How Good Are the Cubs Anyway???
by South Side Rob
It's no secret, I hate the Cubs. Always have and always will. Thursday night, after the Brewers barely finished off Toronto for a 3-game sweep, I got settled in to watch one of the best teams in baseball, the Tampa Bay Rays!
I spent the night online on one of ESPN's conversation blogs with of course about 50 arrogant Cub fans. What a shock. Anyway, during the contest, Cub fans bashed the Brewers this year calling them irrelevant. Then came the bottom of the 7th in which the Rays exploded for 7 runs mostly given up by their young dominant setup man Carlos Marmol and left-handed specialist Scott Eyre. I own the DirecTV extra innings package and this year, you can choose which broadcast you want to watch the home teams or the road so of course, I listed to Dwayne Staats and Joe Magrane of the Rays.
In that inning Marmol made Derrick Turnbow look like not such a bad option as he walked the first two batters he faced, then, he hit the next two batters (Gabe Gross being one of Marmol's victims). So, the bases still loaded and a run forced in, Scott Eyre replaces Marmol and serves up a grand slam to Carl Crawford. After Staats and Magrance composed themselves after that exciting bomb, Dwayne Staats mentions that the grand slam that was hit by Crawford was only the 2nd pitch that the Rays swung at so far in that inning and Crawford was the 5th batter of the inning and there was still nobody out!
After that happened, just about every Cub blogger disappeared on the blog which is no big surprise. While the game ended pretty quick after that 7-run 7th inning, I started to really think about the Cubs' record and how they achieved it. I went to ol' reliable at baseball-reference.com to look further into the Cubs' won-loss record. I know we all joked around about how many games the Cubs have played at home and how many times they had already faced the Pirates, but what I found makes me believe the Cubs will NOT win the NL Central division. I looked for the NL expanded standings and I found it. While the Cubs were being swept by the Rays, I thought, how many games have the Cubs won against teams with winning records? I was pleasantly shocked that the Cubs have only played 18 games against teams with winning records with a won-loss record of just 7-11. This is the best team in baseball? Now, the Brewers are slightly better against winning teams at 15-17 but at least we have played 32 of these games against the 18 the Cubs have had so far.
Then, I looked at division splits and the Cubs have an 18-5 record against the NL West which is baseball's weakest division by far so far this season. 23 games already against the NL West. Then, I looked to see how many games the Brewers have played against the NL West and they are only 8-4 for 12 games. I'm convinced that if the Brewers had the Cubs schedule thus far this season we would be close to if not better record-wise than those so-called lovable losers to the South. These numbers should tell Brewer fans that if this team can continue to score runs and get close to the effective starting pitching we have received, the natural order will be restored soon with the Brewers overtaking the Cubs in the division. That leaves the Cardinals. We'll deal with them some other day.
Back to the Rays for just a second. Right now, the Rays are 14 games over 500 for the first time in the 10-year history of the franchise. Can you believe it? As great as that is, I looked at the AL Expanded standings to find out how they've done it so far this season. To my shocking surprise, I see the Rays are 33-24 against teams with a winning record. Are you kidding me? They have played 57 games against winning teams by far, the most in baseball and winning 33 of them is also a major league best. Dwayne Staats also mentioned on the broadcast that this was the 3rd 1st place team the Rays have swept this season!
So, for comparison purposes, you have the Cubs at 45-28 and 7-11 against winning teams, then, you have the Rays at 43-29 and 33-24 against winning teams. Which team would you say is better? When I dropped these numbers on Cub fans in the blog, they didn't have a leg to stand on. Their responses where of the personal variety. Again, understanding the lack of intelligence that runs wild in Cumdom, this was no shock either...
I can't believe I'm a temporary White Sox and Ozzie Guillen fan this weekend. How bad has inter-league play affected my baseball scruples?
It's no secret, I hate the Cubs. Always have and always will. Thursday night, after the Brewers barely finished off Toronto for a 3-game sweep, I got settled in to watch one of the best teams in baseball, the Tampa Bay Rays!
I spent the night online on one of ESPN's conversation blogs with of course about 50 arrogant Cub fans. What a shock. Anyway, during the contest, Cub fans bashed the Brewers this year calling them irrelevant. Then came the bottom of the 7th in which the Rays exploded for 7 runs mostly given up by their young dominant setup man Carlos Marmol and left-handed specialist Scott Eyre. I own the DirecTV extra innings package and this year, you can choose which broadcast you want to watch the home teams or the road so of course, I listed to Dwayne Staats and Joe Magrane of the Rays.
In that inning Marmol made Derrick Turnbow look like not such a bad option as he walked the first two batters he faced, then, he hit the next two batters (Gabe Gross being one of Marmol's victims). So, the bases still loaded and a run forced in, Scott Eyre replaces Marmol and serves up a grand slam to Carl Crawford. After Staats and Magrance composed themselves after that exciting bomb, Dwayne Staats mentions that the grand slam that was hit by Crawford was only the 2nd pitch that the Rays swung at so far in that inning and Crawford was the 5th batter of the inning and there was still nobody out!
