I Don't Care What The Cubs Do Anymore (Mostly/Sorta)

[naivin]

I agree that barring some terrible rash of injuries or something, the Cubs will win the division. That is as much, if not more about a rotation of Sheets, Suppan, Bush, Parra, and McClung as it is about the Cubs. Even if the Brewers fire on all cylindars the rest of the year, they simply don't have enough cylinders.

[lcbj68c]

I agree that barring some terrible rash of injuries or something, the Cubs will win the division. That is as much, if not more about a rotation of Sheets, Suppan, Bush, Parra, and McClung as it is about the Cubs. Even if the Brewers fire on all cylindars the rest of the year, they simply don't have enough cylinders.

I agree. But can't it be assumed that the Cubs may have some serious injuries themselves. Or that the Brewers might make a trade to improve the pitching rotation and therefore add a handful of wins to the projections? While the number may be 86% chance to win the division that has to be a status-quo projection. With all the home games we get against the Cubs late in the year, I'd like to think we are still in this race, especially barring some Cub injuries or moves made to the Brewers roster. I'll wait until September to see how many games back we are before I hand away a division title. Going 5-1 against the Cubs in the final two weeks of September nets us 4 games in the standings alone, not to mention the easy schedule we could/should pick on also in September. 6 games back on September 1st, to me, will mean we still have a chance.

[crewcrazy]

I don't think people realize how monumentally bad our collapse was last year, and it is probably not going to repeat this year.

I tend to agree with this. If it weren't for the Mets blowing a 7 game lead in September, the national media might still be talking about how the Brewers choked away the Central. Thanks to Willie Randolph, though, most of America outside of the NL Central seems to have forgotten how bad the collapse in July/August was. Last year is going to stick in my mind for a long time, and I'll forever be paranoid with the Brewers in first place.

It's kind of like how the Red Sox had a 10 game lead on the Yankees in the AL East last year, and their entire fanbase couldn't stop worrying about how they'd end up losing the division. They eventually did win the division, but there was a lot of hand-wringing in September. If I ever live to see the Brewers hold a 15 game lead over the Cubs in August, I'll probably be the same way. Thus is the nature of a Wisconsin sports fan, I guess.

I agree with Russ, though...from now on, I'm just going to assume that the Cubs won that night. I'm sure it'll make Brewers wins a lot sweeter if I'm not worrying about not making up games. As long as the Brewers keep winning series (especially those against the Cards and Astros), they'll work their way into the wildcard picture by the All-Star Break, and it'll be a fun 2 1/2 months to the finish. When you haven't been to the playoffs since 1982, you can't be picky about how you get there (and if recent history is any indication, it might just be better to make the playoffs as a wildcard, anyway).

 

[logan82]

I haven't been keeping track of the standing at all this year yet. I only know the Cubs are doing well because it keeps getting brought up on BF.net all the time. After last year I decided to only worry about the Brewers and hope they keep winning.

[SoCal Brew Crew Fan]

The division will be tough, but it's not insurmountable. We do have the head to head, mainly at MP and so far have done ok against the Cubs. I do think the Cubs are better than last year so a collpse is unlikely, but they won't stay this hot forever.

 

I would also expect a couple Wildcard teams to heat up. The Cards or Astros may not be able to keep it up, but the Mets and Phils might.

 

Either way, it's more on the Brewers. As naivin points out, is this starting rotation good enough to get the Brewers 88-90 wins? If the last week is any indication...yes, but I'm still not sold.

[crewcrazy]

The rotation is obviously a concern, but the Philadelphia Phillies did make the playoffs last year (89 wins) with a rotation of Cole Hamels, Jamie Moyer, Adam Eaton, Kyle Kendrick, and Kyle Lohse. Their bullpen wasn't particularly effective, either. Of course, they had a crazy good offense...if the Brewers hope to pull something similar off, Prince is going to need to keep up his hot streak and guys like Hardy need to figure out what they're doing wrong.

[rluzinski]

Going 5-1 against the Cubs in the final two weeks of September nets us 4 games in the standings alone,

 

That's a fair point to make. If a team needs to catch a team quick, the easiest way to do it is by playing them head to head. Assuming that the Brewers have a 50% chance of beating the Cubs in each of those 6 games (I'm being generous), they'd have about a 11% chance of winning 5 or 6 total. If instead, the Brewers and Cubs were playing other teams, even if the game probabilities are all still 50/50, the Brewers need to both win at least 5 games and have the Cubs lose at least 5 games to get the same result. The odds of that happening is the square of the first probability, or 1.2%

 

That said, those BP playoff odds reports takes that into consideration.

