How can this offseason get any better for the Cubs?
After an eventful winter following a surprisingly-successful 2015 season, expectations are through the roof for the 2016 Cubs.
[RELATED - Youth movement will pay off for Cubs in 2016]
FanGraphs believes the Cubs will have the best record in baseball, just ahead of the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers.
The St. Louis Cardinals are ninth, the Pittsburgh Pirates are 13th while the Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers are 27th and 28th.
FanGraphs projects a 95-67 record for the Cubs, a year after winning 97 games.
Why? FanGraphs explains:
MLB
The Cubs were excellent a year ago, built around a core of exciting young players, and then added Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist, and John Lackey in free agency. Yes, they’re projected to win two fewer games than a year ago, but that’s simply a function of the fact that projections are attempting to project context-neutral performance, not accounting for wins that can be added (or lost) due to clutch performance; taking away the effects of sequencing naturally results in a smaller spread from top to bottom.
Makes sense.
Of course, projections are just educated guesses. Lofty predictions for the San Diego Padres and White Sox fell flat in 2015.
[SHOP CUBS: Get your Cubs gear right here]
But Joe Maddon welcomes sky-high expectations, so it'd be a surprise to see the Cubs to wilt under the pressure, even with their young roster.