Baseball is back and after a week the Cubs sit in first place with a 6-2 record! (I loved typing every word of that sentence). Hopefully you passed the quizzes and the final exam, but more importantly I hope you learned a thing or two about some different stats. For the rest of the season I will be using the Staturday post to look at how the Cubs are doing as well as highlight any other MLB player's stats that I think is noteworthy.
Like I said before, the Cubs are in first place and one of the main reasons for that is they have a first place offense. The Cubs lead all of baseball in wRC+ with 135 and the next team is the White Sox and Dodgers tied with a 124 wRC+ (the Phillies and Marlins (seriously this team needs to get it together) have only played three games and have a wRC+ of 133). Watching the games it does seem like the Cubs are clicking on offense hitting a bunch of homers and doubles. In fact, the Cubs are first in slugging with a 0.489 and tied for first in home runs with 15. Another nice stat from the offense is they are tied for the league lead in WAR with 2.4 wins above replacement.
Pitching has been a bit different for the Cubs however. In terms of WAR the Cubs are just 13th in baseball with a collective WAR of 0.8. But that can be broken down even more between the starters and the relievers. The Cubs five starting pitchers have combined for a +1.7 WAR with Tyler Chatwood leading the staff with +0.7 WAR.and Darvish just behind at +0.5. The bullpen only has one player above 0 WAR (Jeremy Jeffress) and everyone else is either at 0 or below. Kimbrel is a -0.3 WAR after only two appearances but you should read Pronk's article detailing more about Kimbrel.
After one week of baseball, the Cubs are doing pretty well for themselves. If they Cubs can figure out some sort of solution for the bullpen, this team can become a real force not only in the division but in the playoffs.
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