An Early Look at Early 2017 Cubs Projections Shows Early Good Things and Other Bullets

Nov 28, 2016

Welcome back, friends. Good holiday weekend?

This could be a big week, with the CBA expiring on Thursday and the non-tender deadline on Friday. Stay tuned …

We’ll have a full post on it, but I wanted to get the link in front of you right now, since it just came out this morning: the Cubs’ ZiPS projections for 2017. There are so many things to discuss that I won’t get lost in the weeds in the Bullets here, but a few early side-note-type things that jump out at me:

(1) ZiPS pegs Albert Almora Jr. at a .269/.296/.393 line, which does seem fair when you consider the skill set, the youth, and the big league adjustment (I think a slightly higher batting average is reasonable, but otherwise, it’s fair);

(2) ZiPS projects a 30.6% K rate for Kyle Schwarber, which is surprising to me, given that he was at just 28.2% as a rookie and was generally a lower K rate guy in the minors – will he strike out more than average? Probably, but over 30% would surprise me (his overall production is still projection as strong, despite the K rate);

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(3) Both Jason Heyward and Javy Baez project to be just a shade below league average with the bat, which would leave them very valuable players, given their baserunning and defense;

(4) ZiPS thinks outfield prospect Mark Zagunis could be a near big-league-average bat right now (though he’s likely not able to play center field, which means he’d need to be better than a league-average bat to impact the Cubs in the near term);

(5) ZiPS pegs Felix Pena to be nearly as good as Carl Edwards Jr. next year; and

(6) ZiPS thinks Mike Montgomery is a league average pitcher, but all of Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta, Kyle Hendricks, and John Lackey project to be worth more than 3.0 WAR.

The overall take from the ZiPS projections (the Cubs and Nationals are the only ones out so far) is that the Cubs figure to be very good again in 2017. You knew that.

Hey, if you were doing family and friend stuff this weekend (good!), catch yourself up on everything you missed around here since Thanksgiving. There’s a lot of good stuff, if I say so myself.

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If you’ve been keeping tabs on the various date and deadlines for the offseason, then you know that the next big deadline is this Friday, December 2. It’s the deadline for teams to tender contracts to players under team control but not already under contract (i.e., pre-arbitration and arbitration level players). Arizona Phil took an early look at the Cubs’ situation, and also just gives you tons of rule-based background on this stuff, as he does so well.

Fidel Castro died over the weekend, and you can read about his life and passing through the lens of baseball.

David Schoenfield writes about the American League’s longstanding edge over the National League, but wonders if the Cubs’ dominance in 2016 (and prospective dominance in the coming years) means other NL teams will push harder to improve in order to compete with the Cubs, and thus increase the league’s performance relative to the AL.

Check out who visited the Bears yesterday:

.@Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts and the World Series trophy visiting us for #TENvsCHI. pic.twitter.com/4IDnzpQt4q

— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) November 27, 2016

The Bears, however, did not win for the trophy, which means:

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There was a time not so long ago that Cyber Monday made sense. After a weekend of sales at physical stores, retailers wanted a way to sell off excess inventory and also push their online presence. I used to be all about it – I got up bright and early on Black Friday morning, and made an event of it. Probably did that for ten years. But with the increasing shift to online in all phases, I haven’t done physical shopping on Black Friday in five years, which makes Cyber Monday just feel like another day of sales – often extending the same deals that were available a few days ago.

… which is not to say it’s a bad thing. Amazon’s got a ton of Cyber Monday deals that you can check out here. Picking a random one: a 170-piece tool set is 64% off.

If you still need official Cubs gear (who doesn’t?), the Fanatics Cyber Monday sale is huge:

One of the best Cyber Monday deals I've found on Cubs gear – You can get 30% off today at @Fanatics: https://t.co/fCuiz9YBa0 pic.twitter.com/E6bJL1j4q2
— Brett Taylor (@BleacherNation) November 28, 2016

And one last pimp, as this deal ends TODAY. So if you’re on the fence about getting a new BN shirt, today’s the day to jump on it:

Yo. BN shirts are hot. They are also 15% w/free shipping (use code: 2016OMG). Treatchoself. https://t.co/vcInrRYYPu pic.twitter.com/ZuOGhxpATJ

— Brett Taylor (@BleacherNation) November 28, 2016

written by

Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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An Early Look at Early 2017 Cubs Projections Shows Early Good Things and Other Bullets

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