Bleacher Bums Forum

I really thought 95 wins would win the division at the beginning of September. Never thought the Brewers would sweep the Tards in St Louis early in the week but they did. I really don’t feel like the Cubs choked even though we lost a 51/2 game lead in September. The Brewers played very well and caught some breaks to finish like they have.

Brewers overachieved, Cubs underachieved. Been the case all year long.

I think I disagree about this, pretty strongly. 

The Brewers:
1.   are a really good team. 
2.  They were a good team last year, and it took into September for the Cubs to pull away from them last year. 
3.  They added an MVP guy with MVP talent who's having a fabulous year; maybe that's a career year, but I'm not sure that he's overachieving.  The guy just looks like a better hitter than anybody we see hitting for the Cubs. 
4.  And they added Cain, who's been fabulous too.
5.  Maybe you could argue that their rotation has overachieved; I wouldn't argue that.
6.  But they've got a terrific, talented bullpen.  No fluke there, I don't think.

Cubs:
1.  I kinda feel like they've overachieved, if anything; and more than Milwaukee. 
2.  Watching the stuff that Lester, Hendricks, and Quintana need to work with every start, I think they are all three of them huge overachievers to do as well as they've done.  To compete as well as they do with what they have to work with, fantastic!
3.  Think Baez has been a max-achiever this year as well.
4.  Bullpen has been remarkably good, given the personnel and the heavy usage.
5.  Zobrist has been a huge achiever/overachiever this year also. 
6.  Contreras as a hitter, maybe he's underachieved?  I'm not sure what the explanation for his decline has been.
7.  Otherwise, given the health and the talents they've got, I'm not sure I see the offense having underachieved much?  *Bryant's been variably hurt, and he's always been a high-K guy; the K's without HR's, he is what he is, what should we have expected? 
*I know Theo and Maddon and we hoped that Russell, Happ, and Schwarber would evolve and age into better hitters.  But at this point I think we should probably accept that they are pretty much .240-hitters, that's just who they are; and velocity can beat them. 
8.  Managerially, given what a flimsy rotation they've had, a patchwork pen, the injuries, the Darvish/Chatwood control problems, and how much they've struggled to score runs consistently, I'm not sure I can fault the manager for getting only 95 or 96 wins out of that crew!  I kind of see that as having overachieved, not underachieved. 
   

The Brewers are very good, and better than I expected, but aren't a 95-win team, imo. They're beating their Pythagorean by five games.

I think the Cubs on paper should be good for 105+ wins. Certainly, the Darvish thing and Chatwood's demise play a big part in fewer victories. But I don't think the younger players have developed, save for Baez. Maybe you're right though, and some of us overestimated this team's potential.

Bryant being hurt, Rizzo's bad back at the start of the season, losing Marrow, Strop, Darvish, September from hell... 

The Brewers by far got the best version of their team and the Cubs had pretty much everything go wrong.

Darvish, Morrow, Chatwood--they came up snake-eyes on all of those.

Darvish's year was a bummer. But Morrow was exactly what was expected--dominant when healthy, but he's been hurt almost every year of his career. What did you expect? Chatwood...they signed him solely because of his spin rate, and that was dumb. It turned out even worse than expected.  But he was a ball-throwing, injury prone back end guy in Coors Field. Again, what did you expect?

disappointment from Russell, Happ, Schwarber, Almora.

They were all questionable at the end of last year, and none of them got much better. But Almora wasn't a disappointment--he may have actually exceeded expectations for a guy who had a low-.700s OPS above A ball in the minors.

95 is ALWAYS a terrific season! 

With what Cubs endured with the marathon road trip/extended games without a break, 95 wins is truly extraordinary, let alone with all other roadblocks Craig points out.

Who the heck knows what happens today, or tomorrow,  but this year's team has EVERY reason in the world to feel incredibly proud today!

GO Cubs!

41 in 42 days for the Cubs including today.

Score just said the wind is blowing in.

I’m in Omaha where it is wet and cold so just going off of what other people are reporting. Buster described it as blowing right to left at 8:17.