No one should want to play the Cubs in the playoffs

Chicago Cubs starter Jake Arrieta is baseball’s first 16-game winner (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

 

The American League wild-card race won’t be resolved anytime soon, but the National League has a less muddled picture — according to Fangraphs, only two clubs have more than a 2 percent chance at securing a wild-card berth: the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs.

[Yankees and Rangers on track to capture AL wild-card spots]

Those front-runners reside in the NL Central, where, along with the St. Louis Cardinals, help make up one of the most difficult divisions in sports. But of the three, the Cubs look to be the one team no one should want to face, especially when ace Jake Arrieta takes the mound.

Arrieta is baseball’s first 16-game winner and has 13 consecutive quality starts, the longest run by a Cub since Hall of Famer Greg Maddux registered 14 in 1992. During that stretch Arrieta is 11-2 with a 1.17 ERA, striking out nearly a batter per inning (8.7) and holding opposing hitters to a .473 OPS against.

The current St. Louis roster hasn’t fared much better.

And neither have the Pirates.

Chicago’s other ace, Jon Lester, is striking out 9.1 batters per nine innings and has produced 3.3 wins above replacement, ranking him ninth in the league, just ahead of the Cardinals’ Michael Wacha (3.1 fWAR) and just a few back of Gerrit Cole (4.0), Pittsburgh’s best pitcher.

Lester’s curve has baffled hitters all season, limiting them to a .169 with five extra-base hits and 43 strikeouts in 83 at-bats ending on the pitch.

The bullpen has produced the second highest fWAR (4.3) after the Cardinals (4.5) and has their ERA more in line with their Fielding Independent Pitching, or FIP, which measures what a player’s ERA would look like over a given period of time if the pitcher were to have experienced league average results on balls in play and league average timing:

• Cardinals: 2.35 ERA, 3.33 FIP
• Cubs: 3.49 ERA, 3.30 FIP

The Cubs’ relievers are also striking out more batters per nine innings.

At the plate, the Cubs are middle-of-the-road, batting .243 with .395 slugging and a .320 on-base average, creating runs five percent below average after factoring in their league and home park (95 wRC+). But in August they are behind only the Mets in run creation among NL teams.

Rookie Kris Bryant is seeing the ball especially well in August, batting .338 with a .848 OPS while making pitchers pay when they use the inside part of the plate.

Even the Cubs’ defense is a strength, saving 4.1 per 150 chances (UZR/150), second best in the league behind Miami.

“The Cardinals continue to win, and I think everybody kind of expects that,” Arrieta said. “All we can do is just put pressure on (them) and play sound and fundamental baseball. If we do that, we’re going to continue to win a lot of games. How everything works out in the end, a lot has to do with the teams ahead of us and what they do, because we’re going to continue to take care of business.”