Question: Why aren't the Cubs in the Post-Season?? Answer: I have no idea.

What I am about to present is something I did not think was possible....before I conducted the research for the article.

What I did not think was possible, was for a team to improve basically every aspect of their game from one year to the next, and then have a worse team that very next year; than the respective team the year before. Man, was I wrong.

Sadly, the example of this is the 2003 Chicago Cubs vs. the 2004 Chicago Cubs.

While watching this post-season I wondered why the Cubbies weren't partaking in the festivities. I decided to figure the answer out on my own. There always IS an answer, right??

I did a comparison of each postional player on the 2003 Cubs, who advanced to the NLCS, to the 2004 Cubs that missed the post-season.

I used VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) as my comparison stat. I used this because it measures the amount of runs a certain player creates--over a replacement player--, which is what directly leads to team wins and losses.

Here is each positional player's VORP for both 2003 and 2004:

2oo4 1B- Derrek Lee-46.5 VORP
2003 1B- Eric Karros/Hee Seop Choi/Randall Simon- 27.7 VORP

2004 2B- Todd Walker/Mark Grudzielanek- 43.0 VORP
2003 2B- Grudzielanek- 34.5 VORP

2004 3B- Aramis Ramirez- 62.8 VORP
2003 3B- Ramirez/Mark Bellhorn/Jose Hernandez/Lenny Harris- 5.5 VORP

2004 SS- Ramon Martinez/Nomar Garciaparra/Alex Gonzalez- 13.6 VORP
2003 SS- Gonzalez- 13.9 VORP

2004 RF- Sammy Sosa- 30.0 VORP
2003 RF- Sosa- 44.5 VORP

2004 LF- Moises Alou- 55.0 VORP
2003 LF- Alou- 30.5 VORP

2004 CF- Corey Patterson- 30.9 VORP
2003 CF- Patterson/Lofton- 47.6 VORP

2004 C- Michael Barrett- 33.6 VORP
2003 C- Damien Miller/Paul Bako- 5.3 VORP

2004 Positional Player Total VORP- 315.4
2003 Positional Player Total VORP- 209.5

It is very, very easy to see that this year's offense was much better thank last years, by 105.9 runs. This was not even close.

So it must have been Chicago's pitching, right???

Here is the comparison of Starting Pitchers (Using 5 Starting Pitchers):

2004 SP Greg Maddux-33.2 VORP
2004 SP Carlos Zambrano- 61.3 VORP
2004 SP Matt Clement- 36.9 VORP
2004 SP Kerry Wood- 27.9 VORP
2004 SP Glendon Rusch/Mark Prior - 51.8 VORP
(I use these two pitchers--Prior/Rusch-- to combine as one because if this was not done, the 2004 Cubs wouldn't have had at least 4 pitchers over 160 IP like their 2003 counterparts. Also I did not want to use Rucsh as part of the 2004 Chicago Bullpen because he was used primarily as a starter this year.)

2004 SP Total VORP- 211.1

2003 SP Carlos Zambrano- 47.4 VORP
2003 SP Mark Prior- 66.7 VORP
2003 SP Kerry Wood- 56.5 VORP
2003 SP Matt Clement- 27.6 VORP
2003 SP Shawn Estes- (-16.6) VORP

2003 SP Total VORP- 181.6

Okay, so now we know it wasn't the starting pitching that worsened the Cubs this year, they prevented 29.5 more runs (211.1 - 181.6). So it had to be the bullpen, right???

Top six relievers each year by IP:

2004 RP LaTroy Hawkins- 25.0 VORP
2004 RP Kyle Farnsworth- 3.2 VORP
2004 RP Kent Mercker- 18.6 VORP
2004 RP Jon Leicaster- 6.4 VORP
2004 RP Mike Remlinger- 7.2 VORP
2004 RP Francis Beltran- 3.2 VORP

2004 RP Total VORP- 63.6

2003 RP- Kyle Farnsworth- 16.6 VORP
2003 RP- Mike Remlinger- 13.0 VORP
2003 RP- Joe Borowski- 19.6 VORP
2003 RP- Antonio Alfonseca- (-1.6) VORP
2003 RP- Juan Cruz- (-5.7) VORP
2003 RP- Mark Guthrie- 12.6 VORP

2003 RP Total VORP- 54.5

What?? The 2004 bullpen was actually better. They prevented 9.1 more runs (63.6-54.5).

So what made the 2004 Cubs worse than the 2003 Cubs? After looking at these numbers I figured it had to be some unknown factor, or player. I figured I can find this out by looking at the final 2003 and 2004 statistics, because these stats will account for all of the players that I did not include in my analysis.

