Bleacher Bums Forum

82 wins

I'll go with 73 wins

I was going to wait until Opening Day, but with Garza, Baker and Stewart all on the DL for the foreseeable future, another July fire sale seems inevitable, so I'll go with 67.

If we're recording these and are going to look back at them throughout the season, we really need two projections: pace before the trade deadline, and actual win total.  As constituted right now, I think they are about a 78 win team.  But once they're forced to start one or two of Rusin, Raley, or Loux after the deadline, Soriano's bat is gone, and the bullpen loses depth after Marmol is traded, they're not going to be as good.  In the end, they'll end up with about 74 wins.

Soriano's bat is already gone, or at least should be expected to be gone.

He is 37 years old, and last year had a fluke season which was 8 OPS+ points better than his career OPS+, and which was better than he had done in any of the four prior seasons.  37 year old hitters generally do not do as well at age 38 as they did at age 37.  They generally do not do better than their career average.  They generally do not do as well as their moving average over the last five years.  And they generally are not more healthy than their recent track record has shown them to be.... and for Soriano that track record had him injured in four of the last five seasons.

Hopefully Soriano does well and helps fill some seats and serves as a role model for younger players, or does well and approves a trade, but a realistic charitable projection for him would be 130 games with a .250 BA, 20 HR and an OBP of .300, not exactly the kind of LF performance which is a major contribution to winning.  110 games with a BA of .235 and 15 HR should not really surprise anyone.

Well, let's go position-by-position:

• First Base: Rizzo is a year older and should be better.  2013 > 2012.
• Second Base: Barney is Barney.  Push.
• Shortstop: Castro is a year older and should be better.  2013 > 2012.
• Third base: Still likely to be awful.  Valbuena was the best performer of the group last year, so you could see a little improvement just by not giving ABs to Mather or Vitters.  Still, this is a push.
• Outfield #1: Soriano is a year older and should be declining.  2013 < 2012.
• Outfield #2: DeJesus is a year older and should be declining.  2013 < 2012.
• Outfield #3: Schierholtz and Hairston aren't exciting, but are competent...possibly good enough to be roughly league average in RF.  They're taking the ABs given to mainly awful players last year: Mather, Byrd, LaHair after the league had figured him out, Baker, and Campana, with a few league average-ish PAs turned in by Reed Johnson.  This is a massive upgrade, 2013 >>> 2012.
• Catcher: Castillo can reasonably be expected to be a .250/.320/.400 hitter this year, and has a little bit of upside.  With a little luck, he'll be around a league average starter.  Navarro is a perfectly capable backup, who should ensure that the Cubs at least get anti-awful performance out of the position if Castillo bombs.  Soto/Clevenger/Hill/Lalli/Recker provided nothing resembling anti-awful performance.  Another big upgrade, 2013 >> 2012.

So two positions that should be major upgrades (just because the names aren't exciting doesn't mean the upgrades aren't huge), and two that are a push.  The improvements from Rizzo and Castro should cancel out the declines of Soriano and DeJesus, although there is a significant chance that one or both of the young players could really break out as true stars.  The lineup is better.  Not good by any stretch of the imagination...but good enough to move up to 11th or 12th in the league instead of dead last.

Thanks for BR's position by position comp.

Let's look at the data.  Cubs were awful offensively at four positions last season:  3B, C, CF, and RF.

1. 3B we've already covered the last few days.  .611 OPS and -154 OPS compared to NL average.  Even with the same guys, this will be better because of random luck, if nothing else.  This is a virtual lock to be better.  How much, who knows.

2. Catcher- Cubs catcher OPS was .616. That was #15 in NL and -106 OPS compared to NL average at the position.  The more that Castillo plays, the more the Cubs will improve compared to last season.   Hard not to upgrade from .616 OPS from 2012.

3. CF- Cubs CF OPS was .640.  That was #14 in NL and -100 OPS compared to NL average at the position.  Keep in mind how this happened.  Campana started 33 games in CF with a .628 OPS while playing CF. B. Jackson started 38 games with a .670 OPS in CF.  Joe Mather started 26 games in CF with a .572 OPS as a CFer. Marlon Byrd started 13 games in CF with a .483 OPS as a CFer.  Gotta think this will be considerably better than .640 in 2013.

4. RF- Cubs OPS was .688. That was #15 in NL and -80 OPS compared to NL average in RF.   DeJesus only started 86 games in RF and did well, but LaHair started 32 games and was .633 OPS as a RFer, Jeff Baker started 11 games in RF with a .438 OPS as a RFer, and Mather went 1 for 20 in RF.  Again, Cubs figure to improve from .688.

In sum, Cubs were either #14, 15, or 16 at four positions in 2012--basically 1/2 of the lineup. I know that this sounds lame, but even going from awful to poor at FOUR positions in a real upgrade.  That's a lot more runs scored.  Maybe there even will be an average or two in that group. 

Other positions in 2012 in OPS compared to NL average:  1B was + 19, 2B was -29, SS was +54. and LF was +21.

Hard to see that Cubs will be worse at three of the four positions that were good/okay, with the possible exception of LF.  Obviously, the key there is whether Soriano will fall off considerably or be traded, perhaps resulting in a downgrade in LF.   Still, it's not like Cubs had a monster offensive year there at .783 OPS.  It's not like losing Sammy in a prime year to the next.

So, overall, hard to argue that Cubs won't score more runs in 2013, seems to me.  I expect the offense to be below average but better than awful.

My NL power ratings: Washington, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Atlanta, St. Louis, Arizona, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, San Diego, Pittsburgh, CUBS, Colorado, New York, Florida

And it's just as possible that Castro's and/or Rizzo's production jumps up in a big way...in which case, all bets are off the table.

I guess it just depends on how you view the guys the Cubs have now.  I don't see going from league worst (or close to it) to average-ish as doing "almost nothing to improve".  And that's what the Cubs have done at catcher, their non-Soriano/DeJesus outfield spot, and probably the bullpen. 

And the biggest key is limiting the non-MLB quality starters to minimal appearances.  When Volstad, Germano, Rusin, Raley, Wells, Coleman, Berken started, the Cubs were 14-40, which is a .259 winning percentage (42 win pace over 162 games).  The Cubs weren't good when actual major league starters were on the mound (47-61; 70-71 win pace), but they were at least respectable.  If the Cubs top 7 this year (top 8 if you include Vizcaino) can pitch 150-155 games at roughly the same level as the Cubs top 5 did last year, they're already about a 70 win team.  Add in catcher, outfield, and bullpen improvements, and you can add on another 5-8 wins.

Casto declined from 2011 to 2012, so I see no reason to assume he'll automatically improve.  Relying on guys like Schierholtz and Hairston for "massive" improvement in your projections is only an indication of just how desperately bad things are.  That seems to be the basis of the argument: we were so bad in 2012 that even by doing almost nothing to improve, we'll be better by sheer law of averages.  Well, maybe by a hair - but not enough to make much difference.  And it's entirely possible that Soriano's production could drop off the table in a big way, in which case look out, below.

If you're projecting 71 wins, that's a 10-win improvement--which is a 100 runs improved overall differential.   

My own view is that Cubs likely will score about 50-60 runs more than last season. (70 more runs would put the Cubs right at NL average using 2012 stats).

So, I see 5-6 more wins coming out of offense.  If you're projecting 10 more wins overall and see little or no offensive improvement, you would have to project 100 fewer runs allowed, which is a very rosy view of Cubs run prevention.  Such an optimist!