The 2013 PECOTA projections are out and I thought I'd post some of the Cubs below. Since you have to be a subscriber in order to download the spreadsheet, I'm only going to include PA and wOBA, which I calculated using the basic formula. For pitchers I'll only show IP and FIP (I calculated this too).
2013 PECOTA Projections for Cubs Batters
| Name | PA | wOBA |
| Starlin Castro | 623 | 0.325 |
| David DeJesus | 555 | 0.328 |
| Scott Hairston | 456 | 0.318 |
| Anthony Rizzo | 631 | 0.341 |
| Welington Castillo | 374 | 0.321 |
| Alfonso Soriano | 552 | 0.316 |
| Ian Stewart | 365 | 0.312 |
| Nate Schierholtz | 349 | 0.321 |
| Darwin Barney | 551 | 0.291 |
| Luis Valbuena | 256 | 0.307 |
| Dioner Navarro | 191 | 0.302 |
| Brett Jackson | 131 | 0.298 |
| Steve Clevenger | 137 | 0.283 |
| Dave Sappelt | 152 | 0.295 |
| Junior Lake | 46 | 0.280 |
| Josh Vitters | 250 | 0.286 |
| Matt Szczur | 250 | 0.284 |
PECOTA is projecting the Cubs only score 664 runs so it's not a powerhouse offense or anything. Castro is expected to have the most value at 3.4 WARP and no one else, using the depth charts section of Baseball Prospectus, is projected with more than 1.9 WARP.
2013 PECOTA Projections for Cubs Pitchers
| Name | IP | FIP |
| Matt Garza | 180.0 | 3.88 |
| Scott Baker | 138.0 | 3.91 |
| Edwin Jackson | 186.0 | 4.04 |
| Kyuji Fujikawa | 56.3 | 2.65 |
| Carlos Marmol | 61.0 | 3.04 |
| Scott Feldman | 138.7 | 4.32 |
| Travis Wood | 106.0 | 4.12 |
| Carlos Villanueva | 101.3 | 4.19 |
| Jeff Samardzija | 195.3 | 4.58 |
| Shawn Camp | 65.7 | 3.89 |
| Manny Corpas | 44.0 | 4.09 |
| Arodys Vizcaino | 36.3 | 4.69 |
| Jaye Chapman | 36.0 | 4.45 |
| Marcos Mateo | 36.7 | 4.56 |
| Casey Coleman | 50.0 | 4.72 |
| Trey McNutt | 36.0 | 4.92 |
| Rafael Dolis | 18.7 | 5.02 |
| James Russell | 61.0 | 4.79 |
| Chris Rusin | 63.3 | 4.79 |
| Brooks Raley | 54.3 | 5.10 |
| Alberto Cabrera | 23.3 | 4.96 |
PECOTA loves Kyuji Fujikawa and still really likes Carlos Marmol, but there's still going to be a closer controversy there if both perform as PECOTA expects. As for Jeff Samardzija, I'd not put a whole lot of weight in these forecasts. He beat them all last year because it was clear he had improved. The projections are still weighting the seasons prior to 2012 in which he mostly sucked. PECOTA doesn't think much of Arodys Vizcaino.
PECOTA likes the Cubs pitching. Only the Reds in the NL Central are projected to allow fewer than the 706 runs the Cubs are projected to allow.
Overall, PECOTA is projecting the Cubs to finish in 5th place in the NL Central with 77 wins.
Comments
Tough division.
GBTSQuote Reply
Is it that they like the cubs’ pitching, or hate the other 3 teams’?
SVBQuote Reply
I also definitely forgot Fujikawa existed.
GBTSQuote Reply
Why is Soriano projected to have a worse wOBA than Castillo? Are they too optimistic about Castillo, or too pessamistic about Soriano? Or do I need to re-evaluate my feelings about both those players?
