The 1975 Cubs: The contender that could have been...

I thought it might be nice to take a break from talking about MLB’s labor dispute to discuss a bit of Cubs history that has always intrigued me.

I’ve mentioned the 1975 Cubs in various historical contexts here, and it occurs to me that I’ve never done a deep dive into this team, which had a lot of good hitters and finished third in the National League in runs scored.

The reason they wound up with a 75-87 final record and fifth-place finish was a dreadful pitching staff that allowed 827 runs. In fact, that was so many runs that their Pythagorean projection W/L record, based on runs scored and allowed, was five games worse than what they actually did: 70-92. That hints at a lot of blowout…