Projecting the 2016 Cubs

[UMFan83]

A big part of the plexiglass principle absolutely is variance due to luck. I get your argument that the 2014-2015 teams are vastly different. but my sleep deprived brain reminds me that he is talking about teams winning 20+ games over the previous year losing 5+ more games the next year. I think luck could easily account for all of that.

 

I honestly can't even wrap my head around whatever it is you're trying to say here.

 

If the foundation of the argument rests on the win gap between 2015 and 2014, it is already extremely specious. That is literally the foundation of Sheehan citing the plexiglas principle.

 

 

Did you read the article? If so send it to me please. The argument was that teams that improve by 20+ games often do so because they get both great improvements from their roster and benefit from good fortune. Some of the specific reasons he mentioned are: outlier seasons, injury luck (and specifically mentioned how durable the Cubs rotation was last year), Pythagorean variance (the Cubs were +7 there), and bullpen variance (which he said applies to the Cubs..not so sure but he said something about Grimm, strop and rondon having outlier years). There were some others too.

[Hairyducked Idiot]

The Cubs added like 15 wins worth of players this offseason. That will balance out the plexiglass and pythagoras and stuff they were due to give back.

[David]

A big part of the plexiglass principle absolutely is variance due to luck. I get your argument that the 2014-2015 teams are vastly different. but my sleep deprived brain reminds me that he is talking about teams winning 20+ games over the previous year losing 5+ more games the next year. I think luck could easily account for all of that.

 

I honestly can't even wrap my head around whatever it is you're trying to say here.

 

If the foundation of the argument rests on the win gap between 2015 and 2014, it is already extremely specious. That is literally the foundation of Sheehan citing the plexiglas principle.

 

 

Did you read the article? If so send it to me please. The argument was that teams that improve by 20+ games often do so because they get both great improvements from their roster and benefit from good fortune. Some of the specific reasons he mentioned are: outlier seasons, injury luck (and specifically mentioned how durable the Cubs rotation was last year), Pythagorean variance (the Cubs were +7 there), and bullpen variance (which he said applies to the Cubs..not so sure but he said something about Grimm, strop and rondon having outlier years). There were some others too.

 

No, I heard Bernstein read it, just like you did.

 

The very fact that it's based on that 20+ game improvement is why it's incredibly stupid. That is what I, and others, are saying.

[David]

The Cubs added like 15 wins worth of players this offseason. That will balance out the plexiglass and pythagoras and stuff they were due to give back.

 

Yeah, and he basically handwaved that part away in the article...that's without even getting into the plexiglas part, the very foundation of the whole thing, being stupid.

[treebird]

i would also like to add that while the cubs were a 90 pythag win team last year, they were at 96-66 in third order record.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

IIRC, I think this is one of TT's pet peeve topics.

 

AND HOW

 

The Cubs added like 15 wins worth of players this offseason. That will balance out the plexiglass and pythagoras and stuff they were due to give back.

 

This is the most salient point. 97 win teams are very unlikely to repeat that result regardless of whether they won 70 or 95 games the year before that. The Cubs insulated themselves very well against that regression, which is done by adding up expectations and not adding/subtracting luck from last year's total and then going into the acquisitions/losses.

 

A better example of the plexiglass effect is probably the Astros, but they done and plexiglassed themselves starting last September so it's probably not as pronounced.

[RammyFanny]

Yes, but the principle is not just players overperforming, it has a lot to do with luck evening out. The cubs played the 3rd most 1 run games last year and won 62% of them, they led the MLB in walk off wins, they went 13-5 in extra innings, their pythag was 90-72, their ace went 3.5 months giving up 4 ER total, they were slightly luckier than the average MLB team with regards to injuries, above average with regards to 'cluster luck'

I don't disagree with any of this, I just don't think this falls under his plexiglass scenario. You talk about it being "not just about players overperforming"," and I'm saying none of those players were here last year to overperform.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

The Cubs added like 15 wins worth of players this offseason. That will balance out the plexiglass and pythagoras and stuff they were due to give back.

 

Yep. If we take basically the same roster as 2015 into this year, then we are exemplary of the plexiglass principle: Big jump in wins, thanks, in large part, to luck and variance. It's not like we were the Astros last year, that got an unexpected early superstar arrival in Carlos Correa (I mean, you could include Russell in this category, but he was thought of as more likely to make an impact in 2015, before the season started. And Russell didn't have quite the same impact, anyway). We also weren't the Royals, who exceeded expectations because of a unique roster construction. We won 97 games because: 1. #weargood and 2. We had incredible luck in one-run and extra-innings games. We had a lot of walk-off victories. It was just a lucky year. We didn't even really have many guys over-perform expectations too much. Some of the young guys were better than you would have imagined. But, there was a lot of luck there, and we were likely to be plexiglassed this year.

