Timmy,
Sleep easy my boy. It is all bad luck. Close your eyes and whisper to yourself “It’s all about BABIP.” Lay in bed and count Albert Pujols-es, or Adam Dunns or even Raul Ibanez-es and fall asleep…but don’t ask yourself why those guys don’t have this bad luck for a third of the season. Don’t think about how the new guy that you brought in to make all of the bad things go away gets owies simply by running to first base. And even though you know deep down that the guy is a meanie who doesn’t play nice and gets the grown ups mad at him…just pretend that he drives an ice cream truck and makes everyone like him. I know you really don’t expect him to hit a million billion home runs every day, but maybe do something good every once in a while. It can make you sad. So just pretend like it isn’t there.
Don’t worry Timmy everything will be ok. We live in Cubville. It is a fantasy world where everything is happy, and smily, and sunny, and fun. Even though we are really in a scary forest where things never turn out good, we just smile and pretend that everything is fine. There are gumdrops and ice cream cones all over.
What’s that, Timmy? Our best hitter has a really bad owie and we don’t know when or how good he will be when he comes back? Don’t worry we have all of these little superheroes that can take his place named Miles, and Fontenot, and Theriot. They even have cool nicknames like “Little Babe Ruth” and “The Riot.” I know they’re not that good, but this is Cubville. We love guys like that. They are like little princes who walk up to the dragon and stomp on his toes. Just make sure you turn your head away when they get eaten by the dragon.This is Cubville we must stay happy.
We even have all of these guys with grey beards that have not been good enough to come to Cubville when they were younger…when most good guys come to their teams. These guys are named Scales, and Hoffpauir, and even a guy named Fox (Yeah, like the animal…isn’t that funny). These guys are so good with their swords. They swing them and people run away afraid. Just don’t ask them to do anything else. As long as you can swing your sword real hard you can be a king in Cubville.
Who is the jolly guy behind home plate? Did you know that guy won rookie of the year last year? Last year he was so good. Last year he hit a lot. Last year he was a pretty good catcher. Last year he was in the all star game…..oh don’t ask that Timmy. Don’t worry about what is happening this year. We live in Cubville. “This year” we close our eyes and try to be happy. Sometimes we think about last year but last year always makes us sad…always. So we usually like to think about next year around these parts. There is always hope that next year Cubville will be a happy place.
I know you keep having that bad nightmare. The one where our streaky lead off hitter makes everyone happy and falls apart at the end of the story. The one where it looks like you will finally get the “ring” you have longed for forever. Then just when you reach out for it…”my precious”…it is taken away by someone else. Close your eyes and cross your fingers and make a lot of wishes. That can’t happen every year can it?…Can it? Things can’t be as they seem can they? Our first baseman is not declining due to age. He is a Cub, his legend will live forever. Cubs do not grow old. I know most of the guys in that field are pretty mediocre. But just pretend like the guys who were always good are just playing bad for a little while. And pretend like the guys who are not very good will be really good by magic. I know it seems weird to say that the struggling guys will bounce back because that is what the magic numbers say (we call these stats), while at the same time saying that the mediocre guys will not fall back to their mediocre “stats”. Those struggling guys are called scrappy or cute and in Cubville cute and loveable and scrappy matters more than everything else.
Now go to sleep Timmy. Everything will be better in the morning. Soon the sun will shine and the ivy will grow and the girls will be wearing bikini’s. That’s all that mattters. And one day you will be old enough to drink so much magic potion in Cubville that you will not even care that things are so scary here.
Sleep well my boy. And don’t worry about that monster under your bed. He has been there for 101 years.
Love,
Uncle RobThe Skeleton Key move Animal 2 video
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock release
Don’t you mean Dear Jimmy?
One of two things is going to happen Mr. Jimmy. We start hitting and go on a 30-3 tear with our pitching so dominant as it is or our pitching goes normal and we still don’t hit and go 3-30.
I just don’t know if I can watch this team much longer. I mean AAAron Miles, really? I got to watch AAAron Miles, feces, I went to Randy’s Cub camp, I saw enough of AAArom Miles at Cub camp- don’t need to watch him stink up on my television.
Has anyone had a multi hit game lately? Anyone?
