IST: Cubs @ Tigers

anotheridiot

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I know its all the number crunchers out there that can get this so easily, but three wins and three cub losses means its a virtual tie until the extra games are played while the rockies and phillies are a half and 1.5 games away from knocking the brewers and cardinals out of the wild card.

Looked pretty close that we were going to be going with Bote at SS for the next 10 days.
 

CubsFaninMN

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Point here being if you just look at the math of things it tells you all you need to know...

Beck, right here you hit the disconnect between those fans who can accept SABRE Metrics, and those who cannot. And I'm not talking about accepting it in the sense of it guiding your manager in match-ups or lineup construction; I mean it in terms of estimating the threat from your competition.

If you reject the fact that the numbers -- which do in fact predict future performance quite well, given a big enough sample size -- could possibly do that, then you're always on the hook when the outliers pop up over a series of games. It's the ultimate human expression of that irrational point of view, "What have you done for me lately?" And specifically, you are much more easily terrified by the competition having a good run, because you have no faith in the numbers that all state your competition is running through an outlier period that not only they can't maintain, but no team in history has been able to maintain.

I've seen a lot of people knee-jerk react on these boards whenever the concept comes up of using the numbers to predict the future, with the classic "the games are played on the field and not on paper". True, but the overall trends of what the teams will do, unless they make a ton of changes, is based on what they have already done. Think of Hitler screaming at his generals that the late-war Allied victories were all a result of the cowardice of the German soldiers; here was a man who so disbelieved the stark numbers -- lack of troops, lack of equipment, lack of air support, lack of ammunition and petrol -- that he had no recourse but to blame the people involved. He couldn't credit the Allies with exceptional skill and spirit, so he was compelled to lay it on the cowardice and inability of his own men.

He ended up dead by his own hand. That was his only way of escaping the numbers. In denial until the moment he pulled the trigger.

Now, last I checked, the Cubs aren't in such a place that their most recent moves could be compared to a last-ditch hail-Mary kind of offensive as the Bulge. Nothing is happening here that would lead one to believe the war is lost. And yet, people who cannot accept that numbers are predictive have the poison ampule to their lips and the gun to their own heads, in despair that our troops have just given up, and all hope is lost.

And in terms of teams having streaks late in the year being predictive of their ultimate successes, ISTR an Indians team that, a year ago, was putting together a much better streak than the Cards are managing. And we all recall their spectacular run to the 2017 World Series, right? Same as with that Mariners team that set the modern record for win %, right?

Oh, yeah -- they crashed and burned, didn't they? Without preventing other teams from going past them and actually competing for the big trophy.

So, please listen to what I hear Beck saying -- one good hot six-week run does not a champion, or even contender, make. Such a hot streak can carry you through a post-season series or two, but not when there are 40-some games left to be played in the year.

Now watch, Carpenter will end up making himself up some salsa that has e-coli in it, will go down for two weeks, and the Cards, without their spark plug, will fade away and all the guys who can't accept the numbers as predictive will insist the Cubs could never have won the division had Carpenter not gotten ill. And thus literally dodge the bullet of accepting the truth, that teams who overachieve for a time will *always* regress to the mean, eventually.

I also find it fascinating that all the people who have been screaming Wolf -- er, I mean Brewers -- all year are now totally discounting Milwaukee, and can only see the Cards as a threat. Geez, guys, the Brewers have had a much better overall year, led the division for a good long while, something the Cardinals have not managed. And yet, the Cards are now "obviously" the team that will shoot us in the ass as they pass us by?

Puh-leeze. Gimme a fucking break.
 

Diehardfan

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Nothing beats a wind sock baseball fan... Cardinal fans talking shit about "their" team when a month ago they were ready to bury them.
 

CubsFaninMN

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Nothing beats a wind sock baseball fan... Cardinal fans talking shit about "their" team when a month ago they were ready to bury them.

Agreed 100%. And, hey, I'm a very involved Cubs fan, I watch every game I can, I follow games online when I can't watch them, and I glory in every win and suffer through every loss.