[LS Brewer]

This was a very interesting topic raised Russ. I still cannot bring myself to root for the Cubs but I agree that it makes a lot less sense to actively root against them when they're playing the Braves, Phillies and Mets and other WC contenders. The Big Lead blog posted an interesting RPI table based upon the system used to evaluate college basketball teams. Given the Brewers strength of schedule, they are as of Sunday ranked fourth in MLB and second in the NL based upon their RPI. I am sure many of you have already seen something like this but I thought it was pretty interesting.

[RyDogg66]

If the Cubs are an 88 win team, arent they still an 88 win team? What I mean by that is, the oddsmakers who project that dont project the cubs to simply win at a consistent .543 pace the entire year. Perhaps as an 88 win team they will have good stretches and bad ones. They may win 10 in a row and lose 7 in a row. They could play out of their minds for two months and slump badly for another. They might even play a large % of their games at home to start the season and get off to a good start and then fade back when they play many road games. All the while, still being an 88 win team. I think the logic used last year that at 24-10, all we had to do was play a a .500 level and waltz into the playoffs was flawed just like I think saying the same thing about the Cubs this year is flawed. Preseason projections should be taking into account 81 home games, 81 roads games, slumps, streaks, luck and injury. The Cubs are what they are, an 88 win team. If they win more than 90 I will be surprised.

[getupgetouttaheregone]

I think most of you have left out the fact that Lou Pinella is a good manager, and will not let up on his team. He obviously has the talent, but he knows what to do with that talent. On the other side, we have Ned. What more do I have to say?

[rluzinski]

If the Cubs are an 88 win team, arent they still an 88 win team?

 

If I am understanding you right, you are falling for the gambler's fallacy. Past events do not effect future events. Going foward, the Cubs should be expected to win at an 88 win clip (if that's our best guess at their true talent). What it doesn't mean is that because the Cubs won more than expected, they should be expected to give back some of those "lucky" wins. That's why I come up with 94 wins, even if I think they are a true 88 win team.

 

In reality, we need to consider their production this year and adjust our expectations going forward, accordingly. 50-some games shouldn't chance the projection a lot (since that, in turn, was probably based on the prior 3 years or so) but it might suggest that they are really a true 90 win team.

[TooLiveBrew]

Imh Lou Piniella is a vastly overrated manager. What did he do with the Rays? And if the answer is 'he didn't have much talent', then wouldn't his managerial success seem to be much more related to the players he's had?

 

I don't like Piniella largely because he puts runners in motion under the belief that it 'gets things going'. I think he does most of what Brewers fans hate about Yost, to be honest. Lou 'rides the hot hand' in terms of his RP, which leads to things like the relatively crazy workload he's thrust on his 'pen already.

 

If I had more time, I could elaborate more, but I just think Piniella is the perfect example of why managers in general get credit they don't deserve. He was a 'good'/'great' manager in Seattle, then a 'bad'/'subpar'/'average' manager in Tampa, and now he's back to being 'good'/'great'. Fans tend to evaluate a manager on his W-L record, which is like evaluating a single player on his team's W-L record.

[RyDogg66]

Im not saying past events will predict the future (i.e. luck evening out), what I am saying is that the nature of a baseball season is such that in making a projection such as 88 wins, the projector (I believe) isnt predicting that team will win at a steady/constant .543 winning %, but rather that after all home/raod games are played and a large enough sample size for each player is defined that the team will win 88 games. This would include hot streaks, home/road splits, small sample size, liklihood of injury, etc. If the latter is the case, might we not expect the Cubs to not only regress to winning at a .543 level the rest of the way, but as the sample size grows and they play more road games to actually win at less than a .543 pace and maybe something closer to .500 or even below???

[olliegjw]

I see what you are saying about going forward Russ, but the logic is a little flawed. You project to 94 wins based on winning at the pace of an 88 win team over their last 104 games. However, they have 10 more road games than home games remaining. The 88 win projection was based off of equal home/road games. So, the 94 wins is probably 2 or 3 wins overstated.

[rluzinski]

Sure, I should adjust that expected .543 win% to the Cubs' remaining SOS and whether they play at home or on the road but I don't think that's going to have a very big effect. Those 9 extra road games equals 9 x .08 = .72 less expected wins (assuming the Cubs have an average expected home/road split). And while I haven't looked at their SOS going foward, neither has anyone else, apparently. People just seem to assume it's harder going forward because they played the Pirates a bunch. Nevermind that their current SOS is right around .500.

[joepepsi]

If I am understanding you right, you are falling for the gambler's fallacy. Past events do not effect future events. Going foward, the Cubs should be expected to win at an 88 win clip (if that's our best guess at their true talent). What it doesn't mean is that because the Cubs won more than expected, they should be expected to give back some of those "lucky" wins.

But isn't that what we mean when talking about regressing to the mean? Last year's Red Sox roared off to a 36-16 record through the first two months of the season, A .692 winning pct. The last 110 games they were a less impressive 60-50, .545 winning pct., or an 88 win pace over a full season. I might have projected that team to win at a .600 pace over the course of 2007, or 97 wins. So, they had an incredible start-overachieving beyond expectations for the first third, then played the final 2/3rds of the season sort of underachieving.

[Fear The Chorizo]

If we start trying to project a team's season win total at arbitrary points in the season, it quickly becomes pointless to use the preseason win projection as a starting point or reference, no matter how it was originally determined.

 

The Cubs have played 35 games against teams who are currently under .500, and 23 against teams at or above .500...their current record is 37-21 - not exactly a large disparity between their record and the number of games they've played against winning/losing teams to this point.

 

For comparison, the Brewers have played 19 games against teams currently under .500, and 39 against teams at or above .500...that is a huge disparity when considering that the Brewers are currently 2 games over .500.

 

Oh, the Cardinals? 35 games played against sub-500 teams as well.

 

The Astros? Only 21 games against sub-500 teams, most of which occurred during their hot streak a few weeks back.

[fondybrewfan]

I will never in the history of history ever be able to cheer that the Cubs ever win a game. It goes against the fundamentals of humanity. Even if the Cubs needed to beat someone in the last week of the season for the Brewers to make the playoffs I still couldn't cheer for them because I would destroy the fabric of time. No one wants that.

[Brawndo the Thirst Mutilat]

Regressing to the mean doesn't mean that you'll run into an opposing string of flukey events that counteract the past flukey events. I'll illustrate the difference with a coin-flipping example. Say you've flipped a coin 100 times, and it has miraculously come up heads 100 straight times. This is a normal coin, not 2 headed or weighted or anything else, so we know that the coin's "true talent" heads / tails distribution is exactly 50 / 50. Three perspectives:

 

Totally non-stat informed: "This coin is amazing. I'm going to make so much money betting people that this coin always comes up heads, because it totally does."

 

Gambler's fallacy: "That was weird. There must be a flukey string of 100 straight tails flips coming in the near future to cancel out that weirdness."

 

Regression to the mean: "That was incredibly weird. That'll only happen like 1 in a billion tries. Oh well, the next one's still 50/50. The next 100 will still be 50/50. The next 1000 will still be 50/50. Etc. etc."

[RU Rah Rah]

If I had more time, I could elaborate more, but I just think Piniella is the perfect example of why managers in general get credit they don't deserve. He was a 'good'/'great' manager in Seattle, then a 'bad'/'subpar'/'average' manager in Tampa, and now he's back to being 'good'/'great'. Fans tend to evaluate a manager on his W-L record, which is like evaluating a single player on his team's W-L record.

I am not necessarily defending him, but, to be fair, you should mention that his stint in Cincy netted a World Series title in '91. Plus, he's had winning records in 4 of his 5 managerial stops and a total of five divisional titles.

 

[TooLiveBrew]

Forgot about Cincy, thanks. I was just using some examples, not delivering a final analysis of him overall.

[rluzinski]

The Cubs have played 35 games against teams who are currently under .500, and 23 against teams at or above .500...their current record is 37-21 - not exactly a large disparity between their record and the number of games they've played against winning/losing teams to this point.

 

That can be a very misleading way to try and measure the strength of a team's schedule (although it seems like a very popular way of doing it). It treats a team that's 1 game under the same as one that's 20 games under. Why wouldn't you just use the the straight opponents' records?

 

The Cubs SOS currently sits at .499. If you take out the Cubs' 37-21 record from that, Cub's opponents have played slightly above average.

 

I better way might be to just look at runs scored and runs against of their opponents. You could also just look at the component stats (walks, single, HRs, etc...). I think that's how BP comes up with the Cubs having 2.7 wins more than they would against neutral opposition (D3 - D2):

 

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/standings.php

 

That puts their neutral record at 34.3 - 23.7 (96 win%). In comparison, the Brewers having to face above average players have cost them 1.2 wins according to BP.

 

The best way would be to also consider preseason projections of the indiviual players, since it's kind of silly to pretend that the results of 60 games is a good measure of a team's collective talent.

[jhart05]

To me the only stat that matters right now is the GB stat.

 

It's 7, maybe 6 after tonight.

 

With around 100 games left.

 

10 head-to-head, 7 at Miller Park.

 

Go for the Division Title, it is not out of reach. If the Wild Card falls into your lap, that's great.

[rluzinski]

O look, the Cubs are going to win again. Yipee.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

I thought you didn't care what they did. Sorry.