hill makes for Zambrano and if he should become Z's personal catcher. Baseball-Reference had some fun answers for me.

Geo has caught Z 14 times to Koyie's 13 proving at the very least that Z does NOT have a personal catcher. The rest of the stats suggest he should. (Note: I don't know the number of innings pitched or ERA, but what's there is pretty telling.)

With Geo catching: 2.09 SO/BB; .273 BA; .351 OBP; .414 SLG; .765 OPS
With Koyie: 1.88 SO/BB; .215 BA; .315 OBP; .278 SLG; .593 OPS

The only number that's more favorable with Geo behind the dish is the strikeout-to-walk ratio. Everything else points dramatically to Koyie being the ideal Big Z handler.

I just hope Lou (or whoever the manager will be) glances at these numbers at some point in the offseason.

Calling (out) All Cubs Fans

Milton Bradley has brought this into stark relief, but the problem has been going on as long as I've been alive. It's a sensitive topic, so I'll keep it short, easy on the sweet.

The following are true, albeit made up:

Cub fans are 85% more likely than other fans to believe they control the outcome of the game.

Cub fans are 77% more likely than other fans to think that a players looks significantly influence their on-field play.

Cub fans are three times as likely as Reds fans to blame a loss on a post-game press conference.

98% of Cubs fans have credited "supernatural forces" with the result of at least one entire Cubs season; of those, 89% believe they can control the aforementioned supernatural forces; 17% of Cub fans think those numbers are a little low.

86% of Cub fans are annoyed at baseball record keepers for not statistically tracking "clubhouse vibe."

2% of Cub fans are billy goats.

.01% of Cub fans were alive the last time they won a World Series.

100% of Cub fans who just read that winced.

Stat of the Week: Milton Bradley 2, MB's Revenge

Here's a Rhorshack test for you: What does this image make you think of? Sosa? Marquis? Bradley? Jay Johnstone? Right now I see only the first number, because Milton Bradley belongs in the 2 slot of the batting order. Since Lou made Milton 2nd in command, here's what his stats look like:

.476 BA; .542 OBP; .619 SLG; 1.161 OPS; 5 G, 3 R, 3 RBI

This is a small statistical sampling, I know. But Milton's OBP is .400 for the year. His SLG is .402. He belongs near the top of the lineup, $10 million be damned. And statistics aside, the #2 hole just may be the lowest-pressure spot in baseball. It's perfect for him.

Coincidentally, Kosuke Fukudome is making a killing as a leadoff platoon man. Here are his numbers as the Cubs offensive front man:

.325 BA; .439 OBP; .550 SLG; .989 OPS; 22 G (1 as a replacement); 15 R; 2 HR; 12 RBI

If you want a reason to be optimistic about the Cubs playoff hopes, these guys provide lots. Milton and Fukudome have each produced an average of more than 1 run per game in their new homes in the lineup. They're on base all the time. If they keep this up (or anything close to this) it is highly probable that their run production will increase.

I know this season has been a roller coaster, but there are plenty of signs that the rest of the ride could be a lot of fun (with a lot less puking on ourselves).

Stat of the Week: Mark Buehrle Works Fast. Real Fast.

Normally I don't like to focus my attention on guys who grow up Cardinal fans and become White Sox. But I have to make an exception just this once.

Obviously, Mark Buehrle faced the minimum today. That's why they call it a perfect game. It's common knowledge he's a guy who likes to work quickly (he only spent 31 minutes on the mound in this game; Steve Trachsel has gone that long in between pitches). His fastball might be slow, but his games go by like blinks. But never in history has there been a pitcher who has been able to work this quickly through so many games. Sure, it's Buehrle's 1st perfect game. It's his 2nd no hitter. But facing the minimum is old hat for the Missouri native.

This is the third time Mark Buehrle has thrown a complete-game shutout and faced the minimum 27 batters. Check it:

July 21, 2004. White Sox over the Indians 14-0. Buehrle 9 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 4 SO, 27 BF (Batters Faced)

April 18, 2007. White Sox beat the Rangers 6-0. Buehrle 9 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 8 SO, 27 BF

July 23, 2009. White Sox defeat the Rays 5-0. Buehrle 9 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 SO, 27 BF

And, although it must have seemed like a marathon outing, here's one more just to make us jealous Cub fans squirm:

August 3, 2001. White Sox best the Devil Rays 4-0. Buehrle 9 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 SO, 28 BF

I've been trying unsuccessfully to find a list of 9-inning games where the minimum 27 batters were faced by a pitcher or pitching staff. A comment on the latest baseball-reference blog claims that no other pitcher has duplicated Buehrle's feat, but I can't verify the fact.

Right now, I'm simply holding firm to the idea that it's a pretty safe bet. Buehrle is in a league all his own. Congrats.

Not That It Helps, But . . . We Got 1

I kept hearing Pat Hughes last night saying the Cubs had failed to get a hit with RISP on this road trip. I rarely have cause to dispute Mr. Hughes's baseball knowledge, but he blew that stat. Blasphemy, I tell you, blasphemy!

Kosuke got a hit with runners on 1st and 2nd after failing to get the bunt down in the 6th.

So the Cubs are actually 1 for 250,000 with RISP this road trip. Much less depressing, no?

Cubs Stat of the Week: Rich Harden is K-licious

As we're waiting for Harden to take the mound against the Indians, I thought you might be interested in a little Rich Harden trivia. So let's talk about Rich, the king of the K.

It would be nice to see Rich Harden stay healthy. It would be nice to see Rich Harden pitching in 8th or 9th inning of a game. It would be nice to see Rich Harden throw a 10-pitch inning. But given the stat of the week, you can understand why none of those things seem to happen very often.

