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#Post#: 121621--------------------------------------------------
Re: Predictions
DIR By: CurtOne
Date: March 20, 2013, 1:40 pm
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--- Quote from: Cubsin link ---
>
> I was going to wait until Opening Day, but with Garza, Baker
and Stewart all on the DL for the foreseeable future, another
July fire sale seems inevitable, so I'll go with 67.
>
--- End Quote ---
If Garza, Baker, and Stewart were all playing, he would have
guessed 62.
#Post#: 121624--------------------------------------------------
Re: Predictions
DIR By: Jes Beard
Date: March 20, 2013, 2:00 pm
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--- Quote from: brjones link ---
>
> If we're recording these and are going to look back at them
throughout the season, we really need two projections: pace
before the trade deadline, and actual win total. As constituted
right now, I think they are about a 78 win team. But once
they're forced to start one or two of Rusin, Raley, or Loux
after the deadline, Soriano's bat is gone, and the bullpen loses
depth after Marmol is traded, they're not going to be as good.
In the end, they'll end up with about 74 wins.
>
--- End Quote ---
Soriano's bat is already gone, or at least should be expected to
be gone.
He is 37 years old, and last year had a fluke season which was 8
OPS+ points better than his career OPS+, and which was better
than he had done in any of the four prior seasons. 37 year old
hitters generally do not do as well at age 38 as they did at age
37. They generally do not do better than their career average.
They generally do not do as well as their moving average over
the last five years. And they generally are not more healthy
than their recent track record has shown them to be.... and for
Soriano that track record had him injured in four of the last
five seasons.
Hopefully Soriano does well and helps fill some seats and serves
as a role model for younger players, or does well and approves a
trade, but a realistic charitable projection for him would be
130 games with a .250 BA, 20 HR and an OBP of .300, not exactly
the kind of LF performance which is a major contribution to
winning. 110 games with a BA of .235 and 15 HR should not
really surprise anyone.
#Post#: 121625--------------------------------------------------
Re: Predictions
DIR By: Jes Beard
Date: March 20, 2013, 2:06 pm
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In mid-January I predicted 65 wins.
Nothing has changed that.
#Post#: 121636--------------------------------------------------
Re: Predictions
DIR By: Reb
Date: March 20, 2013, 3:13 pm
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--- Quote from: brjones link ---
>
>
> Well, let's go position-by-position:
>
>
- First Base: Rizzo is a year older and should be better. 2013
> 2012.
>
- Second Base: Barney is Barney. Push.
>
- Shortstop: Castro is a year older and should be better. 2013
> 2012.
>
- Third base: Still likely to be awful. Valbuena was the best
performer of the group last year, so you could see a little
improvement just by not giving ABs to Mather or Vitters. Still,
this is a push.
>
- Outfield #1: Soriano is a year older and should be declining.
2013 < 2012.
>
- Outfield #2: DeJesus is a year older and should be declining.
2013 < 2012.
>
- Outfield #3: Schierholtz and Hairston aren't exciting, but are
competent...possibly good enough to be roughly league average in
RF. They're taking the ABs given to mainly awful players last
year: Mather, Byrd, LaHair after the league had figured him out,
Baker, and Campana, with a few league average-ish PAs turned in
by Reed Johnson. This is a massive upgrade, 2013 >>> 2012.
>
- Catcher: Castillo can reasonably be expected to be a
.250/.320/.400 hitter this year, and has a little bit of upside.
With a little luck, he'll be around a league average starter.
Navarro is a perfectly capable backup, who should ensure that
the Cubs at least get anti-awful performance out of the position
if Castillo bombs. Soto/Clevenger/Hill/Lalli/Recker provided
nothing resembling anti-awful performance. Another big upgrade,
2013 >> 2012.
>
> So two positions that should be major upgrades (just because
the names aren't exciting doesn't mean the upgrades aren't
huge), and two that are a push. The improvements from Rizzo and
Castro should cancel out the declines of Soriano and DeJesus,
although there is a significant chance that one or both of the
young players could really break out as true stars. The lineup
is better. Not good by any stretch of the imagination...but
good enough to move up to 11th or 12th in the league instead of
dead last.
>
--- End Quote ---
Thanks for BR's position by position comp.
Let's look at the data. Cubs were awful offensively at four
positions last season: 3B, C, CF, and RF.
1. 3B we've already covered the last few days. .611 OPS and
-154 OPS compared to NL average. Even with the same guys, this
will be better because of random luck, if nothing else. This is
a virtual lock to be better. How much, who knows.
2. Catcher- Cubs catcher OPS was .616. That was #15 in NL and
-106 OPS compared to NL average at the position. The more that
Castillo plays, the more the Cubs will improve compared to last
season. Hard not to upgrade from .616 OPS from 2012.
3. CF- Cubs CF OPS was .640. That was #14 in NL and -100 OPS
compared to NL average at the position. Keep in mind how this
happened. Campana started 33 games in CF with a .628 OPS while
playing CF. B. Jackson started 38 games with a .670 OPS in CF.
Joe Mather started 26 games in CF with a .572 OPS as a CFer.
Marlon Byrd started 13 games in CF with a .483 OPS as a CFer.
Gotta think this will be considerably better than .640 in 2013.
4. RF- Cubs OPS was .688. That was #15 in NL and -80 OPS
compared to NL average in RF. DeJesus only started 86 games in
RF and did well, but LaHair started 32 games and was .633 OPS as
a RFer, Jeff Baker started 11 games in RF with a .438 OPS as a
RFer, and Mather went 1 for 20 in RF. Again, Cubs figure to
improve from .688.
