Chicago Cubs Making Run Differential History

The Chicago Cubs are making history before our eyes, and it may be enough to help them overcome the Curse of the Billy Goat.

Forget expectations. Forget spring training attendance records and zany minimalist suits. Forget curses and billy goats and Bartman. Forget the longest World Series championship drought in baseball. The Chicago Cubs are making history, and we all have the unique privilege to be watching it.

The Cubs completed a sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday afternoon with a 6-2 win at PNC Park. With the best record in baseball through the first month of the season and all of the aforementioned history and antics, that’s not exactly news.

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What is noteworthy, though, is how the Cubs have arrived at their 20-6 record, namely by beating their opponents into submission. Through the first 26 games of 2016, Joe Maddon’s club has amassed a +93 run differential, which is absolutely insane.

While not even a fifth of the season has been completed, run differential can be used to get a pretty good idea of where a team is headed. And for the Cubs, it would appear the sky is the limit.

Since the turn of the Twentieth Century, only two teams have outperformed Chicago to this point in the season: the 1902 Pittsburgh Pirates (+103), who had Honus Wagner and Happy Jack Chesbro; and the World Series-winning, John McGraw-managed, Christy Mathewson-led 1905 New York Giants (+94).

The all-time single season record was set by Joe DiMaggio’s 1939 New York Yankees at +411, who also went on to win it all. At their current pace, the Cubs would obliterate that record by posting a ridiculous +579.

That’s right. This year’s Cubs are punching over a century’s worth of baseball history right in the mouth.

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Chicago is outscoring its opponents by an average of over 2.5 runs per game. The Cubs’ offense produces better than six runs a night, even with the season-ending injury to Kyle Schwarber and recent games that found Kris Bryant and Jason Heyward on the bench with minor ailments.

On the mound, the team has a collective 2.29 earned run average, which is tops in baseball. Jake Arrieta is on a historic tear through opposing hitters, with the Cubs a ridiculous +44 in his six starts to date. Jon Lester and Jason Hamels, no slouches themselves, are also putting up numbers better suited to the dead-ball era than today.

For comparison’s sake, the closest competition, the Washington Nationals, have a run differential of +50. That’s a full 43 runs fewer, and the Nats have a guy named Bryce Harper in their lineup. There are five teams in the Major Leagues, including the defending World Champion Kansas City Royals, that haven’t scored 93 runs total yet this season.

Run differential plays a big role in Bill James’ Pythagorean Theorem of Baseball, which holds itself out to be a better indicator of a team’s future performance than its actual winning percentage. In the case of the Cubs, this metric actually says they are underachieving.

Based on the baseline idea that 10 runs is equivalent to one win above average, the northsiders should be 22-4 right now according to their differential. And that should be a scary thought for the rest of the league.

Next: Jon Lester finally throws a ball to first base

Difficult as it may be to believe, run differential says the best team in baseball should actually be better.