 

That is: Until we added Jason horsefeathering Heyward, John Lackey, Ben Zobrist, Adam Warren, et al. Generally, the plexiglass principle is probably going to be right more often than not. But, generally, teams aren't loaded with great, young position players all over the place, depth out the ass, no major departing players, and tons of money to spend. General rules don't apply to us. We are of a different color. This issue was an overlaying theme when Theo spoke at the Convention. He essentially said that we weren't really a true-talent level 97-win team last year, but now he thinks we are. He's spot on. It doesn't really matter that we made that big jump last year, thanks to some variance, because this year we don't need it. We might not win as many games as last year, but we are certainly better.

[David]

The Cubs added like 15 wins worth of players this offseason. That will balance out the plexiglass and pythagoras and stuff they were due to give back.

 

Yep. If we take basically the same roster as 2015 into this year, then we are exemplary of the plexiglass principle: Big jump in wins, thanks, in large part, to luck and variance. It's not like we were the Astros last year, that got an unexpected early superstar arrival in Carlos Correa (I mean, you could include Russell in this category, but he was thought of as more likely to make an impact in 2015, before the season started. And Russell didn't have quite the same impact, anyway). We also weren't the Royals, who exceeded expectations because of a unique roster construction. We won 97 games because: 1. #weargood and 2. We had incredible luck in one-run and extra-innings games. We had a lot of walk-off victories. It was just a lucky year. We didn't even really have many guys over-perform expectations too much. Some of the young guys were better than you would have imagined. But, there was a lot of luck there, and we were likely to be plexiglassed this year.

 

That is: Until we added Jason [expletive] Heyward, John Lackey, Ben Zobrist, Adam Warren, et al. Generally, the plexiglass principle is probably going to be right more often than not. But, generally, teams aren't loaded with great, young position players all over the place, depth out the ass, no major departing players, and tons of money to spend. General rules don't apply to us. We are of a different color. This issue was an overlaying theme when Theo spoke at the Convention. He essentially said that we weren't really a true-talent level 97-win team last year, but now he thinks we are. He's spot on. It doesn't really matter that we made that big jump last year, thanks to some variance, because this year we don't need it. We might not win as many games as last year, but we are certainly better.

 

Completely disagree.

 

The 2014 roster was drastically different from the 2016 roster (and 2015). It is not a good reference point for anything and it has little to no bearing on anything. The biggest reason for the jump in wins wasn't luck and variance (and as tree pointed out, if you take sequencing into account, there wasn't THAT much good luck, anyway). It was a drastically different roster than 2014. You can bring this stuff up when a fairly similar roster overachieves one year after being bad or something like that, but that's not at all what the 2015 Cubs were.

 

The fact that we then considerably added to the 2016 team just makes it dumber.

[Aaron_Kennelly]

The Cubs added like 15 wins worth of players this offseason. That will balance out the plexiglass and pythagoras and stuff they were due to give back.

 

Yep. If we take basically the same roster as 2015 into this year, then we are exemplary of the plexiglass principle: Big jump in wins, thanks, in large part, to luck and variance. It's not like we were the Astros last year, that got an unexpected early superstar arrival in Carlos Correa (I mean, you could include Russell in this category, but he was thought of as more likely to make an impact in 2015, before the season started. And Russell didn't have quite the same impact, anyway). We also weren't the Royals, who exceeded expectations because of a unique roster construction. We won 97 games because: 1. #weargood and 2. We had incredible luck in one-run and extra-innings games. We had a lot of walk-off victories. It was just a lucky year. We didn't even really have many guys over-perform expectations too much. Some of the young guys were better than you would have imagined. But, there was a lot of luck there, and we were likely to be plexiglassed this year.

 

That is: Until we added Jason [expletive] Heyward, John Lackey, Ben Zobrist, Adam Warren, et al. Generally, the plexiglass principle is probably going to be right more often than not. But, generally, teams aren't loaded with great, young position players all over the place, depth out the ass, no major departing players, and tons of money to spend. General rules don't apply to us. We are of a different color. This issue was an overlaying theme when Theo spoke at the Convention. He essentially said that we weren't really a true-talent level 97-win team last year, but now he thinks we are. He's spot on. It doesn't really matter that we made that big jump last year, thanks to some variance, because this year we don't need it. We might not win as many games as last year, but we are certainly better.

 

Completely disagree.

