February 21, 2021: Underrated

It’s been a while since you could say this, but I think heading into the 2021 MLB season the Cubs are actually underrated. Coming off the World Series win in 2016, maybe the Cubs were a bit overrated. The team that wins the World Series is always a bit overrated heading into the following year; I think that’s natural. There are those teams that are always overrated; the best example of this is the Cowboys… I guess the Yankees fall in that category too. Those are the big “public” teams as Papa Vegas likes to say; they always get a lot of action. Then there are those teams that fluctuate from year to year based on those lofty pre-season expectations; the White Sox are an interesting one this year. With the MLB over under win totals released, let’s talk about this a bit.

The Cubs total is 79.5… thus, my claim that they are underrated this year. Certainly I’m not planning for a 100 win season, heck even a 90 win season seems a bit steep, but an 80 win season? You’re going to tell me that the Cubs will not even be 500 this year? The Cubs haven’t finished under 500 since 2014, which ended a streak of 5 straight years below sea level. Since then, it’s been great, the Golden Era remember? Yes, playoffs 5 of the past 6 years, the holy grail in 2016. Now I know the offseason has not been kind, but raise your hand if you think the Cubs needed some change. Now raise your hand if you think anybody outside of Yu Darvish was change that is going to seriously hurt this ballclub’s chances. Yes, the Yu Darvish trade; that one stung. Not totally opposed to trading him, but totally think we got screwed in the deal. Other than that… Sure, Lester, Schwarber tug at the heart strings, even Almora with the most famous tag up of all time and countless gems in the field. But honestly, is the absence of those guys going to squash our chances? We still have Rizzo, Bryant, Baez, and Contreras. If they play like they’re capable of playing, that puts us in a lot of games. Yes, that leaves the pitching. We didn’t replace Yu, but we did replace Lester with another fan favorite Arrieta; I’m going to call that even. So yeah, the pitching is a concern; was hoping they’d sign Chris Archer or Tajuan Walker… still holding out hope that they add one more starter. We know Hendricks will be great; we know Jake will be solid. Will Mills repeat his success last year? Is Alzolay ready for the jump? Will Davies be better than average? If you answered yes to 2 of those 3 questions, then put some money on that over.

The Sox on the other hand… 91.5! Well, well, well… We knew the Sox had arrived; we knew the window was now open. Are they really going to win 90 games this year? I’d say it’s going to be pretty close. 90 wins certainly does not seem out of the realm for the Sox; that’s a really sharp win total set by Papa Vegas. The same kind of questions can be asked of the Sox. Obviously the offense is there, although in the bigs, there will be adjustments made; will the hitters adjust back? Let’s just assume they’ll do OK. It boils down to the starting pitching. Will Lynn get you 15 wins? Will Kopech pitch a full season? Will Cease make the jump? If you answered yes to 2 of those 3 questions, then put some money on that over.

Baseball is back baby. Will we be able to be back in the stadiums this year? I sure hope so. To not be able to go to Wrigley one time last year really sucked. I will get there this year. I will see Jake pitch again in a Cubs uniform. I will.