But, you know what? The only impact this has on me is that, after a loss, I don't tune in to the MLB Network to finger-lick the results. That's about it. And that was the extent of how losses impacted me before this winning window opened, up to now.

You can feel deeply for your team and not let your hopes and fears degrade your ability to think rationally... ;)

Baseball is my favorite sport exactly because it mirrors life. In baseball, if you succeed 40% of the time you're a hall of famer. No other sport forces its players -- and fans -- to learn how to deal with so many moments of failure, in order to win through to the ultimate thrill of that big victory.

Maddon has the feel of it correct -- try not to suck, knowing every player will inevitably have their moments when they suck. When you fail six times out of ten at best, it *must* happen. You can only keep in your mind the desire to minimize how bad you suck at any given time, and to try and keep your sucky moments from losing ballgames and letting your teammates down.
 

beckdawg

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All im gonna say is, the Cardinals dont need to play 800 ball the rest of the way to pass the Cubs, they just need to be 4 games better then them over the final 40...
That basically winning 1 more game out of 10

And here's your disconnect understanding the numbers. The cards have 3 fewer games to play than the cubs do. That's a giant disadvantage for a team trying to catch another team when you only have 34 games left. Let me ask you this.... what's a reasonable expectation for the cubs win% going forward through the end of the season? Worst case is like .500 right? I mean sure there's probably some scenarios out there where the cubs blow out 2-3 arms or something and totally fall off a cliff but that's not a reasonable expectation. If the cubs play .500 ball they will win either 90 or 91 games depending on your rounding. If the cubs win at the rate they have been winning all year .576 then they win 93 games. Fangraphs puts the upper range on their 75th percentile at 95 wins or a 91-95 win range. That's an extremely easy to believe best/worst case win range.

What's that mean though? To tie the cubs at 91 wins the cards would have to go 20-14(.588). That's their best case scenario here just to tie. If the cubs win 92 games they need to go 21-13(.617) to tie. If the cubs win 93 games they need to go 22-12(.647). If the cubs win 94 games they need to go 23-11(.676). And finally if the cubs reach their best case realistic scenario here the cards would need to go 24-10(.706). I'll remind you that the cards are at .555 on the season. .588 is a 95 win pace over 162 games. .617 is a 100 win pace over 162 games. .647 is a 105 win pace. .676 is a 110 win pace. And finally .706 is a 114 win pace.

This all assumes the cards play as well as they can. I've gone this route in discussion because it's more useful to look at the worst case scenario for the cubs to illustrate just how tough it is for the cards to catch the cubs. But perhaps I should have shown the bottom end of STL's range too. Fangraphs has their win range at 86-90 from their 25th to 75th percentile. If they win 86 games the cubs need to go 14-23(.378) to tie. If they win 87 that's 15-22(.405). If they win 88 that's 16-21(.432). If they win 89 that's 17-20(.459). If they win 90 the cubs need to go 18-19(.486).

So people can sit here and say they are only 2.5 games back but that really fails to understand how hard it is to make up ground in 34 games. If they had half a season left then sure 2.5 games isn't much. But when you're talking about a magic number for the cubs vs the cards already being down to 34 that's not much ground to make up. As mentioned in basically the worst case the cubs are almost certainly going to win 19 games and the cardinals going to lose at least 10 more. That means the magic number is really something more like 9. In other words, there's almost no wiggle room for the cards to even have a shot at the division. They have to essentially play perfect the rest of the season. If they have one 3 game set where they play like shit they may just flat out be done because I would be rather shocked if the cubs only went 19-18.
 

Diehardfan

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Not a numbers guy, never will be. The players decide the games, not a stat website. I will say this though, one very good series by the Cubs while the Cards are having one bad series and all the ground they made up will be lost. They will be back where they started with a lot less time on the clock to recoup.
 

CSF77

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Not a numbers guy, never will be. The players decide the games, not a stat website. I will say this though, one very good series by the Cubs while the Cards are having one bad series and all the ground they made up will be lost. They will be back where they started with a lot less time on the clock to recoup.

