How Many Wins For The Cubs In 2014?

beckdawg said:

However, they are no where near as bad as people often make them out to be.

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i'm looking for the emoticon that denotes "hysterical laughing on the verge of vomitus".

CSF77 said:

Ya We could see Baez and Bryant but are they going to struggle and what impact?

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Keep in mind what they may be replacing. Olt's been fairly bad if we're being honest and they've still been playing Barney for reasons beyond me. Even if they struggle and hit like .230's range it's an upgrade over those two. That's the thing, if they do literally anything to add offensive players at certain positions it's an upgrade. Sadly, neither is likely to play OF and while they've toyed with Alcantara in CF I'm not sure it's a long term thing or not. But let's say it is and you get those 3 up. You can then kick Nate, Olt, and Valbuena/Barney out of the line up all of whom have an OBP below .260.

CSF77 said:

I felt they were going to avg 1-2 every series. 33% win rate.

19-32 .373% pretty close to it.

So I would guess at this rate they are a 40% max. Ya We could see Baez and Bryant but are they going to struggle and what impact? How much time here?

40% is a safe bet. 65 wins top end.

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One way to look at it if you wanna be on the glass half full side of things, is just an Avg, offensive output by baez and bryant if brought up in 2nd half should be better then who they might be replacing in Barney, Schierholtz, etc..

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diavolos said:

i'm looking for the emoticon that denotes "hysterical laughing on the verge of vomitus".

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Toronto leads with 274 RS
Cubs 4th from last 194 RS

ATL 178 RS
Cin 177 RS
SD: 175 RS (last)

Cubs 3.55 ERA (#9)
Cin 3.59 ERA (#11)
SD: 3.33 ERA (#6)
Atl 2.96 ERA (#2)


SD 38 errors
Cubs 33 errors
Atl 33 errors
Cin 24 errors (best in league)

Atl #2 pitching 3rd from bottom hitting. avg D. 28-25 record.
Cin #11 pitching 2nd worst O best D. 23-29 record
SD: worst O #6 pitching mid D. 24-30 record
Cubs #9 staff. 4th worst O. Mid D. worst record in baseball.

Atl has the best NL staff. That is why they are above .500. They are not running away with the div due to their O.

Rest are below .500. Cin has best D but well that means less than SP now doesn't it?

SD and Chi have nothing great going at all. Ya the staffs are good but it can not over come the lack of run support.

Atl 2.96 ERA. Or under 3 runs per game given up. Cubs 3.55.

That means the Braves can win by scoring 3 in a game. Cubs have to score 4 to win. That is pretty basic avg there.

chibears55 said:

One way to look at it if you wanna be on the glass half full side of things, is just an Avg, offensive output by baez and bryant if brought up in 2nd half should be better then who they might be replacing in Barney, Schierholtz, etc..

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Baez has struggled with every promotion. History tells us he will be a small factor this year.

Bryant is another animal. But he is in AA.

CSF77 said:

SD and Chi have nothing great going at all. Ya the staffs are good but it can not over come the lack of run support.

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Not really all that surprising when you look at OBP and particularly who is giving it to you. Rizzo(.396), Valbuena(.377), Bonifacio(.322), Castro(.312), and Ruggiano(.311) are the only players who are anywhere near average MLB players. The other positional players have had 983 PAs of their 1948 total which were essentially sub .300 OBP at bats. I mean you're talking 4A if not worse than that level of players from half your hitters. Lake's been playing better of late and if you figure on Bonifacio and Ruggiano as primary players in CF and LF going forward they should be some what better. Olt's killing them at 3B. His .168/.241/.408 isn't getting it done. However, if you play Valbuena over him at 3B then Barney plays with his equally bad .184/.258/.253.

Bryant and Baez coming up solves both those issue as I find it quite hard to believe either will be worse than those two. I'd like to see them trade for a shorter term guy in the OF and make Lake and Ruggiano fight it out for one slot. I figure that alone could add a half run a game if not more if Baez/Bryant don't struggle.

CSF77 said:

Baez has struggled with every promotion. History tells us he will be a small factor this year.

Bryant is another animal. But he is in AA.

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A Baez struggle could still be better then what they've gotten from barney..

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CSF77 said:

Toronto leads with 274 RS
Cubs 4th from last 194 RS

ATL 178 RS
Cin 177 RS
SD: 175 RS (last)

Cubs 3.55 ERA (#9)
Cin 3.59 ERA (#11)
SD: 3.33 ERA (#6)
Atl 2.96 ERA (#2)


SD 38 errors
Cubs 33 errors
Atl 33 errors
Cin 24 errors (best in league)

Atl #2 pitching 3rd from bottom hitting. avg D. 28-25 record.
Cin #11 pitching 2nd worst O best D. 23-29 record
SD: worst O #6 pitching mid D. 24-30 record
Cubs #9 staff. 4th worst O. Mid D. worst record in baseball.

Atl has the best NL staff. That is why they are above .500. They are not running away with the div due to their O.

Rest are below .500. Cin has best D but well that means less than SP now doesn't it?

SD and Chi have nothing great going at all. Ya the staffs are good but it can not over come the lack of run support.

Atl 2.96 ERA. Or under 3 runs per game given up. Cubs 3.55.

That means the Braves can win by scoring 3 in a game. Cubs have to score 4 to win. That is pretty basic avg there.

