Cubs vs Playoff likely teams

[Bull]

The Cubs' record vs teams above .500 is 37-40. They are the only playoff bound team (as of 9/4) that has a losing record against teams above .500. Somehow they also seem to suck against really bad pitching, but that's another story for another thread.

Their head to head vs. the brewers is pretty well known, but what about vs other playoff likely teams?

I just don't see any hope right now of anything but a one and out in the playoff barring a hot streak. We saw early in the year that this team when on a good streak is unbeatable. 

So in this thread I'd like to explore reasons for optimism and pessimism for the postseason.

I'll start.

In the final round, the Cubs would play Dodgers, Phillies or Mets

Cubs are 2-4 this year against the Phillies.  The Cubs went 4-3 against the Dodgers, including the ill fated Tokyo trip. They were 1-2 vs the Mets. Most of this happened early in the year with your best version of the Cubs.

First round looks like Padres, second round Brewers.

Some of these matchups could change, but this looks to be the picture.

I'd love some folks to give breakdowns of pitching matchups in some of these series. Maybe I'm looking too far ahead, but the playoff picture is shaping up, and I'm not sure it looks great for the April/May, let alone for the July/August Cubs. 

[Bertz]

I'm old enough to remember the Cubs going 7-0 against the Mets in the 2015 regular season and getting their asses handed to them in the NLCS 

[squally1313]

We have to go all the way back to 2023 to find a World Series winner that went under .500 during the year against winning teams. 

Before that, it was all the way back in 2021.

Edited September 4, 2025 by squally1313

[CubinNY]

Without doing any research whatsoever, I'd be willing to bet a small token that all the playoff teams have a similar record against the field. Baseball is just that way. The good teams beat up the bad teams and break even with the other good teams, most of the time. 

[squally1313]

Just now, CubinNY said:

Without doing any research whatsoever, I'd be willing to bet a small token that all the playoff teams have a similar record against the field. Baseball is just that way. The good teams beat up the bad teams and break even with the other good teams, most of the time. 

FYI

https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2025-standings.shtml

TLDR: you're mostly right

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Yeah I was looking at this yesterday, of the 6 playoff teams, the Brewers and Mets are a few games better than .500, the Cubs, Padres, and Phillies are within a game or so of .500, and the Dodgers IIRC were the worst but just barely.  It's not particularly meaningful, especially when you consider how variable pitching matchups might be in those handful of games.

[PackLandVA]

None of this matters for the Cubs if they continue to "hit" like they have for the past 2+ months.

[squally1313]

I think, conceptually, the only way to statistically say the offense is broken is by looking at what they did in August. Like, here are some assorted sample sizes of the teams offensive production in terms of how they rank league wide.

• YTD: 4th in fWAR, 10th in wOBA, 4th in xwOBA, 5th in wRC
• June 1-July 30: 3rd in fWAR, 5th in wOBA, 1st in xwOBA, 3rd in wRC
• July 1-July 30: 3rd in fWAR, 5th in wOBA, 1st in xwOBA, 4th in wRC
• July 1 -today: 16th in fWAR, 22nd in wOBA, 4th in xwOBA (hm), 20th in wRC
• August 1-today: 23rd in fWAR, 28th in wOBA, 7th in xwOBA (hm again), 26th in wRC

So really you've got a month of them having at least (very) bad results. Should we give it slightly more weight because it's the most recent month? Sure. Is it dumb to throw away the season based on a months sample size when we still have a brand new sample size of a month that we basically haven't played yet? I kinda think so. If we spend September with bad results/bad metrics, and I'm having to defend them as like 'we'll, they're just playing out the string, making sure they don't get hurt'....I'm going to feel worse about their chances.

But, since you asked for optimism/pessimism:

• Optimism: We're into September and Matt Boyd and Cade Horton's collective arms are still attached to their shoulders, offensive production can turn quickly and all signs are saying that it should, and I think the talent is more than sufficient on that side of the ball.
• Pessimism: By far the biggest: there are 12 teams, only one can win, there is a 90% chance it won't be us and everyone who shows up in the game threads when we go down 2 runs can gloat about how they were right to be miserable all year. More specifically, we have like 5 good pitchers, and that doesn't seem like nearly enough. 

