The Cubs Look Like a Perfect Baseball Team
On Thursday, the Nationals arrived on the north side of Chicago to begin a four game series that was billed as a potential NLCS preview. The 20-6 Cubs were squaring off with the 19-8 Nationals in a match-up of two of the best teams in baseball, and while it’s still early, the series was supposed to serve as something of a test for a Cubs team that spent April beating up on a lot of weak opponents.
Test passed. Javier Baez’s 13th inning homer yesterday gave the Cubs a four game sweep over Washington, which followed their three game sweep in Pittsburgh, so the boys from Chicago’s north side have now have a seven game winning streak, with all seven games coming against legitimate contenders. Questions about early season strength of schedule can now be put away, and with the way the Cubs are not only winning games but crushing their opponents, it’s pretty clear that this Cubs team is currently in a class of their own.
It’s not just the 24-6 record; it’s that they’re playing like a 24-6 team. This isn’t one of those scenarios where a team gets on a hot streak by winning a bunch of close games and having the ball bounce their way for a while. By BaseRuns, which strips out sequencing of events in order to try and judge how a team has performed in a context-neutral sense, the Cubs have a .789 expected winning percentage, which translates out the same 24-6 record that they’ve actually put up thus far; The next best team — the Mets — is at a .670 expected record, so no one else is even close.
Of course, the Cubs aren’t actually going to win 80% of their games this year. Like any team playing this well, there are plenty of things to look at and say “well, that won’t last.” Dexter Fowler is playing at a +10 WAR season pace, so there’s a lot of room for decline there. Tommy La Stella has a 187 wRC+ and Matt Szczur is at 177; you could reasonably expect both to have their rest-of-season numbers be half of their current marks. Jason Hammel has a 1.85 ERA with a 4.34 xFIP. Jon Lester has a 96% LOB%.
But even with the overperformers taking an expected step backwards, this Cubs team still looks to be essentially as complete a roster as you could expect to build. This is a team that not only has no real weaknesses, but is among the best in the game at absolutely everything. Here are their to-date performances and ranks in the metrics that cover the different facets of the game.
| Hitters | Performance | Rank |
| wRC+ | 115 | 2nd |
| wRAA | +36 | 1st |
| BsR | +11 | 1st |
| UZR | +15 | 2nd |
| DRS | +17 | 2nd |
| OFF | +34 | 1st |
| DEF | +24 | 1st |
| WAR | +11 | 1st |
| Pitchers | Performance | Rank |
| K-BB% | 17% | 5th |
| HR/9 | 0.66 | 3rd |
| BABIP | 0.251 | 1st |
| ERA- | 60 | 1st |
| FIP- | 78 | 2nd |
| xFIP- | 84 | 3rd |
| WAR | +5.6 | 3rd |
| RA9-WAR | +8.8 | 1st |
So far, the Cubs position players have hit better than almost anyone else in baseball, have been the best baserunners in the game, and by both UZR and DRS, the team has graded out as the second best group of defenders so far.
Heading into spring training, the outfield defense looked like it could be a real weakness, but the re-signing and re-positioning of Dexter Fowler combined with Kyle Schwarber’s knee injury have allowed the team to run significantly better defensive units out there, and since La Stella, Szczur, and Baez have all hit well, they haven’t lost anything on offense either. The Cubs line-up is remarkably deep, and was always going to put up runs, but the defensive performance has been one of the big game changers for the Cubs thus far.
And it’s not like the pitching staff really needs the help. This isn’t the Royals model, where great defense covers for lousy starting pitching; this is great defense supporting one of the best pitching staffs in baseball too. The aces at the front of the rotation have been fantastic, as expected, but the underrated back-end trio of John Lackey, Kyle Hendricks, and Jason Hammel are all also proving their worth. And down in the bullpen, Hector Rondon and Pedro Strop have been virtually unhittable on the rare occasion the team has had to protect a save situation; they’ve been winning by such large margins that the late-game innings have often been low leverage affairs, rendering those two unnecessary, and keeping their workloads down, which could help later in the season.
