The Best Team In Baseball Is Still Playing Baseball
We overanalyze the playoffs. And, yeah — in part it’s because we overanalyze everything. It’s the whole reason this place exists. But we always dig deep into October, because we all understand that playoff baseball is a different animal, a different twist on a familiar sport, and we want to wrap our minds around it. We’ve tested theories inspired by the Royals. We’ve tested theories inspired by the Giants. We’ve tested theories inspired by winners, because we want to know if we can better identify winners, before they win. Every October, we search for the key to the tournament. We search, as if there’s anything to find.
There’s not. Oh, sure, there are subtle things, but a playoff series is a coin flip, determined by a sequence of coin flips. The key is for one team to be a better baseball team than the other. Then the coin won’t flip so perfectly even. But so much of this is random. So much of this is random, that it can be hard to believe it’s not *completely* random. We’ve become so conditioned to saying the best teams aren’t always rewarded. When you have one great team, the overall odds are against it.
The overall odds were against the Cubs. If you were trying to figure out the NL pennant, it would’ve been smarter to bet on the field. That’s the reality of having to win two series in a row. But, bless these playoffs. Bless these playoffs, because at least in one of the leagues, there’s restored faith that October can be just. The Chicago Cubs were very obviously the best team. They get to keep playing another handful of ballgames.
The analysis here is so simple. As these Cubs go, there is no underdog story. Yeah, there’s the greater story of the franchise, but the story of these Cubs is as such: A floundering organization was rebuilt. The rebuild went swimmingly. The team hit on some blue-chippers and they got a little lucky with some overachievers. The product, in 2016, was a juggernaut from the very beginning. Pick a stat. The Cubs were awesome at it. Ballclubs don’t get more complete than this.
So there’s nothing in-depth that has to be studied in order to help us figure out how the Cubs reached the World Series. They’re a super-good club, made up of super-good players. They’ve been better than each of their opponents. There weren’t any tricks. This is actually going to be a fun matchup, the Cubs and the Indians, because the Indians got here by taking advantage of what the playoffs allow them to do with a pitching staff. The Indians advanced because of what they can do in October. The Cubs advanced because of what they’ve been doing for seven months. They’ve wound up tied for the highest runs per game among playoff teams. The defense has sparkled, and the pitching’s been mostly terrific. Life for Joe Maddon has been pretty easy.
There’s a mounting fear of the Cubs. And, had they lost, the consolation would’ve gone something like this: They’re not going away. They might make the next eight World Series. No organization currently finds itself in a better place. Anthony Rizzo‘s under control another five years. Same with Addison Russell, and Kris Bryant, and Javier Baez, and Jon Lester, and Kyle Schwarber. There are four more years of Kyle Hendricks. There are six more years of Willson Contreras. And so on. The Cubs are overflowing, to such an extent that it hardly even matters that Jason Heyward’s been a total bust. Think about next year’s NLCS. Who do you picture playing? It’s the Cubs and somebody else, right? Of course it is.
That has to be a good thought for Cubs fans. I can’t even relate to how satisfied they must feel about things. But there’s danger in thinking too much about the long view, because you just can’t take anything for granted. Not when you’re considering what could take place a year or three down the line. Things fall apart. Things go awry. I don’t know if the Cubs will be the best team in baseball again next year, or in 2020, or through 2020. The only thing to really know about these Cubs is that these Cubs are the best. The organization might never be better than it is right now, today. So it’s important that they’ve seized this opportunity. In so many cases, baseball isn’t fair, so, blossoming dynasty or no, the Cubs needed a pennant. This is something that can’t be revoked, and there’s one more series left to win.
It’s interesting to think about the history. You can’t not think about the history, even though 1945 and 1908 don’t mean anything to a first baseman born in 1989, or to a shortstop born in 1994. One of the biggest parts of the Cubs’ identity has been misery, but had they lost, this would’ve been new. I know about the recent playoff disappointments. I know about the less-recent playoff disappointments. But the Cubs just finished with the best record in baseball. They hadn’t actually done that since their last pennant. Whenever the Cubs have lost since, they’ve at least lost without having been the clear favorite. Falling short this year would’ve been something different to stomach. Instead, they’ve earned the chance to play for whatever it is the playoffs actually crown.
I know what it is to not get there. I know that the 2001 Mariners were one of the best teams in history. I know that’s supposed to be satisfying on its own. But those Mariners lost in the LCS. They didn’t even get to lose the World Series. I don’t care how much you try to think rationally; it’s almost impossible to mentally feel good about a season like that. The playoffs are the point. Winning for as long as you can is the point, and the Cubs can now try to win last, after already winning the most. The Cubs can win everything, and they’re the most deserving.
