The Cubs and Pythag/BaseRuns

[Brock Beauchamp]

I didn't realize just how much bad luck the Cubs have rolled into this season. I knew they had drawn the short straw a few times but... yikes.

The Cubs are 15-16 right now.

Their pythag record is 20-11.

Even more telling, their BaseRuns record - which I find to be more accurate than pythag because it treats each game as a discrete event, as it should be - is 21-10. They should be scoring 5.10 runs a game while giving up only 3.47 runs a game.

That 21-10 BaseRuns record is good for third in all of baseball behind the Rays and Braves.

https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=Standings

[Andy]

That should be great news, but all it tells me is a team that probably needed some breaks to be a playoff team this year anyway hasn't gotten them and they're unlikely to play like a 21-10 team much longer.

If they do, outstanding.

[Bertz]

I think this is two separate things:  One Run Game luck and Cluster Luck

The one run game thing is clearly the issues from the last two weeks.  Fulmer's issues in the Dodgers series and basically the entire pen's issues from the past week.  They are frustrating but really IMO it's a several bad dice roles in a row.  Most of the pen has experience pitching and pitching well in close games, so aside from maybe Rucker I don’t think there's actually any reason to think it's more than a temporary run of bad luck.  The losses are banked though, and it doesn't always even out in the end.

The cluster luck, the team was actually on the positive side of the ledger as of a ~week ago.  The offense not coming through with men on over the past week was basically a reversion to the mean from earlier in the year.  Now the team is slightly unlucky on the pitching side, but not egregiously so.  This is more or less a wash IMO.

[champaignchris]

A majority of the Cubs’ run differential comes from the +23 they put up in 3 games against the A’s. 
 

I know everyone is going to get their shot at the A’s. How much is having this new balanced schedule coupled with what projects to be one of the 5 worst teams in MLB’s 150-year history going skew everyone’s Pythag?

[Transmogrified Tiger]

6 minutes ago, champaignchris said:

A majority of the Cubs’ run differential comes from the +23 they put up in 3 games against the A’s. 
 

I know everyone is going to get their shot at the A’s. How much is having this new balanced schedule coupled with what projects to be one of the 5 worst teams in MLB’s 150-year history going skew everyone’s Pythag?

Even if we take away the RD v. the A's because reasons(5 NL teams have had their shot against the White Sox and Royals with their horrible RDs too), the +19 they'd be left with would be 4th in the NL.

[Cubs2023]

19 minutes ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Even if we take away the RD v. the A's because reasons(5 NL teams have had their shot against the White Sox and Royals with their horrible RDs too), the +19 they'd be left with would be 4th in the NL.

Yeah, you can't just take away a series against a bad team, because then you have to adjust for circumstances for every other team too. 

Reality is that this team has easily underperformed what their output has been. 

The question is whether or not they can continue to product this output. If so, it should even out somewhat over time. If not, then we're just going to look back on this period as a massively wasted opportunity to bank a good amount of wins.  

[Brock Beauchamp]

39 minutes ago, champaignchris said:

A majority of the Cubs’ run differential comes from the +23 they put up in 3 games against the A’s. 
 

I know everyone is going to get their shot at the A’s. How much is having this new balanced schedule coupled with what projects to be one of the 5 worst teams in MLB’s 150-year history going skew everyone’s Pythag?

Which is why I prefer BaseRuns. Each A’s blowout counts as one win and has no impact on other games the team has played. 

[mfcubs22]

21 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Which is why I prefer BaseRuns. Each A’s blowout counts as one win and has no impact on other games the team has played. 

I’ve never heard of BaseRuns. I like it!

[Brock Beauchamp]

31 minutes ago, mfcubs22 said:

I’ve never heard of BaseRuns. I like it!

Basically, it treats each game as a discrete event and tries to use hit data and sequencing to project expected runs. I think it’s a much better metric than Pythag, especially early in the season when one or two blowouts can have a large impact on total runs. 

[David]