Sr. Platform Engineer at @workleaphq // I write about baseball at cubofcoffee.com and other things at benbailey.me // Hampshire College alumn
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The ability for the Cubs to put out a lineup with only one hitter below league average (one who I wouldn't expect to remain there) is such a big improvement over recent times
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👋 I’m still here and plan to be for the foreseeable future, but you can find me at mastodon.social/@benfb as well
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If only the Cubs had a hitter who was good at making contact with high fastballs up in the zone available
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Over the weekend, I wrote up how I sync @readwise highlights to @BearNotesApp via Shortcuts benbailey.me/2023/06/03/how-…
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As best I can tell, that was the most whiffs (20!) Marcus Stroman has gotten in the Statcast era
baseballsavant.mlb.com/statc…
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I've spent the last week or so browsing FanGraphs reliever leaderboards to try and find ways the Cubs could improve their bullpen without substantially depleting their farm system or payroll flexibility benbailey.me/2023/10/07/lowc…
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Inspired by Statcast leaderboards and a recent @NSideBound article, I ran some numbers on “absolute pitch movement” by team and came to an interesting conclusion 25thman.com/the-cubs-have-th…
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If the A’s are consistent in wanting cost-controlled, close-to-ready talent, Killian might be a good substitute (and Madrigal does seem like their type). I don’t think they’re really in on Murphy, but it’s at least interesting
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I've been working a lot with @HashiCorp #Nomad this summer. Here's some tips: benbailey.me/2017/08/a-nomad…
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One thing I've been working on: Libra, a #Nomad autoscaler github.com/underarmour/libra
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After that second inning, Kyle Hendricks has now thrown six pitches harder than any he threw from 2021-22
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The Cubs have a .339 wOBA on fastballs in the heart of the zone since 2020, fourth worst in baseball baseballsavant.mlb.com/statc…
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Feels like people are overestimating the return to me. Monies Betts and other 1-year position player rentals don’t tend to get a ton in return, and Devers isn’t as good as Betts
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Could this have lead to some of the wild misses around that time as he was getting used to the newer shape?
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Ty France is an interesting name I heard was available. No idea what the cost would be, and desirability depends on if you think he’s declining or having a down year
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I could see it more if Hoerner were up next, but fundamentally you're moving the runners over for a guy who strikes out a lot and does damage when he makes contact. The odds of Morel hitting a single there but not a double or homer feel low
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In case you missed it, I did an independent study in baseball statistics last semester. Everything I wrote is here: baseball.benbailey.me
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Literally the farthest he's ever hit a ball baseballsavant.mlb.com/statc…
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For what it’s worth, I don’t think so, and I don’t think that Devers is that player. If you lower the bar to 6 WAR (still a star/borderline-MVP season!), it starts to get more plausible, but I’d still have to lean toward no. Best bet is Swanson repeating last year?
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Along similar lines I’ve enjoyed reading @AugustineMLB’s Pitch Design series at FG: blogs.fangraphs.com/pitch-de…
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+ stats are great, especially since they only require one piece of information (that 100 is average) to know how good or bad a player is at something. If you use OPS, you need the viewer to know what a good OPS is, same with AVG, etc.
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Not sure if he’s available, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cubs looked at Travis d’Arnaud as an option at catcher. Owed $8M in 2023 and club option for the same amount in 2024. 120 wRC+ last year and rated well defensively, but not very consistent over his career so far (1/2)
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The Cubs have done a pretty good job of patching holes in the roster and system. Depth is essential, and the lack of it was a big part of the downfall of that 2016 would-be dynasty. I wasn’t enamored with Devers, but somehow the Cubs need to find a star somehow.
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Please, donate to groups and organizations that need your help, and respect and stand with those expressing their grief even if it makes you uncomfortable. The way we are treating Black people in this country is unacceptable, and everyone must do what they can to help
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But it just illustrates how much the Cubs are lacking star potential system-wide. From 2014-2022, they had 6 different 4+ fWAR seasons from pitchers and 12 from hitters. The only one from the last three seasons was Nico Hoerner’s 4.0 WAR 2022.
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Feeling inspired by Cubs Twitter pessimism, I took a look at six contenders who have had worse offseasons than the Cubs (so far) benbailey.me/2022/12/11/cont…
Kris Bryant had two seasons of at least 7 fWAR as a Cub. Is the next player to reach that mark currently a member of the Cubs organization?
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Yes
62%
No
214 votes • Final results
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foxsports.com/stories/mlb/gr…
Joe Carpenter, to name one
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Looking at the splits leaderboards for lefty hitters against righty pitchers, I wonder if the Cubs would be able to get Candelario back from the Nats: fangraphs.com/leaders/splits…
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Small sample (though shouldn't really matter for extension), but Little has around the ninth best extension in the league so far
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Hey, fellow Texans: please vote! Not only do we have a chance to flip the state legislature, we also have the chance to save millions of hours of sleep across the country, among, you know, other more important things. Research the down-ballot races, vote, and stay safe
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12 in his career, 5 from 2020 until tonight baseballsavant.mlb.com/statc…
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I donated to Central Texas Food Bank, where someone is tripling donations through the end of the year. A couple hundred dollars provides over 2000 meals according to their site!
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I had the pleasure of writing the #Cubs season preview for @BanishedToPen — check it out here, and follow along with the rest of the previews on the site banishedtothepen.com/season-…
Season Preview Series 2020, Pt 2:
#RedSox by @JamiesonTW,
#Cubs by @bennett,
#WhiteSox by @heycardis
#MLB #sabermetrics
banishedtothepen.com/season-…
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I feel good about the Cubs farm system, but it’s wild that after all the trades and higher draft picks all four other teams in the NL Central have a prospect who will likely rank higher than the Cubs’ top prospect this year
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Truly don't understand taking the bat out of the hands of anyone there, but Madrigal is on the roster partially for his ability to hit high fastballs with ride, something that Morel and Happ struggle with.
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Excited to start work on implementing Nomad from @HashiCorp across a cluster nomadproject.io/
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Big fan of the Cubs signing Trey Mancini. The top-line numbers from last year don't look great for a 1B, but Mancini's xWOBA was tied with Seiya Suzuki, second-best on the Cubs. Plus, he's rated out well defensively by OAA at 1B the last few years.
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FanGraphs just had an article pointing out he’s been pulling the ball way more, too—I would say he’s probably a safer bet to be league average than 40% above, though. Weird fact, Kiermaier has better expected numbers blogs.fangraphs.com/for-bell…
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The Cubs have gotten 3.4 fWAR from position players who didn't appear in a game for them last year and 1.1 fWAR from new pitchers
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Thankful that the Cubs did not listen to me and sign Christian Vázquez (66 wRC+, 2/$20M after this year) or Omar Narváez (53 wRC+, 23 games) this offseason
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Omar Narváez feels like a good fit. Left-handed hitter, having a down year offensively but with good enough defense to still have 1.2 fWAR in 81 games
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In Cubs land we call that a Chatwood! (Barry Zito has 11) 25thman.com/yu-darvish-threw…
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Could see Kiermaier being an option—maybe not quite as good as he used to be, but Tampa has a $13M club option for next year, so presumably he’ll be available.
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With May (and, to a lesser extent, Sixto Sanchez) it seems to be them throwing a 2-seam instead of a 4-seam. With Cease, apparently his 4-seam has a super low active spin rate (like on Alzolay’s curve) blogs.fangraphs.com/dylan-ce…
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The good part about Twitter is what I want in any social network—a list of text from the people I follow in chronological order
Some things that have garnered my attention over the last week, including baseball (as always), Star Wars, etc. benbailey.me/2022/12/10/some…
Was going to write about the bullpen soon, but since Casey Sadler is in the game: Sadler entered today with the fifth-highest curveball spin rate in baseball
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I only meant reaching it in one season, but with that caveat it still feels unlikely! Alcántara is probably who I would bet on after Swanson (and to be clear, I don’t think Swanson is really that guy either, but he’s come the closest).
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I was inspired to write about some of the stuff I saw on Statcast while watching the Cubs this weekend. Included within: do you know how many of Nico Hoerner’s highest exit velocities came in the first three games of the season?
25thman.com/cubs-statcast-ti…
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The Cubs season has had many low points (and high), but getting shut out by a pitcher who's a bad guy on the verge of losing 3 games with 2 off days in the mix qualifies as the most recent
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This Cubs season has had a lot of fun parts, but being able to see Kyle Hendricks’ changeup again might be my favorite.
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In terms of acquisition cost, Baseball Trade Values has Adbert Alzolay and d’Arnaud as almost exactly equal value. I wouldn’t take their evaluations as gospel, but that seems fair to me. Both have had injuries and flashes of excellence, and both teams deal from a strength. (2/2)
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To be able to have baseball on in the late evening hours again is a delight to be savored, as is the chance to learn about an entirely different set of players and teams
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Being a catcher is hard, so is identifying which ones are good bets in free agency benbailey.me/2023/08/19/so-y…
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Some light lunch reading: over the weekend I looked at why the Cubs are looking to add a lefty at the trade deadline, and examined five potential candidates (and threw in three righties for fun) 25thman.com/cubs-seek-relief…
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By Outs Above Average, Nick Madrigal is once again a better defensive third baseman than Matt Chapman
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Obviously the Cubs are in a rough stretch, but it's encouraging that Jordan Wicks is able to throw six pitches and get a whiff on all of them
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No newsletter this week because I’m working on the @BanishedToPen Cubs season preview. I’ll be back ext week with a week of Spring Training to analyze!
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This week, I applied @craigjedwards prospect valuation math to come up with a hypothetical fair return for Kris Bryant. Unsurprisingly, the math suggests that the Cubs probably shouldn’t trade their best player 25thman.com/the-math-of-a-kr…
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This is a great podcast from @CubsRelated that touches on the Cubs’ bullpen situation—I wrote about it in (a lot of) detail earlier this week 25thman.com/a-2020-cubs-bull…
Cubs Related podcast — 12/24
- "Resetting" the luxury tax by slashing payroll, a discussion prompted by @BleacherNation's content
- Cubs' WAR total already tops in NL Central
- Look back on best decade regular season moments
open.spotify.com/episode/5iL…
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The appearance of seagulls at a night game immediately sends it into extra innings. I don’t make the rules.
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This article from @_TonyWolfe_ on Ian Happ is a great reminder that a more aggressive approach isn’t always a bad thing blogs.fangraphs.com/ian-happ…
Agreed. I think they’re low on Thompson at 8.3 (at least relative to Cubs fans), but that might be what it would take to get it done, assuming the Blue Jays want major-league ready players back
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Verifying myself: I am benfb on Keybase.io. Zk3zCRiR5gEltpa6B9BG1X_nep2W-rqvhWWi / keybase.io/benfb/sigs/Zk3zCR…
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The Statcast broadcast was great for many reasons, but the biggest may have bee hearing national announcers that were effusively excited about baseball
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My revised 60-word Cubs preview is up at @BanishedToPen. Check it out and all the other excellent quick previews at the site! #WhereStoriesPlay banishedtothepen.com/60-word…
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Hayden Wesneski's stats as a starter and a reliever this year (at MLB level). Slight increase in K% but bigger increase in BB% as a reliever. The biggest thing is the contact management as a reliever.
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Meaningless 2020 predictions…teams highlighted in blue are predicted to make the recently-expanded playoffs
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Nice to be mentioned in today’s Cub Tracks—lots of good stuff in there as always
Cub Tracks’ the torture never stops - #Cubs and #MLB news and notes, from BCB’s Duane Pesice. bleedcubbieblue.com/2019/12/…
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Thinking about delving more into pitch design and regretting not paying more attention my high school physics class
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The Dodgers signing Shelby Miller (after he cycled through the Yankees and Giants as well post-Cubs) inspired me to compile a list of Cub reclamation projects that have been acquired by smart teams after their time with the Cubs micro.benbailey.me/2022/12/0…
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I usually just use the Baseball Savant leaderboards to get a good idea of the average, but don’t forget that “active spin” (the percentage of spin that contributes to movement) and spin axis are important too for seeing how pitches could play off of each other!
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I wrote about Cody Bellinger, Marcus Stroman, what could have been, what has been, and where to go from here for the 2023 Cubs benbailey.me/2023/07/08/cubs…
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Like Matt said, they look like two separate pitches when you compare the spin differential, but I’m having trouble seeing anything at this level of data that suggests a different amount of movement based on the spin rate
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This was a helpful reminder, especially when it comes to tech! jvns.ca/blog/2022/03/13/cele…
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