Will the real Chicago Cubs Please Stand Up?

[kente777]

Which is the real Cubs? The team that started the first two months of the season....the team since June 3rd....or a combo of the two.

 

With Soriano hurt, I'd really be surprised if we do much better than .500 baseball. I don't think we got better with Kendall as his defense appears to be just as bad as Barrett's.

 

Thoughts?

[jersey cubs fan]

I think the real Cubs are standing.

 

A physically talented team that's capable of looking like world beaters any day of the week, but a highly flawed team when it comes to translating those physical talents to baseball success. Once again the walk is killing this team, as the offense draws far too few and the pitching allows far too many. The Cubs are good enough to beat the crap out of the league's worst, but they can't hang with the best NL clubs, as evidenced by their losing record against all NL East and West contenders. This is the 2007. We have to hope they beat out MIL and then get lucky in the playoffs to beat what is inevitably going to be a superior ballclub.

[Derwood]

The team is 58-52, with a Pythagorean W/L of 61-49, so this is pretty much what the team is supposed to be doing. A little underachieving, but otherwise, playing to expectations

[UMFan83]

Lets look at the things that have been better than expected for the Cubs this year:

 

-Starting pitching has been much better statistically than expectations

-Unexpected contributions from youngsters at 2B, SS and RP have allowed the Cubs to fill holes that appeared throughout the year

-Although not statistically significant, the team has showed improving plate discipline

 

Now lets look at things that have been worse than expected:

-Power, power, power. Despite having 5 players on the team that have hit more than 27 HRs as recently as 2005, the Cubs are 12th in the NL in HRs. This has led to a very underwhelming runs scored totals. As many noticed, the Cubs recent run was led by a number of close games and one run games. Fact is, we got a slight boost in offense, and our pitching remained consistently good, so we started winning games.

-Injuries. All of our big three have missed time.

 

I guess I could not be lazy and find more, but you get the picture. We have had some things go unexpectedly our way, and some things that have gone unexpectedly not our way. We are about a 5-10 games over .500 team over the course of the season.

[kente777]

I personally think that the lack of power is directly attributed to the lack of patience of this team. We swing far too much at the first pitch (what else is new).

 

I think it is a correct analysis that we play pretty good against sucky teams, and pretty average (or below average) against good teams. If we do sneak in the playoffs, our only hope is that we get hot at the right time.

 

But it sure was nice for the media to be talking nice about the Cubs for 2 months.

[TheDude]

The Cubs have to hope that everyone on offense starts performing up expectations at the same time, or they are in trouble. Even with the hot June and July, many guys on the team were slumping.

 

So far this year, we have not seen everyone in the lineup hot at the same time. I think they're due. Otherwise, they have to rely on the pitching to hold down all the crappy teams they play the rest of the way.

[Derwood]

The Cubs have to hope that everyone on offense starts performing up expectations at the same time, or they are in trouble. Even with the hot June and July, many guys on the team were slumping.

 

So far this year, we have not seen everyone in the lineup hot at the same time. I think they're due. Otherwise, they have to rely on the pitching to hold down all the crappy teams they play the rest of the way.

 

actually, many of these guys would have to play DOWN to expectations, as they are playing above their heads right now. do not want

[RegulusBlue]

I personally think that the lack of power is directly attributed to the lack of patience of this team. We swing far too much at the first pitch (what else is new).

 

I love plate discipline, but our top HR hitter on the team is Aramis, and he's second in the MLB in swinging at the first pitch.

 

Its a combo of age, injury/recovery, and suckitude that has caused our power slump.

 

By the way, the Cubs you saw yesterday were the real ones, at least until Murton, Pie, and Soto are allowed out of the basement.

[kente777]

I personally think that the lack of power is directly attributed to the lack of patience of this team. We swing far too much at the first pitch (what else is new).

By the way, the Cubs you saw yesterday were the real ones, at least until Murton, Pie, and Soto are allowed out of the basement.

 

Not sure I totally agree with you here. I don't think the Cubs are as bad as they were last night. It was a combo of a decent left-handed pitcher who was given a pretty big strike zone.

 

It seems to me that I don't have much faith in the Cubs when I see there is a lefty starting.

[anabiono]

alright...forgive the goofy posts Edited August 6, 2007 by anabiono

[anabiono]

doh

[sethuel1]

They are standing up.

 

Brian Giles, on the other hand, refused to stand up last time I was in the bleachers, no matter how many times I yelled at him.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

They are standing up.

 

Brian Giles, on the other hand, refused to stand up last time I was in the bleachers, no matter how many times I yelled at him.

 

This took me a minute I'm ashamed to say, but it was well worth it.

[TheDude]

The Cubs have to hope that everyone on offense starts performing up expectations at the same time, or they are in trouble. Even with the hot June and July, many guys on the team were slumping.

 

So far this year, we have not seen everyone in the lineup hot at the same time. I think they're due. Otherwise, they have to rely on the pitching to hold down all the crappy teams they play the rest of the way.

 

actually, many of these guys would have to play DOWN to expectations, as they are playing above their heads right now. do not want

 

Who exactly is playing above their head besides Fontenot? Lee, Soriano, and Ramirez have OPS values as expected, but with HR power drops for each. Everyone else on the team besides those 4 players have below .800 OPS.

 

I would much, much rather have Lee, Jones, Floyd, and Ramirez have HR power rebounds (to expected pace for 2 months) and suffer a drop from Fontenot, than continue on course.

