Chicago Cubs
Your 2003 Chicago Cubs.
Wait a sec. How did we come to this?
Glad you asked. Since the Cubs fired Leo Durocher in 1972, the Cubs have ended the year with as many or more wins than losses 6 times in 30 years. The last time the Cubs had a winning year was 2001, when they ended the year 88-74.
As the 2001 Cubs had a good year, folks thought great things of the 2002 Cubs. However, the Cubs started the year 8-16 and never had a month with at least as many wins as losses. Manager Don Baylor lost his job after a 5-1 loss in Atlanta on the Fourth of July, and the next manager, Bruce Kimm, fared no better.
Is there anyone good on the Cubs?
Yes. Right fielder Sammy Sosa will become a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame around 2014. Third baseman Mark Bellhorn had a .514 slugging percentage in 2002. Young first baseman Hee Sop Choi hit 26 home runs for AAA Iowa in 2002. Starting pitchers Kerry Wood, Mark Prior and Matt Clements struck out more than a batter an inning.
So, will the Cubs win?
I do not think they will.
Why will the Cubs not win?
There are two thoughts to me as to why the Cubs will not win. The Cubs have little hitting, and the Cubs have no starter who one would think would pitch well for 225 or more innings.
The Cubbie hitters, aside from Sosa, are a mixed lot. Bellhorn hit well last year, but he has no past of good hitting in the major leagues. Choi will be 24, and will share playing time with Eric Karros, likely as a platoon. Karros, however, will be 35 and is losing his hitting skill, and Choi could strike out in 30% of his at bats. Left fielder Moises Alou is a 36-year-old man with past glory. Center fielder Corey Patterson hit 14 home runs, stole 18 bases, walked 19 times and struck out 123 times. First baseman Fred McGriff is gone, and he hit 30 home runs, drove in 103 runs and had a .505 slugging percentage.
The other flaw is the lack of a strong, healthy front starter. Both Wood and Prior could be that starter, but Wood pitched a career high 213.2 innings in 2002, and Prior has only pitched in 17 games in his major league career. If one or both steps up and throws 225 innings with a 3.00 ERA, the Cubs would win this division. Even though both Wood and Prior have two of the nastiest fastballs in baseball, reaching this level will be tough. Randy Johnson did it … but Bobby Witt did not.
What has changed since last year’s 67-95 team?
Well, one hopes the Cubs luck has changed. While the Cubs never played well, their runs scored and allowed should have led to a 76-86 year, a big gap. The Cubs went 18-36 in one-run games last year, and they likely will not do that again.
Damian Miller is a fair hitter for a catcher, not great, but is a better hitter than Joe Girardi, who is now a Cardinal. That helps the Cubs in two ways, since the Cardinals are a division rival.
This team is not young, though it does have young talent. Choi, second baseman Bobby Hill, Patterson, Prior, and pitchers Carlos Zambrano and Juan Cruz are all 24 or younger. However, Alou, Sosa, Karros, and new relief pitchers Mike Remlinger, Mark Guthrie and Dave Veres are all 35 or older. Alou is becoming worse and worse (though ZiPS shows him as having a good 2003), and Sosa is the key man on this team. If Sosa were to become hurt or age, the Cubs would fall apart. This team has little strong hitting, and that little strong hitting is called Sammy Sosa.
The bullpen was bad in 2002, blowing over half its save chances (they were 23 for 48) with a 4.86 ERA Arsonist Jeff Fassero is gone, also in Saint Louis. Antonio Alfonseca is still the closer. As the Cubs added veterans Veres, Guthrie and Remlinger to the bullpen, Alfonseca will have every chance to keep the closer job.
There is, of course, the new manager, Dusty Baker. Baker won in San Francisco, though he wanted more money than the Giants were willing to give him. He did make a good bullpen in San Francisco, which will help the Cubs right now.
Who is coming?
