The competition around the league is always improving, and the Cubs saw a large exodus of major league talent in the offseason without making significant moves to replace it. Aroldis Chapman, Dexter Fowler and David Ross moved on, and the team traded Jorge Soler to the Kansas City Royals for reliever Wade Davis. Chicago also added Jon Jay as a possible platoon in center with Albert Almora Jr., and will have to hope its young catcher, 24-year-old Willson Contreras, can replace Ross.

The loss of Fowler, the team’s center fielder and leadoff hitter, could hurt the most. His 0.393 on-base percentage from the leadoff spot was the highest in the majors last season among leadoff hitters with at least 500 plate appearances, prompting manager Joe Maddon to move Kyle Schwarber into the top spot of the lineup. But hitting won’t be the Cubs’ problem — they are expected to be the best-hitting team in the majors this season, producing 27.4 wins above replacement. It’s the pitching that will let them down, and ultimately give the Dodgers the edge.

The Cubs’ rotation, on paper, sounds like one of the best in MLB, with Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta and Kyle Hendricks, a surprise Cy Young contender last season, providing three capable starters who could each be considered an ace. Chicago’s entire starting rotation — the only starters who produced a sub-3.00 ERA as a group in 2016 — led the majors in ERA (2.96) last season, more than a half a run better than the Washington Nationals (3.60), its closest competition. But there are warning signs this group won’t be able to repeat last year’s dream season.

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According to the team’s Fielding Independent Pitching, which measures what an ERA would look like over a given period of time if the pitcher or team in question were to have experienced league average results on balls in play and league average timing, the Cubs’ ERA should have been 3.72, giving Chicago the largest difference between real and expected ERA since 2006, the first year of leaguewide drug testing. The five teams directly behind them on the leader board all suffered an ERA decline the following year. The 2014 Cincinnati Reds, the team the 2016 Cubs dethroned from the top spot, saw their ERA decline by more than a run from one year to the next (3.37 to 4.58).

In other words, Chicago’s rotation overachieved last season, and were much closer to an average pitching staff than the final results suggests.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, had an ERA (3.95) in line with all three of those metrics and they get Clayton Kershaw back in the rotation. Projections have Kershaw going 16-7 with a 2.33 ERA for the Los Angeles Dodgers, striking out 254 batters over 208 innings while producing 7.4 wins above replacement, the most in baseball, making him the odds-on favorite to win this year’s Cy Young Award. His presence, along with the rest of the rotation, should give Los Angeles the edge in terms of ERA and wins above replacement for the upcoming season.

The loss of the flame-throwing Chapman by the Cubs will also tilt the odds in the Dodgers’ favor.

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Since 2010, Chapman ranks first in strikeout percentage (42.6 percent) and batting average against (.156) and second in OPS against (.497) and ERA (2.08) among pitchers with at least 1,000 batters faced. His fastball tops out at an MLB-record 105 mph, with 369 pitches registering in excess of 100 mph on the radar gun last regular season, 177 more than Mauricio Cabrera, who has broken the century mark the second most among MLB pitchers. Chapman’s average velocity of 98.9 mph is the highest in baseball since 2010, his rookie year.

Davis, his replacement, has a fastball that averages 95 mph with a high point of 98 mph, allowing Chapman to strike out over four more batters per nine innings.