History is amazing in that it matters tremendously and it matters not at all. This is an article about the Cubs so you know that history is a thing for them. On one hand they are the Cubs, baseball’s current definition of mediocrity and failure. Since 1946, the Cubs have no World Series appearances and in fact they’ve only finished in first place five times in that span. That’s five times in 70 years. And that’s only first place in their division. They are historical ineptitude. That’s the backdrop to the 2016 season. It’s also why 2016 could be so important, because, according to our projections, the Cubs have a mean expected win total of 96 games.

Only one other team in baseball is projected to win even 90 games (the Dodgers, at 93 wins). The Cubs are projected by 11 games better than the Cardinals and 12 games better the Pirates, their nearest division rivals. Should these projections pan out, the Cubs would be the best team in baseball by a good amount and the favorite to get to and win the World Series. To sum up, we think Cubs will be very very good and, to bring it back to history, that’s quite weird.

Perhaps the best team of my childhood is the 1984 Detroit Tigers. The Tigers won 104 games during the regular season, then went 7-1 in the playoffs en route to winning the World Series. According to Baseball Reference, the Tigers also lost 58 times that season, but I don’t remember them losing even once so I assume that’s a misprint. The Tigers had the best record in baseball in 1984 season and won the World Series, but that’s not why they are interesting. Every season a team has the best record in baseball and every season a team wins the World Series. Neither is unique. What is unique and interesting though is what the Tigers did at the beginning of the 1984 season. They began the season by going 35-5 in their first 40 games. Their start was so good that second place Toronto went 27-14 during the same span and found themselves 8.5 games back before May had ended. The start wasn’t just good though. It was the best start to any season by any team ever (as long as ever means since 1885).

No team in the last 130 seasons has been better through 40 games than the 1984 Tigers. That’s something. But the Cubs are supposed to be really good. And truthfully, gun to my head, I wouldn’t be shocked if they won more than 96. Projections are often and wisely conservative. There are often outliers. The Cubs have the look of one, at least from where I sit now.

If you haven’t guessed the focus of this article yet, I’m sorry. I probably should have mentioned it earlier but until someone invents a backspace button we’ll all just have to live with overly long opening paragraphs. The question I’m curious about is are the Cubs as good as the Tigers? More specifically, can the Cubs equal or even beat Detroit’s three-decades-plus old record?

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12:01

The Dude of NY: And people say A’s fans have nothing to look forward to in 2016!

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Torontoians! Torontites! Torontians! Whatever you call yourselves, I have some news for you.

The guys behind the PITCH Talks series have invited me to come up for their event — already sold out, sorry about that — on Thursday, April 7th, but in addition to that Q&A, we’re going to do a meetup while I’m in town as well. Along with former FanGraphs writer Drew Fairservice and his pal Andrew Stoeten, I’m going to hang out at TallBoys Craft Beer House where you can join us to watch the Blue Jays home opener together. So if you don’t have tickets to the team’s first home game of the season, you can come hang out with us and watch it on the big screen, and drink for much cheaper than those who will be at the Rogers Centre.

Because we’ll be using Tall Boys private room space, we are selling tickets to this meetup, but that’s just for headcount reasons, really; the ticket is only $5 and you get a free Steamwhistle beer with your purchase, so it’s effectively free. The doors for the event will open at 6 pm, so we’ll have an hour or so to hang out and chat before the game starts, and then we’ll hang out and watch the game. So, come hang out with us and watch the Blue Jays first home game of the season with a bunch of other Blue Jays fans.

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Overreaction season is underway. Each year, it starts sometime around mid-March, and lasts until… anyone have the date? Last Monday of May? No, that’s Memorial Day. This is embarrassing; I’m drawing a blank here. If anyone has this year’s date for the end of Overreaction Season, let me know. It lasts well into the regular season — I know that much — and I know that it’s already begun.

As you may have heard, Maikel Franco has played in 11 Spring Training games, and Maikel Franco has hit six home runs. During last year’s Spring Training, Franco hit zero home runs, and then he went on to have an excellent rookie season, so we understand how little these things matter, but it’s hard to ignore Maikel Franco right now. If, say, Darin Ruf were the one doing this, it might be easier to cast aside as one of those weird Spring Training things, but it’s not Darin Ruf; rather, it’s a top prospect, one who either met or exceeded all expectations in his rookie year and is being looked to as one of very few bright spots on the 2016 Phillies, and he’s doing in the games that don’t matter exactly what everyone hopes he’ll do in the games that do. Don’t get me wrong — it’s definitely still just a weird Spring Training thing. But it’s the kind of weird Spring Training thing that feels worth looking into a bit.

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Some time ago, I wrote about both Mychal Givens and Tony Zych, two rookie relievers who remained mostly unknown despite breakthrough seasons. I’m a fan of Givens, and I’m a fan of Zych, but while researching those posts, I came across some other names of intrigue. Mostly, I just filed them away in my own brain, but I’ve frequently thought about a few of them. And now that I have a chance, I can’t not write about one of them. One of the players whose names I hung on to just changed organizations over the weekend, and I have to jump in here if only because I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t.

As people waited for the Pedro Alvarez acquisition to become official, any mystery would’ve probably had to do with whether he’d pass an Orioles physical. One could’ve wondered about something else, though: Who would be dropped from the Orioles’ roster to make room? Alvarez did pass that physical, and he’s going to be a full-time DH. The Orioles did have to clear space on the 40-man, and the corresponding move passed by almost unnoticed. After all, what’s most important is the Orioles have Alvarez. But the Orioles no longer have Andrew Triggs. Now the A’s have Andrew Triggs. Let me tell you a little about Andrew Triggs.