Well, Prior and Choi, the big prospects, are now in the majors. Third baseman Brendan Harris hit .328 last year, mostly at Class A Daytona. He is 22, and is about a year away from Chicago, and was a little old for the league last year, though he was a college star.
Like Prior and the other Cubs pitchers, reliever Francis Beltran is a flamethrower, striking out 43 men in 40.2 AA innings. He showed control flaws both in AA West Tennessee and in Chicago. The Cubs do not trust him yet, choosing to suffer another year of Alfonseca as the closer rather than giving Beltran a chance.
What kind of ballpark is Wrigley Field?
Aside from beautiful, it is now a neutral ballpark for hitting. It boosts home runs a bit, about 5%. In deed, this was Wrigley’s main way of boosting hitting for years, the home run factor for Wrigley Field reaching a high of 1.615 in 1977. It never had the same effect on batting average, never boosting it even 5%.
I am breaking from the topic at hand, but I wanted to talk about a few things I have learned about Wrigley Field’s effects on hitting over the years. Wrigley was a mild pitchers’ park until after World War II, when the number of home runs hit rose. Wrigley, which was and is a home run park, became a mild hitters’ park. Wrigley became a great hitters’ park when the league made Dodger Stadium, Candlestick Park and the Astrodome road parks for the Cubs. It became a neutral park again when the league put a team in Denver, and the rest of the league made their parks better spots in which to hit.
Could the Cubs win?
I think the Cubs could win, but I do not find it likely.
To draw from what I wrote above, if Alou does not age any more, if one or both of Wood or Prior step forward and if the bullpen changes work, the Cubs could well win. They would want the Cardinals to play worse than they did last year, which may happen, with all the former Cubs on its roster.
The Cubbie front office did not do well over the off-season, though it did not do poorly. It did remake the bullpen, though it did keep faith in Alfonseca to close the games. It also signed Eric Karros and infielder Mark Grudzielanek for reasons that I cannot understand. Karros would work fine if he were to play against lefties so Choi could work his way into the lineup and carry Choi’s glove from time to time. However, I think Karros will play almost every day. Call it a $9 million hunch.
The Cubs will end the year 82-80.
2003 ZiPS
Projections - Click for info
PO Player G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO SB CS BA OBP SLG
C Miller 104 318 36 79 21 0 10 38 35 85 0 1 .248 .323 .409
1B Choi 138 450 75 114 21 2 21 70 69 121 3 2 .253 .353 .449
2B Hill 136 478 83 121 23 3 9 44 53 96 22 7 .253 .328 .370
3B Bellhorn 126 391 81 98 19 4 22 53 71 132 8 4 .251 .366 .488
SS Gonzalez 141 540 60 135 26 4 16 66 44 139 9 6 .250 .307 .402
LF Alou 124 458 56 137 25 1 17 76 49 59 6 1 .299 .367 .469
CF Patterson 147 542 76 132 27 4 14 53 26 124 18 6 .244 .278 .386
RF Sosa 145 538 116 165 25 2 47 123 99 160 2 1 .307 .414 .623
c Bako 78 204 20 46 9 1 3 18 21 49 0 1 .225 .298 .324
1b Karros 131 485 53 127 24 1 15 75 42 97 4 2 .262 .321 .404
if Grudzielanek 139 533 73 148 25 2 9 50 28 88 6 2 .278 .314 .383
if Martinez 98 273 37 72 14 2 5 31 25 39 2 1 .264 .326 .395
of Goodwin 107 323 46 75 8 5 3 27 36 76 32 7 .232 .309 .316
of OLeary 107 351 41 89 18 3 8 45 33 65 1 2 .254 .318 .390
PO Player W L ERA G GS IP H ER HR BB SO
SP Wood 13 10 3.44 30 30 196 159 75 18 89 222
SP Prior 14 8 2.78 28 28 175 132 54 16 55 218
SP Clement 12 11 3.73 32 32 200 177 83 17 91 190
SP Estes 7 9 4.29 29 29 172 169 82 12 88 121
SP Zambrano 6 6 3.95 34 18 132 121 58 9 68 111
SP Cruz 5 6 3.90 38 20 136 120 59 12 70 130
RP Veres 3 5 4.44 71 0 75 72 37 11 34 67
RP Remlinger 6 5 3.34 73 0 70 57 26 5 31 76
RP Borowski 6 5 3.50 59 5 103 92 40 12 30 100
RP Guthrie 5 5 3.83 66 0 54 49 23 5 24 51
CL Alfonseca 3 3 3.87 64 0 72 71 31 5 27 52
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1. Noting Cubs history of losing, again. Yes, we know, the Cubs have a history of losing. Does that really have anything to do with the team this year? Does it matter that their last winning season was in 2001?
