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All things being equal, the Chicago Cubs find themselves in a very good position at the moment. They’re three games ahead of the Cardinals and 2.5 ahead of the Brewers in the NL Central. And while 11 of their final 17 games feature either St. Louis or Milwaukee, our playoff odds give Chicago an 87.5% chance of qualifying for the postseason, with the club avoiding the Wild Card game in almost every scenario. Last year’s World Champions, it appears, will have an opportunity to defend their title.

Yet the season seems slightly disappointing. The Cubs are likely headed to 88-90 wins instead of the 95-96 for which they were projected at the beginning of year — and well short of the 103 victories they recorded last season when they clinched the division on September 15. Given the expectations, it’s fair to wonder not only if the Cubs are underachieving but also, further, if we could have seen this coming.

Heading into the season, the Cubs were projected for around 49 WAR. Simply adding that total to the 47 or so wins a replacement-level team should garner gives you 96 wins. Right now, the Cubs are “on pace” for 88 wins. The FanGraphs model calls for 89 wins because it integrates projections (which are generally strong for Cubs players). In either case, though, Chicago will almost certainly fall short of their preseason forecast.

Let’s try and figure out where those eight wins (or, really, seven wins because 10% of the season remains) went. We can start by simply consulting the BaseRuns standing, which indicate that the Cubs would have 82 (and not 79) wins right now if the sequencing of all their hits and homers and outs was more evenly distributed. So of those seven aforementioned wins, we can account for three of them right away — unless we somehow believe that this Cubs team, composed mostly of players who won three playoff series last year, is fundamentally “unclutch,” that is. But that’s unlikely.

So, based on performance, the Cubs are at 81 wins instead of 85, essentially within 5% of their projection from the beginning of the season. That seems pretty good, not really the look of an underachiever.

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Everyone in the majors has, at some point, been considered a star. Certainly not in the major leagues, of course, but the majors select the best of the best of the best of the best. The majors pull the best players from Triple-A. Triple-A pulls the best players from the lower minors. The lower minors pull the best players from high school and college and various other countries. And even from there, those levels tend to pull the best players from the youth circuits. Players in the majors are elites at their sport, and as the saying goes, everyone used to be the best player on one of their teams.

Still, players do get separated and classified. As players move up the ladder, some are seen as better than others. Those perceived to have the most talent end up as highly-ranked prospects. Everyone else, not so much. Many of the eventual top players were seen coming. Alex Rodriguez was a highly-ranked prospect. Mike Trout was a highly-ranked prospect. Corey Seager was a highly-ranked prospect.

Something I like to revisit from time to time is the collective big-league performance from the guys who weren’t highly-ranked prospects. Obviously, there will be the occasional surprise. How many surprises are there? Let me give you a decade of data. There are more surprises than you might realize.

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Ben Lindbergh and Jeff Sullivan banter about the Indians (again), the AL Cy Young race, Jacoby Ellsbury’s new record, the 2018 MLB schedule (and the possibility of a pitch clock), and Shohei Otani’s impending availability. Then they answer listener emails about Mookie Betts, what constitutes the “heart of the order,” ERA hypotheticals, the hot corner, sign-stealing vs. pitch-tipping, and more.

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Episode 767
Matt Olson was absent from most or every top-10 prospect list for Oakland entering the season. This year, however, he’s recorded nearly two wins for the A’s in fewer than 200 plate appearances. Similarly, Philadelphia’s Rhys Hoskins and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge have defied all reasonable expectations with the bat. How is it possible that all three players — and others like them — have so thoroughly transcended their future-value estimates? Managing editor Dave Cameron does less to answer that question than raise it over and over.

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

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 43 min play time.)

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My sense is that the fly-ball revolution isn’t something I even need to explain. You know the argument, you know the theory, and you know about some of the most successful cases. Ground balls are mostly unhelpful, right? So why not…not…hit ground balls? Francisco Lindor has attempted to stop hitting ground balls. He’s doubled his home-run total, from 15 to 30. Good luck finding someone who scouted him in the minors who thought he’d hit for that kind of pop.

Yet, largely, the fly-ball revolution’s very existence feels anecdotal. One can’t help but notice the league-wide numbers, and how little they’ve shifted. Compared to last year, this year’s average ground-ball rate is down half a percentage point. The league has hit 44% ground balls. A decade ago, the league hit 44% ground balls. Who cares? Is anything actually going on?

It is. It’s just a little bit hidden. Thanks to the wonders of Statcast, we can see where the league has been actively changing.

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A veteran scout once described baseball to me as a “big man’s game.” When you spend some time in clubhouses, particularly around starting pitchers, that certainly seems to be an indisputable fact. Many starters are beginning to resemble tight ends or wing types in basketball.

But there are always exceptions. There are always outliers. And those cases are particularly interesting, at least to this author, because they represent instances in which a player has weathered whatever selection bias exists and found his own path to the pinnacle of the sport.

Zach Davies is an outlier.

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Episode 766
Tim Wu argues in his book The Attention Merchants that “capturing and reselling attention has been the basic model for a large number of modern businesses.” This idea of attention is relevant to the game of baseball. Will the use of radar tracking systems allows scouts to divert more attention to the field? How do the increased responsibilities of the beat reporter remove his or her attention from the game itself? Also discussed: innovation. What if it weren’t allowed, if clubs were permitted no competitive advantages? Travis Sawchik doesn’t care for the idea. He is, nevertheless, the guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

A reminder: FanGraphs’ Ad Free Membership exists. Click here to learn more about it and share some of your disposable income with FanGraphs.

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

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 12 min play time.)

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