[wegotwood]

Feel free to post your predictions in this thread. Final roster coming out of ST, major stats, and win totals.

Position players:
C- Soto: .266/.348/.452 16 HR
1B- LaHair: .268/.344/.505 26 HR
2B- Barney: .277/.330/.366 4 HR
SS- Castro: .322/.367/.465 16 HR 28 SB
3B- Stewart: .254/.338/.450 20 HR
LF- Soriano: .248/.318/.488 23 HR
CF- Byrd: .280/.344/.393 12 HR
RF- Dejesus: .275/.345/.440 10 HR
C- Castillo: .244/.328/.422 7 HR
OF- Campana: .255/.319/.320 1 HR 33 SB
OF- Johnson: .289/.355/.475 6 HR
INF- Baker: .280/.325/.400 4 HR
INF- Cardenas: .260/.355/.360 3 HR

Pitchers:
SP- Garza 14-10 3.42 ERA
SP- Dempster 12-13 3.98 ERA
SP- Maholm 11-13 4.20 ERA
SP- Wood 10-10 4.38 ERA
SP- Volstad 8-14 4.97 ERA
RP- Wells 4.68 ERA
RP- Samardzija 3.54 ERA
RP- Gaub 4.18 ERA
RP- Corpas 4.40 ERA
RP- Russell 3.20 ERA
RP- Wood 3.68 ERA
RP- Marmol 3.54 ERA 38 SV

This Cubs team, if relatively healthy, can win as many as 79 games. Figuring for some injuries, I'm gonna predict 74 wins right now.

[Old Style]

That pitching staff scares me, and I think you have the win total about right. I'd put us between 70-75 wins on the year.

I think you have Castro, Soriano, and Stewart's power numbers too high though. I doubt we get that kind of production from them.

[wegotwood]

That pitching staff scares me, and I think you have the win total about right. I'd put us between 70-75 wins on the year.

I think you have Castro, Soriano, and Stewart's power numbers too high though. I doubt we get that kind of production from them.

With Castro I think it's just part of his power development. With Stewart, I have an optimistic prediction that his numbers will return to 2010 type numbers rather than 2011, and if you look up his 2010 numbers you will see that it's pretty consistent. Maybe Soriano was just a tad high, his slugging should be a little closer to .468. But that's not tremendously different, just .020 difference. 23 homers should be about right for him.

[Goathater1328]

60-102. Aint no way more than 2 starters are winning 10+, the pen is a disaster beyond Wood and *gulp* Marmol? so where does anyone see anything near 79?

[chiguy79]

60-102. Aint no way more than 2 starters are winning 10+, the pen is a disaster beyond Wood and *gulp* Marmol? so where does anyone see anything near 79?

The old adage that you're pretty much guaranteed 60 wins and 60 losses, it's the remaining 40 games that determine a winning or losing season. Personally I don't think 75 is that far off, that's probably about where I'd set the O/U at.

[kizzfastfists]

I don't like throwing around numbers so I'll just tell you a few things that will happen.

1- Ian Stewart will have the best season of his career.
2- Rizzo will be starting at 1B by the end of April, or everyone will be wishing he was, with everyone scratching their heads about where the LaHair hype came from
3- Garza will have his worst season as a full-time starter and hurt his value and people will be questioning if last year was a fluke
4- Soriano puts together one last monster season before giving in to age and becoming useless, hopefully this will lead to a trade during the season

[SymposiumX]

I don't like throwing around numbers so I'll just tell you a few things that will happen.

1- Ian Stewart will have the best season of his career.
2- Rizzo will be starting at 1B by the end of April, or everyone will be wishing he was, with everyone scratching their heads about where the LaHair hype came from
3- Garza will have his worst season as a full-time starter and hurt his value and people will be questioning if last year was a fluke
4- Soriano puts together one last monster season before giving in to age and becoming useless, hopefully this will lead to a trade during the season

1- I think Stewart will be better this season than last season, being over his injury
2- Hoyer will hold back from calling up Rizzo too soon, in order to avoid a repeat of last season.
3- Garza's peripherals show that he is a very solid sp, so I think this prediction is a little bit of a stretch.
4- Soriano's trade would be better facilitated by performing out of his mind...if he is bad, that makes a trade less likely.

[The Great Santo]

I got us at about 70 wins. Because if they trade Garza mid season, those late months could be brutal to watch.

[Indianplaya17]

Cubs will be 66-96.

[The Stache]

Kizz, agreed on all those except for the Garza one. I predict (hopefully) he takes another step and becomes a Cy Young candidate type.

Pre-ST prediction on record: 76-86

[The Stache]

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/szy ... ZiPS12.htm

Dan Szymborski released his zips for the year. So taking a stab at what our opening day team looks like here's roughly what we're looking at

Dejesus - .268/.339/.418
Castro - .301/.343/.432
Lahair - .262/.324/.462
Soto - .244/.336/.429
Byrd - .272/.324/.414
Stewart - .218/.305/.417
Soriano - .245/.297/.453
Barney - .273/.311/.352

Garza - 194.1 IP, 3.52 ERA, 116 ERA+
Wood - 165 IP, 4.09 ERA, 100 ERA+
Dempster - 174 IP, 4.24 ERA, 96 ERA+
Maholm - 163 IP, 4.20 ERA, 97 ERA+
Wells - 150 IP, 4.50 ERA, 91 ERA+
Volstad - 168 IP, 4.82 ERA, 85 ERA+

Once we replace Soriano with one of Sappelt (.282/.330/.403) or Jackson (.255/.334/.419) or Rizzo (.246/.320/.436), that's actually a decent lineup with a strong defense. And said strong defense means you can probably take the under on the ERA's of all of the starters considering the horrid defense we all saw last year.

[BassmanUW]

http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/szymborski/ZiPS12.htm

Dan Szymborski released his zips for the year. So taking a stab at what our opening day team looks like here's roughly what we're looking at

Dejesus - .268/.339/.418
Castro - .301/.343/.432
Lahair - .262/.324/.462
Soto - .244/.336/.429
Byrd - .272/.324/.414
Stewart - .218/.305/.417
Soriano - .245/.297/.453
Barney - .273/.311/.352

Garza - 194.1 IP, 3.52 ERA, 116 ERA+
Wood - 165 IP, 4.09 ERA, 100 ERA+
Dempster - 174 IP, 4.24 ERA, 96 ERA+
Maholm - 163 IP, 4.20 ERA, 97 ERA+
Wells - 150 IP, 4.50 ERA, 91 ERA+
Volstad - 168 IP, 4.82 ERA, 85 ERA+

Once we replace Soriano with one of Sappelt (.282/.330/.403) or Jackson (.255/.334/.419) or Rizzo (.246/.320/.436), that's actually a decent lineup with a strong defense. And said strong defense means you can probably take the under on the ERA's of all of the starters considering the horrid defense we all saw last year.

I'll just go based on this, because I also hate guessing the actual numbers. For position players, I think Zips is pessimistic on Soto and Stewart, optimistic on Barney (I don't think his OBP will crack .300), and about right on everyone else. For the pitchers I think he's pretty right on for both Garza and Wood, but pessimistic on everyone else.

I think the Cubs win 70-75 games as well. I think their pitching will be surprisingly solid (I'd honestly take his rotation over 2007's), but the offense will have stretches where it just fails to get runs across the plate.