2. Strange and vague requirements for winning teams.
Q: Do the Cubs have anyone "good"? A: Sammy Sosa.
Where's the "good" cut-off, a future hall of famer? Is Bellhorn not good? Is Choi, a consensus top-10 prospect, not good?
Q: What do the Cubs need to win? A: Good hitting and a 225-inning pitcher?
The 225-inning thing sounds a little unsupported and, again, vague to me.
3. Where the roster breakdown? Other articles have had in-depth breakdowns on positions wherein, at least, we can get a cheap shot at Estes. : )
Anyway, I realize no one's getting paid to write these columns, but with all respect to the author, I also think this one could be a little more granular. Still, thanks for giving me something to read.
Let me start with the conclusions that I agree with. Like Charlie, I also think that as they take the field today, the Cubs are probably an 82-85 win team and for the overall reasons he cites -- after Sosa, the Alou/Bellhorn/Choi triumverate is decent, but after that, the offense falls off a cliff. Pitching-wise, the rotation is among the tops in the NL (though I'd like to see less innings out of Estes and more out of Cruz) and the bullpen should be improved at least to average or slightly better.
Where I quibble with Charlie is in the details. In his analysis of the offense, Charlie dismisses Mark Bellhorn because "he has no past of good hitting in the major leagues," when (a) he has a history of minor league success (albeit at a more modest level), which is certainly as predictive as the 323 major league ABs he had going into 2002 and (b) by the same token, one can easily dismiss the accomplishments of Eric Hinske, Austin Kearns, Adam Dunn, and a host of other youngsters. (Note: Charlie provides similar analysis of Mark Prior, downplaying him because he "has only pitched in 17 games in his major league career.")
Similarly, he downgrades Hee Seop Choi by saying that he "could strike out in 30% of his at bats," which is simply hollow and overlooks that while striking out that often, Choi may very well hit .260/.360/.460. His real problem in 2003 isn't the strikeouts; it's the risk of losing significant PAs to Eric Karros, whose acquisition is understandable (despite what Charlie thinks).
Also, as for Moises Alou, Charlie observes that Alou "is a 36-year old man with past glory," but "is becoming worse and worse." I don't particularly disagree, but do think that Alou v.2003 is still likely to contribute, even if not to the degree as he did in the past. The key for him will be (a) getting a decent start -- his April/May really stunk last year and (b) staying off the DL.
Where I really differ from Charlie, however, is in his analysis of the pitching. Charlie starts with the premise that the rotation is lacking because "the Cubs have no starter who one would think would pitch well for 225 or more innings," which frankly, is Phil Rogers simplicity.
225 innings is a standard that only 4 NL pitchers reached last year (Johnson, Schilling, Oswalt, and Vazquez). Atlanta had a pretty good rotation last year -- leading the NL in ERA and 2nd in the NL in SNVA -- yet they didn't have a pitcher throw 225 innings either. Nor did St. Louis (4th in ERA and in SNVA) or Los Angeles (3rd in ERA, 5th in SNVA). If Charlie's point is that the team needs to get more innings out of Prior, Clement, and Wood and less out of Estes, Zambrano, and the bullpen, that's defensible but he should so state. Simply throwing out a number that only 4 pitchers attained and opining that the Cubs can't succeed unless Wood or Prior (he overlooks Clement) "steps up" and hits this figure is weak.