EdwinQuote Reply
@ Edwin:
Soriano wasn’t all that good in 2009 and 2011. Castillo hit really well in AAA last year. Not that I agree. I’d take the under on Castillo. I probably wouldn’t take the over on Soriano, but I think he’ll be better than Castillo offensively. Castillo will have more value because of the position he plays.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ SVB:
They have the Cubs allowing the 9th most runs in the NL. That’s not park adjusted so I don’t know where they’d fall if we park adjusted those numbers. I’d say they think the Cubs pitching will be about average or so.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
At least the Cubs lousy offense will get to play more teams with below-average pitching staffs in the division.
BerseliusQuote Reply
That’s a pretty shitty looking offense. You sure that didn’t say 67 wins?
MuckerQuote Reply
This is a good article by Anno, but I disagree: http://worldseriesdreaming.com/2013/02/12/epstein-the-man-the-myth-the-lets-get-something-straight/
I don’t believe this to be true. I think there are at least a handful of teams that prove otherwise. The Yankees compete every single year. We could easily ignore them because of the money they spend, but the Cubs have a lot of money to work with. If the Yankees don’t work, there’s the Cardinals. Year in and year out, they’re competitive.
Since 1981 they’ve had 23 seasons above .500. They’ve won their division more than 10 times. They’ve won 3 world championships and have won the National League 6 times.
There is no rebuilding in St. Louis. They haven’t had more than 1 season below .500 in a row since 1994-1995 (strike shortened seasons). You have to go back to 1958-1959 to find the other time they lost more than they won two years in a row. They were below .500 3 years in a row from 1954-1956.
The next most recent seasons in which they were below .500 more than 1 season was 1918-1920.
The last time the Cardinals were below .500 was in 2007 and they currently have the best farm system in baseball (according to Keith Law and Baseball America). They haven’t had a top 10 draft pick since 1998 (JD Drew).
The Cardinals aren’t the only team to have regular success without sacrificing multiple seasons. It can be done and it’s been done by the Cubs biggest rival. If they aren’t smart enough to do what the Cardinals have done for nearly a century, what does that say about the Cubs chances in the future?
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Mucker:
I think the Cubs pitching is fairly solid. Their offense sucks and it doesn’t matter which projection system you look at. It’s a bad offense.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ dmick89:
I think it goes into what you said in your comment. Yankees and Cardinals smart. Cubs no smart. That’s part of the reason why the Yankees (class of the AL) and Cards (whom I consider the class of the NL) never had to rebuild, because they’ve always had a decent system in place. The Cubs, on the other hand…
Rice CubeQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
We need to find a shittier rival?
EdwinQuote Reply
@ Edwin:
The Astros moved out 🙁
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ dmick89:
I also agree that the Cubs need to approach the team building on two fronts, and I fully expect them to start spending next offseason. I just don’t know who they’ll spend on. I imagine if Josh Johnson becomes available that would be their target…
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
They did finally get rid of Ed Wade, so they were finally moving in the right direction lately.
BerseliusQuote Reply
This one is going to be tough to beat for the weirdest injury of 2013
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/13/joel-peralta-suffers-sandwich-related-injury/
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ Berselius:
He was trying to get the Rays…
*takes off sunglasses*
…a sandwich pick.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAH
/dead meme
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
The explanation for that injury…
…sounds like a bunch of baloney.
GBTSQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
(dies laughing)
BerseliusQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ GBTS:
It would be more believable if RC wasn’t such a ham.
Suburban kidQuote Reply
GBTS wrote:
Wait… are we accusing Alvin of injuring a Rays player?
Aisle424Quote Reply
GBTS wrote:
I am QUITE excited about him. (Feel these nipples.)
BWoodrumQuote Reply
Looks like Calcaterra won’t be hurting his neck getting out of his car to get a big fat sandwich anytime soon:
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/02/13/deep-thoughts-sabermetrics-and-my-annual-checkup/
Rice CubeQuote Reply
BWoodrum wrote:
You could cut steel on those puppies!
MylesQuote Reply
BWoodrum wrote:
Someone tell the new guy to keep it classy.