This team as constituted cannot go on a 30-3 run. There is no chance. There are far too many holes in the defense and far too many streaky players in the offense. The streaky players are the ones who are good at times and lousy at times. The others are the role players, the utility guys, who help good teams win championships. Now we may have been wrong to consider Ryan Theriot a utility guy, as he has become a competent SS. Mike Fontenot, though, is a utility guy. We saw him at his best last year. He plays too much now, and the holes in his offense begin to show. Bobby Scales and Andres Blanco are utility guys. Bobby hustles and hits a few balls well, and Blanco is a nice fielder. These three are a good solid utility infield crew, but of course Fontenot plays all the time. But Aaron Miles is just awful. His weak grounder in the 10th with Bradley on 2B was just what Miles does. He makes outs, not productive outs, just boring easy outs. And he is not that good with the glove, either. He kills us pretty much whenever he plays. Bring back Paul Noce, for God’s sake.
And of course, Bradley is also playing out of position. He, along with Micah Hoffpauir and Jake Fox, are DHs who are so out of position they are in the wrong league. Bradley hustles in RF, and he makes some decent plays, but he get hurt or pulled or strained or cramped daily and really is better off as the DH.
Meantime we see Soriano in one of the worst frozen streaks in his streaky career. Soto has had a few hits lately but still not very productive. There will be no magic wand to fix what ails this team. And there cannot be any more help at Iowa — we already have a quarter of the team that started the season down there.
We are seeing that St. Louis and Milwaukee are not very good and we may be in contention in what has turned into a weak division. But really, does any one of us see a World Series in this season? Lord, that would be a mirage, wouldn’t it?
Timmy asked me to point out that while Bradley’s slump may technically stretch across “a third of the season,” he’s had only about five weeks of at-bats.
Milton has hit .215 across his 130 at-bats.
While there isn’t a quick way to look for 130 AB stretches to compare, we can search by month.
Adam Dunn who “never” puts together a stretch like that, hit .174 over 184 at bats in Aug/Sept of 2006.
Raul Ibanez hit .218 in 101 at bats in May of 2008. He hit .184 in 103 AB in July ‘07.
The other thing Timmy wanted me to remind you was that the problem with believing that a guy’s play to this point in the season is his true ability is you have to apply that to everybody.
You really think Juan Pierre can hit .349 with a .409 OBP for a season? Absolutely nobody does. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you got lucky for an extended stretch. Baseball is like that.
Does Ben Zobrist look like a 34 HR hitter to you? No? Well, that’s the pace he’s on. Clearly, he’s just had a good run. It’s good luck.
It may seem really satisfying and pragmatic to look at Bradley’s horrific extended bad start to the year and predict gloom and doom, but really, it shows no better understanding of luck and sample sizes than pronouncing Juan Pierre a potential batting champ or Ben Zobrist the hot new power threat in the AL East.
just one question…at what point does the sample size become large enough that we can all say that the guy is an oft-injured, malcontent problem child who is nowhere near the hitter he was when he was juicing?
just wondering.
I’m not sure I understand the timeline of your Bradley-as-a-juicer theory.
Are you saying that three years *after* MLB started testing for steroids, Bradley juiced up without getting caught and went from an 800 OPS guy to a high 900s OPS guy?
And are you saying on top of that, despite coming up with heretofore unknown trick for juicing in the middle of the testing era and not getting caught, he abruptly stopped using them this season for no apparent reason, and with no discernible change to his weight or build?
That’s an, um, interesting theory.
Look, there are three reasons being bandied about why people should worry about Bradley.
One, he’s a malcontent hothead troublemaker. I don’t argue with this assessment, but I think if he hits, he can help his team win anyway. See: Ramirez, Manny.
Two: he’s brittle and injury-prone. That’s what people *SHOULD* be focusing on. He’s never going to turn a slump around from the bench or the DL.
Three: he’s been bad so far this season. This is the one I’m arguoing and the one that drives me nuts. Argue about his attitude, okay. His health? Of course. But 5 weeks worth of bad at-bats and he’s still drawing walks, not striking out more than usual, not swinging at different stuff than he usually does, and he’s still making contact on the same types of pitches as he usually does? It’s called a bad stretch. It happens.
The thing is that, as you say, the problems are that he is so fragile and that he is a jerk on top of not hitting. The bottom line is that we are a third of the way through the season. That is a fact. He has not hit yet. That is a fact. He has ignored the media. That is a fact. He has alienated fans. That is a fact. He has been injured a lot. That is a fact. He has been suspended for arguing with an umpire. That is a fact. He has called out the umpires and said that they are conspiring against him. That is a fact.
Saying that Bradley will come around is an assumption not a fact. It is based on factual statistics but it is not guaranteed. What we are talking about is the facts that we see now. There has been almost no production from Bradley up until this point. This point is one-third of the way through the season. Fair sample size. To argue that statements should not be ade about Bradley producing doesn’t make sense. Should Yankee fans not have been upset about Carl Pavano because he was injured so much and didn’t have the chance to pitch well? Of course not. Yankee fans cared about production. And with Pavano they got a whole lot of nothing for a whole lot of money. Which is what we have gotten from Bradley so far. Do I think this will change? Yes. But we discuss what is happening now. This is not a two week slump. This is a one-third of the season lack of production.
And regarding the stats you bring up about Dunn and Ibanez. It should say something to you that the Dunn stats you bring up are from three years ago. I would love it if you had to gp back three years to find big multi-month slumps from my heavy hitters.
In terms of days, not in terms of at-bats. In terms of at-bats, we’re looking at barely more than a bad month.
I used Dunn and Ibanez because they were two of the names listed in the above article as guys who never have a bad stretch like Bradley’s, I didn’t have to go to much trouble to find evidence they did. (Looking at this season’s batting leaders, I see that Morneau, Teixeira, and Beltran have had 4-to-6 week slumps within the last few years as well. And that’s just from the guys in the top dozen or so.)
Many, many good hitters have bad months. Dunn’s example was three years ago and if you go back to blogs at the time, you’ll find plenty of Reds fans tearing their hair out and predicting total doom. But the subsequent years show he clearly got over it.
Predicting doom feels weirdly good. And considering how much crap we go through as Cub fans, it can even feel like the smart, responsible tack to take.
But you have to separate emotion. You have to be able to look around the edges at other indicators. Bradley’s indicators aren’t showing doom at all. They’re showing a hundred and some odds of bad but not particularly unusual bad luck.
Not really.
0 and 3 might be a stretch,,,,BUT,,,, the Cubs currently have the majors best starters ERA at 3.60. Number 2 is the Dodgers at 3.76. So even a resumption of “average” hitting could put us on a hot streak. The most recent road trip could easily have been 8 and 0 with ONE additional hit in any of the games.Not even a homer, just a single hit with RISP.
Now WILL we go on such a run with the current cast of elfs and gingerbread men? Not likely. but even a normal out put by the bats would have us in first at present.
Ok, I screwed the pooch on the above. I meant to say 30 and 3 would be a stretch and mis edited the first quote, I still learning this grey box thing.
That was my point Seymour, with just average hitting we are way in first place with the pitching we have had. But alas, I am afraid our pitching will become average and our hitting will still stink and we will do a Don Baylor 2002, Dusty Baker 2006 nose dive. Heck even Big Z knows it, that’s why he is ready to retire.
Question for the stat dudes. Is scoring down across the league? Is this post juice offense a league wide problem? Does our pitching look more dominant because of a league wide offensive decline?
According to Baseball Prospectus, the Cubs’ expected winning percentage, based on runs scored and allow is .517, which is the second-highest in the division. Based on that and strength of opponents in remaining schedule, BP still ranks them as the NL Central team most likely to make the playoffs.
The “fair sample size” is saying that we have been through one-third of the year and he has not produced. I am not talking about his numbers relative to at bats. I am talking about his numbers through one-third of the season. Read what I write and respond to that, not what you want to respond to. If Bradley gets hurt tomorrow and cannot play for the entire three years of the contract does that mean we cannot say he was unproductive because he didn’t have enough at bats. I am not saying he won’t hit. I am saying that we are one-third of the way through the season, and for a variety of reason he has not produced. That is the point.
We’re reading what you’re saying. We’re just also pointing out that it doesn’t make sense.
When we look at sample size, we don’t look at calendars, we look at accumulated appearances. And so, while Bradley’s 130 AB may have stretched from the beginning of the season until the middle of June, they do not have any more statistical significance than the 130 at bats a regular player racked up over say, five weeks. And they certainly don’t tell us as much as say, Aaron Hill’s 264.
You’re using the phrase “a third of a season” to try and make the length of Bradley’s slump sound longer than it is. It’s 130 at bats so far. That’s it. If he’d hit .400, it wouldn’t even get him on the leaderboard because it’s well short of the AB he’d need to qualify for the batting title. It’s a small sample. Period.
When “sample size” is discussed, it’s strictly a matter of plate appearances for a hitter or relief appearances and/or starts for a pitcher. That’s it.
If a guy hit .375 (3 for
in a 5 game cup of coffee in 2006, then missed 2008 with injuries, then came up and went 1-for-1 today, would you say he’d been hitting .444 for three years? Of course not. Because the length of time is less important than the number of appearances.