 

The 2014 roster was drastically different from the 2016 roster (and 2015). It is not a good reference point for anything and it has little to no bearing on anything. The biggest reason for the jump in wins wasn't luck and variance (and as tree pointed out, if you take sequencing into account, there wasn't THAT much good luck, anyway). It was a drastically different roster than 2014. You can bring this stuff up when a fairly similar roster overachieves one year after being bad or something like that, but that's not at all what the 2015 Cubs were.

 

The fact that we then considerably added to the 2016 team just makes it dumber.

 

Yeah, I didn't mention any of that and should have. I shouldn't have focused on our luck while disregarding all of the changes from 2014 to 2015. Obviously the biggest reason for the jump was because we sucked the year before, playing with a completely different -- and worse -- roster. I solely meant the reason we would be likely to be plexiglassed (regress) this year is because of the luck factor last year. And by regressing to the mean, we would be regressing to around 90 wins, and not somewhere between 73 and 97.

 

Really though, with all of the changes from both 2014 to 2015 and then from 2015 to 2016, it makes what I said even more true: General principles don't apply to us. We are in such a unique position and we are so far removed from 2014 that it is silly to take heed in any principle taking our record from that year into account.

[RammyFanny]

http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/chicago-cubs-joe-maddon-kris-bryant-kyle-schwarber-anthony-rizzo-too-loaded-to-fail-031616

 

I don't think I ever saw an exact number put on it. Rosenthal says we have a plan to get all the outfielders at least 450 PA.

[RammyFanny]

P.S. Are we still not doing megathreads? A lot of unthreadworthy stuff lately that could be put into a General Cubs Talk or whatever we called it thread.

[David]

A general cubs talk megathread is dumb. this is a general cubs talk sub-forum. there's usually a less mega megathread that stuff will fit into if you don't want to make a thread for kris bryant tricking a blind college baseball team and if there isn't, make a thread.

[Banedon]

A general cubs talk megathread is dumb. this is a general cubs talk sub-forum. there's usually a less mega megathread that stuff will fit into if you don't want to make a thread for kris bryant tricking a blind college baseball team and if there isn't, make a thread.

 

ROFL...man, YOU started the General Baseball Chit-Chat thread in the General Baseball Discussion forum. How would a General Cubs Chit-Chat thread be different?

 

I'm not gonna start one just to start one, but if someone feels motivated to do so, who cares?

[David]

A general cubs talk megathread is dumb. this is a general cubs talk sub-forum. there's usually a less mega megathread that stuff will fit into if you don't want to make a thread for kris bryant tricking a blind college baseball team and if there isn't, make a thread.

 

ROFL...man, YOU started the General Baseball Chit-Chat thread in the General Baseball Discussion forum. How would a General Cubs Chit-Chat thread be different?

 

I'm not gonna start one just to start one, but if someone feels motivated to do so, who cares?

 

You have a valid point there...but what the hell? You're right, we probably could start threads for everything in general baseball chit chat...it's not like we have a problem with too much thread activity or something. But it's even sillier to me on the Cubs discussions.

 

There's obviously no black and white answer to this, but I don't like what a Cubs general megathread is likely to become, which is basically a disorganized place where we end up posting just about everything about the Cubs.

[RammyFanny]

It isn't a big deal. I honestly forget what it even was now, but I noticed something semi-interesting about Warren's pitch usage from the last two years the other day and was going to mention something about it, but it didn't really fit anywhere. It didn't really seem thread worthy so I just said F it.

[David]

It isn't a big deal. I honestly forget what it even was now, but I noticed something semi-interesting about Warren's pitch usage from the last two years the other day and was going to mention something about it, but it didn't really fit anywhere. It didn't really seem thread worthy so I just said F it.

 

In the realm of Cubs Discussions, that's thread worthy IMO.

[Banedon]

There's obviously no black and white answer to this, but I don't like what a Cubs general megathread is likely to become, which is basically a disorganized place where we end up posting just about everything about the Cubs.

 

If lack of organization is your concern, you should definitely be on team Megathreads. They're inherently more organized.

[David]

There's obviously no black and white answer to this, but I don't like what a Cubs general megathread is likely to become, which is basically a disorganized place where we end up posting just about everything about the Cubs.

 

If lack of organization is your concern, you should definitely be on team Megathreads. They're inherently more organized.

 

No. When someone who isn't constantly involved in everyday discussions comes on here not knowing where a certain topic about the Cubs is being discussed and it's just randomly on some page of a thread that is huge hodgepodge of topics, that is not more organized.