GBTSQuote Reply
@ BWoodrum:
@ Myles:
Take a guess as to how much Fujikawa can bench press…
Rice CubeQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
Oh wait, wrong movie. I totally got psyched out there.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
The olympics —> Deciding to get rid of one of the oldest olympic sports
Jumping on a trampoline and Synchronized swimming —> Continues to be an olympic sport
WaLiQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
I did tune into the trampoline event last summer, and I admit that it would have been a lot more entertaining with the Man Show end credit music playing in the background.
Rice CubeQuote Reply
BerseliusQuote Reply
I wrestled from kindergarten to 9th grade, so I’m actually pretty sad it’s going away. The Olympics are basically evil and corrupt from what I gather anyway, so whatever.
MylesQuote Reply
Myles wrote:
I’m pretty upset that the wrestling is going away. I didn’t watch it much, but I’d tune in occasionally. Plus, tradition! This would never be allowed in baseball.
WaLiQuote Reply
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
I enjoyed that xkcd this morning. However, I believe the rationale against steroids is that their abuse can have major negative impacts on the player long-term. That’s why supplements — legal performance enhancing chemicals, shall we see — are legal and encouraged.
At least, that is how I’ve already perceived it. Maybe I’m wrong, though.
BWoodrumQuote Reply
@ BWoodrum:
That’s a tacked on rationale (for the most part) by people who don’t want to see sacred homerun records fall. Nobody gives a shit about negative impacts sports (or preparing to play sports) has on the human body. If they did, the NFL would have ceased to exist a long time ago.
Aisle424Quote Reply
@ Aisle424:
This. When I was trying really hard to get my body fat as low as I could, I was taking so many supplements it hurts. And because I don’t get paid to hit home runs, at no point did anyone question me. Because let’s be honest, do people REALLY care what Sammy looks like in 29 years? Do you think people are questioning the long term of effects on Ryan Braun’s body when people ask aloud of they should trust him? No.
akabariQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
Apparently the decision came with no explanation, except that multiple factors were considered including television ratings, ticket sales, anti-doping policy and global participation. Somehow modern pentathalon outranked wrestling on these criteria.
Unless you think there is more support for one of these sports (vs the 71 countries that competed in wrestling last Olympics): baseball/softball, karate, roller skating, sport climbing, squash, wakeboarding and wushu. Maybe 71 countries might compete in karate, but I doubt it.
Or if you think that this cretin is right:
I honestly can’t figure out his logic, but I’m pretty sure it’s because there isn’t any.
I think it’ll eventually be explained by the number of doping wrestlers (and how much we care about their bodies in the future!).
SVBQuote Reply
@ Aisle424:
Exactly. Nobody gives a shit about concussions or other serious injuries in sports. They don’t care about what situation these players leave the sports they play in. They don’t care about the rampant alcoholism in sports. They don’t even care about PED use in the NFL. I’ve never heard an NFL fan talk about steroids in the way that baseball fans do. Ever.
Not to mention, many (most? all?) of these guys are taking these illegal supplements under a doctor’s supervision. I’m far from convinced that the long-lasting health effects of steroids outweighs the long-term use of alcohol. These athletes quit PEDs after they retire and usually don’t take it for very long anyway. Alcoholics remain alcoholics. They wreck their own lives and the lives of others.
If we learned that Tony Campana had taken steroids and HGH, what would Cubs fans say? They’d tell jokes about how he didn’t do enough of it. It wouldn’t be a big deal and it would not even be a story for the fan bases of the other 29 teams. The story would die in Chicago in a day or two. No fans even care about the PED use by non-pitchers other than Roger Clemens. And it’s only the star players.
dmick89Quote Reply
A few years ago (maybe longer) a cyclist in Europe (Germany?) talked about how dirty the sport was. He openly discussed his own use in detail and talked about how many people do it. I don’t think he named any names, but he painted a picture of a sport that pretty much ran on performance enhancing drugs. This cyclist wasn’t Lance Armstrong. He had never won a major race to my knowledge.
