Written by Joe Messineo at No Coast Bias
Champions are crowned at the end of the season, but you could argue that they’re made long before: in the offseason, when general managers and front offices position their teams for regular-season and postseason success. Sometimes that takes the form of a quiet offseason, and other times teams make big splashes. And perhaps no team in baseball has been more effective with that latter method this offseason than the Chicago Cubs.
Thanks to their big-name free agent signings and splashy trades, the Cubs are the talk of baseball right now. They’ve had the most interesting offseason of all 30 teams – but have they had the most effective one?
Where the Cubs Started
To see if the Cubs are now the best team in baseball, we first need to take a look at where they were last year. Here were the top four records in MLB last season, in order:
St. Louis Cardinals 100-62
Pittsburgh Pirates 98-64
Chicago Cubs 97-65
Kansas City Royals 95-67
Toronto Blue Jays 93-69
Los Angeles Dodgers 92-70
New York Mets 90-72
So that’s our baseline: last year, the Cubs won 97 games, three less than the best team in baseball. Is 100 games a fair barometer this year, though?
(There are other ways to determine how good the teams were last year – like advanced winning percentage stats – but we’re just doing a back-of-the-envelope gut-check calculation here.)
How Much Has the Competition Improved?
Will 100 games be enough to be the best team in baseball? Looking at our candidates, it seems to be.
The Cardinals and Pirates will remain excellent next year, but neither team has made significant upgrades that this point in the postseason. The Cardinals will have to replace the production of Jason Heyward, who is now with the Cubs. The Pirates have not made any big-time moves.
The Royals and Blue Jays have both lost their aces to free agency; neither seems to have the budget to replace them. The Dodgers lost one of their two aces, and while they still have money and moves, they seem unlikely to be significantly better next year. Only the young Mets are likely to improve, but they haven’t made any huge moves either, so their progress will be limited. They are unlikely to gain ten wins with just the return of Zack Wheeler and the ongoing maturing of their pitchers.
So let’s call 100 wins the expectation for baseball’s best team, and see if the Cubs can get there.
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