I’m seeing teams go 3-7. Cubs go 5-5 and the sky is falling.

Teams slump. Cubs slump and they go .500. That is the difference.

Cards are making it interesting right now and have Wacha in rehab games. I doubt that they go away.
 

CSF77

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Murphy 2B
Baez SS
Rizzo 1B
Zobrist RF
Schwarber LF
Happ CF
Cartiani C
Hamels P
Bote 3B
 

chibears55

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And here's your disconnect understanding the numbers. The cards have 3 fewer games to play than the cubs do. That's a giant disadvantage for a team trying to catch another team when you only have 34 games left. Let me ask you this.... what's a reasonable expectation for the cubs win% going forward through the end of the season? Worst case is like .500 right? I mean sure there's probably some scenarios out there where the cubs blow out 2-3 arms or something and totally fall off a cliff but that's not a reasonable expectation. If the cubs play .500 ball they will win either 90 or 91 games depending on your rounding. If the cubs win at the rate they have been winning all year .576 then they win 93 games. Fangraphs puts the upper range on their 75th percentile at 95 wins or a 91-95 win range. That's an extremely easy to believe best/worst case win range.

What's that mean though? To tie the cubs at 91 wins the cards would have to go 20-14(.588). That's their best case scenario here just to tie. If the cubs win 92 games they need to go 21-13(.617) to tie. If the cubs win 93 games they need to go 22-12(.647). If the cubs win 94 games they need to go 23-11(.676). And finally if the cubs reach their best case realistic scenario here the cards would need to go 24-10(.706). I'll remind you that the cards are at .555 on the season. .588 is a 95 win pace over 162 games. .617 is a 100 win pace over 162 games. .647 is a 105 win pace. .676 is a 110 win pace. And finally .706 is a 114 win pace.

This all assumes the cards play as well as they can. I've gone this route in discussion because it's more useful to look at the worst case scenario for the cubs to illustrate just how tough it is for the cards to catch the cubs. But perhaps I should have shown the bottom end of STL's range too. Fangraphs has their win range at 86-90 from their 25th to 75th percentile. If they win 86 games the cubs need to go 14-23(.378) to tie. If they win 87 that's 15-22(.405). If they win 88 that's 16-21(.432). If they win 89 that's 17-20(.459). If they win 90 the cubs need to go 18-19(.486).

So people can sit here and say they are only 2.5 games back but that really fails to understand how hard it is to make up ground in 34 games. If they had half a season left then sure 2.5 games isn't much. But when you're talking about a magic number for the cubs vs the cards already being down to 34 that's not much ground to make up. As mentioned in basically the worst case the cubs are almost certainly going to win 19 games and the cardinals going to lose at least 10 more. That means the magic number is really something more like 9. In other words, there's almost no wiggle room for the cards to even have a shot at the division. They have to essentially play perfect the rest of the season. If they have one 3 game set where they play like shit they may just flat out be done because I would be rather shocked if the cubs only went 19-18.
Everyone has their own ways of looking at things..
I simplify it, you go by numbers

Yes cubs have 3 extra games, but that just 1.5 games in the standings difference..

The next 14 days it all evens up as Cubs play 14 games and Cardinals play 11

My whole point with my original post was IF the cubs continue playing the way they have since the break, which was threading water 500, game or 2 better.. then those other teams who were able to gain some ground on them over the 30+ games, like the Cardinals, can pass them up over the final 30 + games..

So, If the cubs go 8 and 6 over the next 14, and the Cards go 7 and 4 , the Cardinals pick up a half game in standings and now there only a 2 game difference over the final 22 games for both and the last 3 are against each other..

Now, i don't think the Cubs will blow it because i know their better then they've been playing..
Im just saying they need to start playing better then they have sooner rather then later before their looking up at teams with only 30+ games left on the schedule...

And there more then just the Cardinals nipping on their heels now, with the WC spot and UF the Cardinals pass them..

So, im just saying all SP and bats need to step up now...