If we wanted to pick nits, we could point out that the Cubs middle relievers haven’t been very good, especially the starter-conversion trio of Clayton Richard, Travis Wood, and Trevor Cahill. But that’s basically where we are with the Cubs now; the worst thing we can say about them is that their 5th, 6th, and 7th best relievers aren’t performing that well.
As you can imagine, it’s pretty rare for a team to be so good across the board. For context, here’s the full list of teams that, over the last 30 years, have managed to be good at everything.
| Team | wRC+ | BsR | Def | ERA- | FIP- | Wins |
| 2001 Mariners | 116 | 16 | 85 | 82 | 95 | 116 |
| 1998 Yankees | 116 | 3 | 7 | 84 | 91 | 114 |
| 1998 Astros | 113 | 9 | 45 | 87 | 95 | 102 |
| 2011 Rangers | 112 | 21 | 17 | 88 | 95 | 96 |
| 2011 Yankees | 113 | 7 | 6 | 89 | 92 | 97 |
| 2005 Indians | 110 | 4 | 20 | 84 | 93 | 93 |
| 1988 Mets | 111 | 4 | 8 | 88 | 83 | 100 |
| 1994 White Sox* | 112 | 4 | – | 86 | 92 | 96 |
*1994 was a strike-shortened year; White Sox win% extrapolated to 162 games.
As you’d expect, teams that are good at everything win a lot of games. And it’s not out of the question that this Cubs team makes a run at the top two teams on that list, who put up the winningest seasons in baseball history. The Cubs don’t have the defense of the 2001 Mariners, but their pitching is better, at least as long as they can keep their starters healthy. They probably won’t keep hitting as well as the 1998 Yankees, but this is a better running-and-fielding team than that was.
Given their 24-6 start, it’s probably likely that this Cubs team ends up north of 100 wins now; we have them finishing at 102-60 on our current Playoff Odds page. To get from 102 to 114-116 is going to take some good fortune, but there’s nothing to point to that suggests that the Cubs have an exploitable hole that teams are going to take advantage of as the summer wears on. As long as Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester stay healthy, this team should run away with the NL Central, and they might end making a run at the 1998 Yankees or the 2001 Mariners.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
This story is all well and good, but the series was played in Wrigley. You are welcome to make some minor changes and delete this comment.
Eh, changes. made. No delete option.
Nationals record starting the series needs to change as well.
This story is all these months Shipshape film is set in Wrigley. You are invited to make some small changes and delete comments.
Remember, just a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough…we may be engorging on Serbian these days 🙂
*after sweeping the pirates in Pittsburgh.
Cue the “Fangraphs is biased toward the cubs” complaints…
Dave’s probably one or two more Cubs articles away from killing the “Fengraphs” label.
Fangraphs? More like Fawngraphs… amirite?
Sheesh Durling, they’re baby bears not baby deer, get it right
Don’t really think it’s a Cubs thing…what you have here is a team that is validating expectations, not confounding them (unlike certain recent World Champs). As crazy as it sounds, a Cubs championship will almost be like restoring the natural order of what a good baseball team should be and do.
Every preseason article featuring projections garnered at least a handful of comments rubbing Dave & Co’s noses in last year’s Nationals projections, too. They’ve got to be thankful that the Cubs are living up to the hype in a way the 2015 Nats failed to.
The thing that really makes this Cubs team ridiculous, to my mind, is that this might not even be as good as it gets. Yeah, you can probably safely assume that role players like Szczur and LaStella won’t maintain their current numbers, but I’d gladly take regression from a couple bench players if it coincides with Heyward regressing to *his* norm. And if Soler ever gets going, forget about it. Who cares if Matt Szczur falls back to earth at that point? That’s just this year, to boot. Look ahead and you see a team full of guys who will be entering their mid-20’s together. They’re still developing as hitters–Addison Russell seemingly by the day. Schwarber will return. The one position you could call an offensive weakness right now is catcher, and it just so happens that arguably their top prospect is a catcher tearing up AAA. As good as the 2016 Cubs are, there’s a very real possibility that the 2017 Cubs could be better.
Nationals are 19-12 now, so I can’t see how they were 20-7 coming into the series. They were 19-8.
The Cubs are so good, they can actually take opponent’s wins!
Can’t wait to see Johnforthegiants’ new arguments for why they aren’t good.
I think we’re all waiting for his latest deep thoughts…
I think the only thing that would cause WWIII faster than Trump becoming President would be Johnforthegiants becoming Secretary of State. I can just picture him telling the rest of the world they’re wrong. Just imagine him sitting there with his smugness on full display dealing with ISIS. It’d be worse than dropping a nuke.
The Cubs are rolling, but I still question the back end of the rotation and middle relief. Will they make a move to strengthen those positions, possibly. They may believe they don’t need to now that they have a sizable lead, but it will be tough to maintain their degree of excellence, which may force them to part with one of their young parts. The loss of Swarber inhibits them somewhat, but they still have the talent to improve in those areas.
I haven’t spoken to a single Cubs fan that thinks they’re going to win 80% of their games. Winning 60% the rest of the way leaves them at 103. They have the pitching to get them through the regular season… back end really isn’t the problem, I think making sure they have a dependable midrotation starter to go along with Lester & Arrieta is the key to the playoffs. Arrieta running out of gas is probably the biggest thing.
That’s true, most Cub fans think they’re going to win 100% of them 😉
nice 😉
Speaking of Arrieta, it’s still early but Arrieta has seen a small drop in strike outs and a not as small increase in walks. On the flip side, his batted ball all look good still (infield flies are down but again it’s early). The no hitter probably throws a lot of this off, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.
He hasn’t had control of any of his pitches outside of his curveball. Last year he had spot on command of the cutter and fastball. He gains some command and he’s right back.
He definitely doesn’t have the same command as Kershaw… 3bb/64k in 53 innings vs 16/44 in 48 IP for Arrieta.
I would argue the improved outfield D has more to do with Soler’s struggles at the plate. There is some evidence that Soler is worse defensively than Schwarber and Soler’s struggles have meant more of Bryant in left, leading to more Javy and LaStella in the infield.
If there is one thing this team could really use, it is a LOOGY. I do not see Richard and Wood cutting it the full season.
On the LOOGY front who would you say they should target? and would they pinch hit with Wood’s flair and panache?
I thought the most interesting part of the Nats series was the trial run on not pitching at all to Harper. IMO they wanted to see how that would work as a precursor to October.
I wonder if they showed their cards and if it makes it even more likely the Nats go get another bat? But the Nats had to have known this was going to be an issue.
Also, Harper catches that fly ball on Saturday and some better sequencing on Sunday (specifically bases loaded, no outs), and the Nats (probably) get a split.
It surprised me because Harper was actually not all that great the week or so before this series started. His wRC+ now stands at 163, a great number but not Bondsian by any stretch.
Dusty Baker is a guy that continued to run out Neifi Perez as a #2 hitter despite his sub 300 OBA… He’s not a guy that adjusts.
I think the Cubs are for real, and if any team is the perfect team they are. Great article Dave!
If anything, this comment is all the evidence we need that the pods have landed and have begun taking over human hosts. RIP, johnfortheglants.
fake account… there is an “is” in the real one… he’s still out there somewhere…
“The Cubs don’t have the defense of the 2001 Mariners,”
2016 Cubs: 23.9 DEF (1st overall)
2015 Cubs: 63.5 DEF (2nd overall)
2001 Mariners: 84.6 (5th overall)
If continued, would the 2016 Cubs’ pace put them ahead of the 2001 Mariners?
And Trevor Story is going to hit 170 home runs!
The Cubs are crazy deep and crazy good and been pretty lucky on top of it so here we are. I don’t think we can ignore that the lead the league in both BABIP and LOB%. Their starters are stranding 81.3%, so we’re talking some Cardinals Devil Magic taking place right now.
