ESPN Chalk's Joe Peta is sharing his season win total projections for every MLB team, including a reason for optimism and pessimism. Plus, he recommends an over/under play, or a pass. This is the entry for the Chicago Cubs.
Reason for optimism: Forget "Back to the Future." When Jorge Soler, Javier Baez and Kris Bryant hit back-to-back-to-back home runs in a game this spring, no one noticed the ice and snow in Chicago.
Reason for pessimism: Top prospects often take time to develop, the pitching staff has some holes ... ah, skip it. All Cubs fans are wearing a smile right now.
The Cubs total wins market last spring stands as a perfect example of the importance of price. The Cubs were priced to win 69.5 games (lowest in the National League), which seemed an absurdly low price given the presence of Jeff Samardzija, a solid staff, still-peaking Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo, etc., and a bevy of players in the minor leagues potentially joining the team in season.
Everything worked against that over play.
Despite outstanding starting pitching the first half of the year, the Cubs suffered from terrible cluster and Pythagorean luck, posting just 35 wins at the midway point despite underlying peripherals that suggested above-.500 play; still, the pace was for 70 wins. Of course, from that point on, the Cubs traded away Samardzija, Jason Hammel and other parts in an apparent attempt to tank the season. Despite all the bad luck and the jettisoned talent, the Cubs still put together a 73-win season, thanks in no small part to the contributions of Soler.
The lesson learned: price matters. The Cubs were undervalued last year so that when things went wrong, there was a margin of safety in the over play.
That's not the case this year. Soler's electrifying month in the bigs included five home runs, while another call-up, Baez, drilled nine in this first 150 at bats or so, all while Bryant was doing things to minor league pitching reminiscent of Giancarlo Stanton. As if that hadn't raised expectations enough, the front office added Miguel Montero and Dexter Fowler to the lineup, strengthened the bench and signed free agent Jon Lester to a long-term contract.
In addition to the money pouring into the futures market on the Cubs, Reno opened the Cubs at 81.5 wins, and the Westgate quickly followed with an opening market of 82.5 wins in Vegas. That market went up to 83 before setting back at 82.5. All this for a team that hasn't averaged even 70 wins a year since the last time it won 83 games in 2009.
But you know what? I can't fault the rabid fans or the bettors who have pushed the total up. It's a fair market. Young players are volatile, but there isn't that much that has to go right for the Cubs to make the playoffs and threaten the 90-win mark.
To begin with, the Cubs are starting from a 78-win -- not 73-win -- base before you consider the marginal changes. From a runs-allowed perspective especially, the Cubs were extremely unlucky with cluster luck, or sequencing. Lester is every bit as good as Samardzija, so replacing his 17 starts, as well as, say, the 13 from Tsuyoshi Wada, is plausible from a runs-allowed perspective (3.65 runs allowed per nine innings over the 30 combined starts).
The big question then is whether Jake Arrieta, Kyle Hendricks and a returning Hammel can duplicate last year's breakout success. There are signs that Arrieta's stellar ERA was earned thanks to his elite 27.2 percent strikeout rate (same for Hammel). While there is virtually no chance the soft-tossing Hendricks can limit runs at a 2.46 ERA rate again -- or even within a run of that rate -- Travis Wood isn't 5.03 ERA bad, but that's what his ERA was last year. Even if he is that bad in 2015, there's no way he'll be left around to start 31 games as in 2014. The Cubs shouldn't lose any ground to last year's rotation, so we're still at a 78-win base before considering other changes.
The rotation might be a wash, but the bullpen should be even better. Cubs relievers posted a 3.61 ERA in 2014, a huge improvement over the units with 4.00-plus ERAs the prior two seasons. But on a skills-based metric, SIERA, the expected ERA was even better (3.30). Even more encouraging, the release of some of the worst skills offenders from that group, plus the addition of Jason Motte, puts the bullpen in position to reach the elite 3.10 ERA-or-better category.
It's the offense, though, where the true upside resides. It's virtually a given the Cubs won't call Bryant up until the season is a dozen or so games old due to service-time calculations negotiated in the collective bargaining agreement, which will effectively delay Bryant's future free-agent status by a year.
However, once he's in the lineup, it's impossible not to look at the hitters and envision above-average production (i.e. greater than 2 WAR) production from every spot. Just that level of offense, along with an improved bullpen, would make the Cubs a .500 contender, but no one on the North Side is dreaming of just average production from Rizzo, Castro, Bryant, Soler et al.
The Cubs are a legitimate playoff contender. Even driven by retail demand this spring, the market number of 83 wins is fair. It may be fair, but there's almost certainly more upside than downside, which should make summer in the bleachers just a little more pleasant.
2015 projection: 83-79 (third, NL Central)
Bet recommendation: Pass