Cubs Mailbag – Was 2016 Just An Aberration?

After a rough weekend in St. Louis where the Chicago Cubs blew ninth inning leads in back-to-back games and were walked off in extra innings each time, the Cubs finally broke out of a miserable offensive slump yesterday night.

Returning home to Wrigley Field to face the Miami Marlins, the Cubs scored 14 times to support eight superb innings from Kyle Hendricks to get back into the win column. However, until the Cubs prove that they can consistently hit and score, fans won’t be appeased.

I kind of joked about it mid-game yesterday:

The Cubs scoring over 10 runs today means they're getting shut out the rest of the home-stand doesn't it …

— Dhruv Koul (@DhruvKoul) May 8, 2018

The Cubs take on the Marlins tonight again in Game 2 of the series, with Jen-Ho Tseung coming up from Triple-A to make the start in place of the recently DL’d Yu Darvish. On the bright side, Kerry Wood is returning to Wrigley to throw out the first pitch and sing during the 7th-inning stretch!

With that, we reach into this week’s Cubs Mailbag. Thanks to everyone who submitted questions — much like the Bears Mailbags that I write, I always appreciate the participation!

Are the Cubs a one hit wonder? Is it time to say that these awesome talented players overachieved in 2016 and what we are seeing now is what they really are?

— Jfairy84 (@Jfairy841) May 7, 2018

I understand what you’re trying to ask, but I disagree with the, as I understand it, implied notion that the Cubs are somehow underachievers when looking at their whole body of work from 2015 until now.

I also want to add one thing before I begin: Winning the World Series is, of course, always a team’s stated goal. But not winning the World Series does NOT make a season a failure. As much as the media likes to hype a “Championship-or-Bust” narrative, that’s nonsense. Winning a championship is difficult and factors in way too many things that a team can’t control themselves. Blaming them for not overcoming such obstacles isn’t fair. So while the Cubs achieved the dream in 2016, that doesn’t mean the years sandwiching it were failures or the Cubs underachieving.

A quick trip down memory lane: The Cubs came into their own much earlier than anticipated. The 2015 season was supposed to be the final “developmental” year before they really started competing and the rebuild could be considered “complete” — yet they rode an incredible second half to the playoffs. They defeated the Pirates in an epic Wild Card game and the Cardinals in the NLDS, before bowing out against the Mets. The following year, the Cubs had arguably the best season of their existence, leading the NL Central from Day 1 and breaking their 108-year championship drought with a World Series for the ages. Last year, despite a clear hangover for a large part of the season, the Cubs still managed to prevail in a grueling NLDS against Washington before bowing out against the Dodgers in yet another NLCS.

I’ve always believed that the playoffs of any major North American sport, except for maybe the NBA, are a complete and utter crapshoot. And Theo Epstein himself has said that the real goal is to have the Cubs in position to be in the playoffs year-in and year-out. The more they participate in “the dance”, the better the chances of them eventually catching lightning in a bottle and winning the entire thing, like they did in 2016.

And here’s why: Over the course of a small-sample, five-to-seven game series, so much can go right and wrong for either team, and so the resulting outcome may not always be expected or even fair. And the fact that a team must win at least three-of-five, four-of-seven, and another four-of-seven, in that order, in every postseason to be crowned World Series champions? It goes to show that a team has to be both good and quite lucky to have that happen.

That’s also the reason we don’t see many repeat champions in MLB, NHL, or the NFL — the crapshoot factor is way too strong. And despite this, the Cubs have managed to make it to the “Final Four” in three straight years. Remember, these late October runs take a heavy toll on each of these players, both physically and mentally, which they must then contend with the following regular season, which is a grind by itself — much like we’re witnessing here at the start of 2018.

So, to answer your question, no, I wouldn’t call 2016 overachieving, and I wouldn’t call 2015, 2017, or what we’re seeing right now an indictment of the Cubs not being as good as was promised. They’re a heck of a team that’s brimming with talent at every position, and the Cubs should expect their championship window to last at least the next half-decade.

If they win another World Series in that time, then awesome. If they don’t, it’ll be disappointing, but not a failure or underachievement.

Yes,"Why the Cubs losing gms they should be winning"????😡😡

— thisM.E. Shegog-Winters 🦁🔯 (@moeaseEwinters) May 7, 2018

It’s frustrating, I totally get it. But baseball is a weird sport where weird things happen on a day-to-day basis. The beauty of it is there’s a game every day and the season is lengthy. And remember, the Cubs have stolen a few games from the jaws of defeat themselves this year. Not to mention, they recently won five straight games while scoring three or less runs in each one. So the Cardinals’ series, while frustrating, is basically baseball’s way of evening itself out. I certainly wish it’d have happened against a non-NL Central opponent …

Yes, the Cubs are struggling, but keep in mind that it’s only May, and there is PLENTY of baseball still left to play. These kinds of stretches often happen in baseball. It’s just that the Cubs’ slump is happening early on, so it seems magnified.

Let’s wait until at least late June to assess where they stand and then decide whether the Cubs are in trouble or not.