The Will To Ignore

White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson recently appeared on MLB Network, where he and Brian Kenny discussed / yelled about sabermetrics. The kerfuffle has become somewhat of a sensation, as Hawk insisted on the glory of TWTW: His freshly minted statistic called "The Will To Win." Watch here, if it pleases you:



But here is the problem: Hawk is trying too hard in a couple of areas. First, he is trying to transmute intangibles into the sphere of sabermetrics, a world dedicated to tangibles. His TWTW is moot because no sabermetrician should ever discount intangibles. To suggest sabermetrics ignores TWTW is to firstly imply TWTW is an objective quality or quantity that observers can detect with a little prudent watching.

Updating On The 5 Most Exciting Cubs

In the winter, I declared my affinity for five players entering the season, five stories worth following. They were, in order of interest:

1. Kyuji Fujikawa: The former Hanshin Tigers closer is injured, on the 15-day DL, and apparently hurting since spring training. Despite that, he posted a 2.62 FIP and 2.98 SIERA, but his 12.48 ERA does perhaps the best job of illustrating his lack of control. His stuff never seemed not-filthy, but he fell behind hitters quickly and had to toss meatballs because the only strikes he could throw were meatballs. When he comes back, which will hopefully be soon, he will be the closer. I expect he will be impressive, too, unless he dogs it again and tries to pitch through pain.
2. Nate Schierholtz: Two homers and a .361/.425/.667 slash?! There's no way he maintains this 187 wRC+, but this whole experiment, this whole Free Schierholtz endeavor, is off to a wonderful start. Nate is on fire.
3. Edwin Jackson: I believe I've watched each of Jackson's three starts so far, and his pitching slash does a good job of showing his mixed results: 6.06 ERA, 2.65 FIP, 3.72 SIERA. I am excited about him developing into an innings-eating No. 2 or 3 starter, and I would not be surprised for all three of those numbers to normalize around 3.50 ERA/FIP/SIERA through 200+ IP.
4. Scott Feldman: Hoo-boy. Maybe I should have put Carlos Villanueva in this list instead? Feldman has a 6.00 ERA, 6.64 FIP, 6.12 SIERA line. His strikeout rate (8.0% K-rate) is below his walk rate (14.0% BB-rate). He will be better than this. Sooner would be better.
5. Ian Stewart: Naturally, Stewart got injured in the spring, like minutes after I wrote about him, and he's still yet to swing a bat or wear a glove in a game.

Okay, let's change and update this list.

Longing For Clubhouse Confidential

Today on Twitter, a fellow baseball enthusiast, Nate Springfield, proposed a change to MLB.tv that, frankly, I feel needs to happen:

Third'd. RT @sky_kalkman: Yes! RT @natespringfield: I really wish my mlb.tv subscription included the MLB Network.

— Bradley Woodrum (@BradleyWoodrum) February 28, 2013

Traditional television is dying. Because of cable's inability to offer a la carte television channels, my generation (the mid-20-year-olds, as of right now) are going without cable. We are using antennas and the internet to meet our viewing desires. If I could order a seven-channel package (ESPN, WGN, MLB Network, and maybe FX, TMC, or IFC), then I would have had cable since I moved out of home.

Instead, I have never -- in my life -- paid for cable. I had it at my parent's home during high school, but starting in undergrad, I have trod the antenna/Hulu/Netflix route.

So packaging MLB Network with an MLB.tv or MLB.tv Premium account makes sense for the MLB, with respect to the changing marketplace, but it also makes sense because Clubhouse Confidence is a legitimately amazing show and I want to watch it. A lot.

Behold: These highlights.

There is no other broadcast, on earth and to my knowledge, with a higher, more competent level of discourse than CHC. So, c'mon MLB, let's get this working.

The 5 Most Exciting Cubs On The Roster

Do not come to this post expecting a mathematical formula or some sophisticated method for determining players on the brink of breakout. Rather, this is a list of five players on which I have a keen interest entering Spring Training.