Nobody cared. Then we “learn” that Armstrong cheated and holy shit, that’s all the media could talk about.
dmick89Quote Reply
Given the recent line of discussion, this seems oddly appropriate:
Rice CubeQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Hmmm….concussions —–> NFL = PEDs —–> Baseball
What about boxing? It’s popularity is vastly lower in the USA now than it was 40-80 years ago. Don’t you think that people are more and more turned off by watching people get beat up? Even before UFC/MMA, boxing was in decline.
SVBQuote Reply
I’m not saying the two are equal. I’m saying that if the argument against steroids is about health then it’s a weak argument because there are all kinds of examples in sports that suggest the fans just don’t care about the player’s health.
As for boxing, I don’t know. I don’t know much about the sport, but I’d guess that since at one time it was one of the most popular sports and since then there have been all kinds of other sports emerge that people have moved on to those other sports.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ SVB:
Boxing is awesome and it’s popularity’s decline is (in my opinion) almost 100% due to greedy, scummy agent/managers that basically only obstruct and rule the sport by fiat. The UFC is proof that contact sports have a huge audience that boxing just hasn’t served (and has no interest in serving, or we’d have seen Mayweather/Pacquiao in 2006).
I also think MMA and boxing can coexist peacefully. They are very, very different. I like the UFC but I like boxing more, and I’m sure many people share my opinion, or have the two switched around. It’s also not like the best MMA fighter could easily compete in boxing or vice versa. If Anderson Silva boxed Chad Dawson, he’d get absolutely obliterated. If Floyd Mayweather fought Jose Aldo in the octagon, Floyd would get annihilated.
Just ask James Toney.
MylesQuote Reply
@ Rice Cube:
(dying laughing)
GBTSQuote Reply
@ SVB:
i knew it was the gays all along! and obama, probably!
but seriously, wouldn’t gay people kind of love wrestling? if i was gay, i feel like i’d watch the shit out of that.
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
@ Myles:
I can’t comment much on the management of boxing, though I have seen some articles that complain about not having a Mayweather Pacquaio fight due to promoter interference. However, the average boxing match on Showtime or CBS is drawing between 750,000-1,500,000 viewers. The low end is less than the first round of the NHL playoffs last year. MMA/UFC (I don’t really know the difference, but I looked up ratings) draws about 5 million for top flight matches. That’s less than Big Bang Theory.
I remember everyone watching Ali and nearly everyone watching Hearns/Leonard. Those were Events. I can’t find TV ratings for them, but I bet that Ali/Frazier outdrew the Superbowl in 1974. My point is that since 1980-85 let’s say, til now, boxing has nosedived in popularity and although other fighting sports have picked up viewers since then, they total is still far lower than the boxing heyday in the 70s (and back in Joe Louis’s day too, at least proportionally). Here’s an interesting article that suggests some reasons for this, in the case of boxing, but a lot of the boxing issues in the article don’t really apply to MMA. So why aren’t Big Fights all that popular anymore? Maybe a substantial reason is that a lot of people just don’t want to watch athletes get beat up, which is what I was reacting to in MBs comment.
Or maybe I’m full of crap. But I live in PR where boxing is still an Event, and here people either love it (“nothing beats watching two guys beat the piss out of each other, they’re tough, man”) or hate it (“it’s a horrible, brutal sport, why watch two guys beat the piss out of each other”). I’ve never heard anyone say, “I quit watching boxing because I’m tired of Don King and GoldenBoy.” Just like I’ve never head anyone say, “I quit rubbernecking at accident scenes because the thought of the hikes on those poor folks’ insurance premiums gives me a headache.”
SVBQuote Reply
@ EnricoPallazzo:
Yeah, that was my thought too. Isn’t that why WaLi picked the images he did? Wrestling is the original homoerotic viewing experience, amirite?
SVBQuote Reply
@ Aisle424:
Snarky response: if sports were really “contests to see which humans are fastest and strongest” (as opposed to games with rules), he might have a point!
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
@ Aisle424:
I didn’t want to get into yet another steroids argument–the same points keep getting rehashed over and over and I don’t even feel that strongly about it–but this post, I think, confuses 2 things. There are 2 issues here:
1. the rationale behind the steroids rule (e.g., health/safety/legality)
2. that some players get (or try to get) an advantage over others by breaking the rule
One does not have to feel passionately about 1 to feel passionately about 2. Somebody can even disagree with the rationale for a rule and still (rationally) be angry when he feels a player is getting an unfair advantage by breaking it. Someone can say, “I think the spitball should be legal, but since it isn’t, pitchers should not throw it.”