Side note here...
With 23 games in a row without a day off , and 8 games before call ups..
SP need to start going a little deeper into games to save the bullpen..
As i mentioned before, 3-4 IP every day from the pen going to catch up and eventually wear them out..

Go Cubs



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beckdawg

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So, If the cubs go 8 and 6 over the next 14, and the Cards go 7 and 4 , the Cardinals pick up a half game in standings and now there only a 2 game difference over the final 22 games for both and the last 3 are against each other..

First off using your example here is kind of bad given you are taking the cubs through sept 5th but only the cards through the 4th. For the sake of argument I'll concede the 8-6 though I honestly think playing 7 games vs the mets and cincy during that stretch is pretty pessimistic. Cards play 3 @col, 3 vs pit, 3 vs cincy and 3 @wash. To make this analogy make a bit more sense i'm going to call that 7-5. If you want to argue they go 8-4 instead w/e but that's a pretty optimistic projection(.667 win%).

With that out of the way let's do some math again. That magic number is 34 as previously mentioned. Cubs winning 8 takes it down to 26. Cards losing 5 would take it down to 21. Cubs with 23 remaining games going .500 is 12(or 11.5 if you prefer). That means 21 then becomes 9. Cards would have to go 14-8(.636) in order to not be eliminated from the division. Or simply put using your own scenario here the cards need to go 21-13(.618) and as already stated that's being extremely conservative on what the cubs can do given they would have went 20-17(.540) over the rest of the season which is below their seasonal win rate. I mean we can play these games all day but the simple math doesn't not favor the cards as much as you and others want to make it out to be. They are extreme long shots. That doesn't mean it is impossible that the can win the division but fangraphs puts their chance at winning the division at 9.7% with MIL having a nearly identical 9.6% and the cubs at 80.7%.

And again I'll go back to the point I made earlier. Why is anyone super worried about a team who's starting 5 rotation consists of Miles Mikolas, John Gant, Jack Flaherty, Daniel Poncedeleon and Austin Gomber pulling some long shot odds out of their ass? I'd wager maybe some of you have heard of Flaherty before given he crept up in the top 100 before being promoted. Maybe some have heard of Mikolas because he was a sorta trendy guy coming over from japan in the offseason. But none of you fuckers know who Daniel Poncedeleon and Austin Gomber are and unless you're into prospects as much as I am I doubt you've ever heard of Gant either. That's the team you're talking about as some sort of juggernaut capable of winning at a 60%+ clip over the final 2 months of a season.

I just don't get why some of you seemingly want to be miserable. If I'm not mistaken this cubs team has been in 1st place since fucking june 11th not to mention I believe they held first sporadically prior to that as well. It'd be one thing if the cards already were a game back but they aren't. You're assuming it could happen and might I add pushing some aggressively pessimistic scenarios to get there. Occam's razor... the simplest solution tends to be the right one.
 

chibears55

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First off using your example here is kind of bad given you are taking the cubs through sept 5th but only the cards through the 4th. For the sake of argument I'll concede the 8-6 though I honestly think playing 7 games vs the mets and cincy during that stretch is pretty pessimistic. Cards play 3 @col, 3 vs pit, 3 vs cincy and 3 @wash. To make this analogy make a bit more sense i'm going to call that 7-5. If you want to argue they go 8-4 instead w/e but that's a pretty optimistic projection(.667 win%).

With that out of the way let's do some math again. That magic number is 34 as previously mentioned. Cubs winning 8 takes it down to 26. Cards losing 5 would take it down to 21. Cubs with 23 remaining games going .500 is 12(or 11.5 if you prefer). That means 21 then becomes 9. Cards would have to go 14-8(.636) in order to not be eliminated from the division. Or simply put using your own scenario here the cards need to go 21-13(.618) and as already stated that's being extremely conservative on what the cubs can do given they would have went 20-17(.540) over the rest of the season which is below their seasonal win rate. I mean we can play these games all day but the simple math doesn't not favor the cards as much as you and others want to make it out to be. They are extreme long shots. That doesn't mean it is impossible that the can win the division but fangraphs puts their chance at winning the division at 9.7% with MIL having a nearly identical 9.6% and the cubs at 80.7%.

