The Chicago Cubs Have Had The Most Underrated Offseason

Over the weekend, the Cubs held their first fan convention in three years. The pandemic put a stop to the past two, making January 2020 the last time fans could gather at the Sheraton Grand Hotel in downtown Chicago.

Fittingly, the first convention since then comes at a time that team chairman Tom Ricketts called an “inflection point” for the Cubs. He believes that his team is trending upward from the down years of 2021 and 2022.

And Ricketts is probably right. While a few other teams have garnered more attention for the perceived quality of their offseasons or for signing the top free agents, the Cubs may have quietly had the best one.

That’s not because of one splashy addition. Dansby Swanson is a huge add for sure and the best bargain in the shortstop market for seven years, $177 million, but the Cubs have taken a balanced approach to improving the team this winter. There are definitely still holes: Tucker Barnhart helps fill the void left by Willson Contreras behind the plate, but it’s not going to be the same, and Patrick Wisdom as the full-time third baseman isn’t going to cut it long term.

But look nearly everywhere else on the roster, and the Cubs are in great shape to be a lot better than the team that went 74-88 last season. That’s what makes this one of the best offseasons in the league this winter.

At first base, Eric Hosmer and newest addition Trey Mancini will platoon nicely until last year’s minor league breakout star Matt Mervis can (hopefully) assume duties at first base. Hosmer is costing the Cubs just $720,000 because the Padres are paying most of his contract, and Mancini is reportedly joining the Cubs on a two-year, $14 million deal.

The addition of Swanson moves Nico Hoerner to second base, a position he’s already quite familiar with. He and Swanson combined for 19 defensive runs saved last year, which should make the Cubs’ middle infield defense one of the best in baseball. Something that’s very important with the defensive shift going away in 2023.

In the outfield, the Cubs added Cody Bellinger to the mix, a move that might have the biggest impact of all. Bellinger is coming off of a couple of bad seasons, but those might have been the product of a lingering issue caused by a leg injury at the beginning of the 2021 season. At his best, Bellinger was a 7.7 fWAR player, and only in the abysmal, injury-plagued 2021 campaign was he not good for positive WAR. The Cubs have Bellinger on a one-year, $17.5 million deal, making his future harder to guess at: If he does poorly, they move on, but if he does well (as the team must hope he does), they have to decide whether to trade or extend the 27-year-old former MVP.

On the mound, the Cubs rotation is set to get a major boost from Jameson Taillon, who they signed for four years, $68 million. He will help at the front of the rotation with Marcus Stroman, taking some of the pressure off of emerging young starters Justin Steele and Keegan Thompson. The latter could even get pushed to the bullpen if Kyle Hendricks returns and pitches well. Hendricks was officially shut down for the rest of the 2022 season on August 22 with a right capsular tear, but he’s been on a throwing program for a while and making positive progress toward a return, according to the latest reports. It’s still unclear when exactly he could be back on the mound, but if he does, a healthy and performing Hendricks should make the Cubs rotation even better.

The other side of the pitching coin is the bullpen, and the Cubs have improved slightly there as well. The main change is Brad Boxberger, who should give manager David Ross a solid closer option when he wants one. Boxberger hasn’t been used as a closer much since 2018, but he saved 32 games for the Diamondbacks that year and 41 for the Rays in 2015. And if Codi Heuer — traded to the Cubs at the 2021 deadline — is able to return as expected a couple of months into the season, he will bolster the high-leverage inning group even more.

It’s too early to tell how much better the Cubs will be this year but they were eight games above .500 in the second half of 2022. That 74-88 record is mostly the product of a .380 winning percentage in the first half. Not surprisingly, as their pitching improved last year, so did everything else. The staff put together a sparking 2.89 ERA in the second half after posting 4.83 in the first half.

Combine that with an offense that will have a much higher ceiling in 2023, and the Cubs could easily look a lot more like they did in the second half of last year. Considering all of the improvements the team has made, it’s easy to see why Ricketts believes the Cubs are at an inflection point.

And if that’s not enough, the Cubs are estimated to have a 2023 payroll of around $184 million, still pretty far below the first tier of the luxury tax. There aren’t a lot of names left in the free agent market, but that flexibility can help with future trades if the Cubs are willing to take on contract dollars from other teams. It helps, too, that they will be done paying Jason Heyward after this year. The $22 million he’s owed comes off of the books after 2023.

Perhaps they are aided by a low bar to start with, but not many teams have made as significant improvements. Maybe none. It’s still safe to say that no team has had as successful an offseason as the Cubs.