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Episode 639
Dave Cameron is both (a) the managing editor of FanGraphs and (b) the guest on this particular edition of FanGraphs Audio, during which edition he examines Houston’s relative weakness at first base and designated hitter, the possible implications of Baltimore’s strikeout-heavy lineup following the acquisition of Pedro Alvarez, and a potential blindspot in the BaseRuns run and win estimator.

This edition of the program is sponsored by Draft, the first truly mobile fantasy sports app. Compete directly against idiot host Carson Cistulli by clicking here.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 33 min play time.)

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Ben and Sam preview the Yankees’ season with Kenny Ducey of Sports Illustrated and BP Bronx, and George talks to Lohud.com Yankees beat writer Chad Jennings (at 29:32).

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A short while ago, I published a Willie Bloomquist career retrospective you might have seen. But, I know you’re probably tired of reading Willie Bloomquist career retrospectives. Ever since Bloomquist announced his retirement late last week, the Internet has been dominated by Willie Bloomquist career retrospectives. When I navigate over to Google News, all I see filling every individual section are innumerable different Willie Bloomquist career retrospectives. So in case you didn’t bother to read my latest, out of Willie Bloomquist career retrospective fatigue, let me boil it down: Bloomquist was a lot of different things over the course of his career, but one of those things, interestingly, is that Bloomquist was clutch. He hit a little better when the stakes were a little higher.

I didn’t intend for that post to spark a series. And, really, this isn’t a series — all this is is another post, the subject of which was discovered while researching the earlier post. But, okay: You probably didn’t know before today that Bloomquist was objectively clutch. And you probably didn’t know before right now that Josh Reddick has been objective unclutch. By a lot, I mean. The numbers are dreadful.

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Retirement announcements are seldom surprising, because even from the outside it’s pretty simple to tell when a player has outlived his utility. Willie Bloomquist is 38, now, and after spending the offseason making up his mind, he tweeted the following last Friday:

Make your last swing your BEST swing. Farewell @MLB. Thank you for 14 amazing seasons. It’s been an incredible ride. pic.twitter.com/VuImzqOrSl

— Willie Bloomquist (@williebloom) March 11, 2016

Bloomquist is hanging them up, which means Bloomquist articles on analytical websites must also hang them up. In a way it’s amazing Bloomquist achieved such Internet fame in the first place, being a career reserve, but his name meant a little something over the years, and here, for one last time, I want to talk about what Willie Bloomquist was.

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There are certain statistics that get tallied on scorecards such as hits, walks, runs, and strikeouts.  These aren’t the modern, comprehensive measures of performance we typically use here at FanGraphs, but they are the building blocks of those metrics. Without singles/doubles/triples/etc, there is no way to build wOBA or wRC+. Without strikeouts, walks, home runs, and innings pitched, there is no FIP.

While we’ve generally moved beyond caring about certain counting stats, we use them to build the things about which we care a great deal. But there is at least one standard scorecard event that doesn’t get a lot of attention when we build these metrics because it’s extremely rare and also extremely subjective: the balk.

The layman’s description of a balk is easy enough to understand: it’s a movement made by the pitcher intended to deceive the runner into thinking that same pitcher is about to throw towards home, when in reality he (the pitcher) is not. Any reasonably informed fan knows that the specifics of the balk rule are complicated and enforced at the whims of the umpire. It’s a judgment call, and one that doesn’t seem to be uniformly implemented at any given moment in time. But there are trends in balking:

This graph deserves two explanations. First, let’s discuss 1988. The balk rule was changed in 1988 and if you didn’t know the results of the change, the actual difference in the wording of the rule might not catch your eye. I’ll allow Theron Schultz of Recondite Baseball to explain:

Baseball Official Rule 8.01(b): The pitcher, following his stretch, must (a) hold the ball in both hands in front of his body and (b) come to a complete stop.

1988 Baseball Official Rule 8.01(b): The pitcher, following his stretch, must (a) hold the ball in both hands in front of his body, and (b) come to a single complete and discernible stop, with both feet on the ground.

The difference between the two rules is that the 1988 version replaced “complete stop” with “single complete and discernible stop, with both feet on the ground.” This slight change, intended to make balk calls more uniform throughout major league baseball, instead sparked one of most frustrating summers ever for major league hurlers. Only six weeks after opening day, Rick Mahler of the Atlanta Braves committed the 357th balk of the 1988 season, breaking the MLB record for most balks in a complete season… with three-quarters of the season to play. Before all was said and done, American League pitchers were called for a staggering 558 balks. Their National League brethren had it a little easier, “only” committing 366 balks.

This is a wonderful bit of trivia, but it obscures the broader trend: fewer balks are being called across the league. We have data back to 1974, and since that time, there has been a clear decline in the number of balks called in major-league baseball (shown in the graph as balks per 162 games). Here’s the same graph a before, now with a truncated y-axis for easier viewing:

It’s unclear if umpires are letting pitchers get away with more balking behavior or if pitchers are less guilty than they used to be, but the trend is rather clear. There was also a rule revision before 2013 outlawing the fake-to-third-throw-to-first move, which shaved about a balk per team season from the league.

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