2013: Are the Cubs .500?

In Commentary And Analysis by myles52 Comments

Last year, the Cubs won 61 games. In the offseason, Chicago made the following signings:

Edwin Jackson

Scott Baker

Carlos Villanueva

Scott Feldman

Nate Schierholtz

Scott Hairston

Dioner Navarro

Kyuji Fujikawa

The rest of the team is more-or-less intact: the Cubs basically had no free-agents (they traded everyone that was going to be a free agent of worth).

There aren't 20 wins worth of additions there… so why do I have the Cubs predicted to win 81 games?

The Spreadsheet

2012 PA     PA WAR 12 WAR Note  
630 C Castillo 400 1.2 0.6    
    Navarro 230 0.5 1.1    
680 1B Rizzo 590 3.7 1.6    
    Hairston 90 0 2.1    
642 2B Barney 580 2.9 1.8    
    Valbuena 60 0.1 1.2    
698 SS Castro 680 4.3 3.3    
    Valbuena 20 0 1.0    
647 3B  Stewart 400 1 -0.2    
    Valbuena 250 0.9 2.1    
682 LF Soriano 500 1.1 2.3    
    Valbuena 180 0.2 -1.0    
672 CF DeJesus 450 1.7 0.5    
    Sappelt 220 -0.1 1.1 AAA Tr*  
693 RF Schierholtz 400 0.9 2.2    
    Hairston 300 0.8 -0.5    
  P All of them 320 -2 7.2 2012 Delta  
  PH All of them 270 1.7 1.9 Repl Adj  
  Team PA Total 5940 18.9 5.2 2012 Delta**
    PA/G 36.7        
33   Equ. DL G 150        
    % Repl PA 10.3% 17.0      
               
               
* MLE from PCL numbers last year.          
** Difference from last year, adjusted for % replacement PA.    
    IP WAR 12 WAR Note
SP1 Samardzija 169 3.1 9.2  
SP2 Jackson 187 2.9    
SP3 Garza 151 2.8    
SP4 Feldman 109 1.3    
SP5 Baker 111 1.8    
SP6 Villanueva 111 1.7    
SP7 Wood 102 0.9    
RPSP None 0 0 14.1  
Bullpen Everyone 500 -0.4 -1.5 4.35***
      14.1 1.1  
        15.2  
        2.1  
IP Targets Starter 940   13.1 18.3
  Reliever 500      
           
           
           
           
           
           
           
  % Repl IP 15% 12.0    
        TWAR 28.9
        REPL 51.8
          80.8
           
*** 4.35 totalRP        

This will take a LOT of explaining, so I'll start from the beginning. 

My first step was to assign playing time to each person at each position. For instance, Castillo is the starting C, but even in a perfect world he's only going to play 2/3 of the time. I "ideally" gave him 400 PA and Navarro 230 PA (the Cubs had approximately 630 PA come from the catchers last year). I did this for every position: these numbers are what I would predict in each case if there are no injuries. I'll explain injury considerations later.

After I've put a reasonable approximation for each players' PT by position (assuming that Stewart is the primary 3B and Hairston is the primary backup 1B – my projection doesn't assign a single PA to Clevenger), I then tried to project how much WAR they would provide given their plate appearances, defensive skills, and baserunning abilities. I used this handy calculator to do so. In the spreadsheet, I also made a note of how much value the Cubs' received from each position last year, as well as the difference. In most cases, there is a significant upgrade; in fact, only 2 positions regressed, the corner outfields. This makes some sense to me, though I very much expect the gains to be overstated in these projections. To avoid as much bias as possible, I used every players' ZiPS projections exactly. A short summary of each position follows:

C: Soto was really bad last year, and Clevenger was worse. I'm pretty high on Castillo, but you don't have to be to have a marked improvement here.

1B: A full year of Rizzo will be the most important and maybe the most difficult thing to project. I think 3.7 WAR is optimistic here. Important to note that Hairston is a replacement-level 1B.

2B: I'm pretty low on Barney. His defense last year was insane and it seems unsustainable to me. It's important to note that Barney's WAR last year was higher than 1.9, but the subs for him were universally terrible last year.

SS: Castro is projected to take another step forward. I actually agree, and would not be surprised in the slightest if Castro exceeds even this lofty projection.

3B: Ian Stewart is beloved by ZiPS for some reason. I don't get it. Valbuena is the better player of the two in the system, but from a utility standpoint it makes way more sense for Valbuena to be a super sub. If the Cubs call up Watkins to fill that role, than Valbuena should be the 3B, Stewart the backup 3B/1B. I don't like the retardation of Watkins' development, though.

LF: Soriano is goign to fall of a cliff this year. We should trade this guy, according to ZiPS. 

