Cubs Pitching Organizational Breakdown

In this post I am going to lay out what the Cubs pitching depth looks like from the perspective of their combined 40 man roster and their top 30 prospect rankings. I will also offer what I think the Cubs can do to make themselves a playoff team next year.

Starting Pitching:

40 man options: Hendricks, Stroman, Steele, Thompson, Killian, Alzolay, Viscaino, Marquez

Prospects: Wicks 2023, Wesneski 2022, Herz 2023, Brown 2024, Franklin 2024, Jensen 2022, Gray 2025, Palencia 2024, Leeper 2022, Castro 2024, Thompson 2023

Free Agents: Rodon 3-4 year deal at $28 AAV, Kershaw 3 year deal $30 AAV, Syndergaard 3 year deal $25 per

The Cubs would be remiss if they didn’t sign one of the above top tier starting pitcher free agents, to wait for their young prospects to prove that they belong. They are in a window where a 3-4 year deal is ideal and the above guys are more apt for that since they have age/injury concerns that would prevent longer than a 5 year deal from other teams.

Best case starting 5:

1. Rodon/Kershaw/Syndegaard
2. Stroman
3. Steele
4. Thompson
5. Hendricks

Flip deals starting 5:

1. Stroman
2. Steele
3. Thompson
4. Gibson/Minor/Kluber
5. Hendricks

It would be my personal choice to try and trade Hendricks in the off season and let the young pitching compete for the 5th spot. WIth the hope of Killian/Wezneski/Wicks winning the job. Herz has a great ceiling but he still has control issues that may end up turning into a closer role, so I don’t see him competing for this yet.

Relief Pitching:

I won’t cover this too much because the Cubs MLB scouting will likely go for 1 year flip guys to trade away if the season goes bad.
But for current roster guys I’d imagine they let some prospects get some work in the MLB via the bullpen. Guys like Alzolay, Marquez, Heuer and such, and then the team fills in the rest with 1 year deal veterans.

Cubs Positional Player Organizational Breakdown

In this post I am going to lay out what the Cubs positional depth looks like from the perspective of their combined 40 man roster and their top 30 prospect rankings. I will also offer what I think the Cubs can do to make themselves a playoff team next year. This also hopes and assumes that the Cubs DFA Heyward.

First Base:

40 man options: Schwindel, Rivas, Higgins

Prospects: Matt Mervis (22/23)

Free Agent upgrade: Josh Bell, Brandon Belt, Jose Abreu

Because of the fact that Matt Mervis is likely to get a chance to get this job in 2022, I don’t see the Cubs offering more than a one year deal to someone. So I think they go with someone that would take a one year deal like Belt or Abreu to split time between first and DH, to let Mervis get at bats and playing time.

Second Base:

40 man options: Morel, Madrigal

Prospects: Triantos (2024), Howard (2024)

Free Agent: Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts

For free agency I think it is best to look to the short stop market and target a player who can play 3b, 2b, SS or DH here. This way the Cubs can play Hoerner at SS or 2b and the free agent can be moved around as well. The Cubs have been heavily tied to Bogaerts and he fits their high walk low K rate profile. I am also assuming the Dodgers keep Turner.

Shortstop:

40 man options: Hoerner, Morel

Prospects: Hernandez 2025, Howard 2024

Free Agents: Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts

This is pretty much covered by the post on second basement above.

Third Base:

40 man: Wisdom, Bote, Morel

Prospects: Preciado 2024, Made 2024

Free Agency: Arenado has an opt out. If he opts out you offer him 3 years 40 million per. The best defender at 3b in the game and an elite bat and you weaken STL. Chance of this happening: about 0%, but if he opts out you throw money at him.

Right Field:

40 man: Suzuki, Velasquez

Prospects: Davis 23, Alcantara 24, Caissie 24, Canario 23, Franklin 24

Free Agency: I could see taking a flyer on Nomar Mazara for a one year flip deal. Otherwise the Cubs have a logjam here, and it would be foolish to give someone like Aaron Judge a long term deal at his age.

Center Field:

40 man: Ortega, Morel

Prospects: Davis 2022, Armstrong 2024

Free Agency: Enrique Hernandez on 1-2 year deals. We would want someone who can bring that low K rate and high walk rate. Otherwise Ortega does the same thing as Hernandez and Morel can hold it until PCA or Davis arrive.

