1993 or the season that got away

[cubbieinexile]

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1993, the Cubs finish with a record of 84-78 and finish 13 games back of the Phillies.

 

The 1993 team was a talented team that quite possibly with a change of just two or three events could quite possibly have had the division.

 

The two biggest events are Greg Maddux and the injuries to Ryne Sandberg.

 

But first let’s look at the team.

 

Catcher: Rick Wilkins

Rick had the best season of his life and up until that time one of the better hitting seasons for a catcher. He plays in 136 games, 133 as a catcher has this line .303/.376/.561 with 30 homers and 23 doubles. The man was a monster at a position that generally does not see that production.

 

First Base: Mark Grace

He has one of the best seasons of his career this year with up until that time his highest SLG average. His line .325/.393/.475 with 39 doubles and 14 homers. Plus he wins the Gold Glove

 

Second Base: Ryne Sandberg

Ryne has an off year, experiencing an injury before the season and in the season’s final full month. Despite the off year Ryne was probably no worse then average for second base that year.

 

SS: Rey Sanchez/Jose Vizcaino

With Rey you don't get a whole lot but with Jose you a super sub who while he didn't slug a lot did get on base a lot for a middle infielder. He filled second base very well while Ryne was hurt and then played a lot of SS.

 

3B: Steve Buechele

Steve's line was .272/.345/.437 with 15 homers and 27 doubles. Again this is another player having one of his better seasons if not best.

 

CF: Willie Wilson/Dwight Smith

Again another mix matched. Wilson is terrible and Smith has is second only good season of his career.

 

LF: Derrick May

Derrick has an alright season with a .295/.336/.422. Probably no better or no worse then average.

 

RF: Sammy Sosa

Though Sammy does play 70 games in Center (more then Smith) I'll list him here. Sosa ends up having probably no worse then average year with a .261/.309/.485 but with 33 homers 25 doubles and 36 steals. So while he wasn't getting on base a lot when he did get a hit or get on base he was productive.

 

The Bench is a little confusing since this was not a team that had a lot of starters several positions were manned by more then one person. So in that regard the bench was pretty good. Though if the Cubs had been a little smarter they probably would have been the starters thus the starters the bench, thus the bench would be weak. Two bright spots that were not mentioned were Tuffy Rhodes and Hill both of whom came over late in the season and helped fuel the Cubs to an excellent finish.

 

This is an offense to me that should have scored a lot of runs. This is a team that got production out of spots that most teams don't normally get. Namely Catcher, SS, 2B, and CF. The old adage about being strong up the middle applies here. Unfortunately for the Cubs three of those positions were weakened by injury or by bad choices. For instance allowing Willie Wilson and Rey Sanchez to play as many games as they did. When this team had an infield of Wilkins, Buechele, Vizcaino, Ryne, and Grace for an infield it scored a lot of runs. In fact the Cubs second highest month in terms of scoring was May when almost every single game featured that lineup for the infield. June was the next best but slightly lower due to the fact that Buechele missed significant time during that month. The cub’s worst offensive month was April when the only averaged 4 runs per game I think due in large part of the absence of Ryne thus forcing Sanchez into the game. Rey's first month line was .256/.273/.267. Now we all know that Ryne is a notoriously slow starter but the year before 1993 and in 1994 Ryne never had a first month like that. Though he has done something like that line before.

 

The other two weak months are July and August and my best guess is that the wholes in the lineup mainly being LF and CF and Rick wearing down start costing the Cubs runs. Heading into July Ricks line is .312/.387/.580. Coming out of August his line is .293/.364/.552.

 

The acquisition of Rhodes and Hills effectively solves the outfield dilemma thus giving the Cubs there best run output of the year at 5.3 runs from September on. June was 4.54 and May 4.64.

 

So let’s do some computing. If Sandberg doesn't get injured before the season I think the Cubs definitely get more runs in April I am going to put the difference between Rey at SS and Ryne at Second at .33 runs per game or in other words 7.26 runs. Now I think that is being cautious but I think I have to be simply because of Ryne's notorious slow starts. I'll leave May and June alone since for most part the Cubs are trotting out their best lineup at their disposal. I'll add .33 runs to July and August simply because the Cubs for whatever reason continue to trot out Rey Sanchez and Willie Wilson while other options were better at this point. So that is another 18.81 runs added to the Cubs. Now onto to the final stretch, unfortunately for the Cubs when Ryne goes down they give his job to young Eric Yelding who does is best imitation of Rey Sanchez. At this point the cubs offense is hitting on all cylinder but again I will add .33 runs to each games missed by Ryne because when he went down he too was hitting on all cylinder enjoying I believe a 17 game hitting streak and hitting safely in 23 of his last 24 games. So that is 17 games and that gives the Cubs another 5.61 runs. Add it all up and having a healthy Ryne Sandberg and keeping Rey Sanchez from playing probably gives the Cubs 31.17 runs more or in other words 31 runs. Giving the Cubs 769 runs scored and moves them from 6th place in Runs scored to 3rd.

 

Next up pitching

[cubbieinexile]

Cubs pitching staff that year ranked 10th in Runs allowed but that hides the fact that the Cubs did have some gems on the staff.

 

Gems:

Jose Bautista 10 wins 3 losses, 7 starts 51 relief appearances, 2.82 ERA, 63 SO, 27 BB

Randy Myers 2 wins 4 losses, 53 saves, 3.11 ERA, 86 SO, 26 BB

Shawn Boskie 5 wins 3 losses, 3.43 ERA

 

Other Notables are Greg Hibbard who was probably the Cubs best pitcher and probably and Mike Morgan who was a very good innings eater pitcher who would keep you in the ball game though rarely dominate.

