Craig Edwards explores the reasons for the Cubs posting a historically low ERA compared to their FIP. I like the table they present of the teams since WWII that excelled at this. The list contains a high number of league champions.
The conclusion:
With a few weeks of the season left to go, the Cubs’ UZR is the seventh-highest of the past 15 years, and could go higher before the season is out. In an ideal study, we might regress all of the defensive numbers and get three-season sample sizes, but doing that is still going to confirm that this Cubs defense is a very good group. We might try to avoid taking away credit from pitchers, but the Cubs pitchers are good without giving them extra credit for the work of others. Weak contact and low exit velocities might help make the Cubs good pitchers, especially when it comes to limiting home runs and extra-base hits; however, a lot of pitchers give up weak contact and have low exit velocities, and none of them are beating their FIP quite like the Cubs are. None of them have a defense like the Cubs do, and those players deserve a ton of credit for their share of the work.
Great pitching and great defense is an extremely good winning combination.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2cv5sav
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