Left Field:

40 man: Happ, Velasquez, McKinstry

Prospects: Alcantara 24, Caissie 24, Canario 23, Franklin 24, Pinango 23

Free Agency: Since we have an all star already manning this position and good 40 man depth behind him, I doubt we address this in the off season.

Catcher:

40 man: Conteras, Gomes, Higgins

Prospects: Amaya 22, Bellesteros 25

Free Agency: We won’t be addressing catcher in free agency. If we don’t resign Contreras, Gomes is still under contract and would serve as a good veteran to help Amaya adjust to the majors next year.

Team spends, but cautiously, to flip players if team is playing poorly:

Best case scenario, team spends to win next year lineup:

1. Suzuki RF
2. Contreras C
3. Arenado 3B
4. Abreu 1B/DH
5. Happ LF
6. Bogaerts 2B
7. Velasquez DH
8. Morel CF
9. Hoerner SS

You can have Morel lead off, but I like having Suzuki getting more yearly at bats than Morel on the year. You can also scatter the young hitters throughout the lineup to give them better protection. This best case scenario is close to a 0% chance of happening, but was mostly an exercise at what they could do based on available players.

Worst case scenario for next year to have flip deal at deadline, in case team plays bad in first half:

1. Morel CF
2. Belt 1B
3. Suzuki RF
4. Happ LF
5. Wisdom 3B
6. Velasquez DH
7. Gomes/Amaya C
8. Hoerner SS
9. Madrigal 2B

With good pitching this lineup can be a lineup that is contending for a playoff spot, but it would be highly dependenet on pitching staying good and healthy.

The most likely scenario for next year is that the Cubs do another few 3-5 year deals as they did with Stroman and Suzuki last year. So I see them signing Bogaerts, and pushing Madrigal out of the lineup. This is the scenario that I would think has a greater than 50% chance of happening. Also left out for next year is Brennan Davis, as I think he will have to earn his spot during spring training, and since the outfield is packed with talent, he would force Morel into super utility role and Davis would start at CF.

The Wave Year

This year in baseball was quite something for Chicago Cub fans. We started off the year without our ace from the previous year because 2 days before 2021 started we traded Yu Darvish for several very young prospects. At the time this had seemed like a white flag move before the season even began. We had previously won the division pretty easily but got swept in the first round of the playoffs because of the typical anemic offense we see when facing elite pitching. So the prevailing thought would have been to add more contact hitting to help balance all the swing and miss in the lineup. But it seemed Hoyer had a transition in philosophy in mind.

Hoyer seemingly replaced Darvish with Davies, another soft tossing control type pitcher, but both proved to be disappointments this year for their teams. He also showed his cards when he signed guys like Duffy and Marsiniak to add more balance to the Cubs lineup and replaced Schwarber with Pederson who had a slightly lower strikeout rate. Some of these moves worked out quite well and others did not. But with these moves we got an idea of what Hoyer was going to do. But before that happened the Cubs core tried their best to prevent this transition before the years end.

On June 13th, about 50 or so games into the season the Cubs were 11 games over .500, and up until June 24th the Cubs held first place in the Central Division. It appeared as if the Cubs would be buyers at the deadline and the the core of Rizzo, Bryant and Baez would have one final run into the playoffs. With the help of guys like Duffy, Marsiniak and Hoerner it helped bring more balance to the lineup and allowed the Cubs to take early control of the division. But one by one these players that balanced the lineup kept getting hurt and the offense was once again anemic.

The Cubs were also aided by some early season returns from Arrieta and Alzolay, who helped solidify a decent 5 man rotation. Kimbrel also found his former hall of fame closer self, and Hoyer jumbled together a back end of the bullpen that was near impenetrable. But near the same time the Cubs lost their lineup balance to injury they also saw Arrieta become one of the worst starting pitchers in recent history and Alzolay have some expected rookie struggles.

The team quickly went from becoming buyers to having to switch their entire scouting staff into “find other teams prospects mode”. And that scouting shift bared its first fruit in mid July when the trade of Joc Pederson happened and signaled to Cubs fans that this was the end of any hopes of a final playoff run with this core. At this time no one had any idea who was going to be traded. Most of us figured that there would be some surprise trades, but not at the level of what occurred. The end result was on this last day of the year the Cubs ended up setting an MLB record with having over 60 different players play for them at the major league level!

