Chicago White Sox General Manager Kenny Williams was thrilled to acquire veteran slugger Manny Ramirez from the Dodgers this week, but he’s hoping the addition will provide its biggest benefits beyond Game 162.

“Our thought behind it was very simple,” said Williams on MLB.com. “We not only want to get into the playoffs, but once we get in, we would like to have a chance to do something special. You need a hitter who can hit good pitching and hit in the clutch, and it’s just a matter of him getting his timing back and he will be effective.”

Now 38 years old, Manny Ramirez has been in the playoffs with the Red Sox and Dodgers six times in the last seven years. In those seven years the league has combined for a .743 On Base Plus Slugging (OPS) in the playoffs, while Manny has posted an incredible 1.046 OPS in 222 at-bats (a batting average of .338 with 16 home runs, a .442 on-base percentage, and a .604 slugging percentage). If the White Sox manage to string together enough wins to reach the playoffs, opposing pitchers would cringe at the sight of the all-time playoff home run leader middle of the White Sox order. Manny has 29 home runs in postseason play. Bernie Williams is a distant second with 22.

And while the league as a whole has hit a bit worse in the postseason compared to the regular season (18 point drop in OPS), Manny has actually kicked into another gear, raising his OPS by 58 points in recent years.

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Used with permission from John Dewan’s Stat of the Week™, http://www.statoftheweek.com/.

The Fielding Bible–Volume II by John Dewan | Get Cubs tickets to any game!

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1. There is no better place to watch a baseball game than the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field. And this year is probably offers more bargains for the consumer since the 90’s. You should easily be able to find tickets to most any game at or below face value through:   Stub Hub | Ticket Network | Gold Coast Tickets  | added bonus: food and non-alcoholic beverages are discounted 20% up to an hour before game time!
2. Andre Dawson Day – Monday August 30th. The Cubs will honor The Hawk with pre-game ceremonies including a “special gift” for Andre.


Harry Caray statue

3. Harry Caray statue re-dedication – Wednesday September 1st. Join Dutchie Caray, Tom Ricketts and Budweiser in re-dedicating the Harry Caray statue recently moved from Sheffield & Addison to the bleacher enterance at Sheffield & Waveland. Holy cow, any excuse for a party, right?
4. Billy Williams Day - Wednesday September 7th. The Cubs will honor the Sweet Swinger with a bronzed likeness to be unveiled in pre-game ceremonies as well as on field ceremonies honoring the Hall of Fame and Cubs legend.
5. Public Servant Appreciation Nights – The Cubs will honor the US Military on Aug 30th, Firefighters on Sept 7th, and Law Enforcement on Sept 22nd.

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The first 10,000 fans at Wrigley Field that night will receive a commemorative Andre Dawson hat (compliments of The PrivateBank). Tom Skilling’s weather prediction shows a sunny day, high of 89 degrees and gusty winds blowing straight out 11-23mph – sounds like a beautiful evening for baseball and perfect to honor The Hawk!

Cubs management says: Fans should prepare to be in their seats before 6:40pm in order to watch the pregame ceremony.

Tickets available via: Stub Hub | Ticket Network | Gold Coast Tickets

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In his ten major league seasons, Bobby D. started and finished his playing career in Philadelphia. In fact he still wears his NL Championship ring from his days as a Phillie. But for the past several years he has been a roving instructor in the Cubs organization, coaching outfield play and baserunning.

Earlier this year, I was in the press box at Elfstrom Stadium in Geneva when the Cubs A-ball affiliate the Peoria Chiefs were in town playing the Kane County Cougars. Bob Dernier was with the Chiefs that series, working with the Cub farmhands and spinning yarns from his playing days. It was a treat to watch a game with him, watching how he charted pitchers, timed deliveries and running with a stop watch, and quietly chatted with Cubs Assistant General Manager, Randy Bush. Bush is Jim Hendry’s right hand man and he appeared in the press box in the first inning to sit with Dernier and talk baseball. It was a real treat to be a fly on the wall, observing these two baseball lifers. Bobby D. had recently quit smoking (I never understood how professional athletes can smoke?) and “Bushie” as Dernier called him was congratulatory. 

Randy Bush and Bob Dernier

Now Bob Dernier has been promoted to first base coach with the big club. He’s back in Cubs pinstripes – at least for the last several weeks of the season. It’s obvious Dernier was teammates with Sandberg, who is/may be the heir-apparent. But proving the tight circle of acquaintance that is baseball, Derier and Cubs third base coach Ivan DeJesus were teammates on the ‘82 & ‘83 Phillies. So, at least on the Cubs coaching staff, the band is back together.

I don’t believe promoting Bob Dernier to the Cubs major league coaching staff has any bearing or is any indication whatsoever of Ryne Sandberg’s status as a mangerial candidate for 2011 and beyond. But it is interesting to see how these old teammates shuffle around.

Dernier working with Logan Watkins

Dernier & Watkins

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Mike Quade gets his chance to manage the Cubs

With Lou stepping aside early, this allows the organization to get on with player evaluation and for coach Mike Quade, an opportunity to audition for the Cubs managerial position in 2011 and beyond.

When I first hear Tribune beat writer Paul Sullivan say Quade is a leading candidate for the job, I started talking to myself, alone in my car trying to enjoy a Sunday afternoon.  If this is in fact the case, I think it would say much about to what degree of rebuilding the Cubs are planning. If Quade is named manager next season, we are in for a long haul, Cub fans.

That Quade was named manager for the remainder of this disasterous season puzzled me. In Lou’s prior absence, bench coach Alan Trammel was acting manager. Now Hendry says Trammel is “not being considered” as a managerial candidate in a “wide open” search. I guess Trammel didn’t pass his audition. I wonder if Quade will do any better?

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Lou Piniella rides off into the sunset

Lou Piniella has called it a career. He came to Chicago saying this would be his final managerial job and yesterday morning it was announced he would retire following what would be a 16-5 drubbing by the Atlanta Braves, the exact same outcome from Cubs vs Braves on opening day this year. Ironic how that bookended the year for Lou.

Reading between the lines a bit in Lou and Jim Hendry’s comments on the matter, I wondered if the organization finally said enough is enough? Hendry said he and Lou had been talking about prematurely retiring for a few days leading up to yesterday. Lou said his family health situation required him to go back to Tampa again and it wasn’t fair to the club to leave again. So he called it quits. I just wonder if the suggestion didn’t come from Hendry.

Now the Cubs organization can get on with the tasks in front of them. The managerial search can continue in earnest, players can be evaluated, and apparently replacement field manager Mike Quade can get an audition.

It is worth noting Lou had about a million dollars left in 2010 salary that I assume he won’t be paid. So maybe that, along with the “salary relief” moves of Derrek Lee, Ted Lilly, Ryan Theriot, and lil’ Mike Fontenot will help the Cubs rebuild for 2011 and beyond?

With Lou’s departure he takes with him a stellar managerial career and actually a good run in Cubs pinstripes as well. He had 3 winning seasons in a row, which no Cubs manager had done since Leo Durocher had a winning record 5 seasons in a row from 1967-71. Lou clearly started better with the Cubs than he ended. Many observers felt the aging Lou had lost his edge by this season and clearly his mind was elsewhere having announced this would be his final year and then resigning even earlier than that.

It’s worth celebrating the career of Lou Piniella more than his Cubs tenure. Three winning seasons out of four is a good start, but no bronze statues to Lou will be coming to Wrigleyville any time soon.

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Derrek Lee banner inside Wrigley Field 8/19/10

The Cubs having traded fan favorite  Derrek Lee to the Atlanta Braves, it was strange to see him playing first base and batting cleanup for the visiting team on Friday at Wrigley Field. In his first at bat, Lee stepped to the plate to a rousing standing ovation, tipped his helmet to the crowd and promptly flied out. Class moves on the part of the Chicago fans and the subject of their admiration.

Derrek Lee’s Cubs banner still hangs in the main concourse at Wrigley, but not for long. With this season a total loss, GM Jim Hendry has been doing all he can to shed salary and gain some room to maneuver for 2011 and beyond. The casual fan bemoans the Lee trade but in reality it’s a good move for all involved. Derrek has the opportunity to compete for a playoff berth down the stretch and the Cubs gain some significant “salary relief”. Lee had about $3.2 million remaining in 2010 paydays and is an unrestricted free agent going into the off season. Retaining Lee to play out the stretch in Cubs pinstripes really has little baseball value. It was smart to unload those millions and get three prospects in return. The three minor leaguers in the deal (RHP Robinson Lopez and Tyrelle Harris, and LHP  Jeffrey Lorick) are likely fringe prospects, all are in A- or AA- ball. So they will likely not see major league action for a few years.

Derrek Lee casts a big shadow

I think Derrek Lee will be missed (on the field) most by Aramis Ramirez. D-Lee took some of the spotlight off A-Ram both in terms of marketing focus but also in offensive production responsibilities. But his biggest value to Ramirez will likely be how many throwing errors Lee saved him. With his long reach and sure glove, I think Lee has not been given the credit deserved for stabilzing the Cubs third base position for the past 6 years. When Aramis came to the Cubs, he was considered a lousy fielder. He’s worked on his glove abilities but no doubt about Lee having saved him plenty of times on off target throws; high, low, and wide.

In his seven seasons as a Cub, Lee hit 179 Hrs, 11th most in franchise history. In 924 games with the Cubs, Lee batted .298 with 578 runs scored, 239 doubles and 574 RBI. His bat, his glove, his leadership, and his personality will surely be missed. But at 34 years old and going into a free agent year after a down offensive season, it was time.

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A lot has been made recently about Torii Hunter – a nine-time Gold Glove centerfielder – moving to a corner spot to make room for the speedy rookie Peter Bourjos. A look at our data supports this move. Hunter was the best center fielder in baseball in 2003 and 2004, the earliest years for which we have Defensive Runs Saved data. However, since then he has been average, having saved his team a meager total of two runs defensively from 2006 to 2009. This year he has cost his team one run defensively.

Our Good Plays/Misplays data (see definitions below) also confirms that Hunter has lost his golden touch. So far in 2010, Torii Hunter has committed only one error, but he also has 24 Misplays to go along with that. We credit him with 14 Good Plays. This means that he has made 11 more misplays and errors than good plays. This is one of the worst totals in all of baseball among center fielders. This is surprising considering that both Hunter and Adam Jones (worst in baseball with 16 more errors and misplays than good plays) won Gold Gloves last year. Neither seems to be making a strong case to repeat as a Gold Glove winner. Here are the Net Good Plays/Misplays leaders and trailers in centerfield:

*Net Good Plays/Misplays is the number of Misplays and Errors subtracted from the number of Good Fielding Plays

Through only a week of play, Bourjos has managed to make three Good Fielding Plays while avoiding a single Misplay or Error. In only eight games, Bourjos has saved five runs with his defense in center field. Obviously this is a small sample to take into account, but think of it like a rookie who hits .400 with three home runs in his first week in the majors. He’s unlikely to maintain that pace, but it’s a good sign for the future of the Angels’ outfield.

Definitions:

A Defensive Misplay (DM) is recorded when a fielder does something identifiably wrong, such as losing a fly ball in the sun or missing the cutoff man, and an opposing batter reaches base or a runner takes an extra base as a result. There are currently 54 types of defensive misplays we record. We often group Defensive Misplays and Errors (DME) together because they’re both detrimental fielding plays.