I think the real issue with Bradley is that, in the middle of a Cubs season hyped by high hopes but already filled with disappointment, Milton’s got the kind of personality flaws that paint a big ol’ bullseye on his back. He’s fun to blame, and so, people are only too happy to pretend that not only is he a fragile jerk, but he’s all of a sudden forgotten how to hit the ball.
Then why do a majority of people here also jump all over Derek Lee?
You are not listening to what I am saying. You are wanting to comment on statistics and sample size and what will probably happen based on those. I am working with two black and whites. We are one third of the way through the season…fact. So far Milton Bradley’s numbers through one-third of the season .220. 5 hr, .331 ob, .371 slg. Through one-third of the season he has not produced. That might change. It probably will. But all I am saying is he has not produced and you were counting on him to produce. Pretty clear statement. I’m not saying it proves he is bad. I’m not saying it means he won’t hit. I’m saying you counted on him to produce and he hasn’t so far. It’s like people cannot break out of their statistical analysis and “sample size” mantra. I am not talking about how many at bats he has had thus far. I am talking about someone you counted on to do good things who hasn’t.
Which brings me back to my Carl Pavano example. No one would argue that the Yankee fans cannot complain that he was unproductive because he didn’t have enough starts. It is a black and white. In three years with the Yankees he had nine wins. Black and white stat. Yes he was injured. He made almost $8 million per win for the Yankees. He was unproductive. Obvious and simple.
You need absolutely no advanced statsitical analysis to make the statement that up until this point Milton Bradley has not produced for the Cubs. It’s been one-third of a season. The numbers are the numbers. They will change. but my comments are discussing the present.
And I do agree that Bradley is a lightning rod for fan disappointment. But he has not produced. If he would be producing the fans would find a different lightning rod.
Pavano is apples and oranges. When we talk sample size, we’re deciding if we have enough data to forecast where a player’s performance is headed in the future. Pavano’s contract is over. Bradley’s has 78% left.
The people painting Bradley as washed up actually have a great deal in common with the lunkheads who thought it was a good idea to sign Pavano. Those folks drew conclusions about how Pavano would do for the next few years based on his most recent numbers, ignoring his career trends and his more telling component stats. And so, they decided he was worth $38 million… then got what was coming to them.
In the same way, it’d be easy to look at how Bradley has done most recently in a few of the less helpful stats (BA, RBI) and jump to some pretty awful conclusions. And that’s what you’re doing. You say you’re just presenting facts, but you’re cherry-picking these items (and ignoring crucial others) to infer some pretty dire conclusions about Bradley’s future performance.
This is why we look at career numbers and trends and component stats–not because we want to ignore what’s “black and white” but because there are a million shades of gray we have to pick through to keep from doing something stupid like banking on Carl Pavano.
It’s because there’s more to a player’s future than simply looking at what he has done for us lately.
When Bradley catches the second out in the inning and throws the ball into the stands because he’s not paying attention and thinks the inning is over, I don’t really care what he’s going to do for us over the life of his contract, stats or no stats.
Absolutely no one has argued at any point that Bradley has done well so far. The results are not there, clearly. The argument is about whether it is or is not indicative of some loss of ability or whether it is just another case of a good player going through an extended slump.
Absolutely no one has argued that there is any sure way to know how he will perform for the rest of the year. The argument is whether the best way to estimate this is by looking at his year-to-date stats or looking at his career numbers and ancillary skills.
And that’s totally fair, lizzie. Disliking a guy is your right. I’m certainly not arguing for Bradley as a great guy or player we should all like.
I am, however, arguing against letting distaste for him personally and/or shallow reading of a small sample size worth of stats lead us to hysterical predictions of doom about his career path.
So I would argue yet again, where did I make any comment on what Milton Bradley will do in the future? My comments are that up until now he has not produced. I don’t see how that is debatable.
Well, I said Bradley’s sample size wasn’t enough to make conclusions about how he would do for the rest of the year and you jumped in saying it was a fair sample size.
I’m not attempting to bust your chops, Rob.
But if you weren’t arguing against my theory about slumps/sample size giving the wrong indications about Bradley’s poor numbers so far, why insist it was a big enough sample size? For that matter, if you’re not opposed to that theory, why goof on it in a letter to Timmy about looking at the world through rose-colored glasses?
I love debating crap like this. I hope you’re having fun. I sure am.
Though I do feel odd taking anything resembling a pro-Bradley stance, given that I’d gladly smash the Gatorade machine over his thick head.
Bob,
Here is what I am saying:
Milton Bradley has not produced as of yet. If we were two weeks into the season and he hadn’t produced that would be too small of a sample size to make a deal out of it. So what it has been two weeks. But after one-third of a season you can bring up that a guy you were counting on hasn’t prodcued yet. That’s all I am saying.