And again I'll go back to the point I made earlier. Why is anyone super worried about a team who's starting 5 rotation consists of Miles Mikolas, John Gant, Jack Flaherty, Daniel Poncedeleon and Austin Gomber pulling some long shot odds out of their ass? I'd wager maybe some of you have heard of Flaherty before given he crept up in the top 100 before being promoted. Maybe some have heard of Mikolas because he was a sorta trendy guy coming over from japan in the offseason. But none of you fuckers know who Daniel Poncedeleon and Austin Gomber are and unless you're into prospects as much as I am I doubt you've ever heard of Gant either. That's the team you're talking about as some sort of juggernaut capable of winning at a 60%+ clip over the final 2 months of a season.

I just don't get why some of you seemingly want to be miserable. If I'm not mistaken this cubs team has been in 1st place since fucking june 11th not to mention I believe they held first sporadically prior to that as well. It'd be one thing if the cards already were a game back but they aren't. You're assuming it could happen and might I add pushing some aggressively pessimistic scenarios to get there. Occam's razor... the simplest solution tends to be the right one.
LMAO...
???????

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beckdawg

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LMAO...
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Look man I'm really trying hard not to be a dick here. I literally walked you through your own example as to why what you're suggesting is incredibly unlikely. That's not "opinion." You're suggesting that the cards will play equivalent to a 100 win team the final 34 games of the season while the cubs will play equivalent to an 87 win team. Either one of those occurrences by themselves would be unlikely(less than 25% chance). For the cubs to lose the division BOTH would have to happen. That's not a difficult concept to grasp.

You tell me the cubs have an 80% chance to win the division i'm ecstatic. I don't get why some people see the cards at 10% chance and even worry. If it's 2 weeks form now and they are a game back then fine, worry then. But why are you wasting time envisioning something that at the present moment is an absurdly low chance of happening?
 

kapooncha

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Look man I'm really trying hard not to be a dick here. I literally walked you through your own example as to why what you're suggesting is incredibly unlikely. That's not "opinion." You're suggesting that the cards will play equivalent to a 100 win team the final 34 games of the season while the cubs will play equivalent to an 87 win team. Either one of those occurrences by themselves would be unlikely(less than 25% chance). For the cubs to lose the division BOTH would have to happen. That's not a difficult concept to grasp.

You tell me the cubs have an 80% chance to win the division i'm ecstatic. I don't get why some people see the cards at 10% chance and even worry. If it's 2 weeks form now and they are a game back then fine, worry then. But why are you wasting time envisioning something that at the present moment is an absurdly low chance of happening?

I don't mind logic and reasoning but you're going to be eating crow for the next decade if the Cards end up winning the division.
 

chibears55

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Look man I'm really trying hard not to be a dick here. I literally walked you through your own example as to why what you're suggesting is incredibly unlikely. That's not "opinion." You're suggesting that the cards will play equivalent to a 100 win team the final 34 games of the season while the cubs will play equivalent to an 87 win team. Either one of those occurrences by themselves would be unlikely(less than 25% chance). For the cubs to lose the division BOTH would have to happen. That's not a difficult concept to grasp.

You tell me the cubs have an 80% chance to win the division i'm ecstatic. I don't get why some people see the cards at 10% chance and even worry. If it's 2 weeks form now and they are a game back then fine, worry then. But why are you wasting time envisioning something that at the present moment is an absurdly low chance of happening?
I dont think you are...

Like i said we have different way of looking at it and can go back n forth all night, i dont think either one of us are wrong in our thoughts....




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beckdawg

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I dont think you are...

Like i said we have different way of looking at it and can go back n forth all night, i dont think either one of us are wrong in our thoughts....




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Well that makes one of us. If I thought you even had a marginally valid position I'd drop the argument. But you and others suggesting the cards are a real threat are presenting something with a 10% chance as though it were something with a 30-40% chance. As I've said before if you want to have a discussion about how their flaws play out in the playoffs I think that's an entirely different discussion. But to sit here and assume a team with the cardinals starting rotation is going to play at a win% higher than 60% while the cubs are also going to play marginally above .500 ball.... like that's the hill people really wanna die on here? This entire conversation is going to look silly if the rockies sweep the cards or something of that nature in the next week. That's how teetering on the edge of being eliminated from the division they are.

