N.L. Central Bill James Projections - Chicago Cubs

We're almost done with the NL Central Bill James comparison series, so check out the other posts with these links:

• St. Louis Cardinals
  
• Milwaukee Brewers
  
• Cincinnati Reds

Now we are onto the Chicago Cubs, who used a hefty payroll to win 71 games last year and finish 5th in the division despite a late surge. Here are their numbers for the upcoming year:
And here, again, are the Pirates numbers:

Finally, a team that makes the Pirates almost look favorable. The Cubs are going to miss the bat of Carlos Pena, who had another good power year in 2011 despite hitting for a very poor batting average. They'll try to replace him with 29 year old Bryan LaHair who slugged .508 for them last year in 69 plate appearances. They also lost Aramis Ramirez this offseason, and they brought in Ian Stewart to take his place. That's a big time downgrade. The only bright side this team has on offense is Starlin Castro, and the pitching might be worse than the offense.

Looking at the numbers, the Cubs .270/.333/.430 line is still better than the Pirates who come in at .265/.329/.424. The teams are close in wOBA and only separated by a small bit in OPS. Then there's the pitching staffs. The Cubs beat out the Pirates in ERA by 0.01 and FIP by 0.03. The Pirates are projected to strike out more batters, and both teams come in below .500 in the wins/losses projections.

The Cubs aren't a great baseball team. They aren't completely out of the running in the Prince Fielder sweepstakes, but I surely don't see that happening, so it looks like they are going to suffer through another losing season.

Tomorrow the Pirates will look real good as I compare them to the Houston Astros.