Edited March 18, 2016 by David

[RammyFanny]

A general cubs talk megathread is dumb. this is a general cubs talk sub-forum. there's usually a less mega megathread that stuff will fit into if you don't want to make a thread for kris bryant tricking a blind college baseball team and if there isn't, make a thread.

 

Ehh, I think that video could just go in the Kris Bryant megathread.

 

http://s8.postimg.org/7jzqjgeat/image.jpg

[David]

A general cubs talk megathread is dumb. this is a general cubs talk sub-forum. there's usually a less mega megathread that stuff will fit into if you don't want to make a thread for kris bryant tricking a blind college baseball team and if there isn't, make a thread.

 

Ehh, I think that video could just go in the Kris Bryant megathread.

 

http://s8.postimg.org/7jzqjgeat/image.jpg

 

That would be the less mega megathread I was referring to (where I posted it).

[JennieGarthAlgar]

Is this a good depth chart you guys? Should win some games maybe?

[sneakypower]

I'm worried about our lack of depth at 1B and closer

[Bull]

Is this a good depth chart you guys? Should win some games maybe?

 

I like Kawasaki over Szczur for all of 60 PA, but whatever.

[Bull]

Looking at last year's team, the position players got approx 5850 PA.

 

Montero 403 (in 113 games)

Rizzo 701

Russell 523

Castro 578

Bryant 650

Coghlan 503!!!!

Fowler 690

Soler 404

Schwarber 273 (in half a season)

Denorfia 231

Ross 182 (in 72 games)

Herrera 132 (and a 56 OPS+)

Szczur 80 (and a 67 OPS+)

Baez 80

Jackson 79

LaStella 75

Baxter 66

Lake 62

Castillo 47 (in 24 games)

Al Contra 32 (OPS+ of -12...thats minus 12)

Olt 16

Teagarden 15

Berry 1

 

First reaction: there was some real garbage on this team. I don't see the likes of Olt, Contra or Teagarden on the team at all, nor the likes of Lake, Baxter Szczur and Herrera getting 300 AB's.

 

So what do those 5850 (lets call it 5900 since we see the offense improving) PAs go?

 

First we put Bryant, Rizzo and Heyward 650 (San Francisco led the league in OBP last year and no one had more than 623 plate appearances - 701 for Rizzo led the league last year) and basically giving Heyward Coghlan, and Denorfia's and Bryant his from last year exactly. That improves the team enough if we stop there! Seriously, replacing Coglan and Denorfia with Heyward?!

 

Next we Jackson's 79 AB's and 45 of Fowler's to Soler giving him 483.

 

Give Russell Castro's 578 and Zobrist Russell's 523

 

Fowler drops from 690 to 600 PA's

 

Schwarber gets his own 273, Castillo's 47, Teagarden's 15 and 60 of ross's (there's no reason for ross to be in 72 games. this leaves him 50 games and 122 PA's), 45 from fowler and 80 from Sczcur Giving him 520 PA's

 

Give Herrera's 132 to Baez to go with his 80 leaving him at 212 (I HATE THIS)

 

Montero stays at 403 in 113 games. He's not limited by injury this year, just by demand.

 

 

That is 11 players getting over 5675 PA's, last years top 10 took 5119.

 

last year this team used 23 position players, let say they use 19 this year.

 

LaStella, Baxter, Lake, Contra, Olt and Berry, totaled 252. Add the 50 extras we expect and that leaves 302 PA's for the bottom part of the roster which could include

 

LaStella, Kawasaki, Alcantara, Szczur, and 4 September call-ups

 

Bryant 650

Rizzo 650

Heyward 650

Soler 483

Russell 578

Zobrist 523

Folwer 600

Schwarber 520

Baez 212

Montero 403

Ross 122

Lastella 70

Kawasaki 70

Contra 52

Szczur 50

Sept callups 60

 

Obviously these are just projections and could change with an extended injury to one of the big three. But clearly there's room for quality major leaguers. I would also suggest that any injury would result in more plate appearances for Baez. No matter who you assume is injured, there's a way to adjust to get Baez PT. (Fowler would take the most movement: Heyward for Fowler, Soler for Heyward, Zobrist for Soler, Baez for Zobrist. I can't find a team with less than 20 position players throughout the year, but I don't see a way that this team has more than 19.

 

TL;DR This is one of the most top heavy offensive rosters I've ever seen. With Soler and Baez Scratching for PA's, and Schwarber and Zobrist's flexibility this roster is uniquely and ideally constructed. It is unheard of for a team to have 9 players with over 400PA's, but I don't see any way that this team DOESN'T.

 

Still TL;DR So many good players! Team will be good.