Baseball Prospectus finally released their depth charts today and it has the Cubs team hitting .275/.337/.460. The depth charts are basically the intelligent look through the team's PECOTA projections and assigning playing time at each position. No more Tyler Colvin or Mark Pawelek's in the projections. For example, BP has Soriano projected to get 90% of the playing time in CF followed by Felix Pie and Angel Pagan each at 5%.

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There isn't much to this diary.  It took only a handful of minutes to do the research, but I thought it might be something that interests a few who frequently post on here.

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I'm not sure what this means yet and I meant to point it out a couple days ago as I was finally getting started researching team negative VORP. I've only got 2005 and 2006 done so far so it's going to be a few days yet until I have much to say about it, but one thing jumped out at me as I was tallying the team negative VORPs.

In Lou Piniella's final year in Tampa Bay (2005) his team, offensively (minus pitchers), produced negative VORP from 8 players, which is below average (not sure how much though yet) for a total negative VORP of -11.9; almost half of which came from catcher, Pete Laforest.

Also, 9.6% of the team's plate appearances were taken by people (non-pitchers) who produced a negative VORP. This number is so far below average it's remarkable for a team that wasn't very good.

Only two teams in all of baseball in 2005 gave a lower percentage of plate appearances to guys who produced negative VORP (Boston was under 4% and Atlanta was 9.5%). I'm not yet sure of the average, but I think it's in the low 20s and several teams were in the 30s.

The -11.9 offensive VORP the team had was the lowest negative VORP produced in 2005.

I hope this is a sign of what we can expect from Piniella, but i'll let you know as I get more information.  Something tells me this is an outlier and that managing has little to do with team VORP.  

For what it's worth, in 2006 (offensively), the D-Rays (Piniella's first season away from managing them) allowed a whopping 46.3% of their plate appearances to be taken by 15 players who produced a negative VORP at the plate for a combined total of -96.2 VORP (the most in baseball; the Cubs had the 2nd most).

So based on this minimal amount of information, perhaps Piniella doesn't stand for people who aren't producing at the plate. If so, and i'll have more information by the end of this week, then we can probably add 3-4 wins simply because of the managerial change the Cubs made this offseason.

I noticed a lot of positivity lately presumably because the Cubs have been playing better baseball lately.

If the Cubs can finish like they have played the last couple of months they will end up around 67-95 give or take a couple of games.......Does anyone know what Tampa Bay's record was last year?  It was 67-95.  

A healthy DLee, a healthy Prior and next year could be the exact same kind of season.  What is to say that two of the rookies won't come back next year on fire .....how many Devil Rays fans thought their rookies were gonna be so good?  I mean, besides Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, The Hardball Times, and all the other people that thought the D-Rays prospects were good.  

So many posters on here (myself included) have voiced their opinions stating, "let the kids play" since the season is lost anyway.  Well the kids are playing and they are going to take their lumps, the key is for them to become completely different players in the offseason...and to reflect.  If Cedeno can learn to hit 30 homers play better defense while Murton learns to hit 40 homers this team is then only 12 or 13 players away from being really, really good.  

I am not real knowledgeable about how Tampa Bay played as a team last year (I started taking drugs and drinking heavily last year) so let me know why you think that either the Devil Rays were in the same situation as the Cubs are or why they were better off than this years Cubs are heading into next season.