Some of them may have a possibly important role in the team's future. Some of them may be role players with a chance to contribute in small, but meaningful ways. Pretty much all of them are going to be the kind of fringe players toward which I am inexorably drawn.

No. 5: Ian Stewart

2012 Numbers:

• .201/.292/.335
• 65 wRC+
• 0.1 WAR through 202 PA

Ian Stewart is probably not a great third baseman. Defensively, his numbers are not bad. UZR, Total Zone, and the Fan Scouting Report all say nice things. But a good defensive third baseman is kind of easy to find. And on a rebuilding team like the Cubs, a good defensive third baseman can be a 25-year-old with strong minor league numbers looking for a chance to prove himself. He doesn't need to be a 28-year-old with 1620 PA at the MLB level already.

Also, through those 1620 PA, Stewart has an 84 wRC+. Third basemen tend to be around 100 wRC+. He's got catcher numbers at a corner position.

So why the heck am I excited about Ian Stewart entering the season? Well, this is his last chance. Not just at a starting job; it very well could be one of his final opportunities to prove he can (a) stay healthy and, more importantly, (b) hit. If he struggles this season, he will likely spend the final years of his career getting long-tossed around various minor league orgs until injuries necessitate he fill a bench role for a week or two.

For Stewart, the stakes are high. His impact to the Cubs is minimal, though. If he succeeds, it means his career continues, but probably not with the team toting around Javier Baez, Junior Lake, Jeimer Candelario, and Starlin Castro. His ceiling in Chicago is stopgap, but I think the 2013 squad -- with a vat of lucky breaks (like Stewart playing well) -- could be in Wild Card contention late in the season.

If Stewart can hit well (at this point, think: 100 wRC+), maybe he adds a run or two on offense, five runs on defense, and a win through replacement value. That puts him near 2.0 WAR, which is about an average starter in the MLB. I think that would be great for Stewart, and a huge bounty for the 2013 squad.

With Hairston In The Fold, Cubs Appear Quite Close To .500

My latest projection for the 2013 Chicago Cubs has them once again near the 79-win mark. Even after replacing my production guesses with ZiPS projections, the team appears to still have a decent chance of even making the playoffs, if — like — everything breaks the right way:

But as it stands now, the Cubs appear to be around 77 to 79 wins (depending how we treat that pesky league wOBA issue). That certainly puts them in the crazy luck range. Sky’s calculation gives them a 3% chance of reaching 91 wins, which has historically been a playoff spot. Can the Cubs do it? I’m just saying there’s a chance.

You never know, right?

Jackson, Villanueva Push Cubs Closer To 80 Wins

So, big news on Thursday: The Chicago Cubs added a pair of starting pitchers, Carlos Villanueva and Edwin Jackson. Like many around the sabersphere, I applaud these acquisitions. I think Dave Cameron's writeup on FanGraphs captures the heft the wisdom:

But we should note that Edwin Jackson makes them better, and this price for Edwin Jackson is still completely reasonable based on his established performance level. That the Cubs aren’t yet obvious contenders shouldn’t cause us to tell them to stop trying to improve. By bringing in Jackson and Carlos Villanueva today, while already adding Scott Baker and Scott Feldman, the Cubs have now acquired four interesting starting pitchers this winter. They’ve rebuilt their entire rotation, essentially, and have set themselves up to be able to trade Matt Garza...

The only key item Cameron (full disclosure: my boss) leaves out of his analysis is the 2014 free agent pitcher market, which is bare in comparison to how the 2013 shook out.

So where does this put the Cubs at in 2013, though? According to my, shall we say, napkin predictions, they are approaching 79 wins.

Cubs 2013 Projection: Another Sub-.500 Season On The Horizon

For fun, I threw together a napkin projection for the 2013 Cubs. I'm probably wrong here and there about the playing time -- for instance, I don't think Luis Valbuena will be a super sub, even though that's the bench MLB Depth Charts suggests -- but as a whole, I think the results are in the ballpark.

Which is a bit of bummer, because I'm forecasting 77 wins: