Winter Pie

Here's a look at Pie's numbers in the Dominican, courtesy of Rotoworld

Felix Pie - OF Cubs
.239/.308/.385, 2 HR, 13 RBI, 28/10 K/BB, 6 SB in 109 AB

Rotoworld mentions a .650 OPS for the entire league this season, so Felix is at least average in that regard. His nearly 3:1 K:BB concerns me the most.

Too bad we don't have PITCHf/x for the DWL, but here's a look at his MLB data from 2007.

From the catcher's perspective you can see what Felix likes to swing at, and what he's done with it:



I'm stealing Josh's chart above, but the rest of this is from my own database.

Using my definitions for a strike zone, I use 42.24 in. as the top, ~19.44 in. as the bottom (measured from the ground) for Felix, and a 2ft. wide plate for everyone (based on someone else's research - I have it linked somewhere, just go read my entire blog :-) ).

So my zone is wider, but the vertical settings looks the same, as they are probably both from the average values from the raw data (mine are, for sure).

Check out the called strikes off the plate, and perhaps the 2ft. "zone as they actually call it" is more accurate.

14.2% of the pitches Felix saw were down, but "over"
48.1% were in the zone
5.6% were up but over

These numbers are wrong - updating in a new post. Felix swung at just over 60% of the pitches he saw in the zone (that's quite a few called strikes) with a .915 contact rate (that's good). Unfortunately, he also went after 43.5% of the low and "over" pitches he saw, with a lowly contact rate of .550.
He went after a third of the up and overs, with a contact rate of .333.

So, looking at the pitches over the plate, he likes the ball down, and does make a little more contact there (small sample size warning - n=324, and just 18 "up and over" pitches).

I'll take another look Felix, including pitches off the plate, later this week.

Dome and Fuld

The stove heats up.

Looks like the Cubs got the 'dome

The Padres found out tonight that they lost out in their bid for Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome, who accepted a four-year deal from the Cubs worth close to $50 million.

Peter Gammons says that's good news for Sam Fuld, somehow, but I don't get it

If the Cubs sign Fukudome, they will use him in right field, with Felix Pie and Sam Fuld in center.

They're both lefties who haven't proven they can hit big league pitching, so, um...Murton anyone? I do like Fuld, a lot, but we haven't seen him actually hit big league pitching. At least we know Felix can't hit (yet...?)

Retractable Fukudome

Google may not be the best translation engine, but I think this is a good thing:

"RBI axial struck me want to buy it," Hillman director. As early as cleanup plan to leave also showed that the situation in the Cubs have favorite.

http://www.sanspo.com/mlb/top/mt200712/mt2007120607.html

Sounds great! I think. Anyway, $45mil/3yrs is the rumor. We shall see.

Kosuke Fukudome
B 4/26/77
Bats left
Throws right

Here's one projection
CHONE
283/373/465
600 PA
112 K
69 BB
38 DBL
4 TPL
15 HR

and another
via Sturgeon General
308/375/507
150 G
600 PA
529 AB
163 H
40 DBL
9 TPL
16 HR
60 BB
110 K

Jose Ascanio

The Cubbies acquired Ascanio for Bad Ohman and, in effect, Jacque Jones and the cash sent to Detroit.
He does throw very hard. Here's a look at this velocity by appearance - depending on how accurate the raw data is, he can top 96-97 mph



Here's a new arrangement of the data for a chart - Speed by Spin Direction, with Spin Rate as the bubble size



What I find interesting is the tiny dots, the slow spinners, don't vary so much in speed, but in spin direction. I think the direction borders on irrelevant at that rate (some physicist out there will have to figure out when that starts to happen).

For Out Of the Zone, I happily point you to the wonderful work of Josh Kalk.