My biggest gripe in all of this is how people can look at the cards roster and think that team has any shot at staying this hot. You can get on a roll for say 20 games. But we're talking about them going 38-17 from August through the end of the season using the previous discussion on how they close out the season. The 2016 cubs went 39-16 in the final 2 months. Are people seriously going to sit here and suggest that roster has anywhere close to the talent the 2016 cubs did? Even if you want to argue it's all luck and in short samples luck plays out over talent.... 55 games is like 1/3 of a season. Luck doesn't last that long.

That's why i'm going so hard on this because I think the assertion that the cardinals can keep this up is that absurd. You'll get no argument from me that mattheny was a bad manager but he wasn't holding back a great cardinals team. They were +9 in run differential in the first half of the year which more or less matches up with their 48-46 record. In August they are scoring 5.05 runs a game and giving up 2.67. The rest of the season they are scoring 4.45 runs a game and giving up 4.32 runs a game. I'd buy Mattheny leaving maybe buys you the change in runs/g but there's no fucking way their team ERA goes from 4.45 to 2.67 without that being entirely luck especially given who their staff is.

If you want to argue they win the division the only real valid way I see that happening is if the cubs don't get to 90 wins. But that then requires the cubs to be 16-20 from here on out or worse. I'd argue there's maybe a 1% chance of them winning the division if the cubs make it to 90 wins given who their roster is.
 

chibears55

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Well that makes one of us. If I thought you even had a marginally valid position I'd drop the argument. But you and others suggesting the cards are a real threat are presenting something with a 10% chance as though it were something with a 30-40% chance. As I've said before if you want to have a discussion about how their flaws play out in the playoffs I think that's an entirely different discussion. But to sit here and assume a team with the cardinals starting rotation is going to play at a win% higher than 60% while the cubs are also going to play marginally above .500 ball.... like that's the hill people really wanna die on here? This entire conversation is going to look silly if the rockies sweep the cards or something of that nature in the next week. That's how teetering on the edge of being eliminated from the division they are.

My biggest gripe in all of this is how people can look at the cards roster and think that team has any shot at staying this hot. You can get on a roll for say 20 games. But we're talking about them going 38-17 from August through the end of the season using the previous discussion on how they close out the season. The 2016 cubs went 39-16 in the final 2 months. Are people seriously going to sit here and suggest that roster has anywhere close to the talent the 2016 cubs did? Even if you want to argue it's all luck and in short samples luck plays out over talent.... 55 games is like 1/3 of a season. Luck doesn't last that long.

That's why i'm going so hard on this because I think the assertion that the cardinals can keep this up is that absurd. You'll get no argument from me that mattheny was a bad manager but he wasn't holding back a great cardinals team. They were +9 in run differential in the first half of the year which more or less matches up with their 48-46 record. In August they are scoring 5.05 runs a game and giving up 2.67. The rest of the season they are scoring 4.45 runs a game and giving up 4.32 runs a game. I'd buy Mattheny leaving maybe buys you the change in runs/g but there's no fucking way their team ERA goes from 4.45 to 2.67 without that being entirely luck especially given who their staff is.

If you want to argue they win the division the only real valid way I see that happening is if the cubs don't get to 90 wins. But that then requires the cubs to be 16-20 from here on out or worse. I'd argue there's maybe a 1% chance of them winning the division if the cubs make it to 90 wins given who their roster is.
I really dont know why youre making this more then what it was...

It started out as a simple post of me basically saying that the cubs need to be careful and play better then the way they have since to break, because teams have made up some ground on them and are now basically within striking distance..
Heck the Braves are just a game behind for best record now

That it..lol

I even said that i dont think it will happen because the cubs are a better team then how they've been playing..

