Bleacher Bums Forum

Keep drinking that Koolaid, kid.

The Cubs' pythagorean would actually have them having won one fewer games than they have so far, so I don't see this as a team playing thru bad luck.

And the only reason the Cubs rank 19th in runs is because you are looking at both leagues together, meaning you are comparing them to an entire league of teams with the DH.  Limit the look to the NL, and even then focus on the NL East to see not just where the Cubs rank, but how far they are from the league average, from the division leader, and the division laggard.  That will give you a better idea of how the Cubs actually stack up against the division, instead of simply falling back on the old standard that the NL Central is weak and anyone can take it.

In the NL the Cubs rank 10th in runs/game at 4.00, with the league average 4.22, but only the Pirates and Brewers rank behind the Cubs, with the Brewers only .12 behind the Cubs and the Pirates .34 back.  Now, as to those in front.... that is the bad news.  The Cards are leading the league, and doing so without much so far from Pujols.  The Cards are scoring 1.45 runs a game better than the Cubs and the Reds are second in the league, scoring 1.28 runs a game better than the Cubs.

The Cubs' biggest black hole is Pena, and it is entirely possible he will not get appreciably better, and also that he will not be replaced in the lineup for at least another two months.  For every other starter in the Cubs' lineup, you look at what they are doing now, their ages, their career averages, and what they did last year, and it is not hard to see them each individually performing about the same for the rest of the season (except for Fukudome, who will see his numbers fall sharply), and for Soriano, while his performance could remain as strong as it has been, it would also not be surprising to see him fall sharply.

While the Cubs are second in the league in BA, BA is not a particularly meaningful offensive stat, and each of the other teams in the top four in the league are also in the Central, with the 3rd and 4th place teams not far behind the Cubs -- Houston is 3 points behind the Cubs and the Reds are just 6 points back (while the Cards lead the league, batting 23 points better than the Cubs).

In OBP the Cubs are 5th in the league, 39 points behind the Cards and 12 points behind the Reds, and only 4 points ahead of the Astros and 12 ahead of the Brewers.

But when you look at OPS+, which adjusts also for the parks the teams have played in, it appears the Cubs may have benefited from having played in friendly parks so far.  The Cubs rank a nice 5th in the league in raw OPS at .723, though well behind the Cards and Reds (1st and 2nd) at .808 and .758, and the Cubs are only 17 points better than the league average, and 15 points better than the Brewers.  Again, those were the raw OPS #s.  The OPS+ has the Cubs 10th, two places behind the league average.  The Cubs have an OPS+ of 92, only ahead of the Pirates in the Central, with the Cards at 125, the Reds 2nd at 109, the Astros 5th at 98, the Brewers 7th at 95.

The Cubs are next to last in steals, with only 7, compared to a league average of 21, but the Padres are the team leading the league in steals, with 37 (and are last in runs/game at 3.16), so steals are not necessarily a great way to score runs.

The Cubs are 11th in HR, at 26, and that is only 2 below the league average of 28, so they could easily move up there.... but how much of a boost would that give?  Suppose they jumped to 6th in HR (easily possible)... which would only require and additional 3 HR.  What would that give in runs scored?  Let's attribute 2 runs/HR (which is likely a bit high, but let's do it).  Those added 6 runs would increase the runs/game by about .2, which would still leave the Cubs short of the league average and move them ahead of no other team.

And one thing we might want to remember when pointing the finger at Pena, Colvin has actually been worse.  Colvin has 60 PA (Pena 97) and an OPS of .513, compared to .569 for Pena.  If Colvin improves, that could make a big difference, and might provide an option at 1B if Pena continues to s*ck, but it also would not be all that surprising to see Colvin continue to struggle enough he needs to return to the minors to figure things out.

Is it possible that the leaders in the division will come down enough, and the Cubs will improve enough, that the Cubs will actually "be competitive" in September?

Sure.  Just as it is possible to flip a coin 30 straight times and have it come up heads each time.

Of course, I am going to bet against those 30 straight coin tosses coming up heads, and sanity would have management start looking to 2012 and beyond.... which it should have been doing at least after last season, if not after 2010.

Instead, the Cubs tried to make the team "competitive" in 2011, getting a "solid" starter in Garza.... and giving up Guyer (who made his major league debut last night with a HR in his first AB), Fuld (who had no role with the Cubs, but still has an OPS+ of 106 despite his recent slump, and is playing excellent defense), Hak-Ju Lee (who at age 20 is hitting .397 with an OPS of 1.037 as a SS in high A ball), and Archer (who last year looked like one of the best starting prospects in the Cub system.

That is the kind of move which makes a lot of sense for a team on the cusp of winning.... but which seems short-sighted when the team is what we saw last year.

. . . a defense that is seriously letting Garza down.   

That's what I keep telling myself, too, BUT...when you have a weak roster and lousy talent, you can't be making up some of the horrible lineups, game situation decisions, and constant head scratching loco choices he makes.  Maybe he's trying too hard to win games with his AAAA talent....

I don't think Quade's doing a bad job with what he's been given.  I don't like how he manages the bullpen all of the time, I think he's been slow to make lineup adjustments (Byrd hitting in the #3 hole for much of the season for example and not working his bench in the lineup more for struggling players), I don't like a lot of his "gut call" decisions like Baker pinch hitting against Putz or Reed Johnson pinch hitting in the 9th early in the season with Kosuke on the bench, and like Reb's mentioned a few times, he does seem to sit on his hands a lot.

However, I do like some things he's done that I don't think a lot of managers would do.  I don't think there are a lot of veteran managers who would have gone with Barney at second base to start the season, and that's turned out to be a very good decision thus far.  Putting Cashner in the rotation was looking like a good decision before he got hurt, and I think a lot of "old school" managers would have been content to pigeonhole Cashner as a reliever right away after not starting much last season.  He doesn't do a lot of small ball stuff that a lot of managers do that cost their teams runs.  Some of his "against the book" decisions are actually good ones, like not automatically going to a weak left handed bat off the bench when there is a right handed batter who's hitting better. 

I think Quade seems like a solid baseball guy, but I still wonder if he might be a little over his head managing a major league team.  It still doesn't seem all the time like the team is buying into him, and part of his sitting on his hands and being slow to make lineup changes might be due to him being a Triple-A guy who doesn't want to make waves on a team full of veterans.