After that happened, just about every Cub blogger disappeared on the blog which is no big surprise. While the game ended pretty quick after that 7-run 7th inning, I started to really think about the Cubs' record and how they achieved it. I went to ol' reliable at baseball-reference.com to look further into the Cubs' won-loss record. I know we all joked around about how many games the Cubs have played at home and how many times they had already faced the Pirates, but what I found makes me believe the Cubs will NOT win the NL Central division. I looked for the NL expanded standings and I found it. While the Cubs were being swept by the Rays, I thought, how many games have the Cubs won against teams with winning records? I was pleasantly shocked that the Cubs have only played 18 games against teams with winning records with a won-loss record of just 7-11. This is the best team in baseball? Now, the Brewers are slightly better against winning teams at 15-17 but at least we have played 32 of these games against the 18 the Cubs have had so far.
Then, I looked at division splits and the Cubs have an 18-5 record against the NL West which is baseball's weakest division by far so far this season. 23 games already against the NL West. Then, I looked to see how many games the Brewers have played against the NL West and they are only 8-4 for 12 games. I'm convinced that if the Brewers had the Cubs schedule thus far this season we would be close to if not better record-wise than those so-called lovable losers to the South. These numbers should tell Brewer fans that if this team can continue to score runs and get close to the effective starting pitching we have received, the natural order will be restored soon with the Brewers overtaking the Cubs in the division. That leaves the Cardinals. We'll deal with them some other day.
Back to the Rays for just a second. Right now, the Rays are 14 games over 500 for the first time in the 10-year history of the franchise. Can you believe it? As great as that is, I looked at the AL Expanded standings to find out how they've done it so far this season. To my shocking surprise, I see the Rays are 33-24 against teams with a winning record. Are you kidding me? They have played 57 games against winning teams by far, the most in baseball and winning 33 of them is also a major league best. Dwayne Staats also mentioned on the broadcast that this was the 3rd 1st place team the Rays have swept this season!
So, for comparison purposes, you have the Cubs at 45-28 and 7-11 against winning teams, then, you have the Rays at 43-29 and 33-24 against winning teams. Which team would you say is better? When I dropped these numbers on Cub fans in the blog, they didn't have a leg to stand on. Their responses where of the personal variety. Again, understanding the lack of intelligence that runs wild in Cumdom, this was no shock either...
I can't believe I'm a temporary White Sox and Ozzie Guillen fan this weekend. How bad has inter-league play affected my baseball scruples?
So I understand the numbers you're throwing out there Rob, but I can't just sit here and think that who they've faced means a whole lot. The reason the Cubs are winning ball games has a lot to do with who they've faced, but mostly it's how they're playing. They lead the league in batting average and on-base percentage, walking 294 times already this year. That's nearly 70 more than the Brewers.
Furthermore, they are carrying the fourth best ERA in baseball with a 3.67. That's best in the NL. Now you can attribute this to the teams they've faced if you like, but it breaks down to them hitting better and pitching better than any one in the league. I still think they're better than the Brewers, and that makes me sick, but I agree that they're vulnerable.
Zambrano going down is one thing, but it's hard to believe that Ryan Dempster and Shaun Gallagher can continue putting up these kinds of numbers. Even better, Soto will slow down a little as pitchers learn how to pitch him, which will be a big blow to the squad. The Cubs aren't untouchable, especially if Z goes down for a couple of months, but the Brewers will have to play pretty good baseball if they really want to nip at their heels.
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Stats are only as good as the person that interprets them. It's easy to grab a handful of numbers to prop up an argument. The Cubs swept Arizona when they were the best team in baseball at that time, yet those numbers were never mentioned here because it contradicts the premise of your entire argument. Speaking of sweeps though, the Cubs have only been swept once this year while the Brewers have been swept three times. What does the stats say about that?
Stats don't win ball games. Never have, never will. As for who's the best, that'll be determined in October, not right now by a batch of numbers and statistics.
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The Cubs did sweep Arizona who are a part of the weakest division in the major leagues. The Brewers swept Arizona as well this season. The beauty of statistics is that they're accumulated, there is no opinion behind them as they have already been compiled. As a Brewer fan, I wanted to really see how the Cubs have managed to achieve such a high winning percentage up till this point. The who's better than who argument is opinion and everybody can draw their own conclusions. Including the two wins this weekend, the Cubs still haven't managed to win 10 games against teams with winning records all season. Again, as a Brewer fan, this gives me optimism knowing that the Cubs have benefited from a soft schedule thus far and their travels to the division title will begin to get much tougher. Time will tell if they are good enough to hold up through it.
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Is it just me or does anyone else get the same feeling with this 2008 Cubs team as they got with the 2001 Bears team that won a bunch of games in overtime and at the end of the game (Mike Brown interception returns, the Bears-Packers "Walter Payton blocked that field goal for us" game). It's like it doesn't matter how much they are down by, they and everyone else expect them to still win and they always find a way to do it. I know they're a good team, but this streak of coming back from such big deficits does have to be somewhat chalked up to luck a little bit too.
Could it really be that a higher power really wants them to win?
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