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I get that the Cubs are chafed and probably rightfully so.
But what they fail to acknowledge is that Pecota considers ceiling AND floor. And while the Cubs ceiling is as high or higher than anyone in the NL, their floor is reeeeeaaaaal bad. That pitching staff could be among the worst in all of baseball and their reinforcements establish zero confidence.
Now it would require that every question mark that have go badly for them. Lester's decline would have to continue (his stuff is just shitty these days) and Hamels would have to revert back to his Rangers form. Darvish would have to stay hurt and the league would have to catch onto Hendricks and his slow, slower, slowest approach. And Quintana would have to be the fools gold he looked like last year.
None of those things are individually impossible or even unlikely. But for ALL of those things to happen seems pretty remote.
If they do, that team could struggle to win 75 games. Granted, you can pretty much say that about everybody's pitching staff but the Cubs do seem to have an unusual combination of age, injury and fringy stuff all over their staff.
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