In sum, Cubs were either #14, 15, or 16 at four positions in
2012--basically 1/2 of the lineup. I know that this sounds lame,
but even going from awful to poor at FOUR positions in a real
upgrade. That's a lot more runs scored. Maybe there even will
be an average or two in that group. :-\
Other positions in 2012 in OPS compared to NL average: 1B was +
19, 2B was -29, SS was +54. and LF was +21.
Hard to see that Cubs will be worse at three of the four
positions that were good/okay, with the possible exception of
LF. Obviously, the key there is whether Soriano will fall off
considerably or be traded, perhaps resulting in a downgrade in
LF. Still, it's not like Cubs had a monster offensive year
there at .783 OPS. It's not like losing Sammy in a prime year
to the next.
So, overall, hard to argue that Cubs won't score more runs in
2013, seems to me. I expect the offense to be below average but
better than awful.
#Post#: 121644--------------------------------------------------
Re: Predictions
DIR By: Santo4HofF
Date: March 20, 2013, 4:13 pm
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I am in for 69 wins
#Post#: 121649--------------------------------------------------
Re: Predictions
DIR By: Cubsin
Date: March 20, 2013, 5:51 pm
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My NL power ratings: Washington, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Los
Angeles, Atlanta, St. Louis, Arizona, Milwaukee, Philadelphia,
San Diego, Pittsburgh, CUBS, Colorado, New York, Florida
#Post#: 121658--------------------------------------------------
Re: Predictions
DIR By: Deeg
Date: March 20, 2013, 7:56 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Casto declined from 2011 to 2012, so I see no reason to assume
he'll automatically improve. Relying on guys like Schierholtz
and Hairston for "massive" improvement in your projections is
only an indication of just how desperately bad things are. That
seems to be the basis of the argument: we were so bad in 2012
that even by doing almost nothing to improve, we'll be better by
sheer law of averages. Well, maybe by a hair - but not enough
to make much difference. And it's entirely possible that
Soriano's production could drop off the table in a big way, in
which case look out, below.
#Post#: 121668--------------------------------------------------
Re: Predictions
DIR By: brjones
Date: March 20, 2013, 9:36 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
And it's just as possible that Castro's and/or Rizzo's
production jumps up in a big way...in which case, all bets are
off the table.
I guess it just depends on how you view the guys the Cubs have
now. I don't see going from league worst (or close to it) to
average-ish as doing "almost nothing to improve". And that's
what the Cubs have done at catcher, their non-Soriano/DeJesus
outfield spot, and probably the bullpen.
And the biggest key is limiting the non-MLB quality starters to
minimal appearances. When Volstad, Germano, Rusin, Raley,
Wells, Coleman, Berken started, the Cubs were 14-40, which is a
.259 winning percentage (42 win pace over 162 games). The Cubs
weren't good when actual major league starters were on the mound
(47-61; 70-71 win pace), but they were at least respectable. If
the Cubs top 7 this year (top 8 if you include Vizcaino) can
pitch 150-155 games at roughly the same level as the Cubs top 5
did last year, they're already about a 70 win team. Add in
catcher, outfield, and bullpen improvements, and you can add on
another 5-8 wins.
#Post#: 121675--------------------------------------------------
Re: Predictions
DIR By: StrikeZone
Date: March 20, 2013, 11:02 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I don't see why people think third base will be better. It's
quite possible that it'll be worse. Who is going to bring this
mythical better production to third base? Ian Stewart? Really?
Brent Lillibridge could drag the production down quite a bit.
Luis Valbuena has proven that he isn't an every day player.
There's no solid production to be found in that bunch, folks.
Third base is going to be a black hole again and there's no
guarantee that it is going to get any better than it was in
2012. And if you think that Josh Vitters is gonna ride in on a
white horse and save the day, you're on a different kind of
white horse.
It's quite possible that third base will be worse than last
season. It could be a whole lot worse without some kind of
major acquisition to fix the mess that's currently occupying
that position.
The Ian Stewart fiasco gets worse every day. I'm no Tyler
Colvin fan but at least he's healthy but I certainly was a
little bit of a DJ LeMahieu fan and Coors or no Coors, you'd
rather have the two healthy guys than the one crappy injured
one. The Theocracy got robbed blind and they've admitted as
much.
Again, they screwed up third base big time when they got to
Chicago and haven't fixed it yet. They let Aramis Ramirez go,
traded away LeMahieu and Colvin for Stewart and watched both out
produce him. Then, they re-signed Stewart and saw him get
injured yet again in spring training.
At this point, they should just cut Stewart and just pick up
some journeyman, wait for an out of options roster crunch victim
or even call Scott Rolen's agent to see what he's doing. Of
those three, I'd prefer the second option. Anything but
Stewart.
#Post#: 121677--------------------------------------------------
Re: Predictions
DIR By: Reb
Date: March 21, 2013, 12:29 am
---------------------------------------------------------
--- Quote from: Deeg link ---
>
> Casto declined from 2011 to 2012, so I see no reason to assume
he'll automatically improve. Relying on guys like Schierholtz
and Hairston for "massive" improvement in your projections is
only an indication of just how desperately bad things are. That
seems to be the basis of the argument: we were so bad in 2012
that even by doing almost nothing to improve, we'll be better by
sheer law of averages. Well, maybe by a hair - but not enough
to make much difference. And it's entirely possible that
Soriano's production could drop off the table in a big way, in
which case look out, below.
>
--- End Quote ---
If you're projecting 71 wins, that's a 10-win improvement--which
is a 100 runs improved overall differential.
My own view is that Cubs likely will score about 50-60 runs more
than last season. (70 more runs would put the Cubs right at NL
average using 2012 stats).
So, I see 5-6 more wins coming out of offense. If you're
projecting 10 more wins overall and see little or no offensive
improvement, you would have to project 100 fewer runs allowed,
which is a very rosy view of Cubs run prevention. Such an
optimist!
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