The Cubs Should Have Won At Least 6 World Series Titles By Now

By Stephen Gossett in News on Oct 25, 2016 3:24PM

Photo: Tyler LaRiviere

We’ve argued before that narrative and numbers are not mutually exclusive when it comes to baseball, but even we were pretty floored by the latest Cubs-related findings from the analytics gurus over at FiveThirtyEight. In a must-read called “Even The Data Thinks The Cubs May Have Been Cursed,” Rob Arthur discovered that—when statistically weighing overall team strength throughout history—the site’s win-probability model expected the Cubs to have won 6.46 World Series titles. You probably don’t need me to tell you, but the team has only won two. Ever.

The Cubs’ differential between expected titles and actual titles, -4.46, is by far the most pronounced among teams with a negative disparity. The next “unluckiest” is one that just suffered another playoff heartbreaker, at the hands of the Cubs no less: the Los Angeles Dodgers. Although the Dodgers’ actual 6 (compared to an expected 8.16) will probably not generate much sympathy among the Wrigley faithful. (FWIW, the Cubs' World Series opponents, the portrayed-as-beleaguered Cleveland Indians, have a differential of -.75.)

Screenshot/FiveThirtyEight

Another fascinating find: The Chicago White Sox are apparently the third bowl of porridge of championship franchises. Their three actual titles, compared to an expectancy of 2.75 for a differential of +.25, is as close as any team in all of Major League Baseball comes to an even margin.

One last ranking jumped out at us in relation to Chicago. While the Cubs were the statistically unluckiest team in baseball, guess who was among the most fortunate? Yep, your hated St. Louis Cardinals, who have claimed almost three more championships than they “should have.” Only the Yankees, with a whopping +7.77 title differential, have been luckier. Must be nice.

All that said, of course, if the stats say the Cubs have been historically ill-fated, this year they say the exact opposite. The North Siders have a 63 percent chance of beating the Cleveland Indians—an incredibly high percentage, given the volatile randomness of playoff baseball—and claiming their first World Series win in, well you know how long.