As for the bullpen, Charlie rightly notes that last year's pen was disastrous, but he provided no analysis whatsoever to this year's pen other than to recite the new faces and to state that Antonio Alfonseca will likely finish games while keeping Francis Beltran in the minors.
On the whole, I agree that the Cubs should win about 82 games, but frankly, I thought the article was rather shallow.
Bellhorn has no history of good major league hitting, but that is because he has no history of major league hitting at all.
Thank you. My point on the nose. It's the Corey Koskie syndrome, to me -- do you bank on a guy who is in his prime and has not done much? If someone has some of Bellhorn's minor league numbers, I'd love to see those.
The Cubs need a starter to pitch 225 good innings to do well?? Well Kerry Wood had 213.2 good innings last year, and an increase of 11.1 innings doesn't seem that farfetched does it? Especially considering his increased command over the second half (34 walks/106 innings).
Many folks talked about this, and so, here it goes. It is like the Bellhorn argument. Prior has pitched pro baseball for only a short time, and Kerry Wood has had problems with being hurt. To think both men will hold up for a whole year is a guess, nothing more. To put faith in it, yeah, the Cubs need to do that. But pitchers become hurt. Pitchers have big changes in pitching performance. If could be up, it could be down.
And saying the Cubs "signed Eric Karros and infielder Mark Grudzielanek for reasons that I cannot understand" I think does show a lack of understanding. Jim Hendry chose to pay Karros and Grudzielanek this year, as opposed to paying Hundley for the next two years.
Why use either man? That is my point.
Particularly, I would have liked a more insightful analysis about Baker's effect on the team (if any). While Baker has some preference for veterans, it hasn't been demonstrated to me that he is so stupid as to run Karros out there over Choi 150 times. Even if the writer believes otherwise, he could have addressed whether we could expect Baker to get better results out of veterans (Alou, Gonzalez, even Karros, if he's going to play, as the writer insists) than we might have expected. Certainly, Baker appeared to get the most out of veterans in San Francisco.
I didn't talk about Baker's effects on veterans because I have no idea what this would be. His players do like him, but I'm a little lost as to how to look at this.
As for playing Karros full-time, I am not the only man to think this. Every other preview of the Cubs I have read thinks, in lieu of Karros's salary, he will play full-time.
I also don't get the 225-innings threshhold. The Cubs will win the division if either Wood or Prior pitches 225 strong innings, but if three pitchers--Wood, Prior, and Clement--pitch 200 strong innings apiece it wouldn't be enough?
It was my way of saying that the Cubs need whole years from their top two starters, which is automatic. But you have me on this one, three good years would work. I use 225 innings as a whole year, a shorthand of mine about which I did not write, and should have.
Is Choi, a consensus top-10 prospect, not good?
Choi, as I wrote, strikes out quite a bit. I ran the translations myself, and I pegged him as striking out much more than Dan shows above. We were running the numbers ourselves, but Dan fixed some things, so our thoughts of what Choi would do are different. I see him as a lower-average hitter right now.
I'll apologize for not talking about Bobby Hill. I think he'll be a good player, and I didn't think of a way I could put that in the piece above.
Baseball Primer is a community effort and people who contribute should be thanked, but the front page articles justly put the writers up for criticism. I agree with the critical comments made by other readers. Readers here expect writers to do more than use slim evidence to support preconceived notions. If we wanted that, we've got a continent full of sportswriters to choose from.