Why it had to turn into fangraphs, analytics, magic numbers and all kinds of statistics
I really have no idea..lol

As far as division goes, Cubs now have 3 game lead with 36 games left, Cardinals have 34 games left...
Cubs just need to stay 1 game better then the Cards til the final weekend, to make those final 3 games meaningless
But
It not statistically impossible for the Cardinals to play 1 game better then the Cubs to make those games matter.

It that simple

Go Cubs

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beckdawg

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It not statistically impossible for the Cardinals to play 1 game better then the Cubs to make those games matter.

The reason I'm making this go where it has is because you're misrepresenting what I've said. No where in any of this have I said it's statistically impossible. I've said it's extremely unlikely that the cards have any chance. As to why it's went into fangraphs and various other shit is because if i'm making an assertion I show you why I made it. This isn't my "gut" feeling. Not to mention the fact you replied to a comment chain with someone who was asserting it's not unreasonable to think the cards continue to play this well which as I've painstakingly outline is absurd.

Either way, the fact remains until the cards are within a game of the cubs I really don't see the point in discussing them. They haven't been a better team all year and I see no reason to believe they are one now. Given that logic whatever the cards do from here on out you'd at the very least expect the cubs to match it.
 

kapooncha

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Beck, if somehow the Cards do win the division, you're going to be eating one massive size plate of crow.
 

beckdawg

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Beck, if somehow the Cards do win the division, you're going to be eating one massive size plate of crow.

Am I now? Because I'm fairly certain I've said it's extremely unlikely not it's impossible. What do I get if the cards don't win the division? I don't know maybe I'm coming off as a know it all here. That's frankly not my intent. But it's incredibly frustrating to sit here and watch people complain about a team that has been the best team in the league since June. I'm so over it. And the cherry on the top is the fact people are citing a team that played 1 game over .500 prior to august and who in august itself saw it's team ERA go from 4.45 all year to 2.67 as the Achilles heel. That's the major reason they are suddenly winning games.

I'm not even sitting here trying to say the cards are a bad team. I tend to agree with fangraphs 88 win projection for them. I also tend to agree that they are probably the front runner for the #1 wild card. But the point no one has addressed yet is their roster. Why does anyone think that their roster is a 90+ win team which it's almost certainly going to have to be in order to win the division? You can sit here all day long and say games aren't played on paper but that's frankly quite a cop out to the question. Their starting rotation is incredibly weak by any standard and every one of them except gant is massively over performing their FIP which is yet another sign for regression. Their bullpen is 18th in the majors in ERA and FIP. And in terms of their offense is there any single player other than Carpenter that you'd take their bat over the cubs player at the same position? Cubs are also superior in team defensive metrics.

And look if you're new here and haven't been around long enough to understand where I'm coming from then my bad. But I honestly have just reached a point where I'm tired of seeing this negative shit about the cubs on a cubs fan board when the team is in first place and has the best record in the national league. Teams lose games to good teams and teams lose games to bad teams. It's going to happen but given the reaction of some here to cubs losses you'd think this was the prototypical june swoon cubs rather than a team that's been to 3 straight NLCS' while having that aforementioned best record in the national league. If people are going to get that pissy about losses I honestly don't understand why they watch because that's baseball. Great teams lose 35% of their games. The worst imaginable team still wins 30% of their games which all come vs teams that are better than them.
 

kapooncha

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Beck, I think we all get where you're coming from. I understand your reasoning and logic. But you also tend to dismiss posts that mention concerns about the Cubs. So while you never said it was impossible for the Cards to win the division, you essentially did tell me the chances were so small that it isn't even worth worrying about. I disagree with that. So respectfully, yes you will have to eat some crow if the worst happens.

What I think it boils down to is this. And I don't want to speak for chibears but I think he probably feels the same. If the Cubs end up pissing the division away, my wife, kids, and puppy all know to leave the house for 1-2 weeks because I'm taking a bat to the TV, the kitchen, and basically anything I see in the nearby vicinity. I feel with you, if the Cubs don't win the division, you'll just sort of shrug your shoulders and say "well what can ya do?"
 

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