As pointed out, it helps a few guys offensively are playing out of their minds. However, Soler is a major problem in left assuming Tommy La Stella comes back to Earth. David Ross won’t keep this up, so catcher might become an issue. And Heyward is under performaing right now.
What I’ve been most impressed with regarding the Cubs is that they’ve sort of stopped striking out so far. Baez, Bryant, and Russell have shaved 7-8 percentage points off their K% (and in Ross’ case more).
Their defense is also top ranked–I’m sure that contributes to the very good BABIP and LOB%. I think it is reasonable to assume that these metrics will continue to be very good if the defense holds up. Considering the Cubs defense was 2nd overall in 2015, I think that’s a good assumption.
Of course. But since 2010, the best BABIP against we’ve seen was .265 from the 2011 Rays, then the 2014 A’s with a .272, and after that we’re in the mid .270s. Regression of some sort is going to take place and bump up that BABIP into the low .270s most likely. As for LOB%, the 2015 Cards had 79.4% and second best was the 2011 Phillies with 77.5%. Again, regression is going to happen. Even the great defensive team the Royals put out in 2013 had a BABIP of .290 and LOB of 76.9% (obviously the Cubs pitching is much better). No matter, the Cubs should win 100 games just because they are so damn good. Just a question of it will be 110+ or like 103.
Not just since 2010, there hasn’t been a BABIP this low since 1981. And leaguewide, BABIP jumped by about 20 points around 1993. That’s just not going to be sustainable unless the defense is twice or three times as good as the best defense ever before.
They also have great pitch framing. Montero has gotten the most calls per game of any catcher, David Ross is in the top 10. Pitching in better counts leads to more outs. Obviously some regression is due but no reason to think they can’t lead the league, especially with a proven babip beater in arrietta likely to lead them in innings.
Ross is their back up catcher, Montero is back in a week. Wilson contreras is also crushing triple a. They are as deep at catcher as every other position.
Article about ryan Zimmerman leaving 14 men in base yesterday please.
“Ryan Zimmerman didn’t hit good yesterday.”
Nailed it
http://espn.go.com/mlb/photos?gameId=360508116&photoId=5456180
A picture is worth a thousand words 🙂
I would love to know a single-season and single-game record for that.
Ryan Zimmerman set the single game LOB record yesterday. I believe the Nationals also set the single game team record with 21.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/recbooks/left_on_base_records.shtml
“And it’s not out of the question that this Cubs team makes a run at the top two teams on that list, who put up the winningest seasons in baseball history.” Don’t forget the 1906 Cubs and their 116 win season — in 10 fewer games than the 01 Mariners did it.
But even their .763 win% is below what the Cubs are doing. Absurd.
There’s still a heckuva difference between 102 and 114-116. Zymborski touched on this in his chat. The fact that they have a chance is amazing. But it’s still a darn low one.
I’d be more convinced by an article comparing the Cubs to other fast starters rather than the eventual record setters. Are the Cubs at this point looking better than the ’84 Tigers and other such teams?
While it’s almost certainly a slim chance, this might be a perfect storm when you combine a really good Cubs team with 4-6 horribly weak NL teams this year. Braves are a lock for 100 losses, REds/Brewers are locks for 90 losses and you have to believe that the Phillies and Rockies are going to come back a lot closer to the preseason projections sometime soon (though fans of those teams have to be encouraged by some good things going on there of course). The Pads have enough established veterans that they don’t project as poorly as those teams but it’s not hard to imagine them jettisoning whatever assets they have by the trade deadline and becoming a shell of a team.
I get why this is the headline post but FG usually digs a bit deeper. Anything about Harper having 0 at bats in 11 consecutive plate appearances?
I’d wager that’s in the pipeline. Just this is a story, too.
They have zero chance of being #1 in internet hits. That’s a thing.