CF: DeJesus' bat plays better in center, but he's going to really struggle there defensively (at least he did last year IMO). Our OF defense is going to be pretty bad in general, I think. I ignored Sappelt's MLB numbers completely, and instead performed a MLE of his 2012 AAA season. 

RF: The Schierholtz/Hairston platoon isn't that exciting, partially because platoons rarely work in practice. That's why I'm comfortable using ZiPS projections that don't take platoons in mind (and don't adjust for platoon advantages). Both Nate and Scott are just guys, below average but above replacement.

P/PH: I just went with the same numbers as last year. 

After I totalled that WAR (18.9 WAR), I built in a contingency for injuries. The Cubs have lost, an average 150 total games to injuries over the last 3 years. That's 10.3% of their roster given to replacement-level players. One of my primary assumptions for this projection is that the injuries affect a team at random; no player is more or less prone to injury as another. I know this isn't the case, but I'm also sure that I (or anyone else) can predict individual player injuries with a high degree of certainty. Therefore, I just "replaced" 10.3% of the team's PA with a replacement-level roster, reducing the overall batting WAR to 17. Last year, the Cubs produced 11.7 WAR, so this is a significant difference (5.3 WAR). I think it's reconciled partly by replacing players like Joe Mather (-2.1 WAR last year) and Josh Vitters (-1.3) and Steve Clevenger (-1.0) with (hopefully) replacement-level guys. The Cubs left a lot of WAR on the table last year by virtue of starting these sub-replacement players. 

For pitching, I had a more arduous task. I first had to project innings counts for each of the 7 starters. I'm not at all confident in my list, which in the end was just the ZiPS projections for the first 6 and the remaining starts to Wood. ZiPS is also unreasonably confident in the ability of everyone to take a step forward, either from injury or ineffectiveness. The bullpen is very difficult to project individually (every individual RP's volatility is high), so like our banking system I just took a bunch of volatile pitchers and lumped them together and sold the RP off as a 4.35 ERA, 500 IP monstrosity. That's a slight improvement over last year, which seems fair.

After I totalled the Cubs' WAR from pitching (14.1), I did a similar correction for injuries. I used 15% here, which is admittedly a little low: I think the Cubs are more injury prone than the average team (probably around 21 or 22%), but they also have an above-replacement pool of pitching to draw from (for SP). I could be talked down here for certain. I ended up with 12 WAR pitching, and the Cubs had 7.7 last year. Volstad (-1.9), Germano (-1.5) and Dolis (-1.2) are all that's needed to reconcile with that.

Take those 29 WAR and add 51.8 replacement level wins and you have an 80.8 win team!

Let's think hard about this.

The first thing to recognize is that the WAR from last year and this year don't match up. The difference from total WAR this year and last is around 10 WAR, but this team is 20 wins better. Part of is explained by the Cubs being "unlucky" last year, underperforming their W/L by 4 last year. The other part is somewhat explained by my using FanGraphs WAR for last year's WAR, which has a different (and lower) replacement threshold. It somewhat overvalues last year's production, where as (to the best of my knowledge) the WAR calculator I used uses the same .320 percentage threshold that B-R does. If this discrepancy is in fact significant, I can see downgrading my projection as many as 4 to 6 wins.

Next, lets remember that my projection doesn't take into account a single trade. The Cubs are likely not making the playoffs this year, and parts WILL be traded off in that case. However, my projections have Garza pitching 151 innings for the Cubs, Soriano grabbing 500 AB, and all of our flippable pitchers more-or-less staying on the team for a full season. In reality, this is likely not the case. Trading Soriano and Garza immediately docks the Cubs 4 wins.

Also, keep in mind this is a relatively healthy projection, too. The injury contingency deals with the team on a broadscale, but it's more likely than not that one major component of our team will be lost to injury. Soriano, Garza, and Baker are all huge injury risks. Losing them is a pretty big deal. 

Last, let's keep in mind that ZiPS is pretty optimistic concerning the Cubs. Is Stewart going to produce 1 WAR in 400 PA? Probably not. Is Rizzo going to produce 3.7 WAR? Maybe, but that seems high. Our the Cubs going to get average to above-average production from 7 simultaneous time-share starters? Absolutely not. Will those 7 pitchers account for all 162 starts, as I have projected (save the injury contingency). No. 

It's also not like I'm saying the Cubs are even a good team. This projection says that the in the optimal production case with average injuries, the Cubs aren't even above .500. That doesn't seem like its too far from the truth.

If I were a betting man and wanted to be a little more subjective, I'd adjust this downwards to maybe 75 wins. As it stands, though, on paper, the Cubs appear to be right around…average.

This is a definite work in progress, so please let me know what looks good, bad, and ugly.