We all know the trades that happened, so I won’t rehash them here. What most of us Cub fans ended up going through was the prototypical stages of grief. I personally, had given up on this core after the 2019 season, and so I had accepted that this team wasn’t going to stay together, but many others had not accepted this until the trade deadline occurred. There was so much anger and vitriol thrown towards the Cubs organization after the deadline happened, and I understand why so many felt that way if they had thought this core could still bring us to the playoffs. In reality, however, the Cubs actually had a better offensive output after the trade deadline than before it.

After all the trade deadline smoke had cleared we had a better picture of what Hoyer planned to do with this team. He completely transformed our farm system and doubled the amount of 45 grade prospects that had been in the Cubs farm circa 2015 when the Cubs last had a loaded farm system. We now have a much larger base of talent to develop going forward, and as we know with prospects some will work out and some won’t, which is why getting large amounts of them is what matters.

During the second half of the season we essentially had a AAA team playing for us, and doing quite well relative to their expectations. The biggest story was that of Frank Schwindel, who ended the season hitting as a top 15 WAR producer during the time he was up. We saw Patrick Wisdom come down from his historic start and he eventually ended up setting the Cubs rookie home run record. All in all, this post trade deadline team, while bad, ended up with a lot of entertaining moments. It allowed us to stay interested in the Cubs season just to see what guys would help us transition to this new Cubs era.

This entire season reminded me of a wave. One that started out promising, where we thought the core would give us one last push before riding off into the sunset, until that wave came crashing down. It was also a wave of emotions for most of us, especially that trade deadline. Even for the most rational Cubs fan it was still quite emotional seeing all the 2016 Cubs core being off the roster, outside of Contreras and Hendricks. There was also a massive wave of talent infused into our farm system, one that we will be watching closely for the next few years.

2018, the Year of the Pitching Wave

In 2015 the Cubs saw their primary core all come up at around the same time.  Bryant, Russel, and Schwarber all came onto the scene to join the 2014 prospects of Baez and Soler.  This same kind of tidal wave of talent can happen with pitching in 2018 and 2019.

I provided some information on them below and these are the guys that are ranked in the Cubs top 25.  These guys all have 1-2 starter type potential, and if they flunk out of starting pitching they could become prime bullpen arms.

So when Arrieta and Lackey are no longer here, we will have a few of these guys to try out and see if they could stick in the 2018 rotation.  If all things hit, like they did with position players, we could see a staff similar to the Mets and the Indians, ripe with young arms that throw fast.

The below analysis can be found at MLB.com:

Dylan Cease, age 20, expected 2018

As one of the best high school power arms in the 2014 Draft, Cease projected as a possible first-rounder before he hurt his elbow that March. The injury ultimately required Tommy John surgery, though that didn’t dissuade the Cubs from paying him $1.5 million in the sixth round. That gamble could pay off big, as he has more upside than any pitcher in Chicago’s farm system.

Cease reached 97 mph with his fastball before he got hurt and hit 100 shortly after he returned to the mound last summer. He sits in the mid-90s with his heater, which also features life that makes it even tougher to barrel. He has turned what was a three-quarters breaking ball into a true power curveball that one club official likened to Dwight Gooden’s.

Like most young pitchers with rocket arms, Cease needs to refine his changeup and use it more. Though he’s not very physical, he’s able to generate premium stuff with athleticism and arm speed rather than excessive effort in his delivery. The Cubs have helped him clean up his mechanics some and he should be able to repeat them efficiently enough to fill the strike zone.

Duane Underwood, age 22, expected 2018

Though he flashed a 98-mph fastball and overpowering curveball as a high school senior, Underwood fell to the second round of the 2012 Draft because he lacked consistency. He had only sporadic success in his first two pro seasons after signing for $1.05 million, but began to take off in 2014 after dedicating himself to improved conditioning. He sat out two months in 2015 with elbow inflammation and has been less sharp this season, when he missed time with forearm inflammation.

Underwood’s fastball is notable for both its 92-96 mph velocity and its late life, which makes it difficult to square up for hitters. Both his curveball and changeup show signs of becoming plus pitches but neither is fully reliable yet. Getting in better shape has helped his control, though his walk rate spiked when he got to Double-A in 2016.

Underwood doesn’t miss as many bats as his stuff indicates he should, demonstrating his need to get more consistent with his secondary pitches and his command. If he can do that, he’ll reach his ceiling as a No. 2 starter. If not, he might find more success as a late-inning reliever.