Moving forward, the Cubs are better than the Indians. I don’t know how much that’ll matter on the field — it is still the playoffs. Someone has to come away devastated, and if it’s the Cubs, I’m sure we’ll be writing even more about how Terry Francona squeezed every last drop out of his bullpen. But if it’s the Indians, then this’ll be easy. The Indians would’ve lost because they’re worse. It’s the same reason the Dodgers lost, and the same reason the Giants lost. It’s the same reason so many teams in the regular season lost. I don’t know how interesting it is when the obvious best team is the champion. But it has to happen at least some of the time, and now the Cubs are World Series favorites. I don’t mean the Cubs have higher World Series odds than anybody else. I mean their World Series odds are over 50%. The entire national conversation about the Cubs might be on the verge of changing forever. And in at least one sense, it already has. In that regard, you could say something’s been lost. Chicago would tell you that something’s been won.
Jeff made Lookout Landing a thing, but he does not still write there about the Mariners. He does write here, sometimes about the Mariners, but usually not.
I feel like this Jeff post has a much higher (italicized words)/(words) ratio than most Jeff posts.
A remarkable amount of italics, yet it still only clocks in at 0.2 Cistullis.
This is stats-fan poetry. And as a Cubs fan and baseball fan who is more interested in wRC+ than curses, it’s simply beautiful. Thanks, Jeff.
And yet you ranked the Dodgers higher than the Cubs just before the playoffs started, a good deal higher, actually (117 vs. 110):
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/rating-all-of-the-remaining-playoff-teams/
Your article ended with ‘But this is my best shot at showing who’s actually the best and the worst, and where, among the teams still alive.’
According to your analysis, the Dodgers were actually the best.
So are things really so simple?
The distinction would be that the Cubs were clearly the best team all season while the Dodgers were arguably set to be the best within the playoffs. Still does fog up the article a bit.
I understand the distinction. What’s a little strange is that the same person argues that the Dodgers were the best in a playoff context on Oct. 3 and then 20 days later writes:
‘So there’s nothing in-depth that has to be studied in order to help us figure out how the Cubs reached the World Series. They’re a super-good club, made up of super-good players. They’ve been better than each of their opponents.’
But according to the same writer’s metrics, the Cubs were in fact *not* better than the Dodgers in a playoff context. So it would seem that there *is* something to be studied in order to figure out how the Cubs beat the Dodgers in the playoffs. If the analysis presented in the Oct. 3 article resulted in an incorrect prediction, fine, these things happen. But the Oct. 20 article is written as though the Cubs’ win was predictable.
What was striking to me was that all four of the Cubs’ wins were by at least 4 runs. It’s not like a little tweak would have changed things. If the Dodgers really were that much better than the Cubs in a playoff context (the difference of 7 was greater than all but one of the other gaps in the projections), that’s pretty unexpected.
You clearly dont understand the difference between projection and prediction as you used the two interchangeably. Here ya go.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/the-difference-between-predictions-and-projections/
Hmm. So you’re claiming that there’s a distinction between ‘the best’ and ‘the best’? You’re right, i’m not getting this.
No, the phrase “they’ve been better than each of their opponents” that you quoted doesn’t imply they were better in a playoff context just because you inferred that. They played better than both of their opponents so regardless of the projection that is an apt description.
Still can’t understand what claim you could possibly be making. You need classes in freshman writing and critical thinking.
If you can’t understand these things you might be related to rich hill, 20 year old hs senior.
The Oct. 23 article states that the Cubs are the best team in baseball so that it is no surprise that they have made it to the World Series by beating the Dodgers in the playoffs. The Oct. 3 article by the same writer projecting for the playoffs gives the Dodgers the highest ranking, 7 wins higher than the Cubs. You are seriously going to claim there’s no inconsistency here?
I know it’s convenient to ignore words and stats where they don’t suit you but he stated that these playoffs restored faith because the best team won. You can infer in a playoff context, or one can infer that the best team all year succeeded in the playoffs as well.
Okay, I’ll repeat the quote I gave before:
‘So there’s nothing in-depth that has to be studied in order to help us figure out how the Cubs reached the World Series. They’re a super-good club, made up of super-good players. They’ve been better than each of their opponents.’