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Comments

  2. Mucker

    I don’t see the Cubs winning over 70 games. I don’t think the Cubs are competing in July so they trade away Garza and possibly Soriano. Not to mention, I’m sure they are hoping that one of their recent signings plays well and they can flip him for a prospect at the deadline. Their rotation is solid but the bullpen and offense are still very bad. I see another low 60s win total. I’ll go 64 wins. Now that the Astros are gone, Cubs are probably the worst team in the NL.

    /not as optimistic as Dmick

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  3. mobile svb

    I like how you’ve outlined the best case scenario. We’ll see if MB can out optimist that (dying laughing).

    I’m guessing most of the caveats kick in though and the prediction is high by about 20 moral-victory-equivalents.

    /not an optimist

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  5. dmick89

    By the way, this is interesting. Not sure I can agree with 80+ wins. I think there’s a mistake somewhere (probably in the spreadsheet), but it goes with the new Optimistic Obstructed View we’re rolling with. (dying laughing)

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  10. Aisle424

    My initial prediction of 102 losses and subsequent amendment to 98 losses is based on my belief that A) not everyone is healthy and B) this roster is still going to have some heavy turnover by July 31.

    I’d bet a bottle of Cookie’s BBQ sauce that either Garza or Samardzija is traded by the deadline, we’re hearing rumblinga about how Marmol is out the door by Opening Day, and you know they still want to move Soriano. If Soriano plays well, someone will give up the prospect(s) Jed & Theo want, if he doesn’t then he’s not helping the Cubs win more games. Either way, you really can’t count on Soriano to provide a lot of WAR to this team.

    So, on paper, if everybody stays healthy and everybody stays on the roster for the whole season, I could see this team win 78-82 games. 85 at absolute best. But this roster isn’t built for the 162 game season.

    They’ve added enough pitching depth (“depth” defined as “pitchers better than Brooks Raley”) to make me think the death march at the end of last season won’t necessarily be repeated, but the bullpen is full of questions and they are hellbent to get value out of Marmol and then build up another bullpen guy’s value by making him the closer. That’s great if they pitch well, but bullpen pitchers are generally in the bullpen for a reason.

    There is no 1st base or shortstop depth, so when Rizzo and Castro slump, there isn’t anybody who can take a couple of starts and legitimately give them a break by providing anything useful.

    There is nobody in the minors close to making an impact other than Brett Jackson. if you want to lick a toad and hallucinate that Vitters is also a possibility, then fine, but that’s really it. Maybe Vizcaino makes some noise in the major league bullpen this year, but how much value is that worth?

    So my 98 losses now feels a little pessimistic, but when the roster solidifies, I’ll probably still be figuring about 95 losses.

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  11. WaLi

    @ Aisle424:
    Somebody has a case of the Mondays Wednesdays.

    I agree to an extent though. I guess the question is, come All-Star break, where do the Cubs need to be to contend?

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  12. Rice Cube

    @ mobile svb:
    I kind of figured that the .78 wins takes into account a precarious 7th inning lead that completely crashes and burns due to some unforeseen circumstance. But then that would just be counted as a loss. Maybe it feeds into the new Optimistic OV mantra, to try to count an extra win out of nothing at all /AirSupply’d

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  13. Aisle424

    WaLi wrote:

    I agree to an extent though. I guess the question is, come All-Star break, where do the Cubs need to be to contend?

    An alternate universe where Luis Valbuena is good.

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  14. Rice Cube

    @ WaLi:
    I think they have to be within three or four games of the second wild-card in order to make it bad PR to sell off. Any more than that, though, and the plan goes ahead as scheduled.

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  15. Aisle424

    @ Rice Cube:

    I think the plan goes ahead even if they hold the 2nd WC spot. They’ve said over and over and over again that they want sustained success. Even holding steady with an over-producing roster would set this team back at accomplishing this goal. Maybe when they could get draft picks like candy when A & B level FAs left, they could get away with it, but not now. They need to infuse talent into this system and they’ll need to sell high to do it.

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  18. Author
    Myles

    Does anyone have access to Baseball Prospectus? I’m too cheap to buy it on my own, and I’d like to see the data on this article. I think my primary problem with this projection is misinformation regarding injuries.

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  21. dmick89

    @ Myles:

    Chicago Cubs
    Total Adjusted WARP Lost (TAWL): 1.77
    Number of DL trips (Days): 14 (812)
    Number of DL & DTD trips (Days): 29 (854)

    A new front office took over the Cubs in 2012, but the team’s numbers actually worsened in terms of DL stints and DTD injuries. Ranked fifth overall in TAWL, the Cubs were ninth-best in DL stints but first overall when you factor in the DTD injuries. Chicago did not have many high-WARP players, and injuries plagued the few they did have.