Rizzo the RatQuote Reply
@ SVB:
Maybe they don’t want to watch people get beat up. A lack of interest in watching violence doesn’t mean they care what happens with them later in life. Let’s face it, most people just don’t care what happens to people later in life. Especially to people they don’t even know.
The point is that fans of football don’t care about the health and safety of the players later in life. They don’t care about steroids. Most baseball fans are also fans of football and those same fans, like most other football fans, don’t care about that stuff.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ Rizzo the Rat:
Yes. It’s frustrating to me that the pro-steroids position is usually about as muddle-headed as its opposite.
GWQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
I don’t buy this.
I bet there were 1000s of people that cried in St. Louis when Stan Musial died last week.
If people didn’t care about concussions and roids, there would be no media coverage. But people do care, some because of level playing field, some because of health, etc.
If Doctors came out and said, “We are certain that 50% of all NFL players today will suffer from some sort of degenerative brain disease before they are 65 years old” I bet that people would care about that and there would be a big debate whether football was worth it. The first response would be to find ways to make it safer and to change rules. A subset of people would say the rules are changing the game too much (as now with “defenseless player” rules), but most would say it is worth it because there is no reason for people to suffer so much later. But what if the new safety equipment and hitting rules weren’t enough and still 50% of players would have brain diseases? I think a lot of people would leave football behind, because they wouldn’t want to support a destructive pastime.
When it comes to human nature, I realize that some people really don’t give a crap about others, but I think they are the minority.
SVBQuote Reply
@ Rizzo the Rat:
The problem is that most of the PED use that people are pissed about mostly happened before it was against the rules of the game. Sosa and McGwire did nothing wrong in being ‘roided up. But when Sosa broke an actual rule, he served his suspension, they x-rayed all his bats in the HOF and everywhere else and he moved on with a small snicker from people going forward. Nobody suggested that Sammy actually corking a bat should keep him out of the Hall of Fame, but OMG STEROIDZZZ!!!!
I still don’t care if people use, but at least now the notion that it is cheating is actually true.
Aisle424Quote Reply
SVB wrote:
People care about it later. They go on FB and piss and moan about how something should have been done, but we still all love seeing a safety take a players’ head off on a crossing route over the middle or seeing a QB get killed from behind on a blindside blitz.
Yes, if you ask people if they want these guys to all be debilitated for the rest of their lives, they’d all say of course not. But when you say, how about we restrict the manners in which football is played to limit the damage that occurs to the human body in playing it, and people piss about the pussification of the NFL.
We want it both ways, but we keep paying to support the status quo so we obviously don’t care about safety enough to give up the NFL.
Aisle424Quote Reply
I don’t even know why we are talking about boxing. I don’t see the relevance. It’s clear enough looking at the nfl that fans don’t give a shit about steroids or violence.
dmick89Quote Reply
Most people care about others to the extent that they won’t be burdened by it. Some care beyond that. Most people just don’t give a shit what happens to them later on. Most people don’t even care what happens to themselves later on (see drug addiction, obesity, not exercising, running up every credit card they can get their hands on, etc).
It’s easy to say you care about what happens. It’s a hell of a lot harder to do something about it and since most people are lazy, they don’t.
dmick89Quote Reply
This is kind of long winded, but it is a very good arguement. It was in the xkcd forums. Reminds me of Schilling:
WaLiQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
Sure, absolutely. But even lazy people can change the channel.
I brought up boxing/fighting because that sport comes closest to being only about violence and the long term consequences of boxing on its athletes should be the clearest to the public. I think that contributes (but not the only factor) to why boxing/fighting isn’t so popular anymore, because people just don’t want to watch two guys beat each other up, both for what it does to them today, and later.
