Bleacher Bums Forum

Agree that there's a big difference between slipping in as a wildcard, around the 10th best team in baseball, as compared to truly being one of the top 3-4 teams in the game.  Different to slip in as a wildcard, as opposed to being one of the teams people honestly expect has as good a chance to win the world series as anybody else, and perhaps better than most of the other playoff teams. 

I think we're kind of contrasting the Cub playoffs teams of 1984, 2003, and 2008, each of which looked like legit serious powers; versus the 1989, 1998, and 2007 versions, where it was nice to get in but I didn't really think any of those teams were on par with the other playoff teams. 

I agree that Bryant and/or Soler will need to look like pretty serious players this year to be in the top handful.  And probably one or two from the Hammel/Hendricks/Wood/Wada crowd will need to sustain a pretty good year.  Not probable.  But possible enough for me to be pretty interested. 

A whole third make the playoffs?   

The Cubs could have a totally different looking offense this year.  They were really bad in OBP last year, and gave a ton of the AB's to sub-.300 OBP guys.  If Montero can stay healthy, and if Bryant earns his way up, (likely), and if either La Stella starts at 2nd or else Alcantara improves a lot, it seems well possible that we could/should have .300-OBP regulars at all 8 starting positions.  That could be a big change.  And while that may seem like a modest standard, the Cubs weren't the only team playing a lot of sub-.300 guys.  The NL OBP average was only .312, and there were six NL teams with a team OBP of .305 or worse.  The Cubs at .300 weren't even the worst in the league.  Of the five teams with a .320 team OBP, four of them made the playoffs.  (Colorado didn't.  The world champion Giants of course were the NL team who slipped in without a .320 OBP.) 

We'll see, but I'm not sure it's unrealistic for the Cubs as a team to be more .320's than .300 this year, if Montero can stay healthy.  (If it's David Ross four days a week, and whatever scrub we've recalled from Iowa the other three, catcher could be a total black hole.  That is, unless we keep Castillo....)

Bold prediction: this is the year Dexter Fowler puts it all together and produces a random 4+ WAR season. 

When the Cubs clinch a playoff spot, we'll look back at the Fowler acquisition as the move that put the Cubs over the top.  The Lester deal will obviously have the biggest impact, but they were still a little short of being a real contender until they got Fowler.

My official prediction for wins this season.......83

Looks like I won't be the highest this year.  I predict 90 wins.

88 wins