Oscar De La Cruz, age 21, expected 2018

De La Cruz originally tried out for teams as a 6-foot-4 shortstop in the Dominican Republic before signing with the Cubs as a pitcher for $85,000 in October 2012. He spent his first two pro seasons in the Rookie-level Dominican Summer League before making a huge leap forward in 2015, performing so well in extended spring training that he skipped a level to the Short Season Northwest League. He got off to a late start in 2016 after coming down with a sore elbow during Spring Training.

The most physical pitcher in Chicago’s system, De La Cruz is bigger than his listed 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds and still has projection remaining. His present stuff already is enticing, starting with a 92-95 mph fastball that can reach 97 and plays up because of its movement, angle and plane. His curveball lacks consistency but features power and shows signs of becoming a plus offering.

De La Cruz’s changeup is less refined but he exhibits some feel for the pitch. He has good athleticism and body control for a big pitcher, allowing him to repeat his delivery and pound the strike zone.

Trevor Clifton, age 21, expected 2018

Though he was extremely raw as a Tennessee high schooler in 2013, Clifton still earned a $375,000 bonus in the 12th round because he had a live arm and projectable body. Minor League pitching coordinator Derek Johnson (now the Brewers’ pitching coach) and low Class A South Bend pitching coach Brian Lawrence helped him simplify his delivery and make the transition from thrower to pitcher, and Clifton made significant strides in 2015.

Clifton has gotten stronger since turning pro, adding about 40 pounds to his 6-foot-4 frame, and his quick arm delivers consistent 92-94 mph fastballs that have reached as high as 97. He’s doing a better job of staying on top of his curveball, which features tight spin and could become a plus pitch. His changeup has improved into at least an average offering that helps him keep left-handers at bay.

Clifton is still developing his control and command but is making steady progress in that regard. He has the upside of a mid-rotation starter with the fallback of becoming a power-armed reliever. He might operate in the mid 90s in shorter stints, and there may be more velocity in his tank.

The Weight and the Wait.

It is really going to take a while for this to sink in.  The Chicago Cubs are MLB’s World Series Champions!  I had to tell my wife to pinch me the morning after they won to make sure it actually happened.  While trying to process what happened the night before I decided to only think about the season and remember its moments and celebrate what I still couldn’t yet process.  I turned on my favorite Chicago sports station, The Score, and never turned them off the entire day.  I wanted to hear other fans reactions to this and many felt the same incredulity I did the morning after.  There were many stories I heard that day that put a lump in my throat and brought tears to my eyes.  It was great to just take a day to not have to worry about next year, to not have the burden and weight of my first 36 years of thinking next year may be the year, and mostly to be able to just enjoy what had happened and hear the amazing stories of other Cub fans throughout the world.

If you were born in a Chicago Cub family, you are not likely going to be able to remember the exact moment when you became a Cub fan, because it was ingrained in you at such an early age.  The one thing I do remember is shared by millions of Cub fans throughout the country, and that was coming home from school, turning on WGN and watching the end of Cub games to the legendary broadcasting of Harry Caray.  The team I first remember, and when I believe I became a true die hard fan, was manned by Dawson, Sandberg, Sutcliff, Maddux, Moyer and Grace in 1989.  The first game I remember going to was in the right field bleachers around the age of 9 or 10 and being mesmerized by The Hawk.  This was the first team to hook me and also the first of many to end in disappointment at the end of the year.

As a Cub fan our lives were riddled with disappointments like this.  But the one that sticks out the most with me was the 2003 year.  It was my final semester in college at SIU, living with two other Cub fans and about ready to celebrate the first trip to a world series living closer to St Louis than Chicago.  I don’t need to repeat what happened in that series as most who are reading this ought to know, but I remember feeling for the first time what previous generations had felt in 1969 and 1984.  A team that was on the verge of making it to the World Series, with tremendous promise for years to come, ended in “choking” disappointment, and in devastating injuries the following years.  I haven’t been someone who believed in curses or superstition but those thoughts had started to creep into my psyche at that point.

After the 2005 year, a year in which I ponied up for nearly 20 regular season baseball games, I made the decision to no longer support this team “monetarily” until they become sustainably good again.  I still attended Cub games, and watched them on t.v. and tracked their stats and the development of people in the minors but I was done giving them my hard earned money until I felt they were on the right track again.  I would go to baseball games but only if they were from some company event or a generous friend who needed a wingman.