 

Almost everybody else besides these guys were disappointments at various levels.

 

Now what happens if you add Greg Maddux to the mix? The easiest part would be to take Guzman away and put Maddux in his place. Bill James has Greg at 25 Win Shares that year and Guzman at 9. Total Baseball has Jose Guzman at -6 Pitching Runs and Greg at 50 pitching runs for a difference of 56 runs which basically is what Bill James difference is as well.

 

So if we take off 56 runs off the Cubs runs allowed we end up with 683 runs the Cubs go from 10th place to 6th place though only one run separates 5th and 6th place.

 

Improving the Cubs by 9 games from their original pyth expectation. So right now with just Ryne and Greg thrown into the mix the Cubs would expected to win anywhere from 90 to 93 games. Good for third place 1 or more games if we do not adjust any other team. But of course we have to do that.

 

For instance the Home opener is Cubs vs. Braves and who is the Braves opening day pitcher? Greg Maddux and he wins the 1-0. Looking at the Rotation schedule Maddux probably would have pitched against Philadelphia 4 times, his counterpart in the rotation managed to only win one of these games I am thinking that Maddux would have won 3 of these instead one since the games he would have pitched the Cubs scored more then 5 runs though the game he would have lost the Cubs got shut out. So that brings the Cubs 2 games closer to the Phillies. As a brave he was 2 and 1 so that of course begs the question of whether or not the Braves get those 2 runs. One of those games he gives up 5 runs another 3 and the final 1 run. So I think at the very least the Braves keep the same record on them.

 

Now onto Montreal. Against Montreal we had our worst record which was 5-8, though if we had Maddux the Cubs would at the very least have won two more games against the Expos. Thankfully for us Maddux as a Brave only played the Expos once and though he won it his offense scored 6 runs so again I don't think the standings change much in that regard.

 

So here we are with as few changes as possible and the Cubs are in second place and anywhere from 2 to 4 games behind the Phillies.

 

So why do I think the Cubs still have a shot? Because with Maddux in the rotation everybody moves down a spot. Instead of Morgan facing almost every team’s best starter such as the opening day start against the Braves and Maddux he now gets to face their second or third best starter. A match up more favorable to Morgan and one that he would have handled better then Guzman who was the original second man. Would Mike Morgan's record still be 10-15 if he was the second man instead of the first? Well if we apply the pyth to it we find that his expected winning percentage is .654 or something like that and the Cubs end up winning 21 games when Morgan pitches instead of the 13 he pitches. Note I added 10 runs to his runs allowed to factor in the bullpen and the fact that he would have had Ryne Sandberg manning second. But even if you add more runs to his allowed total he still comes out with a lot more wins then he got. Morgan did not pitch badly that year and when it came to decision was extremely unlucky in that he came up against a lot of good pitchers plus is offense didn't always score a lot of runs for him.

 

So while the basic runs scored and runs allowed would not change I think the Cubs record would have been higher then its pyth due to intangibles.

[cubbieinexile]

Basically to sum it up 1993 looks to be one of the typical Cubs run for the title type years. A couple of stars, lots of regulars and not so regulars catching lightning in a bottle and a couple of mid-season acquisitions that did very well for the Cubs. I could easily see this team improving by at least 10 games if not more just by having a healthy Ryne Sandberg and Greg Maddux. Who knows? If Sandberg has an April like he did in 1994 (.291/.358/.477) and Rey sits on the bench (.256/.273/.267) the difference in runs could get very huge. Rey in April got exactly one extra base hit, and that was a double. In fact a good chunk of Rey's April value comes in 3 of the 21 games. In those 3 games he goes 10 for 15 and gets a walk. Take those 3 games away and his line is .169/.181/.183 for that month! Also it should be noted that despite that hitting barrage in those 3 games and batting second he only scored 3 times and drove in one run

 

 

 

 

The Cubs were 11-11 in April, they probably (okay they would have) would have had a better record then that. Played One game above .500 in May, 2 games below in June, 3 games above in July, 6 games under in August, and then went 20-10 to close out the season.

 

I forgot to mention it when I did the pitchers but a big part of the August collapse and for Junes sub par performance was because of the pitching. In August it simply collapsed giving up over 5 runs a game, I think the presence of Maddux would have lessoned that a bit. The Cubs got hot at the end because Rhodes and Hill basically take over for Wilson, Candy, May, and Smith. Thus solving the OF problem while Wilkins gets energized for the stretch and the rest of the infield stays good, with Ryno getting really good before the injury.

 

In fact after the injury the Cubs go 11-6 but it should be noted that in only 2 of those games did the Cubs lose by more then 2 runs. In fact the Cubs lost 3 games by 1 run (0-1, 1-2, 5-6) and the fourth by a score of 0-2. If Ryne had been in the lineup would they have those 4 games? Probably not all of them by I think it is quite possible that anywhere from 1 to all of them could have come out with the Cubs winning.

 

In fact two of those losses feature Mike Morgan as the pitcher which means that in all probability Maddux would have pitched them instead.

[Guest]

they were as good as this year's team - that tells you how much work needs to be done. 13 games is an awful lot to make up btw.

 

Also, rey sanchez had some of the greatest defensive seasons by a SS in history. Not sure if 1993 was one of those or not.

Edited November 25, 2007 by stitchface

[Guest]

Great to see you, CIE.

 

Fun read.

[bhogg]

I think they should have fired the manager ](*,)