My preconceived notion of the 2003 Chicago Cubs? They would surprise the hell out of us and win the division. I didn't write that because I had no evidence of it. When I looked, I saw a bunch of guys who had a track record of potential, but had not yet reached it. I had slim evidence to support that preconceived notion, so I didn't write about it. Much as you had slim evidence to support the notion that I wrote about my preconceived notion. :-)
Corey Patterson actually struck out 142 times last year. Mark Prior actually pitched in 19 games last year. Mark Bellhorn's SLG was actually .512. Francis Beltran actually pitched in 41.2 innings in AA. Bobby Hill will actually be 25 this year.
Did you get Gammons to ghostwrite this, or what?
I must have misread the stat pages at ESPN. None of this matters, though it reflects bad on my, as it should. The Gammons remark, however, was out of line.
Where I quibble with Charlie is in the details. In his analysis of the offense, Charlie dismisses Mark Bellhorn because "he has no past of good hitting in the major leagues," when (a) he has a history of minor league success (albeit at a more modest level), which is certainly as predictive as the 323 major league ABs he had going into 2002 and (b) by the same token, one can easily dismiss the accomplishments of Eric Hinske, Austin Kearns, Adam Dunn, and a host of other youngsters. (Note: Charlie provides similar analysis of Mark Prior, downplaying him because he "has only pitched in 17 games in his major league career.")
I downplay what players do in a short time.
Similarly, he downgrades Hee Seop Choi by saying that he "could strike out in 30% of his at bats," which is simply hollow and overlooks that while striking out that often, Choi may very well hit .260/.360/.460. His real problem in 2003 isn't the strikeouts; it's the risk of losing significant PAs to Eric Karros, whose acquisition is understandable (despite what Charlie thinks).
Again, I pegged Choi much lower than Dan did, having him hitting about .225. I still do not see why you would grab
Where I really differ from Charlie, however, is in his analysis of the pitching. Charlie starts with the premise that the rotation is lacking because "the Cubs have no starter who one would think would pitch well for 225 or more innings," which frankly, is Phil Rogers simplicity.
It was a shorthand for which I apologize. The Phil Rogers remark, however, is insulting.
Combine that type of argument with the clumsy flow of language and guesstimates about players and playing time which reflect the writer's lack of attention to already articulated front office & managerial priorities, and you have a less than adequate 2003 preview article. Toss this assignment to a more gifted, more aware, and less prejudicial writer, and see what he or she comes up with.
Alright, this one bothers me. "Clumsy flow of language"? Where? I went out of my way to make sure I had a good flow of language. I paid more attention to that than anything else. I have a degree in journalism, and I have worked hard on my writing style.
It is, at best, no more than a cursory glance at the Cubs. It shows few signs of any serious analytical thought, almost no evidence of any pertinent research and in places it is scarcely literate.
Where?
The comparison of Wood and Prior to Bobby Witt doesn't hold a whole lot of water, IMO. Unlike Wood and Prior, Witt walked about 47 men per 9 innings when he came up, which resulted in even more "innings limitation" than can be expected of Wood and Prior (though both tend to rack up high pitch counts.)
I did not compare the two men. I said they could be great, or they could never reach their potential.
This isn't my best work, I agree, but some of the remarks in this forum are even worse.
After warding off barbs about my words, I write something that would warrant such remarks. I should carry this thought to its end:
... Karros if you were to not play him. There were other Dodgers, after all.
Another thing that might clear some stuff -- I think I read Corey Patterson's strikeout number from my projection spreadsheet. I was Command-Tabbing back and forth, and I think I confused myself.
How will the Giants' good bullpen help the Cubs?
I see this is as a flaw. I agree.
'if Alou does not age any more'
...then we are, indeed, living in an age of miracles!
Again, a flaw on my part.
'Karros would work fine if he were to play against lefties so Choi could work his way into the lineup and carry Choi’s glove from time to time.'
Exactly who is carrying Choi's glove?
Karros. I worked this sentence a few times over, and I never did like it.
How does this warrant the barb "scarcely literate"? (If you want to make grammar flames, I should say, "scarcely literate" is wrong. You want to write "barely literate." I knew what you meant, as you knew what I meant.) The latter criticism was constructive, but at first, it was but a flame.
I am sorry I made you so upset that you felt the need to hurl insults at me, Neil. In future times, I shall take greater pains to make my English better. I do not want other folks feeling so hurt.
Typo. "Me" not "my."
If I write a stat wrong, then it shows a level of carelessness, much as not doing my usual deed of speaking the text aloud shows some level of carelessness. Unlike the thoughts behind some of the more churlish remarks, I know why someone would think this. I know I would think the same.
The notion that Bellhorn can't succeed (or that his future is impossible to predict) because he's only had one full season in the majors stands not only against one of Bill James's fundamental tenets -- that minor league hitting stats will predict major league performance essentially the same as major league stats can -- but it also stands in direct contrast to most all the analysis put forth in Primer, by BP, or even by Neyer.
I'm assuming that even Charlie admits this when he then writes: "If someone has some of Bellhorn's minor league numbers, I'd love to see those," which is even more of a concern to me -- if Charlie is willing to make assumptions about Bellhorn without looking at the key facts, why should I place any faith in these (or any other) conclusions?
Digging his hole even further, Charlie then defends his views on the pitching staff: "It is like the Bellhorn argument. Prior has pitched pro baseball for only a short time, and Kerry Wood has had problems with being hurt. To think both men will hold up for a whole year is a guess, nothing more. . . . But pitchers become hurt. Pitchers have big changes in pitching performance. If could be up, it could be down."
In other words, everything he's writing isn't "analysis" or even hypothesizing -- it's little more that his WAGs.
On Karros, Charlie then offers: "I still do not see why you would grab . . . Karros if you were to not play him. There were other Dodgers, after all."
The point is that the Cubs had to take the one year hit on Karros (and Grudzielanek) in order to be able to unload two years of Todd Hundley. Allow me to take an educated guess here, but I'm thinking that Dan Evans wouldn't have been willing to give up Shawn Green instead.
The question that the Cubs had to decide was whether they can make do with the deal or (better yet) turn those lemons into lemonade. With Karros, I suspect they can optimize his strengths by making him a very expensive lefty-killer. It is entirely possible to disagree with this (many do), but to say that the team added Karros "for reasons I cannot understand" tells the readers that the author didn't look very hard, if at all.
Charlie, as a Cubs fan I'm optimistic and believe you're capable of better. But to offer opinions based on premises like "he's only done this once, so who knows," all the while refusing to find or consult more reliable information, is doing all of us a disservice and is a waste of time and bandwidth.
ZiPS and Prior - It may look like going out on a limb for him to have a projection that good, but when you rack up 147 strikeouts in 116 innings in the majors in your first professional season, all before your 22nd birthday, how can you not get an unbelievable projection? The algorithms don't even know that Prior has everything you want non-statistically in a pitcher.
On a purely subjective level, Prior impresses me the most of any pitcher I've seen since Clemens in his early days.
Hopefully, Prior (and Casey Fossum with Tom Glavine in the other direction) won't be determined to make me look stupid.
Did the Gints really ever come up with young players the caliber of Choi or Hill during Baker's tenure? I can't come up with many off the top of my head. Royce Clayton, I suppose...and he was the regular shortstop on the 1993 team, wasn't he? Darren Lewis, too, though I think he'd been around a year before Dusty got there.
Bill Mueller came up through their system and played in fits and starts, but being blocked by the "proven veteran" Matt Williams, at that time, is fairly legitimate.
Did Aurilia come up as a Giant? That took a while to develop...
Dusty catches a lot of flak for his predilection for the Shawon Dunstons of the world, but it's not like he's been keeping The Next Great Young Thing stuck down on the farm. Or maybe I'm forgetting someone.
When reading all these complaints, keep in mind that the whole culture of Baseball Primer is based on people reading articles (by, say, Peter Gammons) and then making sarky comments while noting every misspelling and wrong stat. It's practically what Baseball Primer is.
