Opening remarks from spring coaching principally comply with the identical script at each camp.
The optimism of the brand new season is prevalent all over the place, thus the adage: “Hope springs eternal.”
And that was the thematic motif Wednesday at Chicago Cubs camp in Arizona, the place the solar was shining and expectations have been excessive, at the least within the clubhouse.
“This is a year that we really feel that not only is there an expectation to come out here and play well but to win,” Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson mentioned as he moved into Jason Heyward’s outdated locker at Sloan Park. “And I think when you start to make everything about that, good things will follow.”
Of course, not everyone seems to be wanting on the Cubs with the identical blue-colored glasses. PECOTA projections have them at 77 wins and ending third within the National League Central behind the St. Louis Cardinals and Milwaukee Brewers. That can be the Cubs’ third straight sub-.500 season.
“Listen, projections, they have their methodologies,” Cubs President Jed Hoyer mentioned. “We’ve answered these questions earlier than. There undoubtedly are years the place projections haven’t preferred us or haven’t preferred us as a lot as we would. But in the end our job is to show them mistaken. Every single 12 months there are going to be plus- or minus-10 wins on all of the projection programs.
“That must be our objective, to be a staff that’s plus-10 or extra, and that’s what everybody right here is working arduous to do. That’s the job. But who am I to query somebody’s methodology? We have our inside projections. There are going to be 10-plus projections programs we have a look at. Some may like us. Some won’t. It doesn’t actually matter.
“Ultimately it’s about whether we can beat those projections and then compete for a playoff spot all summer.”
One of the explanations PECOTA projections doubted the Cubs was their beginning pitching depth and lack of strikeout pitchers on the workers. Hoyer declined to debate why their staff projections counsel they are going to outperform PECOTA’s analytics.
“That’s a slippery slope, talking about whether you can outperform those,” Hoyer mentioned. “But I feel we’re going to throw loads of strikes for certain. Our workers has actually good command. We’re going to essentially catch the ball after which actually the hope is that our run prevention on the whole exceeds expectations.
“But like I’ve said before, I’m never going to sit here and say why we’re going to outperform a certain projection system. … We don’t have a strikeout pitching staff, but certainly we should limit our walks and hopefully the balls in play we can limit to outs.”
Swanson, who inked a seven-year, $177 million deal to go away the Atlanta Braves and turn out to be the brand new face of the franchise, mentioned he wouldn’t have signed with out the thought of successful a World Series.
“That’s the only goal,” Swanson mentioned. “There is no other reason to play this game other than to win. Realistically, when you look at everything that way, that’s why I came here, to be a part of something bigger than myself. To be a part of a team that could bring forth a fourth World Series (title) for this great organization.”
The Cubs are off and working, and now it’s time to start out displaying why they’ll disprove the skeptics.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com