Here are those numbers:

Offense

2004- .268/.328/.458, .786 OPS, 1080/489=(2.20) K/BB, 235 HR
2003- .259/.323/.416, .739 OPS, 1158/492=(2.35) K/BB, 172 HR

Pitching

2004- 3.81 ERA, 1346/545=(2.47) K/BB, 1.30 WHIP, 169 HR Allowed
2003- 3.83 ERA, 1404/617=(2.27) K/BB, 1.32 WHIP, 143 HR Allowed

These numbers do not provide an answer either.

The only category where last year's Cubs are substantially better are in HR allowed, they allowed 26 less HR.

Though this statistic is important, in my opinion, it is just a fragement of what is represented in ERA, and the 2004 Cubs are equal in that category.

It doesn't matter if your opponent, singles, doubles, triples, walks, or homers to get runs, all that matter is that they get runs. And opponents basically got the same amount of runs this year off the Cubs, as last year. (619 Earned Runs Allowed in 2003 vs. 621 Earned Runs Allowed in 2004)

So now, as a last resort, I checked Chicago's team pitching statistics for unearned runs to see if that was the cause for them not making the playoffs.

Here are those numbers:

2004- 665 Runs Against, 621 Earned Runs Against, 44 Unearned Runs Against(RA-ER Against)

2003- 683 Runs Against, 619 Earned Runs Against, 64 Unearned Runs Against.

No answer here, the 2004 Cubs were better again. Not just in unearned runs against, but total runs against.

There is no clear reason why the 2004 Cubs did not make the playoffs, and last year's team did. This makes no sense. So I have come to the conclusion that this must be just plain old bad luck for the 2004 Cubs.

To prove that they were cursed with horrible bad luck this year, I checked Baseball Prospectus for their Adjusted Standings.

To sum up what these adjusted standings show, they show how many games a team should have won and lost, based on their adjusted runs for and runs against. This report basically shows if a team is lucky, or unlucky.

If a team has won more games than their adjusted numbers suggest they should, the Delta (D3 in the standings) at the end of the report will be a positive number, indicating the number of games the team has won above what their adjusted record states. A team like that would be quote-unquote "lucky."

If a team (such as the 2004 Cubs) won less games than their adjusted record would show, the delta (D3) at the end of their report will show, with a negative number, how many games the team lost more than they should have. At team like this would be "unlucky."

Here is the Cubs 2004 Adjusted standings, and glossary, courtesy of Baseball Prospectus:

Team--W-----L
Cubs---88----73

RS------RA------W1------L1
779-----657-----93.2-----67.8

EQR---EQRA-----W2-----L2
799-----671------93.6-----67.4

AEQR-----AEQRA-----W3-----L3
784---------662-------93.1----67.9

--D1-----D2------D3
(-5.2)---(-5.6)---(-5.1)


Terms:

W, L : Actual team wins and losses.

RS, RA: Actual team runs scored and runs allowed.

W1, L1 ("First-order wins"): Pythagenport expected wins and losses, based onRS and RA.

EQR, EQRA: Equivalent runs scored and equivalent runs allowed (equivalent runs, generated from the opponent's batting line)

W2, L2 ("Second-order wins"): Pythagenport wins and losses, based on EQR andEQRA.

AEQR, AEQRA: EQR and EQRA, adjusted for strength of schedule: the quality of their opponent's pitching and hitting. If AEQR is higher than EQR,the team has faced better than average pitching; if AEQRA is higher than EQRA, the team has faced worse than average hitting.

W3, L3 ("Third-order wins"): Pythagenport wins and losses, based on AEQR and AEQRA.

D1, D2, D3: Deltas between actual wins and W1, W2, and W3. Positive numbers mean the team has won more games than expected from their statistics.

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So there you have it. The Cubs lost 5 more games than they should have. (See D3) That's bad luck.

Usually, when comparing a team that did not make the postseason, to a team that did, there are defining statistics that will show why the first team was worse than the playoff team. For this year's Chicago Cubs though, there wasn't. As a matter of fact the 2004 Cubs were much better than the 2003 Cubs. They just had terrible, terrible luck.

I am sorry Cub fans. And I am sorry I cannot provide an answer.

I like to think of myself as someone who can come up with a better answer than "bad luck," but for this scenario, I cannot.

If any readers have a definite answer to this question, please write me at frnkbndy@yahoo.com.

Thank you for reading.

Frank Bundy III

If you have any questions, comment, concerns, or suggestions, or in this case, answers, please do not hesitate to email me at frnkbndy@yahoo.com.