[Derwood]

The Cubs have to hope that everyone on offense starts performing up expectations at the same time, or they are in trouble. Even with the hot June and July, many guys on the team were slumping.

 

So far this year, we have not seen everyone in the lineup hot at the same time. I think they're due. Otherwise, they have to rely on the pitching to hold down all the crappy teams they play the rest of the way.

 

actually, many of these guys would have to play DOWN to expectations, as they are playing above their heads right now. do not want

 

Who exactly is playing above their head besides Fontenot?

 

derosa

lilly

marquis

howry

marmol

[Sammy Sofa]

The Cubs have to hope that everyone on offense starts performing up expectations at the same time, or they are in trouble. Even with the hot June and July, many guys on the team were slumping.

 

So far this year, we have not seen everyone in the lineup hot at the same time. I think they're due. Otherwise, they have to rely on the pitching to hold down all the crappy teams they play the rest of the way.

 

actually, many of these guys would have to play DOWN to expectations, as they are playing above their heads right now. do not want

 

Who exactly is playing above their head besides Fontenot?

 

derosa

lilly

marquis

howry

marmol

 

Or DeRosa is showing that last year wasn't a fluke.

 

And maybe Lilly is just naturally adjusting to no longer playing in the offensively brutal AL East.

 

Marquis I'll give you.

 

How is Howry playing above his head? He's been a very good reliever for something like 4 years now.

 

And Marmol is an unknown. What past is he playing against that indicates he's playing way above what he can "normally" do?

[TheDude]

The Cubs have to hope that everyone on offense starts performing up expectations at the same time, or they are in trouble. Even with the hot June and July, many guys on the team were slumping.

 

So far this year, we have not seen everyone in the lineup hot at the same time. I think they're due. Otherwise, they have to rely on the pitching to hold down all the crappy teams they play the rest of the way.

 

actually, many of these guys would have to play DOWN to expectations, as they are playing above their heads right now. do not want

 

Who exactly is playing above their head besides Fontenot?

 

derosa

lilly

marquis

howry

marmol

 

Very nice. My original post was talking purely offense. You list 4 pitchers and a player who is performing as expected (.788 OPS, expected drop-off from career year last year).

 

I understand what you're trying to say, but you can't quote my post about offense, state that I've got it backwards, and then counter with players not involved in the discussion.

[jersey cubs fan]

The Cubs have to hope that everyone on offense starts performing up expectations at the same time, or they are in trouble. Even with the hot June and July, many guys on the team were slumping.

 

So far this year, we have not seen everyone in the lineup hot at the same time. I think they're due. Otherwise, they have to rely on the pitching to hold down all the crappy teams they play the rest of the way.

 

actually, many of these guys would have to play DOWN to expectations, as they are playing above their heads right now. do not want

 

Who exactly is playing above their head besides Fontenot?

 

derosa

lilly

marquis

howry

marmol

 

Or DeRosa is showing that last year wasn't a fluke.

 

And maybe Lilly is just naturally adjusting to no longer playing in the offensively brutal AL East.

 

Marquis I'll give you.

 

How is Howry playing above his head? He's been a very good reliever for something like 4 years now.

 

And Marmol is an unknown. What past is he playing against that indicates he's playing way above what he can "normally" do?

 

How is Marquis performing above his head? The season is 4 months old. He was very good for 2 and very awful for two, and he's started out month 5 as very awful. I'd say he's performing right in line with expectations. If you take that one outing where his own error led to 4 "unearned runs" and count them as earned, he's got a 4.66 ERA, and a sub 100 ERA+. He's basically performing in line with career norms, off the pace of his best years but better than his worst. His season might end up worse than it is now, but I'd say the up and down inconsistently with some extreme variance (complete game shutout and multiple disaster starts) was probably what was expected in the first place.

[Sammy Sofa]

The Cubs have to hope that everyone on offense starts performing up expectations at the same time, or they are in trouble. Even with the hot June and July, many guys on the team were slumping.

 

So far this year, we have not seen everyone in the lineup hot at the same time. I think they're due. Otherwise, they have to rely on the pitching to hold down all the crappy teams they play the rest of the way.

 

actually, many of these guys would have to play DOWN to expectations, as they are playing above their heads right now. do not want

 

Who exactly is playing above their head besides Fontenot?

 

derosa

lilly

marquis

howry

marmol

 

Or DeRosa is showing that last year wasn't a fluke.

 

And maybe Lilly is just naturally adjusting to no longer playing in the offensively brutal AL East.

 

Marquis I'll give you.

 

How is Howry playing above his head? He's been a very good reliever for something like 4 years now.

 

And Marmol is an unknown. What past is he playing against that indicates he's playing way above what he can "normally" do?

 

How is Marquis performing above his head? The season is 4 months old. He was very good for 2 and very awful for two, and he's started out month 5 as very awful. I'd say he's performing right in line with expectations. If you take that one outing where his own error led to 4 "unearned runs" and count them as earned, he's got a 4.66 ERA, and a sub 100 ERA+. He's basically performing in line with career norms, off the pace of his best years but better than his worst. His season might end up worse than it is now, but I'd say the up and down inconsistently with some extreme variance (complete game shutout and multiple disaster starts) was probably what was expected in the first place.

 

I didn't think Marquis was performing above his head now. I thought he was for the first two. Please don't assume that I'm trying to prop up a hump like Jason.

[LetsPlayTwo]

We certainly saw them tonight. They couldn't score more than 1 run against one of the worst teams in the NL.