I ended up falling for the success of 2007-2008 teams in thinking that Jim Hendry might be going down the right track with development and proper hirings.  I was still committing to the promise to myself to not spend money on this team, and managed to get company tickets to game 2 of the 2008 NLDS where the Cubs were demolished.  I left that game early not being able to handle the embarrassment anymore.

From 2009 through the 2011 season I started to pay more attention to our minor league players than I did our major league ball club, and started to pay attention to other teams in the league that were being run correctly.  This is probably the lowest I had felt about my beloved franchise in my entire life, but this downward spiral led me to awaken myself to sabermetrics and Theo Epstein.  So when the Cubs signed him to run this team the sudden realization that “someday may happen” suddenly crept back up to me.

As Cub fans we know what it is like to be patient.  So when Theo announced his plan and claimed that it would take a few years to be good again, I had no problems letting him do his thing and learning more and more about the new “Cub Way” that was emerging.  Positive energy and excitement was starting to come back to me again as I scoured minor league box scores and stats to keep track of all the amazing talented youth the Cubs were accumulating in their system.

Then the signing of Joe Maddon, along with key free agents, and the influx of this minor league talent hit the Cubs like a tsunami wave that few Cub fans and experts expected.  Most of us knew we were on the track for a good team but we weren’t expecting an NLCS appearance to happen in such short time, and while I was disappointed in the outcome of that year I knew that what we were experiencing as fans was about to get really good really fast.  “Someday it will happen” started to morph into “I know it’s going to happen very soon”.  Fast forward a year to world series game 7….

There is so much to be said about how amazing game 7 of a world series is and yet I cringe at thought of experiencing one again, unless “if necessary”.  Scratch that, I don’t want to see another elimination game again in the World Series.  Getting that far and being on the brink of failure again is one of the most excruciating ordeals I have dealt with in my life (yes that’s a good sign it is likely a privileged life).  I couldn’t sleep the day before and my tension, nervousness and excitement was also rubbing off on my wife and my 6 month old daughter, and that carried on and worsened each day as the Cubs came closer to reaching game 7.  I even had a nightmare that our game six, 9-3 victory never actually happened.  It was as much as their ordeal as it was mine, and as I write this today I can’t describe how incredible the feeling is removing that incredible weight.  From here on out, every deep playoff run won’t feel quite as heavy and emotion filled as this one felt.  I am not saying it won’t be great to repeat this run, but the tension, nervousness and excitement will decrease to much more livable levels.

As far as the actual game 7 experience, it seemed to mimic the past Cub experiences in past playoff disappointments, except for the ending.  For about 80% of the game most Cub fans probably felt like this game was ours to lose.  While I knew the Cubs were a better team it seemed like a lot of weird things started to accumulate that really brought up the nightmares of the past.  Bad managerial decisions, weird bounces, poorly called home plate umpiring at the wrong time, and some overall bad baseball was being played at times.  It came to the point, when the game was tied up in the 8th inning, where my 60 year old father had to leave my brothers house because he couldn’t handle seeing the nightmare happen again.  I don’t blame him, that kind of psychological abuse is not healthy to keep putting yourself through!

While I felt my heart sink in that 8th inning as Cleveland tied it, the dark thoughts started to creep in and nightmares began to take over.  That roller coaster ride of a Cub experience was starting to play out again, and it would be near impossible to not think “OH NO!!!”!!!!!  The bottom of the ninth was probably the hardest inning to sit through in my lifetime.  When you have a struggling closer that throws 97mph, one can’t help but think that one lucky solid swing of the bat could end this here and now so suddenly we wouldn’t know what hit us.  Each pitch was a cringe and each bat and ball contact was a large gasping inhale hoping it found the glove of our team, so that we can exhale again.

After the 9th inning it was starting to get too late for my daughter and since we were at my brothers house we decided to take advantage of the rain delay and try to get home in time to catch the top of the tenth.  That ended up not happening.  Like many of my Cub experiences I instead had to listen to the radio broadcast by Coomer and Hughes as we got caught in traffic just a few blocks from home, thanks to oddly blocked off streets.  While my poor tired daughter was crying in the back seat I had to maneuver between hearing the Cubs take the lead again and trying to help relax my child.  As we drove down the Lakeview streets I could hear the roars from the bars as each run was scored, and I started to feel that darkness fade.  I seemed to have temporarily forgotten how this team never quits.

