NEWSLETTER
There is a really fascinating read from Jeff Sullivan over at FanGraphs about what baseball fans think about the early projections for teams in the National League. Sullivan essentially polled readers on whether they thought the projections for each NL team was more than three games too high, up to three games too high, about right, up to three games too low, and more than three games too low.
Those projections had the Cubs at 83 wins next year, and the fans who responded generally felt that was probably a bit too high or, at best, just about right. I was intrigued to see that the vast majority of folks who participated thought that 83 was a pretty hard ceiling for the Cubs in 2015. Very few felt the projection was underselling the 2015 Cubs.
I wonder if that would hold true if the voting pool was just Cubs fans, or if they would skew more optimistic? What do you all think? As we sit here today, does an 83-win projection for this Cubs team look to be more than three wins too low? One to three wins too low? About right? One to three wins too high? More than three wins too low?
I won’t bias the discussion by telling you what I think – though I’d hope that you would have a good sense if you’re a regular reader – but I’m looking forward to seeing folks’ thoughts in the comments. I will say that the 2015 Cubs are uniquely tough to peg in an exercise like this, given the wide variation in plausible outcomes for so many of their players (attributable largely to the team’s youth). This is a team with a ton of upside – winning more than 90 games with no roster changes from here is definitely conceivable – and also a ton of downside – losing more than 90 games with no roster changes (or even significant injuries) is also definitely conceivable.
So, where do you land, Goldilocks? 83 wins, as of today, for the 2015 Chicago Cubs – far too low? Far too high? Just a little low? Just a little high? Just right?
