Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
June 12, 2008
Relentless Cubs
Cubs Win

8 June 2008: Kerry Wood & Geovany Soto of the Chicago Cubs celebrate win against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles,CA.
Photo: Icon SMI

When I've read Cubs boxscores lately, I've been impressed at how well the offense holds up through the entire game. This team just never lets up. Here are their OBA and slugging percentage by inning this season:
Cubs 2008 by Inning
InningOBASPct
1st.318.464
2nd.362.462
3rd.370.456
4th.377.481
5th.374.458
6th.371.480
7th.380.478
8th.379.388
9th.302.373

The remind me of the 1998 Yankees. That team outscored their opponents by an average of 1.91 runs per game. The Cubs are at 1.88 per game. I remember that Yankees team hammering middle relief, but that's where memory is never as good as data. The splits show the 1998 Yankees hammered starters from the third inning on. This Cubs teams is feasting on poor pitchers in the sixth and the seventh.

The Yankees of 1998 drew a ton of walks, as the Cubs do now. The pushes pitch counts up, forcing opponents into their bullpens sooner. The average NL start this season is 5.7 innings, the average start against the Cubs is 5.6 innings. (In 1998, the average start against the Yankees was 5.7 innings, the average AL start 6.0 innings.)

The Cubs 1.88 run difference per game would rank 10th since 1901, just ahead of the 2001 Mariners. All but one team in the top 15 won 100 games, and four of those teams won 110 games. This is certainly looking like the year of the Cubs.


Posted by David Pinto at 08:20 AM | Team Evaluation | TrackBack (0)
Comments

David, could you post the top 10 figures? I just did a quick search of some of the greatest teams I could think of, and the largest average margin I could find were the 1939 Yankees, who were a scarcely believable 2.72 runs per game!

Posted by: Blackadder at June 12, 2008 10:34 AM

And yet the Cubs can't shake a Cardinals team playing without their best hitter, pitcher and former Cy Young winner.

Posted by: Nick at June 12, 2008 10:53 AM

The Cardinals are outproducing their win expectation by 2-4 wins (based on method). Given the injury to Pujols and the shell game they've got going masquerading as starting pitching, reality is going to come quick and heavy to St Louis. I doubt the Cardinals even finish 3rd.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/statistics/standings.php

Posted by: SS at June 12, 2008 12:29 PM

The first inning results -- high slugging but unusually low OBA -- really show the impact of Soriano batting leadoff. I really wish the Cubs would use him more appropriately once he returns from the DL.

Posted by: Bill at June 12, 2008 12:43 PM

Bill,

The first inning also shows the charade of having batted Reed Johnson second and/or first when Soriano was out before. He has a whoppin' .580 OPS in 75 AB's in those two spots (about a .315 OBP). Compare that, of course, to Soriano's .299/.342/.577 and it's clear it's... Soriano's "fault". Or better yet, how about Lee batting .283/.337/.507 in 265 AB's in the #3 spot? Yep, clearly it's Soriano bringing the OBP.

Good thinkin', though.

Posted by: jasonfrank at June 12, 2008 01:24 PM
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