Are the Cubs finding their "Secret Sauce"?

Bold predications are always dangerous in Blogs, especially CUBS blogs.  You can't go back and change things once they've been published, but let's just say I'm making a statistically caculated risk when I say that the last week has led me to believe the Cubs have turned the corner on the 2009 season.  And, in particular, tonight's win 2-1 has led me to believe that the Cubs are finally showing a few signs of looking like the team that can do what we all know they MUST do this year  - win in the post season.

There are a few things that are really important to winning in the post season, at least according to most conventional knowledge:

1.  2 Ace Pitchers that minimize run-scoring opportunities for opposing teams.

2.  A good bullpen that can stop rallies anchored by a lockdown closer

3.  Excellent defense

4.  Big Clutch hits after doing the little things to get guys in scoring position.

Sure, scoring a bunch of runs helps, but consider these things an insurance policy against bad luck.  Good hitters go cold or get injured, fans interfere with critical outs in the 8th innings of close games, opposing teams trot out a pitcher for 7 innings who is virtually unhittable that day. 

I know this is a tough crowd when it comes to unreferenced pontification and TWSS ideas, which I admire.  So, in deference I'll lean on Nate Silver.  At 11, he had figured out how to use multivariate analysis to determine the relationship of stadium size to MLB attendance, and by 13 he had developed his own fantay baseball league with computerized tracking and player assessments.  At 13, I was trying to figure out how to get into the high school parties with free beer, so it's safe to say I'm relying on someone smarter than me.  As some of you may know, he is also the originator of the most widely used formula for predicting post season success in MLB - the Baseball Prospectus "Secret Sauce" Formula

The "secret sauce" formula includes

"[three] key ingredients that strongly correlate with postseason success: a team's [pitchers'] strikeout rate, or Equivalent K/9 (EqK9), adjusted for a team's league and ballpark; its quality of defense, or Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), an estimate of the runs a defense has saved or cost its pitchers relative to the league average; and its strength of closer, or Win Expectation Above Replacement (WXRL), which measures the wins the closer has saved versus what a replacement-level alternative would have done.[19] In other words, teams that prevent the ball from going into play, catch it when it does and preserve late-inning leads are likely to excel in the playoffs."[20]

 Nate's the real deal, even if you can poke holes in the Secret Sauce from the left field bleachers there.  He went on to predict the 2008 US elections with such accuracy (His Website is awesome if you're into politics) that he was named one of the Worlds 100 most influential people by Time Magazine in April. 

What does this say about Cubs success in the post season and why I think they're turning the Corner? 

For the answer to that, let's go back to April 27th, when the Cubs were 0-18 in games where they scored less than 4 runs, 8 of which featured the OTHER team scoring less than 4 runs.  Summary:  They were losing close low-scoring games with remarkable consistency.  The next day, Ted Lilly shut down the Dodgers 2-1. They took a step back with the cruel and unusual punsihment of Wells, but then turned around and won two more games, 3-2 and 2-1, the most recent featuring Z's ace-like performance tonight, making them 3-1 in the "less than 4" category in the last week.  I think the importance of this step forward, small and tenuous as it might be right now, cannot be underestimated.  These are the types of games that win championships, and when they learn to win these consistently with this team, they will be a threat.  In short, they have taken a step forward in run-prevention, especially in tight low-scoring games.

Of course, we have a lot further to go to develop and improve on the consistency of performance in these games, but it's only June.  It's nice to see this new turn of events showing up now, and I can't wait to see if it continues.  The nice thing about this analysis is that I didn't even have to utter the names Soriano, Soto, Lee, Bradley, and Ramirez as critical to our success - that we can win without them - and that is precisely my point.  If we can learn to win when without them, we'll blow away teams when they show up, and still not blow it when they don't.

For those of you who think "Secret Sauce" is bunk, I'll help you out and post the very link the supports your case here.  Last September, the Secret Sauce formula had the Cubs as the highest ranked NL team and gave the Phillies virtually no chance in the post season (aside from Lidge with the #1 WXRL rating while Wood was #16... hmmm?).  Well, we all know how that turned out.

But beware of pointing to exceptions to statistics as proof of their irrelevance - you still don't put your .216 hitter in to pinch hit when you have a .348 hitter available on the bench, even though it is statistically possible that the .216 hitter will hit a game winning double off the right field wall and the .348 hitter will strike out with the winning run at third.  Baseball is a not a game where teams can ever have certainty of outcomes, but it is a game where they can put themselves in situations where they are much more likely to succeed.

Based on the last week, I think the Cubs are showing very good signs of improving their likelihood of success.