How about the fact that they’ve done this with Heyward doing nothing offensively? If we can expect Fowler/La Stella/Sczur to regress to career norms, we can expect Heyward to as well.
Also of note, in the ‘playoffs are a crapshoot’ context: Of those 7 ‘no weakness teams’ (not including the strike season), only the 1998 Yankees won the World Series, and only one other team (2011 Rangers) made it to the WS. The other 5 teams were eliminated in the earlier rounds of the playoffs.
And the 2005 Indians didn’t even make the playoffs.
Fair point but if there were two wild cards in that season they would have made it comfortably, but i agree the playoffs are a total crapshoot. the sss rules and it’s thrilling to watch though!
As a Mets’ fan, I am hanging my hat on the notion that, other than Arietta, they don’t have big-time starting pitching. Lester, Hammel, Lackey and Hendricks would figure to be a cut or two below whoever the Mets would start. Call it wishful thinking if you like. I’d pick the Cubs in a series over any other team right now.
As a Mets’ fan, I am worried about my guys’ over-reliance on the HR to score runs. That does not tend to play well in the post-season. Still, they are scoring runs… different problem than they had in the first half of last year.
It’s tough to take you seriously if you think Lester is a cut or two below. The rest of the guys you mentioned are understandable.
Presumably Lester, with a career ERA of 3.51, FIP of 3.50 and xFIP of 3.58 would match up against deGrom – 2.57, 2.70, 3.02 or Harvey 2.70, 2.74, 3.10. In my book (admittedly biased) Lester is not as good. Excellent pitcher, don’t get me wrong. Just not as good.
You are comparing a guy with 1800+ innings vs. guys with 354 and 467 innings, respectively.
Jon Lester 2013-Present:
678 innings, 3.08/3.10 ERA/FIP, 8.5 K/9, 2.3 BB/9, 0.7 HR/9.
I’m looking more at the “big-time starting pitching” line. I’m pretty comfortable with the Cubs top 2. Lackey has pitched well in big games, but obviously he’s not at the same level. Hendricks looks like he can be a nice midrotation starter, but obvioulsy not as good either. I would definitely say the Mets starting pitching has the higher ceiling, but Lester can hang in there and has done it before.
If you think deGrom and Harvey are better in the binary sense of having to say Player A is better than Player B, that is defensible, but there’s no justification for “a cut or two below.”
If you only look at career stats I guess we should point out Lester has a lower career postseason e.r.a than both Harvey and degrom.
Jon Lester had 10.5 fwar over 2014-2015. To say he’s a cut below is 1) not accurate and 2) based on the notion that Harvey et al have higher peaks than Lester and are more likely to reach them in a potential playoff series.
Perhaps the second point is true, but even it is, the Cubs enormous drop in K-rate this year vs. 2015 will mitigate some of this hypothetical.
OK, not a straight compare, but deGrom’s fWAR in ’14-15 is 8.7, though he missed 2 months in ’14 due to being a rookie (and was much better after July 1). Harvey missed ’14 with TJ, but totals 10.9 in his last two full seasons (though he missed the last 2 months of ’13 as well).
Maybe Lester is as good. I say no. You know my bias. Show me where I’m wrong. In the three years before ’14, Lester totaled 8.7 fWAR, average of 2.9.
In 2013 Jake Arrieta was a cast-off traded for Feldman. Time frame does matter.
With all due respect to Lester’s total career, including his ugly 2012 season, this data is not materially relevant to the discussion at hand. Since 2014 for DeGrom and Lester, 2013 used for Harvey in lieu of TJ:
Matt Harvey: 407.2 IP, 414 K, 81 BB, 29 HR, 11.5 WAR
Jacob DeGrom: 354 IP, 365 K, 86 BB, 24 HR, 9.3 WAR
Jon Lester: 464.2 IP, 465 K, 104 BB, 36 HR, 11.5 WAR
Who brought up Arrieta? I’m conceding Game one to Arietta unless and until someone finds his Kryptonite. Not holding my breath.