The author wrote an article on Oct. 3 in which he rated the Dodgers significantly higher than the Cubs in a postseason context. The Cubs got to the World Series by beating the Dodgers in a postseason context. Apparently–according to what the author wrote on Oct. 3– there is something to study to see how they beat the Dodgers in the postseason, because he presented data showing that the Cubs should not be as good as the Dodgers in a postseason context.
Did you read the Oct. 3 article?
Again they have played better in both series, even if the dodgers rotation was kershaw, sale, scherzer, and noah, with a lineup of seager, trout, goldy etc. The fact the cubs played better would mean they’ve been better than each of their opponents. Just because you inferred something doesn’t mean that’s what was written.
But the same writer’s article on oct. 3 specifically said that the dodgers were statistically projected to be better than the cubs in a playoff context. I thini you must have not read that article.
So evidently the cubs outperformed the playoff projections or the dodgers underperformed. This is the whole point. Something unexpected happened, the writer’s projections were not consistent with what happened. It’s a little strange that the writer is acting like this was expected all along. Obviously he didn’t.
For the whole regular season this was the expected outcome. You see him try to project a different way and yell blasphemy!
This was one of the more pointless and unintentionally hilarious comment threads I’ve ever read here on Fangraphs. Well done, you two. For your next assignment, please argue about the meaning of “valuable” for several hours. Just get a room first, would ya?
Why are you shamed by harry? he couldn’t even make a proper context joke.
Actually you didn’t read the article. By fip based war the system he used had the dodgers, by ra/9 it was the cubs and by an equally weighted hybrid it’s the cubs by a half game over 162 games. He made mention of his choice to use fip. You seem caught up in your interpretation of what was written.
Okay, harry’s comment has shamed me so this’ll be my last comment. The last table in the oct 3 article says ‘putting it all together’ before, so this is clearly the summary. The right-hand column of that table is headed by ‘wins per 162’. The dodgers entry is 117, the cubs is 110. You can try to twist this into some other interpretation if you really insist but it’s pretty embarrassing.
And the last table gave the cubs their fip based pitching war. They were 11 wins better (including relievers) with ra/9. He used fip based because he was projecting all teams. However we all know with the cubs defense and contact control they are better than their fip. Your qualm should be the process not the result. He offered the ra/9, you have said you prefer that in the past, he chose to use fip war because idk he writes for the site that uses that. Anyone with half a brain can look at ra/9 per war and use that to come to their own conclusion of they want.
I get your still mad about how dumb your walk based theory is as the 1st and 9th best teams made the world series.
Ah, here we come to your problem. You didn’t like Sullivan’s analysis because ‘we all know’ that the proper stat to use is the one which will make the Cubs appear to be the best in any context. Well actually we don’t all know that, for instance I don’t and apparently Sullivan doesn’t. So that’s why I directed my question here to him, because he seems to be contradicting himself. You I have a different argument with, but one which we’ve discussed enough here.
What? I’m on you for bitching about the free content he provides. He offered ra/9 war, I used that so I took it as he wrote the article showing that. You were ignorant and only paid attention to the last chart and 5 words of the article you took offense to. Whatever, ignorance is bliss.
Takes disconnected to a whole new level to lose a thumbs-up/thumbs-down point contest to JFtG here.
Clearly people lack reading comprehension.
I dont see the difference between projection and prediction either. And that article didnt exactly clear it up.
The approach I took underrated the Cubs’ team run suppression, because there’s something about them that goes beyond UZR and FIP. I elected to be conservative, for the sake of being consistent across all playoff teams at the time. Additionally, the Dodgers looked good in large part because of their starting pitching, but I don’t think it would be at all a stretch to say that neither Kershaw nor Maeda have been around 100% for several weeks. The playoff versions weren’t up to par.
I think the Dodgers were a hell of a playoff team, but I definitely don’t think I gave the Cubs’ run prevention enough credit. I don’t know how I could’ve, very easily. In any case, no, I don’t think there’s anything to analyze about the NLCS. The Cubs were better positioned to prevent runs. They were definitely the better team in the regular season, and they were at least arguably the better team in the series.
Fair enough (as you probably know I’m very skeptical about ‘something about them’, and it isn’t clear what to do with the theory that they were ‘better positioned’, but since your calculations didn’t include this ‘something’ or positioning, fair enough). There is apparently something about the Cubs which contributes to their greatness which can’t be statistically measured very easily, as you put it.
Thanks for the clarification.
Sample size reaches 172 games. JFtG still letting his salt cloud his logic.