So even when it's an article by a primate, there's going to be a lot of that. In addition, this article was pretty short: based on my highly scientific "how many times do I have to hit Page Down" measure, the only Looking Forward article that wasn't at least twice as long was the one that was in verse.
Alou, Sosa, Karros, and new relief pitchers Mike Remlinger, Mark Guthrie and Dave Veres are all 35 or older
No. Sosa is 34, and he won't turn 35 until after the 2003 World Series. You could call this a minor point, but in what purports to be an in-depth team profile, the calendar age of the star player shouldn't be rounded off to the nearest five.
2. Writing style:
Why will the Cubs not win?
There are two thoughts to me as to why the Cubs will not win.
That last sentence is hideous; he meant to say "There are two reasons I think the cubs will not win" or "I see two reasons the Cubs will not win."
I feel picky making this point, but it just suffers badly in comparison to the high quality of writing we're used to seeing at Primer. Not everyone writes in the Chaucer-esque style of the Royals profile, but just about everyone writes well -- without the sort of sentences I'm criticizing.
3. The 225-inning threshold.
I realize I'm piling on here, but it has to be said. Last year, Maddux was just under 200 innings, and Glavine was just under 225. Does anyone really think that held the Braves back much? Does anyone think that if, say, Wood and Prior rack up similar IP, that will hold the Cubs back much?
Put differently: ok, let's say Wood pitches the same 213.7 he pitched last year and Clement pitches the same 205 (a total he's racked up once before, so it's not uncharted territory). That's 31 innings short of having both of them pitch 225. Let's say the scrub reliever who pitches those extra 31 innings has an ERA that's 2 full runs higher. That means the Cubs will give up 7 runs more with the middle reliever than with Wood/Clement. Seven runs is about 2/3 of a win. How do those 7 runs keep the Cubs from the playoffs?
The big point here is that 20 innings apiece from two starters isn't going to make or break a team. The difference between 20 IP froma good pitcher and 20 IP from a bad pitcher is about 4 runs. The durability of one or three starters just isn't the difference between a team's success or failure.
To think that any pitcher will hold up for a whole year is a guess.
I think the no pitcher is likely to throw more than 225 good innings is not a very useful standard at all.
And sorry, Charlie, Karros isn't going to play almost every day unless you count pinch-hitting, and unless Choi tanks badly. Both of those things could happen, but those are the contingencies for your hunch to come true.
So I'll repeat what others have said: at this time, your 82-80 projection is close to what I would pick as the middle of the distribution, but I don't agree with the analysis that got you there.
Here is my take on the 2003 Cubs, in a nutshell:
Pitching: The Cubs have three solid starters, any and all of whom could put together a top-10 in the league performance. If they can average 200 IP and an ERA in the mid-3's, a solid foundation is provided for a very good to excellent pitching staff. The Cubs have solid candidates for the fourth and fifth starter positions (Zambrano and Estes leading the pack), and suitable bullpen arms. If the top three guys come through, the entire pitching staff is likely to fall into place. As is the case for nearly every team, injuries or failures at the front end of the staff will create serious problems.
Offense: The Cubs got awful performances from a number of positions last season, particularly in LF and CF, where they got a .722 OPS and .647 OPS, respectively. I expect those to improve this year, mostly because Patterson has to get better, and Alou and the backups can't all be that bad again (replacement LFers and CFers had .633 and .509 OPS on the 2002 Cubs, respectively, in over 300 PAs). The only position where I see a definite decline is 1B, but an intelligent platoon could easily take care of that. Overall the bench has to be better. I haven't seen stats, but it seems to me that the team was dreadfully slow last year, never doing things like taking third from first on a single. This year that should be a little better. The Cubs were in the middle of the pack offensively in 2002, and I see that happening again, but there is a more than reasonable chance of a significant improvement. If the Cubs get that, things are looking very good for 2003.
