There was a lot of panic among some fans at the All-Star break, when the Chicago Cubs were 5.5 games behind the Milwaukee Brewers and tied with the St. Louis Cardinals in the division with a 43-45 record. The reigning World Series champions were underperforming and if it wasn’t for a great two-week stretch starting in Baltimore, Theo Epstein was prepared to trade two key pieces that ended up helping the Cubs win their second straight division title.
Yes, Epstein was ready to not only trade closer Wade Davis, but Jake Arrieta, who before his hamstring injury was looking like the Game 1 starter in the NLDS, too.
Via Patrick Mooney:
The Cubs also quietly put the word out to teams looking for starting pitching and bullpen help: There was a remote possibility that looming free agents Arrieta and Wade Davis would be available at the July 31 trade deadline. A new collective bargaining agreement – with the international spending restrictions, luxury-tax implications and a modified qualifying-offer system – would have been part of the rationalization.
That came a month after Miguel Montero was DFA’d and traded to the Toronto Blue Jays and when Esptein sent a message to everyone in the clubhouse.
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As Epstein consulted with a few players about the Montero decision, he sent this message: Get your stuff together and play with an edge if you want us to trade the Class-A talent here in Myrtle Beach for big-league reinforcements this summer.
Epstein delivered Jose Quintana to the North Side and the team responded by winning 49 games in the second half. It all began with the road trip that basically saved the 2017 Cubs.
If you look back, the Cubs went from 5.5 games down to one game down a week after the All-Star break and by the end of July they returned to first place and never looked back. That stretch included winning six in a row on the road to start the second half.
“Not blowing it up,” Epstein said. “But when you’re five-and-a-half out, if you have a bad road trip and a bad homestand and then you’re 10-and-a-half out, absolutely, we would have sold.”
(Theo Epstein)
The Cubs’ 13-3 stretch catapulted them to 92 wins, and at the end making the division race not that close, winning 15 of their last 19 games. But just think about how the landscape of the season would have changed if things just wouldn’t have gotten better. Arrieta returned to form and became the ace Cubs fans were used to seeing. Meanwhile, Davis set a franchise record for most consecutive saves and didn’t blow one until Sept. 23.
But those three games against the Baltimore Orioles and Atlanta Braves now look a lot bigger than they did in July. Now, the Cubs are in the postseason, trying to do something in MLB that hasn’t been done since the 2000 New York Yankees. Repeat as World Series champions.
