Chicago Baseball By The Numbers: 5 Key Statistical Measures
By Chris Emma--
(CBS) Baseball's standings provide the only statistics that really matter -- wins and losses.
Those will culminate in a playoff berth for 10 teams, but the game brings so much more to judge a club's success or failure and projection of such futures. Sabermetrics offer a new-age look to every game, inning, at-bat and pitch that better measures the major leagues.
The Cubs are 21-16 and four games back of the best team in baseball, the first-place Cardinals, and the White Sox have won nine of their last 12 and five straight to reach .500, sitting five back of the first-place Royals.
From the naked eye -- plus, a win-loss mark, of course -- the Cubs are playing good baseball and the White Sox are improving from a terrible start. But the numbers show what's really happening on the field.
Let's take a look at some of the most important statistics.
1.) Cubs striking out at a historic rate
Part of the growing pains on the North Side involve striking out. Striking out a lot, in fact, at a record pace. The 2013 Houston Astros struck out an all-time record 1,535 times, boasting a strikeout rate of 25.5 percent. These Cubs have 363 strikeouts in 37 games, which equates to 1,589.4 strikeouts in a 162-game season. Their strikeout rate is a major-league worst 25.2 percent.
Fortunately for the Cubs, their batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is .320, compared to just a .249 team average. Because of a high success when contact is made, the Cubs have won 21 of their 37 games. However, their top three in strikeouts are all rookies -- Jorge Soler (54 in 37 games), Kris Bryant (39 in 29 games) and Addison Russell (35 in 24 games).
As this young core learns major league pitching, the Cubs will see that strikeout rate drop. For now, it's at a troubling record pace.
2.) White Sox running into a wall
In spring training, the White Sox brought in Vince Coleman for added work on the basepaths. The new base-running instructor was to help the South Siders improve their running game, and who better than a man who once stole 326 bases in the span of three seasons?
However, that all seems far in the past, because the White Sox have stolen seven bases in 18 tries. By comparison, Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo has eight stolen bases on the season, and the league-leading Reds have 43 steals.
However, the White Sox have been brutal on the basepaths in a number of ways this season. Their ultimate base running (UBR) -- which measures value in base running -- is a -4.2 on Fangraphs, far and away the worst in baseball. This has to improve, because Chicago needs every advantage to get back in this AL Central race.
3.) An MVP candidate emerges on the North Side
While the flashy season of Bryce Harper has earned early attention for National League MVP, the Cubs' Rizzo deserves plenty of praise, too. Rizzo ranks 10th in all of baseball with a wins above replacement (WAR) mark of 1.9 from Fangraphs. By comparison, Harper has an absurd 2.9 to lead the majors.
However, dig deeper into Rizzo's stats and you find he has a weighted on-base percentage (wOBA) -- which better measures value of offensive outcome -- of .456, fourth among eligible candidates, and an OPS of 1.073. If the Cubs keep winning and remain in playoff contention, Rizzo's success will be viewed more valuable.
The strong start to Rizzo's season has helped the Cubs to early success.
4.) Avisail Garcia is due to regress
Part of the White Sox's recent winning streak, with five victories in a row and nine in 12 games, has come thanks to the hot bat of outfielder Avisail Garcia. In 33 games, Garcia has boasted a batting average of .346. However, the BABIP mark shows Garcia has benefited from good fortunes, because his number is an astounding .423 mark. Simply put, when the ball is put in play, Garcia gets a hit 42.3 percent of the time. That's not supposed to happen.
Garcia is just 23 years old, a potential star in the making for the White Sox, and a great piece added in that Jake Peavy deal of 2013. He has plenty of room for potential moving forward. However, such a tremendous run is likely to slow down, or so the numbers suggest.
5.) Jake Arrieta is among baseball's best
One of the most important measures of work on the mound comes in Expected Fielding Independent Pitching (xFIP), which judges what a pitcher's ERA would be with an experienced league average of results on balls in play.
To no surprise, the otherworldly Clayton Kershaw leads the majors with a 2.18 xFIP, but placing second in the National League is Cubs right-hander Jake Arrieta with a 2.69 mark. As Arrieta hasn't always benefited from run support, his 4-4 mark in comparison to xFIP further proves how pointless these win-loss records are in measuring pitching.
Arrieta has allowed two runs or fewer in all but three of his eight starts and has yet to surrender more than four runs in a game, with each start lasting at least five innings. Basically, when Arrieta is on the mound, the Cubs are given a good chance to win.
Follow Chris on Twitter @CEmma670.
