Are You Ready for This? The Chicago Cubs Rank 3rd in MLB in Projected Wins, According to PECOTA

[Matthew Trueblood]

And no, it's not because they have Alex Bregman baked in.

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Baseball Prospectus just rolled out their full PECOTA projections for 2025, and it's going to surprise you—in a good way. According to PECOTA, the Cubs are not just favorites in the NL Central, but clear, even prohibitive ones. The system forecasts 90.6 wins for the Cubs across their 10,000 simulations of the coming season, and gives them a 79.7% chance to win the NL Central. Only the Dodgers and a team from the suburbs just north of Atlanta, Ga. have higher projected win totals, and only Los Angeles has a higher estimated likelihood to win their division than do the Cubs. That's not in the National League; that's out of all 30 teams.

The system, like Dan Szymborski's ZiPS seemed to be when it rolled out last month, adores this team. It projects the Cubs to score the seventh-most runs in MLB and allow the seventh-fewest, and no team in the Central is projected to match them on either side of the ledger. In fact, while the Cubs are expected to be the 90-win team Craig Counsell demanded last fall, no other team in the division is even projected for 81 wins; the Brewers are pegged for a disappointing 80-82.

As we've said all winter, it's important not to underestimate the impact of Kyle Tucker. PECOTA expects him to hit 29 home runs, with an overall batting line 42 percent better than the league average and 5.3 wins above replacement player (WARP), good for fifth in MLB—right between José Ramírez and Ketel Marte. For pitchers, Shota Imanaga ranks 16th and Justin Steele 20th in projected WARP. This is not a drill; the Cubs are bordering on juggernaut status.

About the only bad news you'll find, to whatever extent you invest trust in PECOTA, is that it doesn't really buy into the Matt Shaw thing, at least right away. Shaw's projection of .236/.298/.381 and a 95 DRC+ (where 100 is average and higher is better) is uninspiring. You don't need me to tell you this, but even that bad news comes with some consolation: Alex Bregman is still out there. PECOTA has Bregman hitting .258/.332/.421, with plus defense at third, making him the 32nd-best position player by projected WARP. In other words, while already darlings of the system, the Cubs could become even more so, if their opportunities line up right.

Just as you'd expect, the team's rumored starting pitcher trade target, Dylan Cease, could have just as huge an impact. He ranks 17th in projected pitcher WARP, right behind Imanaga. Cease would effectively take the rotation spot of either Colin Rea (110 DRA-, where 100 is average and lower is better) or Javier Assad (106), so if the team did get hold of Cease or Bregman, they could immediately add another three wins to the team's projection.

Projections are just numbers; they're not worth much on their own. In this case, though, they're a good reminder of how far this team has come. Over the last half-decade, as the Cubs have perennially wallowed in mediocrity, PECOTA has basically nailed their projections, saying over and over that they were anywhere from a 76-win team to an 83-win one, matching their real record very closely. Now, it's saying something very different—profoundly different—and the Cubs are still trying to make moves that would impress it even further. As sources of spring optimism go, this is a forceful one, even if many fans will understandably hold onto some skepticism until the team pays off these expectations on the field.

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[BlightyCubbie]

1 hour ago, TomtheBombadil said:

One of my offseason hot takes is that Tucker is the best single move a team made this offseason (Burnes to Arizona is my other candidate) 

I agree.  Tucker is a huge improvement.

[Bertz]

ZiPS got folded into Fangraphs Depth charts yesterday, so we've got a quorum on public projections.  We're waiting for Szymborski to do his run that dynamically alters playing time, but with the Cubs and Brewers both having plus depth I don't think that will alter the 2-way race very much.

Steamer - Cubs 2 games better than Brewers

ZiPS - 6 games

Pecota - 10 games

Steamer handles defense in a way that some might call conservative and others might call silly, which is probably why the gap is lowest there.

And it makes sense?  You look at these teams up and down by position and you take the Cubs everywhere except Catcher (where admittedly the gap is huge), the bullpen, and maybe left field.

And if the Cubs' internals are anywhere between ZiPS and Pecota it probably colors how you want to handle the rest of this offseason.  Raising the floor by grabbing David Robertson and your favorite RHH bench bat and waiting until July to make a big trade is probably pretty prudent.

[chopsx9]

10 hours ago, TomtheBombadil said:

One of my offseason hot takes is that Tucker is the best single move a team made this offseason (Burnes to Arizona is my other candidate) 

Soto over whatever dead body he's replacing on the Mets would have to be better, no?