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Yeah I get what you're saying. And your post details a lot of average stats to consider. Four is a magical number in a lot of ways. But still, worst record in baseball. So there's that.

beckdawg said:

I think the cubs are -11 in run differential. A -10 Texas team is 28-26. A -10 White Sox team is 28-27. A -13 Baltimore team is 26-26. A -7 NY Yankee team is 28-24. A -14 KC team is 25-28. Obviously there are reasons for the cubs under performing their run diff namely a horrific offense. However, they are no where near as bad as people often make them out to be. Additionally, if they add anything to fix their offense then they very well might stop under performing their run differential or they may continue to. I just don't think it's ridiculous to believe they can be a .450ish team over the remained of the season. If they trade Shark, that probably is out of reach.

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They are bad. The reason the run differential is close is because of good pitching. It won't hold up. Unless the hitting improves this team will be lucky to not lose 100 games. I guessed completely wrong. There are several hitters I thought who would do better and I didn't expect RR's platoons to last as long as they did.

Parade_Rain said:

They are bad. The reason the run differential is close is because of good pitching.

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That idea contradicts itself. While I agree they are a lopsided team(all pitching no hitting) the fact remains their pitching has been good. It's not "luck" either. If you look at their FIP and xFIP it looks like this

Shark - 1.68 ERA 2.78 FIP 3.27 xFIP
Hammel - 3.08 ERA 3.17 FIP 3.58 xFIP
Wood - 4.35 ERA 3.73 FIP 4.14 xFIP
Jackson - 4.81 ERA 3.22 FIP 3.55 xFIP
Arrieta - 3.20 ERA 2.69 FIP 3.10 xFIP

In fact, other than Shark everyone's FIP is lower than their ERA. While injuries are always possible there's no reason to believe these starts aren't legit. In fact, you could make an argument in the case of Wood and Jackson that they could substantially improve if they start pitching more toward their FIP. So, even if the other 3 regress some they have room to grow. Jackson and Arrieta also have rather high BABIPs in .343 and .365. Hammel's is perhaps a bit low at .221. I wouldn't be surprised to see him regress a bit but it would have to be in the next month to matter most likely as he'll probably get traded in July. If they also trade Shark then all deals are off because while I think they can replace Hammel's production with Hendricks, they don't have anything to replace Shark.

As I've said for the hitting, it doesn't take much to improve what they have. They are currently 3-10 in 1 run games. They are also 1-6 in extra innings. Between those two stats that's 12 games(only 2 of the extra inning losses weren't 1 run games) in which you're arguably 1 hitter away from a win. If they had managed to pull out 3 wins out of those 12 losses they are roughly on pace for 70 wins right now.

So, while there are no guarantees in baseball, there's not much reason to believe the starting rotation will fall apart and having gotten Villanueva out of the starting rotation has actually made them better. And it's not like they are some massive ways away from being a 70 win team. That's my point about them not being as bad as people want to believe. Their starting rotation is good(11th in ERA) and their bullpen is good(11th in ERA). Conversely they are 28th in OBP. If they add a few players through trades/promotion and get that OBP to the 20 range they probably end up a 70 win team. The difference between 28th and 20th is 13 points. At this point in the season you're talking around 55 more hits/walks or roughly one more hit per game. The difference between the cubs and the 15th team is 95 walks/hits or roughly another 2 hits/walks. That's arguably what we're talking about being the difference between the cubs being the worst team record wise and a roughly average team.

An article like this is a good read to understand how to make more accurate projections since we are still reaching the point of random fluctuations not being a major cause of teams' performances to date. Simply going off their win percentage today is hardly going to result in an accurate prediction for how the rest of the season is likely to go.

dabynsky said:

An article like this is a good read to understand how to make more accurate projections since we are still reaching the point of random fluctuations not being a major cause of teams' performances to date. Simply going off their win percentage today is hardly going to result in an accurate prediction for how the rest of the season is likely to go.

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Never mind can't do math.

According to that ~68 wins if the Cubs win one this series.

dabynsky said:

An article like this is a good read to understand how to make more accurate projections since we are still reaching the point of random fluctuations not being a major cause of teams' performances to date. Simply going off their win percentage today is hardly going to result in an accurate prediction for how the rest of the season is likely to go.

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I read the article and part of the proof. Im just going to say I disagree with the math

Now that said I think its something like over 50 of teams leading on Memorial Day will when the season ends.

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beckdawg said:

That idea contradicts itself. While I agree they are a lopsided team(all pitching no hitting) the fact remains their pitching has been good. It's not "luck" either. If you look at their FIP and xFIP it looks like this...

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How is the idea contrary? The pitching has kept them in games. Without that good pitching the team isn't remotely competitive. They need more offensive production.

Less than 65. Cubs are on pace for 102 losses and they haven't even had the 3rd annual summer blowout sale

JZsportsfan said:

Less than 65. Cubs are on pace for 102 losses and they haven't even had the 3rd annual summer blowout sale

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Ah yes! The coveted #1 draft pick.

They even got to that mark slowly.

Getting a higher draft pick continuously year in and year out means only one thing. That you are getting worse at the parent level year in and year out.

Rickett's a Cubs fan?


**Crickett's**

Heh.

What do you know?

When the Cubs finally quit hoarding the precious prospects at the minors, they start winning. Imagine that.

nwfisch said:

Heh.

What do you know?

When the Cubs finally quit hoarding the precious prospects at the minors, they start winning. Imagine that.

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Well they added Soler and lost Rizzo. But Soler and Valbuena have been carrying the O right now.

They were talking about Olt at 1B this month. We will see if he is improved.....

What we should be watching is Felix and Turner. If they have solid Outings this month then we can expect Jackson and Wood sold off this winter. I would be happy with Brown from Phili as a return and some of the contract shifted for either guy. Come to think of it the could just trade both and mAybe get a arm or 2 also with some cash sent over.

Thrilled I was wrong. We could get up to 75, but if Castro and Rizzo are going to miss the rest of the season I would be shocked if that was the case