Another week has passed so let’s see what the Cubs have done.
| BAT | PITCH | Rs | Ra | W | L | UR | LR | TeamID | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3.8 | 11.0 | 181 | 175 | 19 | 19 | -10.1 | 1.2 | CHN | 5/17/2017 |
| 13.9 | 12.4 | 221 | 204 | 23 | 21 | -10.9 | 1.6 | CHN | 5/24/2017 |
Unearned runs above average is down again for the week. BAT is up, PITCH is about the same and the Cubs went 4-2 for a real WAA=+2 for the week. One can conclude from reading the differences of the above two lines that the Cubs’ BAT propelled them to above average for the week. Let’s look at players in the top 200 as of up to all the games played yesterday.
| Rank | WAA | Name_TeamID | Pos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| +049+ | 1.70 | Wade_Davis_CHN | PITCH | |
| +065+ | 1.45 | Jon_Lester_CHN | PITCH | |
| +080+ | 1.32 | Carl_Edwards_CHN | PITCH | |
| +127+ | 1.07 | Javier_Baez_CHN | 2B | |
| +131+ | 1.03 | Mike_Montgomery_CHN | PITCH | |
| +143+ | 0.97 | Kris_Bryant_CHN | 3B | |
| +150+ | 0.90 | Kyle_Hendricks_CHN | PITCH |
Baez had a good week and joined Bryant as the only Cubs’ batters in the top 200. Lester rose so much from last week by pitching a complete game yesterday. Early in the season rankings fluctuate much more on a weekly basis than they will in September. Baez is making a run for the All Star team which we’ll discuss who should and who shouldn’t be in the All Star game next month. Players picked by this data model can be quite different than those picked by fan voting as we saw last season here.
Kyle Hendricks pitches tonight so hopefully he moves up a bunch of notches.
Blast from the Past
Let’s look at where the Cubs were this day in 1969.
| BAT | PITCH | Rs | Ra | W | L | UR | LR | TeamID | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 46.8 | 32.6 | 208 | 122 | 28 | 14 | 5.2 | 1.5 | CHN | 5/24/1969 |
The Cubs were 28-14 for a real team WAA=+14. Their BAT and PITCH were balanced, both well above average and much better than today’s Cubs. Those higher BAT and PITCH numbers translated into a much higher team WAA. Let’s look at their players in the top
| Rank | WAA | Name_TeamID | Pos | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| +003+ | 3.30 | Ken_Holtzman_CHN | PITCH | |
| +018+ | 2.46 | Ron_Santo_CHN | X | |
| +021+ | 2.33 | Ernie_Banks_CHN | X | |
| +024+ | 2.23 | Billy_Williams_CHN | X | |
| +045+ | 1.64 | Don_Kessinger_CHN | X | |
| +047+ | 1.62 | Ferguson_Jenkins_CHN | PITCH | |
| +051+ | 1.57 | Ted_Abernathy_CHN | PITCH | |
| +091+ | 0.94 | Don_Young_CHN | X | |
| +095+ | 0.90 | Randy_Hundley_CHN | X | |
| +118+ | 0.69 | Hank_Aguirre_CHN | PITCH | |
| +143+ | 0.61 | Phil_Regan_CHN | PITCH | |
| +152+ | 0.59 | Al_Spangler_CHN | X |
Positions aren’t coming in for hitters because I need to rebuild part of the dataset for some of the older years but the ranking and WAAs are accurate. Top 150 back then is like the top 200 today because they had less teams. The Cubs were doing very well early in the season this day in 1969 but MLB doesn’t hand out World Series trophies to the team that does best in April and May. We have about 3/4 of the season left to play, both today and this day in 1969.