I happened to get home just in time for the end of the top of the tenth, it was already 8-6 now.  At this time I had to try to obtain some sort of balance between being a good dad by helping my wife with the baby and also pay attention to every pitch, an impossible task, to which I thank my amazing wife for knowing this moment and allowing me to have it.  From here on out we know what happens, as I couldn’t sit in one place for more than 5 seconds and had to pace back and forth in the bottom of the tenth.  And since my wife was trying to get our baby to sleep I had to celebrate the three remaining outs with giddy laughter and jumping up and down on a soft rug to absorb as much noise as possible.  The moment I am going to remember the most is seeing Kris Bryant field that last out with a wide grin on his face, himself knowing that he was about to achieve his first major team award and be a very large reason why millions of Cub fans have been unburdened of a tremendous weight upon them.  I seemed to have the same giddy smile he had and immediately felt that release as the ball hit Rizzo’s mitt.

Week of 4/23 Correlated Run Contribution Leaders

So I finally have a program up and running that could allow me to just press a few buttons and get the CRC stat calculated for every player in the MLB in milliseconds.  I will be posting the league leaders and Cub leaders every week, until I get a site up and running where I won’t have to post the stats because anyone will be able to filter it and navigate it.

Keep in mind that CRC was created to find the best hitters for a lineup in the 4,5,6 holes, just behind the guys getting on base.
League leaders as of 4/23 (min 30 at bats):

Name	Team	League	OPS	CRC
Manny Machado	BAL	AL	1.243	1.14285
Aledmys Diaz	STL	NL	1.192	1.09436
Bryce Harper*	WSN	NL	1.181	1.08986
Dexter Fowler#	CHC	NL	1.172	1.06684
Daniel Murphy*	WSN	NL	1.163	1.06035
Jarrod Saltalamacchia#	DET	AL	1.144	1.05844
Christian Yelich*	MIA	NL	1.13	1.0219
Colby Rasmus*	HOU	AL	1.07	0.97755
Trevor Story	COL	NL	1.052	0.97704

Cubs leaders as of 4/23 (min 30 at bats):

Kris Bryant	CHC	NL	0.818	0.74796
Dexter Fowler#	CHC	NL	1.172	1.06684
Jason Heyward*	CHC	NL	0.57	0.5081
Miguel Montero*	CHC	NL	0.772	0.69816
Anthony Rizzo*	CHC	NL	0.867	0.79185
Addison Russell	CHC	NL	0.558	0.50219
Jorge Soler	CHC	NL	0.639	0.57909
Ben Zobrist#	CHC	NL	0.756	0.68053

The crazy idea that Star Wars VII = Star Wars IV

Normally I don’t care enough about movies to write about certain critiques of movies that I love.  But one critique that really bugs me is the false idea that Episode 7 is a remake of Episode IV, and I need to prove that this idea is completely crazy.

I am what you would call a Star Wars junkie, or nut, or nerd, when it comes to this franchise.  So I admit my opinion is going to be a little bit biased.  But mind you that while I think it was great to see Anakin’s story being told in the prequels, I’d be the first to admit that they were pretty awful movies.  And at the same time I am pretty good at recognizing my own bias and being objective on things.   Sorry for this brief paragraph on my Star Wars fandom but I think it is important to preface the rest of this piece with admitting my fandom and also admitting certain parts of this franchise having been bad.

What people seem to be doing is confusing set pieces, like the Star Killer, and the Death Star, with each other.  Those set pieces are just there to symbolize power and to exhibit strength from the bad guys in the movie.  They are there to move the plot along, but they aren’t actually main pieces of the plot line (we know this because it blew up), the main pieces in this plot are the characters (we know this because they lived).  The Star Killer just exists to get the protagonists to face each other at the end, like all movies do!  All the other mentions of droids, bad guy in mask, storm troopers, desert planet, X-Wing battle, yada yada yada they are all minor details to the movie to add nostalgia and move the actual plot along.

There is also the idea of bridging the original movies to the sequels, and you had to do that with mixing a little of the old with a little of the new.  You couldn’t have everything be new, otherwise it wouldn’t be a saga about the Skywalker family and sci-fans favorite soap opera in space.  You had to bring in some things that were cheesy, like the plan of attack scene on the Star Killer, and some other things that brought out teary eyed moments, realizing the garbage was the Millenium Falcon.  So if those things didn’t effect you, then you just don’t get Star Wars and likely never will.

