Reflections on the cusp of the Cubs’ 2024 season

That was Joe Maddon in November 2014, at the freewheeling presser held to introduce him as Cubs manager.

The Cubs had just come off three of the worst seasons in recent franchise memory, as Theo Epstein rebuilt the ballclub. They had lost 101, 96 and 89 games those three years and many felt it might still be a few more years until any sort of playoff contender would inhabit Wrigley Field.

Watch that clip. Joe Maddon believed playoffs were going to happen in 2015 — if not, “Why would you even report?” — and as it turned out, he was right, the team won 97 games and made it to the NLCS, and won the World Series the following year. Maddon, of course, was a big part of changing team culture to the point where it could get over that 108-year hump. Of course, those teams had tremendous talent on the field as well, obviously you can’t win without that.

Now, I believe we stand at a similar point in Cubs history. After Jed Hoyer’s massive selloff in July 2021, the team went 55-94 from July 30, 2021 through July 16, 2022, a .369 winning percentage, one of the worst stretches in modern franchise history. (That’s a 102-loss pace for a full season, something the Cubs have done only twice ever, and not since 1966.)

But then things began to turn around. The team went 40-31 the rest of 2022 and on September 6, 2023 stood at 76-64, a wild-card spot or even division title (just 1½ games behind the Brewers at that point) seemed in their future.

Well, you know what happened and I’m not here to belabor that. What I will say is that I do believe, both based on runs allowed/runs scored and the way that team felt last year, that absolutely was a 90-win team that collapsed largely due to bullpen injuries.

Hoyer has addressed that with the acquisitions of Hector Neris and Yency Almonte, as well as the fact that everyone else in the pen is healthy, more experienced and ready to go in 2024.

Some of you will say this is largely the same team as took the field in 2023. To some extent that’s true, but... the 2024 Cubs won’t be giving 81 starts at first base to Eric Hosmer, Trey Mancini and Matt Mervis, a trio who combined to hit .219/.281/.322 in 419 plate appearances. Michael Busch, I am reasonably certain, will be better than that. They won’t be giving 37 starts behind the plate to Tucker Barnhart, who was awful (and oddly, he’ll be the backup for the Diamondbacks to start the year). Yan Gomes and Miguel Amaya will share catching duties and be better than that. The team isn’t giving Opening Day roster spots to guys like Edwin Rios and Luis Torrens. The bench is much stronger than it was a year ago.

Shōta Imanaga, I believe, will be better than Marcus Stroman was over the full year of 2023. Jordan Wicks will capably fill a starting role that went (mostly) to Drew Smyly last year.

And Cody Bellinger returns. He was cheered loudly every time his name was announced in Mesa this spring and I expect him to get a huge ovation next Monday at the Wrigley home opener. Bellinger’s performance, obviously, is extremely important to this team. If he has a great year, well, he likely opts out — but then, if he has a great year, the Cubs probably will, too. Win-win!

The performance of Christopher Morel as the full-time third baseman is one of the biggest wild cards this year. If he’s even near league-average, having his bat in the lineup every day is an enormous plus.

And then there’s Seiya Suzuki, who hit .356/.414/.672 with 15 doubles, four triples and 11 home runs over his final 47 games last year. That’s an MVP-type season if he can do that all year, and his Spring Training performance hinted that he can. Yes, spring numbers and all, but even Suzuki’s outs this spring were hard-hit.

Dansby Swanson played well in his first Cubs season and won a Gold Glove, but his hitting suffered in the second half. You might recall he had a heel injury in July and came back without a rehab assignment. No one said so, but I suspect that might have bothered him all year. Nico Hoerner had a lousy spring, but so what? Spring numbers mean so little and it appears to me that Nico’s on the brink of a possible breakout season.

The most important change the Cubs have made is hiring Craig Counsell to manage. Counsell isn’t the type of guy to say what Maddon said in that video clip — he’s much more laconic than that — but we have seen his competitive spirit across the field for nine years as Brewers manager, and I’m very glad he’s now the Cubs field leader. He’s always gotten more out of a roster than anyone had a right to expect, and I expect he will manage the lineup, bench and bullpen better than David Ross did. And let me say I liked David Ross’ approach, one thing he did have going for him was that his players played hard for him every single day, even after that 2021 selloff. Ultimately, that wasn’t enough, as we saw last September, and Hoyer clearly saw the same thing and so when Counsell became available, the Cubs made him the highest-paid manager in MLB history. It was a daring, bold thing to do, not very Hoyer-like, but I think this will work out well.

The Cubs have a challenging schedule this April. After facing the defending World Series champions to begin the year, they’ll play the Wrigley Field opening series against the Rockies — but then, in order, the Dodgers, Padres, Mariners, Diamondbacks, Marlins, Astros, Red Sox and Mets to fill out the month. I suspect we’ll know what direction this team is heading by the end of that stretch, which includes 19 of the first 32 games this year on the road. (Maybe that’s a good thing, avoiding a lot of the potentially bad Chicago weather in April!)

I believe the Cubs will win the NL Central this year. With the Brewers in what appears to be a rebuild, the Cardinals uncertain and the Pirates... just the Pirates, the Cubs’ main competition for the division might be the Reds, who have a lot of good young talent. (Some of that talent is injured right now, though.)

The Cubs scored 819 runs last year. That was sixth-best in MLB (third among NL teams) and just the fifth time since 1970 that any Cubs team had scored 800 or more runs. And that was WITH some poor performers offensively, as noted above. Do that and get just a bit better at run prevention, and that 90-win team on paper could actually do that in real like.

Ready for the 2024 season? I am. Go Cubs.