I go into the off season thinking Hammel was nothing more than a guy. The Cubs defense was amazing last year and I see no major reason for it to regress. They target an injury special or someone that doesn't walk a ton with average homerun rate. Out of 73 MLB pitchers that had qualified innings pitched, the Cubs starters were 3,4,6,8 and 13 in opposing .BABIP.

The entire Cubs staff .BABIP was .255, or good enough for 5th among qualified starters.

They know what they are doing and the type of pitcher they want to fill out that rotation. Could be Montgomery, could be someone on a horrible defensive team that was "unlucky". But they are going to make a move for a guy, everyone will bitch for a day. Then look at his profile and see he has the exact profile that will excel in front of that defense.

Isn't Hammel the guy you described?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Hammel had one of the worst HR rates in 2016. He also had higher LD% and FB% rates. He has trended downward over the last couple of seasons, even though the Cubs defense has bailed him out a few times so the results were never that bad.

Hammel is another "thank you for your service" guy. If the Cubs have a chance to improve the fifth starter, you take it.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

They sign Chapman to big bucks, big fat red will explode.

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Pretty much in the first half, but he seemed to get beat around come mid summer. I'm surprised to see him not get picked back up, but at the same time I'm not upset by it. Looking at free agents, I like Jhoulys Chacin to compete for his job. Seems like the type of pitcher they'd grab for 2 years.

Why do you feel that's a good thing? BABIP can be expected to normalize around .300. While allowing for a nod to the Cubs defense I think it's still pretty safe to say that such a BABIP for a pitching staff is evidence of a whole lot of good luck.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

BABIP is proportionate to a high weak contact / hard contact ratio.

Arrieta, Lester and Hendricks give up some of the weakest contact in MLB.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

Dan Straily having a .239 on the reds may be seen as luck or an over-performance. But an entire staff doing it tells me they are doing something to draw it out. The gap between them and second place Blue Jays was .027 who had a .BABIP of .282. If you drop down that same gap again you have a .BABIP of .309, good for 28th in baseball.

We will soon find out. Also, there .BABIP last year as a team was .287 so this must be 2 years in a row they have been lucky. If they regress to a .300+ .BABIP they will be in a dogfight with the cardinals for the division.

Exactly...So you don't rest on your laurels...you try to continue to improve the staff. Bye bye Hammel.

Do they keep Lackey as a 4th or 5th starter? I would.

Let's shuffle a few arms out of the bullpen too. I'd guess they want to fill the bullpen with multi inning guys who are capable of the spot start while grooming a couple closers.

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I do find this conversation fascinating because the conventional wisdom immediately after McCracken's research became public was that, from the perspective of the pitcher/defense, "the results of all balls in play are based on luck and over a large enough sample will always be somewhere close to .300." Now this viewpoint seems to be undergoing modification to a point where there is the idea that perhaps where batted balls go and what happens to them (besides home runs, of course) is controllable to a greater degree by the pitcher/defense than previously believed.

However, and this is something that good dolphin has mentioned countless times, there seems to be a predisposition among SABRmetricians to confer special status on certain people, e.g. Beane, Epstein. Which leads me to wonder, if the White Sox or Royals had a staff BABIP of .250 would the prevailing viewpoint be that such was good or lucky.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Royals - good (great defense)
White Sox - lucky (bad defense before this year)

see Indians before Lindor.

You're missing the point. I believe the historic numbers illustrate that regardless of who your defenders are a BABIP so far under .300 is not sustainable.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

I agree I assume it's not sustainable but the question is what is the stabilization point. The entire staff significantly outperformed the metric for the entire year. There could be a good deal of regression and still be the best team in baseball at the metric.

Yeah, I don't know. And the numbers that McCracken was looking at were all prior to the exaggerated shifts that are being used today.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

To the contrary, the smart opinion is that Theo knows how to sign free agents that will propel the Cubs to a World Series title.

I can't find the stat to back it up. But toward the end of the year I thought the Cubs had deployed the fewest shifts in baseball.

So it continues....

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I'd never trust Phil McCracken numbers on anything

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Proud member of the white guy grievance committee

It aint the six minutes. Its what happens in those six minutes.

Cubs fewest in mlb at 399. Compared to the Astros over 1800 batters faced.

and buried the Red Sox

Really, the worst thing an owner can do to Theo is given him a blank check in FA

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

That doesn't sound like a really good plan, does it?

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

They essentially gave the same call to Dex Fowler.

That plan seemed to work out OK when he smoked Kluber for a leadoff HR in game 7...

I'm not a Red Sox fan.

Apparently Theo's FA signings in Chicago were the reason, other than Bryant, that they won the WS, open the checkbook again.

What are you talking about? They brought Fowler back. They're not re-signing Hammel.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

Right, they made Fowler a qualifying offer in the offseason. That's essentially saying you have the option to return, or test the market.

That is the exact same choice that the Cubs gave Hammel. Come back to the Cubs or test the market. It's the same thing.

They didn't make a Qualifying Offer to Hammel. It's not the same thing. And the Cubs aren't doing it. It's a stupid comment by Jesse and just not true, even if someone from the Cubs told him it was. If they wanted Hammel back they would have exercised his option. Anyone who thinks they let the player make the call is kidding himself. Theo is a lot tougher than that.

_________________
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Matthew, Tulsi, and Don

A team option is not the same as a player option/mutual option.

One Post with a rough thread.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Hold on, five posts ago, you read the report which stated the Cubs gave Hammel the choice to return, and slammed the front office has having a shitty plan.

Now you're saying that the Cubs didn't want him back all along?

Which one is it?