Bill James has said himself that pitchers are too “up and down” to predict with any certainty what they will do.

Has this guy not seen the division we’re in? Comparing competing pitching to the power hitters in those games those numbers have be near impossible.

If Harden starts enough games to get 5 losses I would be shocked. I see him getting a loss every 5 or so starts. I feel like him getting 5 losses would be a good projection for the Cubs.

Another thing to consider is how little value can be gained by using the win/loss statistic for pitchers. Pitchers can win games when they pitch poorly and lose them when they pitch well. Wins are interdependent on the pitcher’s team’s defense and his team’s offense as well as his own performance. Wins and losses (or saves for that matter) don’t tell us much about how well a pitcher performs.

I don’t know how these predictions were generated. It could be that they have factored in an expected regression in the Cubs’ offense this year and a decline in defense as players age. Will there be updates available on a Web site somewhere if the Cubs make some trades? Or it all could be WAG, a wild ass guess.

to see BIll James projections in the title and then just give us the Wins, probably the least meaningful stat of all his projections

I have a hard time seeing Z, Lilly and Dempster combining for 37 wins.

Keep in mind lots of fine years turned in by Cubbies in 2008. Plus the Cubs were blessed with remarkably few injuries except for the time Alfonso Soriano was on the shelf and Kerry Wood’s one month of “blister recovery.”