Before the 2019 season began, opinions on how the Chicago Cubs would rebound from a disappointing finish to 2018 were varied -- but one stood out from the rest. PECOTA, Baseball Prospectus' math-based system, pegged Chicago for 79 wins and a last-place finish in the NL Central. The same Cubs who had won 90-plus games in five consecutive seasons and were coming off a 95-win season. As you can imagine, this did not go over well in the Cubs clubhouse or throughout the Windy City.
Now flash forward a few months and the Cubs are sitting at 27-18 and on pace for a 99-win season, a far cry from that 79-victory campaign that PECOTA projected.