Here are the Cubs’ two most recent team status lines.

In the last week BAT has tanked despite all the runs they scored yesterday and PITCH is up.  The Cubs went 2-3 which is a WAA=-1 and now they’re a completely average team at 19-19.  Unearned Runs above average (UR) is still declining which is not good.  Here are Cubs in the top 200.

As we described here the Cubs have a top tier relief staff so it’s no surprise the top three players are relievers.  We saw in team status how BAT tanked leaving Kris Bryant barely in the top 200.  Let’s not dwell on the rest of the team since it’s early in the season.  A 0.500 team does not usually have a lot of high WAA superstars because their WAA=0 and all their players must add to that value.

Blast from the Past

In order to put the current Cubs in perspective let’s look back to 1935.

They started later back then and used to catch up by having two games for the price of one, commonly known back then as a double header.   The above is a snapshot on June 3 when they had about the same number of games.

The Cubs had terrible BAT and very good PITCH and they balanced out to be around a 0.500 team at this time in 1935.  Here is how they ended the year.

They end that year with WAA=100-54=+46 and go to the World Series.  Their BAT made a remarkable comeback and their PITCH kept chugging along.  Their final status line that year looks much like how the 2016 Cubs ended. A team wins 104 games with a WAA=+46 in a 162 game season.

Here are Cubs in top 50 back then which is the top 100 today because we have twice as many teams and players.