Defense: The Cubs were among the worst in the league in 2002 in Defensive Efficiency. I think improvement is likely. 1B was bad last year, and Choi and Karros should improve. Gonzalez's defensive stats tanked last year, and I wonder how that might have reflected McGriff's refusal to stretch for throws. Overall, I see a noticeable improvement in 2003, but probably still below average.
Good pitching plus average offense plus below average defense: about 82 wins, with a 1 SD range of ~75-88 wins IMO (that of course is a WFG). I would say the possibility of a win total in the mid-60s or in the high-90s is above 5%.
I really don't get the piling on though. Any criticism should be done as if you are actually speaking to the person (i.e., in a non-confrontational manner). The nitpicks could have been sent privately.
Yes, he responded to the idea of 225 innings as a specific threshold -- but not to the idea that the top 2 or 3 starters' durability (e.g., 180 vs. 200 vs. 220 IP) is critical to team success. I'll reiterate my earlier point:
ok, let's say Wood pitches the same 213.7 he pitched last year and Clement pitches the same 205 (a total he's racked up once before, so it's not uncharted territory). That's 31 innings short of having both of them pitch 225. Let's say the scrub reliever who pitches those extra 31 innings has an ERA that's 2 full runs higher. That means the Cubs will give up 7 runs more with the middle reliever than with Wood/Clement. Seven runs is about 2/3 of a win. How do those 7 runs keep the Cubs from the playoffs?
The big point here is that 20 innings apiece from two starters isn't going to make or break a team. The difference between 20 IP froma good pitcher and 20 IP from a bad pitcher is about 4 runs. The durability of one or three starters just isn't the difference between a team's success or failure.
The reason people are hammering on it is that the first statement he made after posing the question, "Why will the Cubs not win?" was this:
"There are two thoughts to me as to why the Cubs will not win. The Cubs have little hitting, and the Cubs have no starter who one would think would pitch well for 225 or more innings." Paragraph mark.
It would seem that the two main elements to his thesis are poor hitting and no top-notch starting pitching candidates, with the 225 IP mark serving as a proxy for the latter. I think most of us responding to this don't buy this standard AND think the Cubs starting pitching is actually a significant strength. He has somewhat clarified his point about the 225 IP, but I and others strongly disagree with the point he was trying to support with it.
I really don't get the piling on though. Any criticism should be done as if you are actually speaking to the person (i.e., in a non-confrontational manner). The nitpicks could have been sent privately.
Well, I certainly hope my response wasn't seen as piling on, late as it came. I follow the Cubs closely and respond to most of what I read about them here. I can't say I agreed with this piece, and I felt the need to say it. Charlie has been an excellent contributor to this site and I hope he keeps it up.
God help the guy who writes up a critical appraisal of the Yankees.
My point was more about the tone of the criticism, rather than the content.
With that I agree, noting that I often detect on this site a similar tone directed to material published in other venues.
Someone needs to point out to "Red Line" that copy-editing does not mean looking for something wrong in every phrase, and if there is nothing to criticize, making something up.
Oh, no one will care if the Yankees get slapped around a little. It happens every day around here. Now the Red Sox, on the other hand...
1) pitchers: the Cubs strength (potentially) is their starting pitching. But between injury risks and large random swings in ERA, all pitchers (perhaps especially young ones) are hard to predict. Of course this is true to an extent with any team, but the Cubs rely on a young pitcher (Prior), one with one good season under his belt (Clement) and one with a worrisome injury history and only a recently found ability to avoid walks (Wood). Based on potential, they're great. Based on past performance, they're either highly variable or unknown.
2) older players: Alou, Sosa, Miller/Bako, Karros, most of the rest of the bench, and the bullpen.
3) young hitters: Most of the rest of the Cubs offense.
The Cubs have only 2 important hitters in what we might think of as the "easily" projectable range of about 26-32 (Bellhorn and Gonzalez) and even one of those guys has only 1 ML season under his belt.
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