Tony Dejak / Associated Press
For a lot of reasons, 2020 has been an odd year in Major League Baseball. However, one thing is happening now that has a feeling “everything is fine with the world”.
The Chicago Cubs are not only at the top of the National League Central, but they are also once again a favorite of the World Series.
Despite some coronavirus-related hitches, the Cubs have controlled 15 games from their 60-game schedule. They have won 12 of them, placing them safely in first place in a division in which no other team has won more than eight.
As if to prove the point that they are well and truly back, the Cubs came back to Cleveland – or the city where they ended their 2016 drought championship in 2016 – this week and won two straight over the home team.
“There are definitely some memories here,” first-year manager David Ross, who caught up with the Cubs in 2016, told reporters. “It’s good to be back.”
Given that the Cubs’ triumph in the Fall Classic four years ago was preceded by a regular season with 103 wins, it was easy to think then that they were a dynasty in the making.
Matt Slocum / Associated Press
Slowly but surely, however, they turned away from that path. The 2017 and 2018 seasons brought reduced returns, and the 2019 campaign all killed the conversation of the dynasty, as the Cubs won only 84 games and missed the playoffs.
That was it for manager Joe Maddon, who was shown the door right away. And although the hiring of Ross’s Cubs was generally well received, the front of Theo Epstein’s leadership did little to renew the roster that his predecessor had failed. According to expectations for the Cubs in 2020 were, well, mixed.
In a normal 162 game season, a 12-3 start would be cause for excitement, but not necessarily a game-changing sign. But in this year’s 60-game season, the Cubs have already moved some needles.
According to FanGraphs, their chances of finishing first in the NL Central have more than doubled from about 30 percent at the start of the season to more than 70 percent. Their chances of winning the World Series have also improved from about 3 percent to about 6 percent.
Remember, the Cubs have not traveled the hardest path to this point. Before coming to Cleveland, they had played the Milwaukee Brewers, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates and Kansas City Royals. All four clubs have lost records.
Rather than the scheme, though, Chicago’s biggest concern is a bullpen that has a 6.56 ERA. That is thanks in part to Craig Kimbrel, who failed to recover from his rough 2019 season by leaving seven runs in just 2.2 innings. In Ross’ words, it “will take a minute” to repair the once powerful closer.
The Cubs are also getting less than expected from Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez. After combining for a 130 wRC + in 2019, they are down to a 118 wRC + in 2020. That is, they have gone from 30 percent better than average to only 18 percent better.
Charles Rex Arbogast / Associated Press
And yet it is no coincidence that the Cubs have established such a strong presence in the winning column.
Above all, they are driven by strong starting pitching from the side of Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks, Yu Darvish, Tyler Chatwood and Alec Mills. They have managed to avoid free passes with an MLB-low rate of 1.7 walks per nine innings, and their 2.65 ERA is third behind only the starters of Cincinnati and Cleveland.
To be sure, Cubs starters owe a tip of their caps to their defenders. Despite the small sample size, it is a good sign that Chicago defenders have improved from minus-seven defensive runes stored in 2019 to plus-nine so far in 2020.
On the other side of the ball, the Cubs are actually among the more striking offensive movers from 2019 to 2020 despite the slow start of their three big stars:
Data courtesy of FanGraphs
For this, the Cubs can especially thank Willson Contreras, Ian Happ and Jason Kipnis. Those three have a 172 wRC + and seven home runs between them.
Will that last? Probably not. However, Bryant, Rizzo and Baez were able to warm up as soon as those three cooled down. Combined with Kyle Schwarber’s reliable power supply, Chicago’s failure could therefore remain stable or perhaps improve.
The Cubs’ reinforcements, who, to begin with, start pitching, defending and attacking, seem solid enough to keep them in the NL Central lead. Everyone else in the division is under .500 and with real problems. The Reds have a bad bullpen of their own. The Brewers are without their second-best player. The St. Louis Cardinals have not even played in two weeks.
It’s harder to take a deep playoff run than it is to apply. Actually, because anything can and will happen in the playoffs. Two, because conventional wisdom holds that the Cubs’ bullpen in October will be their punishment.
But at least as far as the wisdom of the bullpen is concerned, the Cubs can look to last year’s Washington Nationals for a blueprint of how they can survive their weak pin.
The Nationals had a weak relief corps of their own, yet they won the World Series by reaching postseason to four starters (Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez) and two reliefs (Sean Doolittle and Daniel Hudson). The Cubs could potentially do the same with Lester, Hendricks, Darvish and Chatwood, plus as-of-yet-not-without-relievers Rowan Wick and Jeremy Jeffress.
The hunger factor could be another reason to buy back into the Cubs as competitors of the World Series. Even though many of their players have been there and have done so, they may feel they need to redeem themselves after 2019. And also, they might just want to bring some positive energy to less-than-positive times.
In the words of outfielder Jason Heyward, via Patrick Mooney of The Athletic:
“We’re all going through something very strange. We had to remind ourselves to go out and have fun, to enjoy competing. The camaraderie we have is something I do not take for granted. It is not always “Easy to have that. It takes time to build. But these guys know we have a chance to play baseball right now, and we show up every day for work.”
So far, what the Cubs are doing is working. And extraordinary circumstances are damned, there are ultimately not many reasons to think that it can not continue to work.
Statistics according to Baseball Reference and FanGraphs.
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