[Bertz]

I guess to engage with this a little more seriously, the NL feels pretty wide open.  

- The Dodgers are *easily* the scariest team in the league right now.  They're more or less completely healthy for the first time all year, though TBD how long that will last.  Especially since with them not being in line for a bye and the Padres on their heels they can't just sell out for rest.  And it's not a fluke they get so many injuries.  But unless/until the injury bug comes back in the next few weeks they're the favorites IMO

- The Phillies losing Wheeler was massive for playoff purposes.  They're still tough obviously, but no longer feel overwhelmingly so.  Their scariest bats are vulnerable to LHP, which is worth keeping in mind for matchups

- Brewers are good team but not particularly scary IMO.  They're a good team who got insanely hot for 6 weeks.  Those wins are banked, which matters a lot for the standings, but doesn't mean much for October.  A seemingly sustainable takeaway though is that since adding Vaughn and getting Contreras back on track they're no longer vulnerable to LHP

- Mets are a good all around team.  With the very notable exceptions of Lindor and Soto their roster is more depth over impact.  Their SPs are in a bad way right now, but I don't see anything that looks permanent, probably mostly paying for some of the good fortune early in the year.

- Padres are probably the matchup you want most right now.  Its the worst position player group among the NL playoff teams by a healthy margin.  The SPs are a mess right now, with much scarier under the hood markers than the Mets.  The bullpen is terrifying, and Cease/King getting hot at the right time could decide a playoff series pretty quickly, but IMO they're the clear #6 in the NL playoff field at the moment

[Bertz]

Decent data point here too.  Cubs/Brewers the most resilient of the contenders in terms of avoiding lengthy bouts of bad play

[UMFan83]

3 hours ago, Bull said:

The Cubs' record vs teams above .500 is 37-40. They are the only playoff bound team (as of 9/4) that has a losing record against teams above .500. Somehow they also seem to suck against really bad pitching, but that's another story for another thread.

Their head to head vs. the brewers is pretty well known, but what about vs other playoff likely teams?

I just don't see any hope right now of anything but a one and out in the playoff barring a hot streak. We saw early in the year that this team when on a good streak is unbeatable. 

So in this thread I'd like to explore reasons for optimism and pessimism for the postseason.

I'll start.

In the final round, the Cubs would play Dodgers, Phillies or Mets

Cubs are 2-4 this year against the Phillies.  The Cubs went 4-3 against the Dodgers, including the ill fated Tokyo trip. They were 1-2 vs the Mets. Most of this happened early in the year with your best version of the Cubs.

First round looks like Padres, second round Brewers.

Some of these matchups could change, but this looks to be the picture.

I'd love some folks to give breakdowns of pitching matchups in some of these series. Maybe I'm looking too far ahead, but the playoff picture is shaping up, and I'm not sure it looks great for the April/May, let alone for the July/August Cubs. 

In 2023 the Rangers were 42-45 against above .500 teams and won the World Series, the Astros lost to them in Game 7 of the ALCS and were 42-43, and the Diamondbacks lost to the Rangers in that World Series and were 40-50.   In 2022, the Padres and Phillies squared off in the NLCS with the Padres having a 38-44 record against above .500 teams and Phillies 34-47.

It really doesn't matter imo.

[Rcal10]

It also matters when this is posted. Has this been done a few days ago the giants wouldn’t have been over .500. So that 1-5 against them wouldn’t have mattered. I think people love to cherry pick results to make some sort of point. Without that 1-5, if done earlier, the Cubs would be over .500. I believe the Cubs are exactly .500 against the 6!teams that will make the playoffs for the Al, and 17-18 against the likely NL playoff teams, with 3 to play. Basically a nothing burger here. 

[squally1313]

This is a good thread to remind everyone that these weird ups and downs are not Cub specific, they're just baseball. The Cubs didn't even make this, tellingly. Apologies for making you click through to X, feel free to ignore. 

[mk49]

11 hours ago, Bertz said:

I guess to engage with this a little more seriously, the NL feels pretty wide open.  