As long as he’s consistent in his view about the role of luck in a team getting 3 rings in a sample size of just 5 seasons, I’d be willing to cut him some slack ;}
Obviously the general ability of the Giants team 2010-2014 was not such that a probabilistic model would have predicted that they would win 3 World Series, so if that’s what you mean by luck, of course I agree.
That being said, I have the feeling reading Fangraphs that there is a general assumption among almost all the writers and readers is that the Giants’ success has been more or less *entirely* the product of luck. Written in the fifth line of this article is ‘We’ve tested theories inspired by the Giants”. Really?? When?? Where?? Which theories??
….We’ve tested theories inspired by the Royals. We’ve tested theories inspired by the Giants. We’ve tested theories inspired by winners…
John, do you write political ads for a living?
No, I’m a professor in a research university. Why do you ask?
I asked because I really would be interested in reading anything which has been written testing theories inspired by the Giants. Sullivan wrote this but I have been looking and haven’t seen a single one. Ever. Have you? The Giants have won 3 World Series recently and it appears to be an unfathomable mystery which can’t even be addressed by Fangraphs writers.
All I’ve got to say in regards to this thread is WOW!
A research uni and you thought the way you tested your walking in the playoffs theory was good???? Holy fk you should be ashamed at that instead of your argument here.
Your feeling is dumb however, given that a few feet in any given postseason can change the outcome there is certainly a percentage of luck, especially to win 3. Think back to mo Rivera jamming luis gonzalez yet he gets a single up the middle to win it. What have an inch more break inside and that ball would be caught? Buckner between the legs? Bartman then an error by sure handed alex Gonzalez? Grady little leaving in pedro? These are small moments that could have changed outcomes by matters of inches, feet, decisions.
As an Indians fan, it bothers me so much that this happened…
On the surface, I have always wished well for the Cubs. They have the longest current WS drought among teams that have been around for the last 100 years. As an Indians fan, this was supposed to be our Cinderella story, but we somehow end up being the villains despite having the 2nd longest running drought. And not to mention how great the Cubs are. I can’t see the Indians winning even one game in the World Series. Yes, I know anything can happen, but the Cubs are just so damn good. End rant.
#firstworldproblems
A lot of people will be rooting for the Indians. And the Cubs can be beaten with curve balls, control, team speed, and relief pitching.
For whatever it’s worth, I don’t in any way view the Indians as the villains. I think this is going to be a terrific Series, and I already know that, no matter who wins, I’m going to be both happy and a little sad.
I can’t wait to see what happens when the runstoppable force of Baez’s tag meets the swimmovable object of Lindor’s slide.
I can not wait to see what happens when power reaches svimmovable Baez runstoppable mark is a matter of Lindor slide.
They still have to play the games and those should be fun to watch.
Enjoy the show while it lasts.
Besides, stuff happens.
1969 happened.
From an Indians perspective, you could also say “1954 happened”.
Exactly.
The game has a certain amount of chaos built-in. It adds to the fun.
I have a hard time seeing them winning in chicago, but they do have 4 games in Cleveland if it’s a 7 game series so they got that going.
Sidenote why the hell not have Charlie sheen throw out the first pitch after coming out from the bullpen to wild thing in full cutoff sleeve and coke bottle glasses, really missing out.
Because he’s Charlie Sheen? You could literally pick anyone else in that movie to throw out the first pitch and it’d be a better choice.
You think position players make more sense than a pitcher with a bad ass walk up song? Didn’t Wesley snipes go to jail for tax evasion? Berringer at catcher, sheen on the mound because that’s how it was in the movie…
I think the 2001 Mariners are probably more famous than they would have been had they won it all. I mean every year one team wins the WS and if they won it would have been “yeah they were the best team and won” but there wouldn’t be that much talking about them.
But now they get mentioned all the time for the greatest team who never won.
I understand you’re point, but let me counter that people still talk about the 1927 Yankees, specifically, because they were great and won it all.
Ruth or roided up Brett Boone?
yes but the 27 Yankees were literally the greatest team ever. who knows the 4th greatest WS winning team ever?
I use this same idea to argue that Pete Rose has benefitted from his ban.
If he had gotten in, people would be like, “Yeah, he was a great hitter” and then move on.
The way it is I am subjected to various people with little to no connection to Pete Rose saying things like “Best hitter of all-time” and “The entire HOF is a joke” every year when they say that Pete is still banned.
Pete Rose would never have been called the best hitter of all-time without his ban.