Regarding the letter, which I wrote in response to Matt’s post yesterday, I think it is rose colored glasses to say that Bradley is just having bad luck. This is what was said after Matt’s post. It might be bad luck if you are looking at BABIP. But just because it is bad luck doesn’t make it any better in the present.
Well, obviously I’m not arguing he’s done well.
But I’ll argue forever that calling it “a third of a season” is trying to make it sound more significant than it is. He doesn’t have enough AB to be in the batting race. He’s been to the plate a hundred or so times less than everyday players. He has as many AB as an average guy gets over say, 5 weeks. And no matter how long a period of calendar days this sample has been stretched out over, 130 AB is 130 AB.
Consider again, this example:
If a guy hit .375 (3 for 8 ) in a 5 game cup of coffee in 2006, then missed 2007 with injuries, then came up and went 1-for-1 in 2008, would you say he’d been a .444 hitter for three years? Of course not. Because the length of time is less important than the number of appearances.
Can we say for sure that his poor performance is the result of bad luck? Of course not. But we can compare him to other good players who’ve had extended slumps and then turned them around. And in their cases, like Bradley’s, their BABIP was much lower than their career average, while their walk and K rates as good as ever.
The present is this: Milton Bradley plays for the Cubs. He’s done badly so far this season. But all of those games are over. Can we tell by looking at data, trends, patterns, etc. how he will likely do from here on out? Probably. And it doesn’t look bad.
You don’t need rose colored glasses to see that, just logic and math.
I wish we could argue this in person. I hate doing back-to-back posts, but I get riled up and, well…
Anyway, forget sample size. Forget Bradley’s future. Forget Bradley for a second.
Juan Pierre has hit like Ichiro this year. He’s hit .349 with a .409 OBP. Is that his real level of ability?
Well, of course not, you say. I’m not an idiot.
Then how did he do it?
He got lucky for a while, you say.
How do you know it’s luck and not a change in his ability, I ask.
And you say, because I looked at his career numbers and his peripherals and it just doesn’t look like anything that can last.
Is there any part of that you disagree with, Rob?
So cannot the inverse also be true? When we see a good player have an insanely bad stretch that doesn’t fit into his career and doesn’t seem to match his peripherals, can we not that bad luck the same as we call Pierre’s streak good luck?
I agree with everything you just said. It could be luck. It might not be. He has presently not performed. To me this is a static observation. As I said all along it could change. I would guess it will. I hope it will. But currently it is what it is.
To say that he has not performed in the first third of the season is not a statement about the future. It is not a statement of trend. It is a statement of fact. It states the present situation. Therefore, it is not an attempt to overstate things. It is just saying what has happened as of now. And again to say that someone has not performed at the one-third point of the season is not like saying it at the two week mark, because that would not have mattered much yet. In this case it is a good amount of the season and it does matter.
To put this another way, the point is discussing bradley’s importance to the team and that through 60 games he hasn’t contributed a lot. Neither has Ryan Vitters. You could say that he hasn’t contributed much to the major league team this year as well. The difference is that the Cubs expected and need Milton Bradley to contribute in order to win. That is the point. I am talking about the current state and why they are not winning more.
If things stay true to form, I expect things to change as you do. I am not talking about that. And the problem is that if that doesn’t happen soon you could be in a big hole.
I guess we’re going to have to agree to disagree over whether you can say a guy played a “third of a season” even if he spent a couple dozen of those games on the bench with an ice pack, sporadically pinch-hitting and netted around half the plate appearances of his peers.
Still, we mostly agree. So there’s that.
I don’t think we disagree. Bradley is on the Cubs. The Cubs have played a third of the season. He has not contributed much yet. That is a problem. I think we agree on all of those things.
The point is simple. Being on the DL keeps a ballplayer from producing. So simply saying, the season may be 1/3 over but Milkit has only played 1/5 of a season is really not helpful to the Cubs winning cause. You get 162 games in a season, if one of your big run producers can only play 100 of those games, then he really can not be an impact offensive producer. That isn’t sabermatrics that is physics, if you ain’t in the batters box, you can’t have an AB.
A grand total of zero people are arguing Bradley has done well this “third of a year.” The point folks are trying to make is that his poor performance is across such a small number of plate appearances that in the context of his career patterns and peripherals, it is almost certainly an anomaly.
NO ONE IS SAYING the existing sample is too small to be called poor. It’s being said the sample is too small to weight too heavily towards predicting his future performance.
Were I capable of rendering this thought as a cartoon to make it even simpler, I would do so.