So here are the many things that are different as I promised I would show:

The enormous amount of difference between Kylo Ren and Darth Vader.  Vader was a well polished Jedi who completed his training, had a padawan, and eventually turned to the dark side and helped dominate a galaxy for decades, and was a very calm, controlled and cool character.  Kylo Ren is a kid who resorts to temper tantrums, and struggles with a feeling or two with the light side.  Although very powerful with the force, he is completely out of control and reckless, and there are subtle hints that he didn’t kill Luke’s Jedi academy but that he actually recruited them to be his Knights of Ren, which could offer a much larger challenge for Luke and Rey in the next movies.

When it comes to Rey we have a character who I see as a mix of Anakin and Luke.  All three were raised on a desert planet, and that is where the similarities end.  Rey lost her parents like Luke, but had no guidance.  Rey grew up in a slave like situation, like Anakin, but didn’t have a mother.  She has been an orphan (in the figurative sense)  since the age of 5, she is a perfect mixture of a hardened character with a soft side for life and even robots.  We really have no idea what is to come with her development and what she may turn out to be, this type of character is completely new for this franchise.  Oh yes, she is also a woman, and she uses a bow like stick to fight.  I am so hoping that she develops a light saber similar to Darth Mauls.

As for Fin, we have our first ever storm trooper with a conscious.  In this version of storm troopers they are kidnapped children who are highly trained and good shooters!  If anything the character most like Luke from episode 4 in this movie is Fin and not Rey.  He comes off as naive and lucky and kind of whiny and obnoxious at times.  Yet somehow at the end he comes to his sense and helps the resistance in its time of need.  Ok so maybe a little mix of Han and Luke!

Then there is how the force is used in this movie.  In episode 4 it was force chokes and interrogations with that weird looking floating torture device and a lame light saber battle at the end, and mentions of the force being a dead religion.  In this movie we see a blaster blot frozen in mid air, humans being paralyzed, thoughts being dragged out of their heads, and a shot from Chewies Bowcaster that forces Ren into using his force abilities to keep his guts from falling out.

The differences between Snoke and the Emperor.  We have no fucking clue yet!  But I will use this space to add a little conjecture.  I believe he may be Darth Plagueis, who has abandoned the Sith philosophies and instead tried to create a dark side army, with the Knights of Ren.

So you see the plot is nothing like Episode 4 unless you decide to focus on set pieces that are there to simply move the plot along, which if you are then you also aren’t familiar with how movies work in the first place.

May the force be with you!  And please share if you agree!

Bubble Sort and Project Euler Problem 1

As someone who is about to graduate and in the midst of interviewing for coding jobs I have found that I need to work on more problem solving skills in coding.  So I have decided to challenge myself and work on a few daily problems to enhance my skills a bit.

For student coders that aren’t aware there is a great website that helps you to develop your problem solving abilities called Project Euler (if you haven’t done problem one yet and don’t want to know the answer then stop reading this now).  It is a great site to develop skills and track them against your peers.

So here is the solution to problem 1:

Scanner reader = new Scanner(System.in);
System.out.println(“What number would you like to determine the sums of all the multiples of 3 or 5?”);
int n = reader.nextInt();

int factorOfThree = 0;
int factorOfFive = 0;
int sum = 0;

Array[] number = new Array[n];

for (int i = 0; i < number.length; i ++)
{
if (i % 3 == 0 || i % 5 == 0)
{
if (i % 3 == 0)
{
factorOfThree = i + factorOfThree;
}
else
{
factorOfFive = i + factorOfFive;
}
}

}

sum = factorOfThree + factorOfFive;

System.out.println(sum);

The solution is not perfect but I left my original answer here to show to students that your first solution is likely not the finished one.

I also figured out how to do a BubbleSort.  You can do this with a do-while loop as well but I am more comfortable with the for loop and that’s how I made it work for me.

int[] sortedArray = new int [10];
Random randomGenerator = new Random();

for (int idx = 1; idx <= 10; ++idx)
{
for (int i = 0; i < sortedArray.length; i ++)
{
int randomInt = randomGenerator.nextInt(100);
sortedArray[i] = randomInt;
}

}
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(sortedArray));

int n = sortedArray.length;
int temp = 0;
for (int k =0; k < n; k++ ){
for (int j = 1; j < n; j++){
//do {
if (sortedArray[j-1] > sortedArray[j]){
temp = sortedArray [j-1];
sortedArray [j-1] = sortedArray[j];
sortedArray [j] = temp;
}
}
}
System.out.println(Arrays.toString(sortedArray));

Another New Stat, Contact WAM

I have felt that Wins Above Replacement has a very low starting bar for measuring how valuable a player is (starting at around 47 wins for a team of 0 WAR players) so I have been thinking of a way to improve on that.   With Contact WAM (wins above the mean) I have used what is called a z-score to determine how well a person performs with a contact instance at the plate.

