Early season trends for cubs players

beckdawg

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I'm some what bored this morning to I felt like digging through random things. This wont exactly be coherent but just some interesting things that I found. We're a little less than 10% into the season and I get that but there's not much else to talk about at this point.

To start with, the cubs offense has the 6th highest k rate at 24.1%. Overall, they are hitting better than last year at a .241/.305/.362 clip vs .238/.300/.392 though as you can see their slugging is slightly down though given that it's April that's not all that surprising. The biggest offenders in the k rate at the moment(with 20+ PAs) are Lake at 35.1%, Castillo 35.0%, Ruggiano 33.3%, Kalish 28.0% and Sweeney 26.7%. The rest of the team is below 25% k rate which is where I'd throw the upper bound of "acceptable."

So, it appears as though adding another OF might be worth while. I'm wondering if that soon might be Josh Vitters who's hitting .303/.378/.545 albeit in the PCL with a 10.8%/21.6% walk/k rate in 37 PAs. He's crushed AAA pitching the past 3 years so at some point you have to throw him into the majors for an extended look(109 PAs at age 22 isn't enough for me). I'm sure another thing that's coming here will be the "but what about Soriano" comments. For what that is worth, Soriano is hitting .222/.271/.467 in 48 PAs. Perhaps he will get hot like he sometimes does but at the moment he's not very good.

It's not all bad news. Bonifacio is obviously playing extraordinarily well. The biggest reason appears to be his contact. His walk/k rate this season is 7.1%/12.5% vs his career 7.9%/20.3%. So, the big jump this year seems to be tied to him striking out less. His average and OBP is obviously going to come down some and his .455 BABIP is unsustainable. His best season his BABIP was .372 so you could easily see his average come down 80 points and if it did his season triple slash probably looks eerily similar to his 2011 season of .296/.360/.393. That said, if his k's stay this low he's a much more valuable player even than that 2011 season because that year he was at 20.1% k rate.

Rizzo is another stand out performer at 7.4%/14.8% walk/k rate. BABIP with him is probably slightly unsustainable at .342 but not that bad considering his 2012 season was .310 and .300 is considered "average." Rizzo's walks are down 3.5% from 2013 but statistically he's pretty in line with that 2012 season. Makes me wonder if part of his problem in 2013 was confidence in pitch selection because he also struck out more in 2013. In other words, he's putting more balls in play this season and it's at a similar rate to his 2012 season.

Castro statistically looks some where between his 2012 season and his first two years. As such, expecting him to be around a 3 WAR player seems a safe bet.

Olt's not walking a lot yet. He's at 3.6% walk rate where as in the minors and his first call up with the Ranges he was above 12%. He's also suffering from a bit of bad BABIP at .222. 5% walk rate is worth about 20 points in OBP over 500 PAs. So considering he is currently hitting .231/.286/.500 that is pretty encouraging. His walk rate going up to a "normal" level alone would make him around a .325 OBP guy. And with his BABIP that low even at a .250 BABIP for the full season that puts him in the .260/.340/.500ish range which would be pretty appealing and possibly a low estimate.

Those 4 players look like they could potentially be 2.5-3+ WAR players. I'm sort of assuming that Schierholtz will likely be gone at the trading deadline and they might play Vitters in LF and Lake in RF and Bonifacio stays steady in CF or 3B if Olt needs the day off. That then frees up 2B/SS presumably for Alcantar/Baez/Castro/whomever who hopefully adds another player like that. It'd be nice if Castillo started hitting too. As such, if the younger players continue to progress throughout the year I feel the offense could look some what decent by midseason.

It's a lot tougher to get a read on pitching as there's no where near the sample size hitters have. The bullpen is walking too many guys. Wright, Grimm, Strop, Russell and Veras are all walking over 4.9 per 9 innings. Moving Villnueva back to the pen should help as he's yet to walk a guy. And hopefully replacing him in the rotation would be another upgrade to pitching. Jackson's still there and not sure there's much you can do about that. The other 3 starters have looked decent.

Having given this some thought, I'm not as convinced that Shark is a goner unless they get a ridiculous offer for him. If they trade him they have the possibility of losing 2 of their starters. And while they easily have the budget to bring in a Masterson/Shields/whomever type they'd still need to replace Hammel or re-sign him to a likely bigger deal than he has now. I'm just having trouble seeing them taking another Edwards type prospect back who's that far away from the majors as the "key" piece. If they lose both Hammel and Shark then Wood might be their only reliable starter. Arrieta might be ok but we've yet to see him over an extended period. Jackson has yet to pitch well for the cubs. And after those guys there's not anything even remotely proven.
 

hyatt151

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Olt's not walking a lot yet. He's at 3.6% walk rate where as in the minors and his first call up with the Ranges he was above 12%. He's also suffering from a bit of bad BABIP at .222. 5% walk rate is worth about 20 points in OBP over 500 PAs. So considering he is currently hitting .231/.286/.500 that is pretty encouraging. His walk rate going up to a "normal" level alone would make him around a .325 OBP guy. And with his BABIP that low even at a .250 BABIP for the full season that puts him in the .260/.340/.500ish range which would be pretty appealing and possibly a low estimate.




If we would play him everyday, instead of Valbuena, we might get a better idea of what we have. I have no problem with Luis as a utility player, but playing him 75% of the time over Olt is borderline criminal.
 

beckdawg

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If we would play him everyday, instead of Valbuena, we might get a better idea of what we have. I have no problem with Luis as a utility player, but playing him 75% of the time over Olt is borderline criminal.

While I don't entirely disagree with the sentiment, Olt does have 28 PAs to Rizzo's 54 and was battling an injury. I suspect he'll be worked in more as he overcomes his arm issues.
 

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