As a Cub, Rich Harden averages 11.26 strikeouts per 9 innings.

If you're wondering, he leads NL starters with at least 20 starts in that stretch. Also, if you're wondering, in what amounts to almost a full season in Cubbie blue Harden has started just 21 games, averaging about 5 2/3 innings a start.

If only he were a bit more hittable, maybe Harden could go deeper into games. Chicks dig the strikeout, but I'm pretty sure Lou prefers healthy starters who last into the 7th.

Cubs Stat of the Week: Ryan Theriot on 3-0

Ryan Theriot has never made an out on a 3-0 pitch.

Ever.

When I started looking up an intriguing Cubs stat for this week, I was hoping to find a revelation in Theriot's average with two strikes. His career average in that situation isn't bad (.233) but it's not great this year (.171). And then I stumbled upon something I had never even considered:

You don't want to go to 3-0 on anybody, especially not The Riot. 

In his relatively short career, Theriot has faced a 3-0 count 89 times. And in those 89 career 3-0 counts, Theriot has never made an out on a 3-0 pitch. Actually, he's never even put such a pitch in play. 

That's right. Ryan Theriot has exactly Zero point Zero Zero official at-bats on 3-0 counts. He has had 34 plate appearances decided by a 3-0 pitch, and all 34 have been walks (three of them intentional). I can't exactly say the stat gets better (how can you improve on a 1.000 OBP?) but Theriot's career performance after a 3-0 pitch continues to impress.

In his 89 career plate appearances that began with three straight balls, Theriot has drawn 60 walks. Of the 29 remaining at bats, Theriot has 11 hits, five of them doubles (.379 BA, .552 SLG). But the overwhelming majority of the time (roughly 2/3), when Theriot reaches a 3-0 count, he draws a walk on his way to a .798 OBP after 3-0 counts. 

When Theriot works a 3-ball count of any kind, good things happen. He has a .323 BA, a .631 OBP, and a 1.088 OPS. So how does Theriot compare to the rest of baseball?

In 2009, Major League hitters put almost 5% of 3-0 pitches in play (compared to Theriot's career 0% rate). Here's the general breakdown of Theriot vs. the ML average:

After a 3-0 Count

MLB: .267 BA, .759 OBP, 1.220 OPS

Theriot: .379 BA, .798 OBP, 1.349 OPS

With Three Balls, Any Number of Strikes

MLB: .259 BA, .593 OBP, 1.029 OPS

Theriot:  .323 BA, .631 OBP, 1.088 OPS

This definitely reinforces my opinion that Theriot uses the count to his advantage as well as just about anybody in the game. He just has an impeccable sense of modifying his approach as his at-bats go along. That's why I love watching Theriot at the plate, because he is a textbook example of how to approach each pitch.

Long story short: throw strikes to The Riot, or he'll make you pay.

Stats courtesy of baseball-reference.com.

How do you spell relief? $#!^@

I know. Kevin Gregg looks like a complete failure, which makes Jim Hendry look like a complete moron. As Ed, the genius behind thecubsinhaiku.com, so eloquently tweeted, Can we charge a loss / to Kevin Gregg, even though / the Cubs won the game? 

Unfortunately for statistics, Gregg will get neither a loss nor a blown save, since the Cubs won and they had a four-run lead when Gregg entered. Aaron Heilman gets the tough-luck Blown Save after giving up a game-tying bloop with the bases-loaded, no-out crapfest he inherited.

After the game, Lou defended the rusty and ineffective 3-G goggle wearer, saying he hadn't been used lately and faced a tough Astro lineup. And others point to the fact that Kevin Gregg, like so many other closers, doesn't feel the same intensity when he enters the game in a nonsave situation.

So how should we look at this as fans? Is Gregg a failure? Is today's hit parade evidence that his acquisition was a major mistake? Is it time to usher Carlos Marmol into the closer role?

No. Whatever the side effects, go ahead and ingest that chill pill. 

This was one game, albeit one horribly abysmal game. He got no one out. He looked awful. He pitched like your mom. But Gregg is better than what he's shown so far, and he's definitely better than this one bad outing. One bad outing can lie to you, and so can general impressions. Statistics lie, too, but when you find yourself moping over the Cubs' bullpen woes, their truth can set you free. Here are some liberating Gregg stats to cheer Cub fans up and back them away from the ledge . . . for now:

• Gregg's current ERA this season (6.06) is about 2 full points higher than his career ERA (4.08). Neither number inspires a ton of confidence, but his career ERA as a closer is in the mid 3's. 
  
• Gregg has 18 appearances, just about 1/4 of what you would expect (on the high end) from a closer. It's not a huge sampling. For comparison's sake, check out Mariano Rivera's stats from his first 18 games of the 2007 season. They are eerily similar to Gregg's opening stats as a Cub. That's not to say Gregg is Mariano Rivera, just that it's too early to dismiss him as a failure.
• Gregg has blown only one save this year, believe it or not. And he's actually striking out more than a batter an inning. (Mark that one down as the skewed results of a small sample. He's never done that over a full season in his career.)
• While Gregg professes to prefer save situations, statistically the 9th inning is Carlos Marmol's worst (the 8th is by far his best). Opponents' batting averages go up 30 points in the 9th against Carlos, and their OPS is almost 200 points higher in the 9th than in the 8th.

Is Gregg the best closer in the world? Nah. But he'll do. Trust me, by the end of the year his stats will be respectable. (Although I would love to see Carlos develop a closer's mentality.) Dealing with crappy outings like this is what proves a closer. Nasty stuff wouldn't hurt, either, but I'll take resilience if I can get it.