The technical explanation of what it does is taking any contact instance resulting in a safe hit (single, double, triple, and a home run) and using how often a player gets that per at bat.  I then take the league mean (average) of the same per at bat number and get a number for each player of how well they performed above or below the league mean by using z-scores for each contact instance.

Here are the results for the Cubs hitters over 200 at bats this year.

Name	Contact WAM
Kris Bryant	3.65
Chris Coghlan	3.35
Anthony Rizzo	3.34
Dexter Fowler	3.00
Chris Denorfia	2.03
Starlin Castro	1.47
Jorge Soler	1.44
Kyle Schwarber	0.92
Addison Russell	0.73
Miguel Montero	-0.003

I think this determines how well a hitter performs when they make contact compared to the league average.  This is not adjusted for position or for the league they are in.

In the next few days I plan on messing with this more and coming up with a way to reduce theses numbers to include non-contact instances such as walks and strikeouts, and contact instances resulting in an out.  The goal is to try to start with an 81 win starting point for a team and seeing if this stat can approach a teams actual win result by using z-scores away from the mean.

Right now the total Contact WAM is just under 20, which would put the Cubs at 101 wins (81 +20), which is obviously too high so a correction is in order to include the outs, which I will have to figure out how to do soon.

Is there a strike zone advantage in the NLCS?

I typically am never the kind of fan to complain about an outcome of a game and blame an ump for it, and this piece is not doing that.  The intent here is to show why the Cubs are losing and why the Mets are winning.  It is plain and simple, the Mets are finding that particular umps strike zone and using that zone to their advantage, as a great pitching staff ought to do.

Below is Jacob Degrom’s game 3 Strike Zone plot.  As you can see there are about 12 or so pitches (compared to Hendricks 7, which makes sense Degrom threw more pitches) that were balls that were called as strikes, and 10 of those were on the low end of the zone, creating a reset of the zone for Cub hitters, forcing them to adjust and swing at lower pitches.  This game particularly exemplified how off this strike zone was as Hendricks also had a few go in his favor that were fairly low.   Of Degroms low pitches above the 1.0 vertical mark, seven were called balls.  Of Hendricks low pitches five were called strikes and one was called a ball, all other pitches were contacted in some way.  The ratio for strikes to balls in this low zone is 10-7 for Degrom and 5-1 for Hendricks.  That difference can be attributed to the Mets hitters swinging and fouling off those pitches, Cubs hitters were swinging and missing more.

To avoid posting every pitchers strike zone plot you can manage seeing the Cubs side on your own and verify it here.

Below this is Syndergaards Strike Zone plot showing eight balls called as strikes (compared to Arrieta’s one), which reset the Cubs hitter zones to expand more outside and low.  Arrieta had eight low pitches in the 1.0 and above zone called as balls, while his counterpart had eight as well, so the ratio in game 2 favored the Mets.   The ratio of strikes to balls here is 8-8 for the Mets and and 1-8 for Arrieta, so game 2 showed a much more biased zone favoring the Mets.

Below is Matt Harvey’s which had the fewest balls called as strikes, with a total of seven (Lester had five) and I admit this zone was called pretty well this game as the majority of them are right at the corner.  Game 1 was a pretty fairly called strike zone.

All in all you have Mets pitchers with the advantage of having 14 balls more called as strikes than the Cubs had.  This could just be chalked up to being a better pitcher and taking advantage of the expanded strike zones or it could be seen as pitchers given a distinct advantage in the 3 games played so far, which is going to favor the Mets in any series.

If you take into account the advantage being given here and also consider the chart below on how differing counts effect the outcome of an at bat, it shows the Cubs will have to adjust to this in game 4 and beyond to have a chance.  How do they do that?  They need to either expand their zones, creating more outs, or change their patient approach and jump on pitches earlier in the count.

Overall there are some advantages that the Mets starters are receiving in getting more balls called as strikes.  But it is difficult to determine if this is because the Mets pitchers are better at taking advantage of that zone or if the Cubs swing and miss tendencies are not allowing them to foul off those out of zone pitches, which the Mets are doing more.