TC in Mississippi
CCS Staff
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OK, well this is just false. The Cubs actively tried to lose games in 2012, 2013 & 2014. After the Samardzija/Hammel trade they did start a little bit of a different approach but I would hardly call it trying to win. Honestly I think they won a few more than they wanted to and coveted a higher draft pick. This year they want to win some games. As far as the Sox go they actually trie to put a major league roster on the field last year and had a disappointing season.
These team's rebuilds are not at all analogous. The White Sox see a window in 2015 that they might be able to exploit, that being the fact that Detroit looks very off and could be headed off the kind of cliff the Phillies fell off a couple seasons ago and thinking the Royals are anything but worse than last year is not knowing baseball. Rick Hahn is not a dummy, he sees a division that could be had at maybe 87-89 wins and he's made some moves to get them there. Will they? Idk, to me all the cards are in the Tigers hands and if they don't fall off a cliff the White Sox have little chance. Again though Hahn has done the right thing based on his situation. I don't think much of Cleveland, I think the Royals are nowhere near what they were last year (losing Shields is a serious problem) and the Twins are a year or two away with their young talent. The White Sox could win the division, but some luck would be involved. I'd say 85-88 wins is a valid projection.
The Cubs are in a completely different mode. They lost on purpose for three solid years and last year ended that phase of the rebuild. Concurrent with that some gambles in the bullpen, along with some savvy reclamation projects in Jake Arietta and in Chris Coghlan paid some dividends. The faster than expected development of Jorge Soler, Kris Bryant and Arismendy Alcantara coupled with the gambles I mentioned put the Cubs in a position to turn the corner in 2015. They want to compete. They went out and made some very nice moves to do that. The Cubs FO never says 2015 is a contention year but they do say that about 2016. This a transition year but it's also the game of baseball and strange things happen. If Soler and Bryant are competing for RoY midseason, the record is around .500 and the pitching staff looks good it would be easy to see them switch into contention mode, maybe make a deal or two and go for it. Nobody with a brain (or an ulterior motive) predicts those things though. I'd say 81-88 wins is a valid projection here but the uncertainty of prospects probably makes that number more volatile. which is why I predict the high end the same as I do the Sox but the bottom end a few games lower.
I really didn't want to do any predicting here. I think it's early and what the two teams are doing are so different comparison is difficult if not impossible but saying the Cubs 73 wins was somehow more of a failure than the Sox 73 win in 2014 set me off. This should be a fun season of baseball with two very differently structured organizations for a city that deserves it. Isn't that enough?