You’re taking Lester’s best two seasons of his career against deGrom and Harvey’s whole career. I submit that deGrom’s rookie year he probably had a negative WAR after his first 7 starts. His ERA was 4.39 then and was 1.99 and 10-5 in his last 15 starts, with 110 K in 99.1 IP and a 0.535 OPS against.
Look, the Cubs scare the pants off me. As I said at the top, my team’s one edge is in starting pitching. OK, Lester is better than I gave credit for. I’d still take my guy(s).
I bring up Arrieta to highlight how much can change in a couple years time for pitchers, not for any part of this Lester discussion.
Jon Lester’s best 3 seasons are 2009, 2014 and 2015. The fact that I am highlighting his best seasons is only because they happen to be the same years deGrom was pitching in the majors. That he is pitching at his best right now is very much material to this discussion. 3.5/3.5/3.5 Jon Lester is an amazingly successful career given that it’s approaching 2000 innings. 3.1/3.1/3.1 Jon Lester is one of the best 20 or 30 starters in the MLB. That’s what Jon Lester is today.
Let’s not forget the move from the AL to the NL for Lester. I’m not sure why it matters that he struggled four years ago in the better hitting league; thus far in this league, he’s been every bit the pitcher you’re saying he isn’t.
The Jon Lester who’s pitched in a Cubs uniform has been an ace, and there’s zero reason to believe he won’t continue to be that for the remainder of the year.
In fairness, fWAR overrates Lester because the guy is a complete disaster fielding his position and holding base runners.
honestly i’m just hoping ross/szcur/la stella’s fall from grace coincides with a soler breakout or heyward regression otherwise offensively things may get brutal for stretches. But hey its nice at the moment to stay up till 3/4am watching a win and dreaming the “curse” will die. (before falling asleep to 8 hours of my cardinals sweeping the cubs nightmare)
oops should of been a comment not a reply my bad
3.51 ERA to 3.50 FIP for career. If you want to look only at the current version of Lester, 2.77 ERA and 2.88 FIP. There is no evidence other than a tired narrative that fWAR overrates Lester.
The guy can’t field his position, can’t throw to a base to save his life, and can’t hold base runners. WAR doesn’t capture those aspects of a pitcher’s job. Those are facts, not tired narratives. Johnny Cueto is an example of the opposite. He is underrated by WAR because he’s fantastic at fielding his position and he completely nullifies the running game.
Despite his lack of throwing to bases and poor fielding overall, on his career Lester’s ERA almost exactly matches his FIP and xFIP, over 1840 innings pitched. His weaknesses have not had a lasting material impact on his results, compared to his expected results via FIP and xFIP.
@ Output – Yeah but that’s not really the point. Would you rather have the 4 WAR pitcher who can field his position competently and hold runners or the 4 WAR pitcher who is completely inept at both? It’s pretty clear one is more valuable than the other even WAR looks at them as equals.
You are saying to ignore 1840 innings worth of data in favor of what your logic tells you. Why would one 4 WAR pitcher be any better than another 4 WAR? You can argue that fWAR gives only a partial view, which I would agree with. But in this case, the number view Lester essentially equivalent. He has 41.8 RA9-WAR and 35.5 fWAR. He has cost his team 13 runs via DRS in his career, 8 of which were last year. It’s not material in the grand scheme of his career.
No I’m not saying to ignore anything. You’re still missing my point.
“Why would one 4 WAR pitcher be any better than another 4 WAR?”
The answer to this question is essentially what my point is. I’ll frame it using the two guys I mentioned earlier. Let’s say Johnny Cueto and Jon Lester have identical 4 WAR seasons. The WAR formula treats them as equals. But they aren’t because one guy is awesome at things WAR doesn’t capture and the other guy is a total catastrophe at those things. And those things that WAR doesn’t capture, are a part of what a pitcher’s responsibilities entail. If Lester was merely below average at those things or bad it wouldn’t be such a big deal. But he may be the very worst pitcher in baseball at holding runners and fielding his position.
