Quantifying Hope: Cubs’ Odds Graph Looks Like Mountain Range
The Cubs pulled out of their 10-game nosedive with a pair of wins to split their series in Pittsburgh, and now they head to St. Louis for three with their Arch rivals. This season has been weird in a number of different ways, as the team has been defined by streakiness. It’s not just the double-digit runs they’ve had in either direction, it’s the fact that they don’t alternate just one win and one loss.
The last time it happened was back on April 12 and 13, when they beat the Pirates at Wrigley to salvage that series and then lost the opener in Philly. You probably recall that the Cubs then began the first of their two 10-game winning streaks, since which they lost three, won 10, lost four, won two, lost 10, and won two. Even though it all comes out in the wash, I just found that to be an odd cadence.
Compounding the issues created by their run of futility is the Brewers’ continued strong play. Milwaukee accounted for three of those 10 straight losses and has won seven of 10 to open a four-game lead over the Cubs in the NL Central. The rest of the division remains above .500, creating more gravity than usual this far into the season.
As such, the Cubs’ playoff odds graph looks like the Tetons with the way it rises up against the surrounding region only to plummet back down again. They dove all the way down to 45.6% following their second loss to the Pirates, which actually put them seven points below the ol’ Buccos for a day. That flipped dramatically when two Cubs wins put them 10 points ahead of Pittsburgh.
As you surely already knew, or could at least surmise from the image above, there is still plenty of room for fluctuation. These posts and the accompanying graphs are just snapshots meant to capture moments in time, but we get a better idea of the full picture when we stack enough and flip through them with our thumbs. The hope is that we’ll eventually see a team that settles into something a little more palatable than the unpredictably streaky beast we’ve observed thus far.
There was a time when it felt like the Cubs couldn’t lose, then another where it was conceivable that they’d never win again. And if you were among those taking a victory lap when their skid hit its nadir, shame on you. I’ll never understand why anyone revels in their team playing poorly just because it makes them “right” about their prediction. Regardless, we’re going to see some much better baseball in the future than what we recently bore witness to.
That’s not some sort of grand proclamation, just a statement of the obvious. Given how bad the Cubs were there for a long stretch, improvement was inevitable. Now they just need to be able to maintain it for more than a game or two at a time.