We award a Good Fielding Play (GFP) when a fielder makes a play that we wouldn’t ordinarily expect him to make, and the action has the positive consequence of recording an unexpected out or preventing baserunner advancement. GFPs are not necessarily plays on which the player looks good making the play—diving or spinning. Scooped throws out of the dirt and robbed home runs are two of the 27 different types of Good Fielding Plays. Combined, GFPs and DMEs give us another perspective on a player’s defensive performance.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter!

Used with permission from John Dewan’s Stat of the Week™, http://www.statoftheweek.com/.

The Fielding Bible–Volume II by John Dewan | Get Cubs tickets to any game!

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A hot start can make a big difference in how players are perceived for the rest of the season. However, many times these same stretches occur in the middle of the season and may go unnoticed. A miniscule season ERA or a batting average above .400 for a couple of months at the start of the season makes fans take notice. Ubaldo Jimenez had a red-hot first two months, and thanks to a flashy 10-1 record and a 0.78 ERA through the end of May, he earned the start for Charlie Manuel’s NL All- Stars. However, if Jimenez’s hot streak had come in June and July rather than April and May, would he getting the same amount of Cy Young talk? Here are the best pitchers from the first two months of the season, based on allowing opposing hitters the lowest OPS. (We’ll abbreviate Opponent On-base percentage Plus Slugging percentage as OOPS)

Now, let’s look at the best pitchers in the last two months:

Regular baseball fans know about many or most of the players on the first list. Players like Jimenez, Roy Halladay, Adam Wainwright, and Phil Hughes got off to great starts, earning them attention. These great starts stick in your mind. It’s human nature. But maybe the more interesting names are the guys on the second list. Did you know that over the last two months, Mat Latos and Trevor Cahill are the top two pitchers in the league in opponent OPS? Did you know Gavin Floyd had the second best ERA over June and July, behind only Josh Johnson? In the last couple of months all of these pitchers have pitched at an exceptional level, just like the guys who did the same in the first two months of the season. But there’s no question that it’s still the players on the first list that are getting the most attention.

My research crew and I are now on Twitter. Follow us at www.twitter.com/fieldingbible

Used with permission from John Dewan’s Stat of the Week™, http://www.statoftheweek.com/.

The Fielding Bible–Volume II by John Dewan | Get Cubs tickets to any game!

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A Cub-fan friend of mine recently said to me that Carlos Marmol is two entirely different pitchers. One day, he comes out of the bullpen and is unhittable, but the next day he is wild and ineffective. He assured me he could predict how well Carlos Marmol would fare in the game based on his immediate performance when he entered the game. I found this fascinating. Could you really predict whether good Marmol or bad Marmol is going to pitch that day after, say, ten pitches? If you could, that would be a tremendous advantage to have.

The thing about Carlos Marmol is that he is basically unhittable. The batting averages against him since 2007 are incredibly paltry, .169 in 2007, .135 in ‘08, .170 in 2009 and .148 this year. The only way to beat him is to hope that he is wild. Let’s take a look at every game in which Marmol has appeared since 2007 and we’ll break down his first ten pitches into the total number of balls and strikes. What we’ll try to do is see if Marmol’s performance can be predicted based how wild he is. We can hypothesize that the more balls he throws in the first 10 pitches, the less effective he will be. Our measure of effectiveness will be opposing OPS for at-bats that begin after the 10th pitch in each of Marmol’s appearances from 2007 through last night. Here is the opponent OPS based on how many balls Marmol throws in his first ten pitches.

Our hypothesis was incorrect:  Marmol’s first ten pitches aren’t indicative of things to come. The good news for Cubs fans is that regardless of the number of balls thrown in the first ten pitches, Marmol is remarkably effective and consistent.

Used with permission from John Dewan’s Stat of the Week™, http://www.statoftheweek.com/.

The Fielding Bible–Volume II by John Dewan | Get Cubs tickets to any game!

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