Thursday Morning Headlines and Wrigley Resodding Update - 11/1

With the Indians and Dodgers both moving spring training to Phoenix, that will make 14 teams in Arizona for the spring.

I'm really concerned about spring training here in Tucson. They make a big deal about traveling to Phoenix and vice versa but don't teams have to travel around Florida? A lousy 1 1/2 hour bus ride to Phoenix or Tucson doesn't seem like such a big deal to me.

I've used it for several years now in planning my trips and the guy does a good job of pulling together master schedules as each team releases theirs, as well as filling in the blanks for the unreleased schedules.  Scroll down the left side to see team links for both Grapefruit and Cactus leagues.

Cubs schedule has not been released yet, but based on what's already out there, he's put together a partial one.  Here's that URL:
http://www.springtrainingonline.com/teams/chicago_cubs_4.htm

I note that you can also vote for Ron Santo on this ballot, and Pat Hughes. You can vote once per valid email address per day, and vote for up to three names on the ballot. (Make sure you uncheck the "I want to receive commercial email" box EVERY TIME!)

1.  Since 2001, Hunter's OPS+ has been below 100 only once, at 98.  He has highs of 124 (2002) and 122 (2007).  Since 2001 Jones had an OPS+ above 100 3 times and below 4 times.  HIs high was 123 (2002) but he has also had lows of 87 (2007) and 89 (2004). (baseball reference)

Advantage:  Hunter and it's not close

This accounts for a much more consistent power game out of Hunter as well as a more consistent OBP, albeit a middling one, at around .335 over the past few years.

2. You can also expect Hunter to put up around 20 steals.  In the past 6 years he has stolen 23, 6, 23, 21, 12, and 18 steals, in order.  I have no idea why he only stole 6 although I think it would be related to this:  One of the outliers, when he stold 12 bases in 2006, was in a season where he had injured his ankle and missed 15 games.  The ankle affected his steals and his power numbers all year.

Jones has never stolen more than 13 bases and those numbers  have fallen to 9 and 6 in the past 2 years.  Also, he's a horrifyingly bad baserunner. (yahoo)

Advantage:  Hunter, again, not that close.

3. Surprisingly, Jones's R/L splits weren't as stark as they have been in years past.  For example, in 2006 he hit .234 against lefties and .303 against righties.  This past season he hit .295 against lefties and .283 agasint righties.  This is partly due to smarter use of Jones by Piniella I'd assume but it's interesting nonetheless.  Hunter's career splits are somewhat different for his career, hitting .282 vs. lefties and .267 against righties but he has destroyed lefties in 06 and 07, hitting .319 and .314 respectively. (yahoo)

Advantage: Push

4.  Defense. You would think it would Hunter by a mile but as it turns out, Jones played a pretty damn good CF for us.  His RATE2 was 118, and his FRAA2 was 13.  Hunter's RATE2 was only 103 and his FRAA2 was just 2.  I'm not quite sure what to make of this but it seems that the advantage would go to Jones.  If you look at the positions where he played the majority of his games in Minnesota, he actually played well above average defense.  Hunter had three spectacular years around the turn of the Millenium but has been surprisingly average since then. (baseball prospectus)

I'm not quite ready to dismiss years of Hunter making spectacular plays and Jones bouncing the ball into second but...

Advantage:  Jones.

So...it seems that offensively, it's Hunter by a mile, defensively, the stats tell us it's Jones but our heads tell us it's Hunter.

I think I've proven my point.  Hunter is a better player than Jones and the past 2 years have contributed to that.  Hunter has had WARP3s of 7.5 and 8.2 while Jones has only had 5.8 and 4.5. (prospectus).

I'm not recommending we sign Hunter for a lot of reasons, one of them being Felix Pie but, I mean, if we were to trade Pie for someone, it wouldn't hurt to have an outfielder who has the capability of hitting 30 jacks (31 in 06 and 28 in 07) and steal 20 bases.  Age is a concern.  The contract would have to be short and for the right price, but...do not call Torii Hunter Jacques Jones.

DmL

DmL

Were they afraid that she MIGHT make it because she was good, so they deliberately reduced their rating so they could let her go?

Fukudome does not look like he is as good as Hideki Matsui, but his Japanese stats look very good.  I don't think he will be better than, say, Cliff Floyd, as a hitter, but he will have better defense.

Kuroda is interesting, as MLBTR had this to say today about him:  

Hiroki Kuroda - One number to remember here: 300, as in 300 feet to left and 300 feet to right. That's the stadium Kuroda spent 10 years in, and still he managed to post a sub-2.00 ERA in 2006 and go 13-6. What could he do in Petco with 67 extra feet to left to play with?  Tak says that at the least, he's an innings eater.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2007/11/ranking-japanes.html

That 300 ft down the line stat should remind us about how difficult it can be to translate performance in the Japanese leagues to the American.  If Fukudome can hit 30 HR in Japan, well, how many of those went 305 ft?

Back to Kuroda - I'm not convinced he'll really be better than Jason Marquis - which is valuable at one level, but in my view, what the Cubs need is the kind of pitcher that can shut offenses down in the post-season, and I don't think Kuroda will be that.

Here's a question for the Fukudome supporters - given that a bunch of teams seem interested in Fukudome and he could easily be up at 3 years 30 million - is the risk/reward on Fukudome better than it would be on Ryan Church or Brad Wilkerson, given their comparative costs?