I started rooting seriously for the Red Sox in 1977. One of the worst things about being a life-long fan was all the goofy crap about the Sox fans’ noble suffering. Ugh. Shut up. Happily, the Sox are now just a baseball team. So if the Cubs win a couple times in the next few years we won’t have to hear about lovable losers and poor Bartman and that old chump bringing his damned Goat to the game.
As a Cubs fan, it’s been hard listening to the national broadcast repeat the same tired stories over and over again… at this point the whole nation knows the stories, can’t they find something better to talk about? Like the present teams in front of them?
I’ve been a Cubs fan since ’75 or ’76, and last night was one of the greatest nights of my life. Can’t wait to watch the game again!
30yrs ago,a young,unstoppable NY Mets club won the world series.
Baseball experts declared a decade of dominance,what with the finest young talent anyone has ever seen.
Sound familiar.
Cocaines a helluva drug.
Yeah, if someone had devised a projection system that figured out that the two biggest young talents in baseball (Gooden and Strawberry) would become drug addicts, they would have been worth their weight in white powder to a front office.
You forgot dykstra too
yeah i heard that story before
Although no one has said much about it, so far. The defense the Cubs played last night, for the most part, was spectacular.
“or to a shortstop born in 1994”
[immediately crumbles into dust because of old age]
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Honestly, I’m not trying to troll here or be contrarian. But . . . I have become irked by the whole “playoffs are a random-roll-o-the-dice-crapshoot” narrative. I understand the basic point: the team with the best record over a 162-game schedule usually has not gone on to win the World Series. But there seems to be this assumption that “best record after 162” = “best team”. It is a most significant accomplishment (and it should be recognized in its own right, as I’ve argued on FanGraphs before), but glosses over the fact that, inevitably, a lot of those regular-season wins came vs. the league bottom feeders. And what about teams that win more early on and then have to hang on at the end? Are they still the “best team” when the season ends? Or does another team that’s now red-hot deserve the title? Is “best” a state that end-of-season won/loss totals reflect or part of a continuous process that arbitrarily ends around Oct. 1? (I.e., Team A might have more wins than Team B because of early-season success, but Team B is now playing much better and conceivably could overtake them if the season were longer.) Someone pointed out on a recent telecast that usually all the teams that make the postseason are good, to the point that very little separates them. We could view the postseason as grad school to the reg. season undergrad experience; or graduating to professional baseball after being a high school stud: suddenly the competition gets much tougher, because now you’re competing against guys who ALL were studs in high school. Now you really have to prove yourself, and not everyone can. Also, I have a really hard time using the word “random” to describe the outcome of that 162-game schedule, plus three rounds of playoffs (four, if you want to count the wild card game in that way). If the playoffs were all one-and-done like in football, “random” might apply. (Yes, I’m still irritated that the NY Giants beat the Patriots. Who isn’t?) To me, “random” is the ground ball hitting Tony Kubek in the throat in 1960, or Muddy Ruehl tripping over his catcher’s mask in 1924, not the end result of nearly 7 months of baseball. I suspect that the problems I’m having here have more to do with semantics than thinking: dubious word choices obfuscate the rationale that people are trying to express. (It also might have something to do with me being a language/lit/history guy, and not a mathematician . . . )
All that aside, my Cubs are the best team in the universe, and I hope they blast Cleveland to smithereens.
In this context I don’t see the “random” nature of outcomes as pure chaos, but rather the understanding that even below average talent level pitchers can have excellent single games. Bats that struggle for the larger part of the regular season can have a stretch of 7 great games. Sure-handed fielders can have hiccups, and balls in play can take crazy paths. None of those things necessarily change the true talent level of either club, but can absolutely swing a series. No team in the playoffs is awful and incapable of playing well, just as no team is so great that they are incapable of playing poorly. Larger samples will even out these atypical performances, but short series means that 3 players having one outlier game, and a lucky bounce, or seeing eye single can win the whole thing. Not chaos, but also not a reliable enough sample size for anyone to claim that the true talent of the roster is the only factor in being victorious, or that the playoffs are a valid test to sort out the true talent of the participating rosters.
i.e. as they’ve stated before. even if we are to say that a team is good enough to be favored to win each series 60% of the time while accounting for wild swings in single-game performance, then they would be far and away the “best team” on paper, but would only win 22% of the time [lose almost four times as often as they win, which is less random than a pure 1:8 chance, but can any process that is right (at best) 1 out of 5 times be seen as a “good” process for determining the right answer?
If you really think this series is a ‘random coin flip’, you can bet 5 figures on CLE at +175….