If the season started today, how many wins?

[Tim]

I don't think that the front office is done making moves this offseason. I think we're still going to sign another SP and pursue at least one more position player. I think we'll still sign another RP, as well.

 

However, I'm trying to get a handle on the level of gloom and doom about the current situation. Please give you best guess at how many wins the Cubs would have this year given this stab at the 25 man:

 

SP: Garza

SP: Shark

SP: Baker

SP: Feldman

SP: Wood

RP: Marmol

RP: Fujikawa

RP: Russell

RP: Camp

RP: 3 of Bowden, Cabrera, Castillo, Dolis, McNutt, Rosario

 

C: Castillo

1B: Rizzo

2B: Barney

3B: Stewart / Valbuena

SS: Castro

OF: Soriano

OF: DeJesus

OF: Schierholtz

 

B: Navarro

B: Stewart / Valbuena

B: Vitters

B: Jackson

B: Sappelt

[Cubswin11]

I went with 65-69. The pitching as it is currently constructed (assuming everyone stays mostly healthy) is definitely capable of being in the top 1/3-1/4 of the league and being good enough to be considered a "playoff level pitching staff."

 

The offense as it currently is will struggle to score runs and hit for power. Outside of Soriano and Rizzo there isn't another guy who you could comfortably project to hit more than 15 HR and Castro is probably the only other guy you can project to hit 10 or more. It's also not like the guys who don't hit for power make up for it in great on base skills either (OBP/BA) or are even good base stealers that they can take an extra base and get into scoring position at a good rate/volume when they only get singles/BB. The offense won't be able to support the pitching staff. Scoring runs, not preventing them, will be the teams downfall in 2013 if the roster stays as it is now.

[Guest]

I posted this elsewhere, but it's useful here. I think we will significantly improve the offense over last year just with what we have in the fold today.

 

Here is the 2012 OPS by position:

 

C: .616

1B: .796

2B: .684

3B: .611

SS: .751

LF: .783

CF: .640

RF: .688

 

My assessment by position:

 

C: Castillo/Navarro is extremely likely to outproduce what we got last year. Not giving ab's to Clevenger is important

1B: .800 is a fairly low bar for Rizzo to cross to improve what we got last year

2B: call this one a wash

3B: We can easily beat this just by giving the job to Valbuena. But somewhere between him, Stewart, Vitters & Lake we're going to find better than a .611 OPS

SS: Castro damn well better improve on this or he's not the player we thought he was going to be

LF: call this one a wash

CF: DeJesus will beat this easily. Jackson if he gets his head out of this rear

RF: Schierholtz has a better career ops than this and has been much better just against righties. And that's in ATT park. Finding a platoon partner shouldn't be hard, whether that's Sappelt, Vitters, or someone else.

[Guest]

I'd say 76 is probably the midpoint about now, so +/- 3 for a range of 73-79. Adding Jackson probably nets 2 wins, and getting a legitimate starting OF is probably another 1-2.

[SouthSideRyan]

73

[Cubswin11]

I posted this elsewhere, but it's useful here. I think we will significantly improve the offense over last year just with what we have in the fold today.

 

Here is the 2012 OPS by position:

 

C: .616

1B: .796

2B: .684

3B: .611

SS: .751

LF: .783

CF: .640

RF: .688

 

My assessment by position:

 

C: Castillo/Navarro is extremely likely to outproduce what we got last year. Not giving ab's to Clevenger is important

1B: .800 is a fairly low bar for Rizzo to cross to improve what we got last year

2B: call this one a wash

3B: We can easily beat this just by giving the job to Valbuena. But somewhere between him, Stewart, Vitters & Lake we're going to find better than a .611 OPS

SS: Castro damn well better improve on this or he's not the player we thought he was going to be

LF: call this one a wash

CF: DeJesus will beat this easily. Jackson if he gets his head out of this rear

RF: Schierholtz has a better career ops than this and has been much better just against righties. And that's in ATT park. Finding a platoon partner shouldn't be hard, whether that's Sappelt, Vitters, or someone else.

I didn't realize how bad the offense was last year and how it seems with just some moderate expectations out of guys we are improved in most spots.

 

Bill James 2013 OPS projections for our guys, fwiw.

 

C: Castillo .739 & Navarro .755

1B: Rizzo .862

2B: Barney .653

SS: Castro .794

3B: Valbuena .732, Vitters .704, Stewart .754

LF: Soriano .766

CF: Dejesus .734, Jackson .758

RF: Schierholtz .746

[pitchcs]

Steve Clevenger went 11-91 after the ASB last year.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

This is a tough question to answer.

 

If I thought that the front office was committed to winning as many games as possible (without doing anything crazy like trading a bunch of prospects for veterans), then I think this roster should be expected to win about 76 games.

 

But if this is all they have going into the season, then by August 1st I expect the roster to be a shell of its Opening Day self with lots of sell-off trading. Not to mention I expect little effort to replace any holes that pop up during the season. So if we open with this roster, I'd expect to win like 68 games.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

C: Castillo/Navarro is extremely likely to outproduce what we got last year. Not giving ab's to Clevenger is important

1B: .800 is a fairly low bar for Rizzo to cross to improve what we got last year

2B: call this one a wash

3B: We can easily beat this just by giving the job to Valbuena. But somewhere between him, Stewart, Vitters & Lake we're going to find better than a .611 OPS

SS: Castro damn well better improve on this or he's not the player we thought he was going to be

LF: call this one a wash

CF: DeJesus will beat this easily. Jackson if he gets his head out of this rear

RF: Schierholtz has a better career ops than this and has been much better just against righties. And that's in ATT park. Finding a platoon partner shouldn't be hard, whether that's Sappelt, Vitters, or someone else.

 

C should be better, but I don't think you can ignore that Castillo got a lot of BABIP luck at the end of the season to improve its standing last year.

 

Barney is definitely capable of worse offensive seasons at 2b than what he did last year.

 

The longer Ian Stewart stays "healthy," the better the chance 3b is worse.

 

LF is probably going to be worse.

[SouthSideRyan]

You also can't just take the starters ops and roll with it

[Sammys Boombox]

70-74. I want to say 75-79, but I still think the Cubs will be moderate sellers at the deadline. I don't think they'll gut the roster like they did last year because I think they're now going to attempt to compete in 2014 and will need to keep MLB pieces around to do that. There still is a depth problem and a couple of key position player injuries make this team pretty bad again.

[JoshiQ]

70-74. I'm one of those guys that was hoping for a real dual front. I'm also trying to take the advice of a couple of mods and let the other doom and gloom guys speak for me instead of repeating what they've said.

[jersey cubs fan]

you don't end a season with the roster you start. If they start the season with this weak roster it is most likely going to be even weaker by the trading deadline, as they will be sellers if they are out of contention.

[Guest]

Somewhere in the 60s