- The Dodgers are *easily* the scariest team in the league right now.  They're more or less completely healthy for the first time all year, though TBD how long that will last.  Especially since with them not being in line for a bye and the Padres on their heels they can't just sell out for rest.  And it's not a fluke they get so many injuries.  But unless/until the injury bug comes back in the next few weeks they're the favorites IMO

- The Phillies losing Wheeler was massive for playoff purposes.  They're still tough obviously, but no longer feel overwhelmingly so.  Their scariest bats are vulnerable to LHP, which is worth keeping in mind for matchups

- Brewers are good team but not particularly scary IMO.  They're a good team who got insanely hot for 6 weeks.  Those wins are banked, which matters a lot for the standings, but doesn't mean much for October.  A seemingly sustainable takeaway though is that since adding Vaughn and getting Contreras back on track they're no longer vulnerable to LHP

- Mets are a good all around team.  With the very notable exceptions of Lindor and Soto their roster is more depth over impact.  Their SPs are in a bad way right now, but I don't see anything that looks permanent, probably mostly paying for some of the good fortune early in the year.

- Padres are probably the matchup you want most right now.  Its the worst position player group among the NL playoff teams by a healthy margin.  The SPs are a mess right now, with much scarier under the hood markers than the Mets.  The bullpen is terrifying, and Cease/King getting hot at the right time could decide a playoff series pretty quickly, but IMO they're the clear #6 in the NL playoff field at the moment

I somewhat disagree.

- The Dodgers are a game or two below .500 after ASB.  They just got swept by the Pirates.  Pretty pathetic, IMO.  That being said, I'm not sure which team is the scariest against the Cubs now.  Their bullpen isn't particularly good, either.  SPs could be scary with Snell, Yamamoto, Kershaw Glassnow and Ohtani, though.

- The Phillies: I agree about Wheeler.  They still have good SPs, and they might be the scariest to me.

- The Brewers: I agree with you.

- The Mets don't play well away games.  If the Cubs face the Mets in Chicago (most likley),  we would have good chance beating them.  If I remember correctly, they don't like lefties, and most likely, Shota and Boyd will start and we also have Thielbar and Pomerantz.  I don't want to mention Rogers.  Oh, I just did.😄

- The Padres:  I'd rather face the Mets in Chicago than the Padres.  Yes, SPs are a mess, but they have great bullpen.  I don't know when King will come back.  Either way, for some reason, the Pares are scarier than the Mets to me.

 

[mk49]

You know what?  Yes, the Cubs offense has been bad for long time, but if the Brewers are still a game or two below the Cubs, most of us would feel happy enough right now.  At the moment, the Cubs is like two games above the Dodgers and four games above the Padres.  Only the Phillies would be better than the Cubs, if the Brewers didn't start winning like crazy a month or two ago.  Now, the Brewers started losing, but it's most likely too late for the Cubs to catch up.

[Bertz]

On 9/4/2025 at 10:07 AM, Bertz said:

The Dodgers are *easily* the scariest team in the league right now.  They're more or less completely healthy for the first time all year, though TBD how long that will last.  Especially since with them not being in line for a bye and the Padres on their heels they can't just sell out for rest.  And it's not a fluke they get so many injuries.  But unless/until the injury bug comes back in the next few weeks they're the favorites IMO

 

[mk49]

The Dodgers lost 4 in a row against not so good teams.  I remember the Cubs wanted Tanner Scott.  I'm super happy that we didn't get him.  They are like four game below 500 after the ASB, and they had all the SPs back from the IL.  Ohtani as a SP isn't helping, I think, because it's basically a bullpen day, when he starts.  They could be still scary in the post season, but if the Padres passes the Dodgers, the Cubs would beat LA in Chicago.

[Geographyhater8888]

Pirates have swept the Giants Phillies Mets Tigers Cardinals and Dodgers and have taken series from the Redsox and Blue Jays over the last couple of weeks. Cubs are 25-28 vs all teams currently seeded with a +run differential, that’s not what the current focus should be regarding their playoff chances.

Edited September 7, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Geographyhater8888]

On 9/5/2025 at 6:42 PM, Bertz said:

 

I still worry the most about the Phillies, but once Edman and Muncy return they’ll be a problem. Not sure what to make of Betts though.

[We Got The Whole 9]

The thing about the Dodgers (baseball)  is that pitching staff looked easily beatable last year too but they executed and won the damn World Series anyway. You just never know.