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  23. 26.2cubfan

    @ Rice Cube:

    This would be enormously frustrating. It’s not like a frenzied charge to 83 wins is going to get this team anywhere. Fortunately, I think the Reds will be at least 10 games up on our beloved Cubs by the deadline and that would be plenty of justification to dump Soriano and Garza plus any of the flippable guys. I’d like to think that even a few lucky wins and the illusion of contention early wouldn’t shake the resolve of this front office.

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  27. bubblesdachimp

    From BP

    Classically elite arm strength—like that of Shawon Dunston and Raul Mondesi—can also stand out in a crowd. Few arms in the minor leagues can reach such levels. Aaron Hicks’ name comes up on occasion as having an elite outfield arm, but that opinion is hardly held uniformly across the industry. Cubs infielder Junior Lake has an almost unanimous 8 arm, with some scouts suggesting he should move to the mound if he doesn’t hit enough to pull off a big-league career as a position player.

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  28. dmick89

    @ Myles:
    They could lose 100. I know Aisle 424 has said he thinks they will (later increased his win total). I think losing 100 is mighty difficult. You’ve got to be really bad and shit just has to break against you. I think last year was a good example of most 100 loss teams. They were bad and they were unlucky.

    This team is better, though I’d argue not a bit more exciting. I miss the days when the Cubs had an MVP caliber player (Sandberg, Maddux, Sosa, and even Ramirez, Lee and Zambrano). Even when they were bad, they were fun to watch.

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  30. dmick89

    @ bubblesdachimp:
    A little too late in the game to move Lake to the mound. He turns 23 in a couple months. I don’t know for sure, but I’m going to bet there aren’t too many successful pitchers who converted to that position at that age or later. You’re talking about sending him to ExSt. and maybe Boise later in the year if everything goes as well as humanly possible. Then you’re talking another 2-4 years until he’s big league ready.

    He’s already on the 40-man roster so the Cubs don’t have the time for that. That ship has sailed. I have no idea why people keeping acting as if it’s an option.

    The only pitcher off the top of my head that I can come up with is Brooks Kieschnick.

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  31. bubblesdachimp

    @ dmick89:

    I am excited to watch the development of Rizzo, Castro, Shark, and Castillo. I assume those are the only players on this team that will be a part of any winning team in the future.

    Not to mention i am insanely excited to follow: Baez, Almora, Soler, Vogey, and a few others

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  32. bubblesdachimp

    @ dmick89:

    i assume if he flamed out as a hitter and had to pitch you could take him off the roster without much chance of someone really grabbing him

    edit: And even if you lost him after flaming out at a hitter so what? It is at least still worth it to try it IMO

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  39. bubblesdachimp

    Whoever is buying adds here is really targeting their correct market. Good ol Jessica Simpson maternity wear.

    (dying laughing) (dying laughing) (dying laughing)

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  47. WenningtonsGorillaCock

    Suburban kid wrote:

    You can’t beat fun at the old ball park.

    everyone in that picture is a white male. Some of them bothered to wear shirts. Not much has changed in the Wrigley bleachers

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  48. dmick89

    @ bubblesdachimp:
    Sure, you could do that. Probably, but why? The odds of him being successful as a pitcher would be slim to none. He’s just too advanced to make that transition. If it was so easy to do so other poor hitters with good arms would do the same at that age and it just doesn’t happen. If Lake doesn’t work out as a hitter, you cut your losses. I don’t see any reason to invest any more money in development for something that is so unlikely.

    My guess is that Lake spends a few years around the big leagues as a utility player.

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  49. Rice Cube

    @ GBTS:

    If the Cubs win a World Series, will you reveal your identity and ride a float downtown with Steve Bartman? (Editor’s note: This was a joke question he answered seriously. Which is cool.)
    TT: You know, when I introduced Leverage Index to a larger audience, I did it the day after Game 6.

    And what was clear then was that Bartman had very little effect to the game. There were three clear plays that had a far bigger impact: (Alex) Gonzalez flubbing a potential double play and getting no outs, (Derrek) Lee doubling as (Mark) Prior’s last batter, and (Mike) Mordecai doubling as (Kyle) Farnsworth’s last batter. It’s easier to focus on the unusual play, but the focus should have been on the substantive plays.

    I like Tango.

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  51. roger schweikert

    So after all your bs/shit stats–did you ever play ball @ any level–even 7yr old level–or coach @ any level. Being a Cubs fan longer than u are living–this team compares to late 1950s–except 50s had major league hitters–it is a team of triple A players & guys who shouldnt be in BB–TRY 104 LOSSES–THEY WILL MAKE A NICE PROFIT WHICH THE BOSTON DUDE WAS HIRED FOR –NOT WIN

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