Chicago Cubs: Confident Contenders

The Cubs were probably last season’s biggest surprise with 97 wins from a lineup heavy on young position players and experienced pitching. Looking to win 90 games again (a repeat Chicago last accomplished when Al Capone was the city’s most prominent citizen), Chicago has made some nice off-season moves that augur well for keeping the Northsiders at or near the top of the NL Central.

More after the jump.

Winning ball clubs require smart players who don’t beat themselves. Thus, it’s not a huge surprise that Chicago has parted company with some of its more undisciplined players, trading away shortstop Starlin Castro and electing (apparently) not to resign free agent outfielders Dexter Fowler and Austin Jackson. Those three, together with Cub catcher Miguel Montero, are four of the five players in the majors with 90 strikeouts and fewer than 20 home runs in each of the past 5 seasons (for Fowler, it’s been 7 straight years with that unenviable double, second only to Michael Bourn‘s 8 years and counting).

To replace Fowler, Chicago snagged a still young Jason Heyward, coming off two 6 WAR seasons and showing increased maturity in 2015 with career best marks in hits, doubles, stolen bases, batting average and strikeout rate (even better was getting Heyward from the division rival Cardinals). To fill the void created by Castro’s departure, the Cubs signed veteran Ben Zobrist, a Joe Maddon favorite from the Rays. Look for Chicago to move 22 year-old sophomore Addison Russell to short and play Zobrist at second.

On the mound, Chicago acquired John Lackey from St. Louis (again a big plus to take a player from your division rival) and Adam Warren from the Yankees. Lackey will be 37 this year, but showed no signs of slowing down in 2015, tying his career high in starts and posting his highest innings total since 2007 en route to a career best 2.77 ERA. Warren made a successful transition from the bullpen to the starting rotation in 2015 and could displace Kyle Hendricks or Jason Hammel as the number four man in the Cub rotation. If Lackey and Warren maintain their form from last season, those two plus Jake Arrieta and Jon Lester could make Chicago’s rotation among the best in the game. In reserve are projects Trevor Cahill, resigned by Chicago after being released by the Braves last season, and former high draft pick Jonathan Pettibone, still only 25 and looking to come back after two seasons lost to shoulder trouble.

The Cubs’ strong bullpen is returning mostly intact, losing only Jason Motte among their most frequently used relievers. To bolster the core group are several newly acquired veterans, including left-hander Rex Brothers from the Rockies and righties Brandon Gomes (whom Maddon knows from the Rays) and Jean Machi, who suffered a rough season last year but had two stellar campaigns for the Giants before that.

With proven veterans on the mound and developing youngsters in the field, look for Chicago to be a strong contender for the NL Central title. And, don’t be surprised if they do rack up 90 wins again, for the first time since 1929-30.

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Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
8 years ago

Well, my Brewers are in rebuild mode, so I’ll frankly just be glad to see an end to the Cardinal dynasty in the NL Central. The king is dead; long live the king!

no statistician but
no statistician but
8 years ago

Doug: I’m not as confident that these moves will solidify the Cubs as contenders. 1) About half of Heyward’s WAR comes from defense, and I find it difficult to believe that a right fielder has the opportunity to generate those kinds of figures on his own. Why didn’t the Cards put him in center? Why did they let him get away? 2) Russell’s another iffy proposition. Longtime followers of the Cubs will remember Shawon Dunston, hyped and full of promise at age 22, and several others at various infield positions whose potential was never close to realized. 3) As for… Read more »

Doug
Doug
8 years ago

There are no guarantees, of course, but I still like Heyward and Zobrist as a definite upgrade over Castro and Fowler. As you say, Zobrist’s best days are behind him but he’s shown himself to be a smart player and, at 35 and coming from a world championship team, can provide the veteran leadership that the Cubs lacked last season.

Jack
Jack
8 years ago

Cards offered Heyward more money.

Paul E
Paul E
8 years ago

What’s the over/under in Vegas on team wins? Those degenerates are better than all the sabermaticians in the world combined at predictions. Since the Cubs are young at their core and hungry, I think they’ll do fine.
Cubs
Pirates
Cards
Brewers
Reds
With 19 games (?) against the Brewers and Reds, the three top teams will probably all win at least 88 games and contend for the wild and wilder cards. IMO…FWIW

Dr. Doom
Dr. Doom
8 years ago
Reply to  Paul E

For whatever reason, the Brewers always play the Pirates well. Here are the Brewers’ records vs. Pittsburgh the last few years: 2015 – 10-9 2014 – 12-7 2013 – 7-12 2012 – 11-4 2011 – 12-3 (Brewers were good; Pirates were bad) 2010 – 13-5 (Brewers were bad; Pirates were AWFUL) And it’s just as bad going back. The last three years, the Pirates have been much better than the Brewers, but while the Cubs and Cards keep distancing themselves from Milwaukee, there’s some sort of strange hold the Crew seems to have on the Bucs. Obviously, this is probably… Read more »

bstar
bstar
8 years ago

This was from November 2015: Odds to win the 2016 World Series Chicago Cubs: 11/1 Kansas City Royals: 12/1 Los Angeles Dodgers: 12/1 New York Mets: 12/1 St. Louis Cardinals: 12/1 Toronto Blue Jays: 12/1 Washington Nationals: 12/1 Houston Astros: 14/1 Pittsburgh Pirates: 14/1 Texas Rangers: 14/1 New York Yankees: 18/1 Boston Red Sox: 20/1 Cleveland Indians: 20/1 Detroit Tigers: 20/1 Los Angeles Angels: 20/1 San Francisco Giants: 20/1 Seattle Mariners: 25/1 Tampa Bay Rays: 33/1 Baltimore Orioles: 40/1 Minnesota Twins: 40/1 Arizona Diamondbacks: 50/1 Chicago White Sox: 50/1 Cincinnati Reds: 50/1 Miami Marlins: 50/1 Milwaukee Brewers: 50/1 Oakland Athletics:… Read more »

e pluribus munu
e pluribus munu
8 years ago
Reply to  bstar

I’ve read that betting on the Cubs to win the Series has produced two mainstays of American life: homelessness and the one percent.

no statistician but
no statistician but
8 years ago

To Paul E and bstar: I can’t find much (any) historical data on pre-season betting lines, but my impression is that, regardless of the sport, they are wrong most of the time and outstandingly wrong more than they are right. The one historical Las Vegas odds track I could find was on the Superbowl, but it was post-playoff, so there were only two teams to consider. In the last ten years, the odds were in favor of the loser 6 times, winner 3 times, and one Pick-em. What are the odds on the preseason oddsmakers being right? I wouldn’t bet… Read more »

bstar
bstar
8 years ago

I found team projections from Fangraphs and Baseball Prospectus. The Cubbies are projected for 94 wins (#1 in MLB) by FG and 92 wins (T2nd in MLB, LAD w/ 94 wins) by BPro. Here’s the links: http://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings http://www.baseballprospectus.com/fantasy/dc/ I’m excited to see how Jason Heyward is going to do moving to centerfield. I’ll be mildly surprised if his dWAR doesn’t take a bit of a hit. He was +18 runs last year for St. Louis (24 Rfield, -6 Rpos). The positional adjustment is +3 for a centerfielder, so Heyward would need +15 Rfield to match his dWAR total from last… Read more »