As you mentioned, pitcher WAR is sort of incomplete. It doesn’t include fielding, base running, and hitting (and it shouldn’t in my eyes but it’s debatable). And for a long time it didn’t account for infield flies. Lester really sucks at those things hence why I feel WAR overrated him.
RA9-WAR should pick up a lot the various deficiencies Lester has and it rates him very similarly to fWAR. You can prefer Cueto over Lester, or vice versa, but it doesn’t really matter how you get your value. Value is value.
Yeah, you’re forgetting the natural advantage Lester (and every other pitcher) has when it comes to fielding. He only has to do if for about 200 inning per year. So you have to take however important defense is, and divide it by about 7. There’s no way that can matter that much.
But haven’t the past few postseasons implied that winning it all does not require [whatever], but rather a team that’s hot and playing well with at least one part of the game clicking? The Royals starters were not that hot last year, but their bullpen and defense shut teams down, and they had some timely hitting. Two years ago, Madison Bumgarner came into every game from a phone booth and no one had the krypton to stop him.
Regardless of the talent, the postseason is always a classroom and there is no science behind it. If there was, the A’s would have won a World Series by this point.
The Mets have set themselves up well for another run, but let’s not act like they have an advantage on the Cubs because they have marginally superior pitching. The Cubs offense and defense is phenomenal, and I’m guessing we’d all agree that Maddon is probably the best manager in the game (or, if not, he’s top 3 or top 5).
I totally agree that playoffs are a crapshoot, but the Cubs also played the last two and a half months of the 2015 season with only two dependable starters and bullpen starts for the other spots. Arrieta displayed some fatigue vs PIT, and the Cardinals knocked him around even though the Cubs won the series. I think the Cubs had nothing left vs the Mets. I would take the Mets starting pitching over the Cubs, but it’s not like the Cubs are Arrieta and (4) AAAA guys.
The Cubs hitters last year struck out 1.6% more than the next closest team.
This year they have the 4th lowest K-rate in MLB.
Bring on the Mets, who have become a heavy HR-reliant offense with a Cubs 2015-like penchant for not putting balls in play.
Winning 110+ games today (.679 W%) is exceedingly difficult. A team can be “hot” for months and still cool off late in the season. The 1993 San Francisco Giants were the “hottest” team in baseball through the end of July. They were 67-33 W-L (.670) through 100 games. They were 78-38 W-L (.672) through 116 games. They were 83-41 W-L (.672) through 124 games. With 38 games left to play the Giants were still on 109 win pace and they ended up well short of that.
Masturbating to the Cubs by Dave Cameron
Well yeah, you fuck whatever you can get, but you masterbate to the hot chick. Why would baseball be any different?
Comment Bukakke, A Long-Running Series of Internet Insults by Jimbo, Who Is Twelve
You just used “bukkake” and “is twelve” in the same comment. I think you just got FanGraphs on some sort of FBI list…
ditto
Dude, I masturbate to this Cubs team. And the White Sox are good!
Kris Bryant? Would not say no to that.
As a Cubs fan, I can’t say anything bad about your team either! Good luck the rest of the way!
As a Cardinal fan, this team terrifies me. I can honestly say in all my years watching baseball I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better team than this year’s Cubs.
That’s all we wanted to hear, gnomez. That’s all we wanted to hear.
I poke around on stltoday.com every so often—based on the comments there, it looks like there’s a significant portion of the Cards fanbase that still hasn’t gotten the memo. Yadi has had a great career. But for crying out loud, he’s not the best player in the division anymore.
Bottom line: this Cubs team is the kind of thing that comes along once a generation (and that’s true whether or not they win the WS this fall). So many fans of other teams are trying so hard to de-legitimize their success, and it just makes no damn sense.
I guess what I’m saying is: thanks for making sense.
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Prostitution is illegal in most states. Plus in just a fat stats nerd who lives in his mom’s basement, I’d only make like $9/HR max.
Comment of the year! +1
Shame its buried way down here.