Dewan: How good have the Cubs been so far?
From SABR member John Dewan at ACTA Sports on April 28, 2016:
One of our readers, Andrew Berman, shared some research he did where he looked into the best starts to the regular season in major league history, specifically referencing the Chicago Cubs and their 20-game tear to open up 2016. Andrew’s research references Bill James’ Pythagorean Winning Percentage, which uses a team’s runs scored and runs allowed to estimate their expected win-loss record. Runs scored and allowed are more representative of a team’s underlying performance than wins and losses over a small sample, and so it’s no surprise that Pythagorean Winning Percentage has proven more predictive of team’s future win-loss records than their actual win-loss records.
As it stands today, the Cubs hold a major league-best 15-5 record. But how does their Pythagorean record stack up against some of baseball’s historically great teams? We went back 75 years and examined each team’s first 20 games of the season. Here’s what we found.
Read the full article here: http://www.statoftheweek.com
Originally published: April 28, 2016. Last Updated: April 28, 2016.