But NFL and baseball are different. The long term effects of concussions and roids aren’t so clear. Because of that, the public can hide behind not knowing what the science says. “Doctors aren’t sure? Good enough for me. Until they know, let’s not change anything.” But if players in the NFL began forcefully saying that the game was killing them, and that things had to change, people would sign on.
You are right though, people won’t care about this stuff unless they are asked to care, in most cases. But I think if they are asked, they will care, and most would support a safer sport. A very loud minority will whine and cry about pussification, and Jay Mariotti will egg them on. But the whiners always get the mike, while public opinion moves on in a much quieter fashion. The trick is not to confuse the whiners with the movement.
SVBQuote Reply
@ SVB:
The problem isn’t that people are going “I don’t feel like watching boxing because of Don King”. It’s that people COULDN’T watch boxing because of Don King, because he wouldn’t let Mike Tyson fight, or because he would just steal a shitload of money from every boxer he promoted, or because he was legitimately a mobster. Or because GBP wouldn’t book a Mayweather/Pacquiao fight because “Pacquiao doesn’t deserve an equal split” or “Pacquiao won’t agree to this drug testing regimen” or whatever bullshit.
I have no doubts that there are many other factors contributing to the descent of boxing (and I definitely shouldn’t have said 100%), but it certainly doesn’t help when your own sport actively works against itself.
MylesQuote Reply
@ WaLi:
My counter to that would be that he uses the term “steroids” as if there is this one set of agree upon unsafe drugs. There are plenty of drugs and “diet supplements” that are legal for use that help build muscles faster, yet there are these others that are not. There is no consistency to the rules. If you feel that taking a certain diet supplement is not safe for your body, but other people are taking it and it is legal, then how is that any different?
XoomwaffleQuote Reply
@ Myles:
I’m sure that’s a big part of the sport’s decline, but I think the biggest reason is the same reason baseball has declined: the NFL.
dmick89Quote Reply
@ WaLi:
I’d tell the guy that life isn’t fair and that he had two options. He could take PED’s in the hopes it makes him qualified for the next level or not use and hope he can still get there. Using would be understandable and not using would be enviable.
dmick89Quote Reply
I just wish steroids weren’t treated so seriously. It distracts from the real problems, like players playing their boomboxes too loud and leaving games early.
EdwinQuote Reply
Travis Wood >>>>>> Latest member of “Best Shape of His Life” club
http://www.bleachernation.com/2013/02/13/travis-wood-is-the-latest-cub-to-look-better-than-he-looked-at-this-point-last-year/
JonKneeVQuote Reply
@ JonKneeV:
Was it you that posted that tweet from Badler hoping Obama would say he’s in the best shape of his life at the SOTU? I read the transcript of it, but unfortunately didn’t see it. (dying laughing)
dmick89Quote Reply
So about the Bladerunner? Sheesh.
Is the roid rage discussion in full swing yet?
SVBQuote Reply
dmick89 wrote:
option #3: get a different fucking job.
i sit at a desk all day. i GUARANTEE that this is causing me long-term health problems in one form or another, be it carpal tunnel, or going-blind-from-staring-at-a-computer, or shitty posture, or respiratory problems from breathing recirculated air all day, or a fucking vitamin D deficiency from not seeing sunlight for days at a time, or any number of other things.
but…it pays the fucking bills. i could go get any number of other jobs that would sidestep these issues but i don’t want to because this one pays well and because i’m good at it. i have no pity for someone that whines “i feel pressured to take ‘roids because otherwise i’ll be at a disadvantage and therefore unable to compete with others in my chosen career.” fuck you. get another job.
are steroids bad in the long term? probably. are they any worse than the bad side effects that go with ANY OTHER JOB ON THE PLANET? maybe. maybe not.
EnricoPallazzoQuote Reply
Career fWAR for Lillibridge: -0.9
Looks like Lillibridge is this year’s Joe Mather, who only had career -0.2 fWAR going into 2012.
This is a year!
BerseliusQuote Reply
new shit: http://obstructedview.net/projections/2013-cubs-projections-darwin-barney.html
dmick89Quote Reply
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