2015 Cubs
Mets Sweep Cubs
That happened...
Thanks everyone for everything all year.
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The Cubs are down 0-2 to the Mets in the NLCS
Well, shit.
Cubs Eliminate Cardinals
The Cubs defeat the Cardinals in four games to advance to the NLCS. Discuss!
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Cubs Win NL Wild Card Game
Arrieta and the Cubs make it look easy, and the Pirates stick to the script. Now onward to St. Louis. Game One of the NLDS starts Friday at 5:30pmCT: Lester vs. Lackey.
Go Cubs!
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Projecting End-of-Season Statistics
The Cubs will play their 54th game tonight, which will put them at the one-third mark of the baseball season. I thought it would be interesting to see what each player’s full season stats would be if we project out based on these first two months. For most players, it was as simple as taking their current stats (as of yesterday prior to the game) and multiplying by three. But for players who started in the minors or were injured, I have taken that into consideration and examined the percentage of days they have been on the roster when making the calculations. For Soler, I removed three weeks’ worth of stats to account for his current injury. The normal caveats, of course, apply. Players can get injured at any time, fall into slumps, or get hot, and so these will most definitely not look the final lines for a lot of these players. But it should provide a quick sense of how good/bad of a season players are currently having.
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Can the Cubs Really Improve Enough to Make the Playoffs?
The Cubs won 73 games last year, which was the most the team had won since 2010 and a respectable improvement on the 66 wins from 2013. But 73 is still a long way from the playoffs. It took 88 wins to make it last year and looking back the last 25 years that is almost always what it takes (other than about a dozen odd exceptions). Yet many pundits are giving the Cubs a strong chance of climbing all the way to the playoffs, and Cubs fans, of course, are hopeful of such a rise. So what does it look like when a team climbs from a win total in the low 70s one year to the high 80s the next? Is it about free agent acquisitions, recovery from injuries, or maturing young talent? Is there a typical path that teams take and are the Cubs on that path?
To answer these questions, I examined all playoff teams over the past 25 years (since 1990) and noted the number of wins they had the prior year. I excluded years 1994-1996 given the strike-shortened schedules that made comparisons difficult. Overall, there were 166 playoff teams in that span, and most were in the playoffs or had solid records the prior year (the average was 87 wins). There were, however, 41 teams that finished below .500 the year before. Of those, there were 16 teams that had 73 wins or less. This includes the Cubs three times. I touch on all 16 teams below to highlight some the paths teams have taken and conclude with thoughts on whether or not such a jump is realistic for the 2015 Cubs.
Recent comments
crunch (view)
they might not want to start the clock on brown and give us wesn. hopefully it won't come to that.
crunch (view)
madrigal ground rule double!
he blows a play and hits a double. we're getting bizarro madrigal.
Childersb3 (view)
Close up video shows Steele saying to the Trainer "no it just cramped up"
Hope so
Ben Brown and not Smyly please
crunch (view)
agreed and agreed.
he walked off on his own, but we may not find out for a few days how this will impact the club.
hellfrozeover (view)
Looked like a hamstring rather than a knee, not sure if that’s better or worse.
crunch (view)
steele leaves the game with a hamstring or knee injury. sigh.
crunch (view)
...and a madrigal "non-error" leads to a sac fly for a tie game. nice.
having a ball clank off your glove, but still getting it count as a hit because it was hit hard is a nice stats gift.
Dolorous Jon Lester (view)
For sure. This lineup isn’t exactly stacked as is, and subbing out a Cooper or even a Tauchman for Madrigal won’t do it any favors.
crunch (view)
the ESPN bottom graphic taking up 1/8th of the screen sucks.
i only use ESPN during baseball season and i'm forced to watch a baseball broadcast designed to be broadcast in sports bars and betting parlors where the news/scores of other games is as important as what you're actually tuned in to watch.
crunch (view)
morel triple to start the season....yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah