The Cubs haven’t played as well in October as they, or their fans, would like. They won their NLDS series against the Nationals, yes, but in five games and via a helping of Washington ineptitude. Now, down 3-0 to the Dodgers, the Cubs are actually two games under .500 in the playoffs, and on the brink of elimination.
Some fans are very upset by this, to the point that beleaguered reliever Carl Edwards Jr. was forced to lock his Twitter account after taking plenty of abuse. (I never really tell people how to be a fan, but, come on. Don’t do that, people.) Joe Maddon took heat for not using Wade Davis in Game 2, and he should have taken heat for that. And if the Cubs lose tonight, or tomorrow, or this weekend, fans have every right to lament the end of a baseball season.
But it wouldn’t be a failure.
This might very well be the 2016 World Series win talking, but the Cubs in 2017 have clearly not underachieved. The Cardinals made four consecutive NLCS appearances, from 2011-2014, and were considered one of the two most successful franchises in baseball over that timeframe. (The Giants were the other, and given San Francisco’s World Series win in 2010 as well, they pretty clearly had the claim on the top spot.) In fact, you have to back to 2010 to find a year that doesn’t have either the Cubs or the Cardinals making an appearance in the NLCS. (This might not be a good thing for some readers, I realize. Sorry about that.)
Over the last eight seasons, the balance of power in the National League has pretty clearly been centered on the Cardinals, Giants, Dodgers, and Cubs, with the Cubs coming in on the back end. You actually have to go back to 2007 for a season in which none of those four teams made at least the NLCS. And since 2010, those teams have combined for five out of seven World Series wins. The Dodgers, assuming they don’t blow a 3-0 lead, will have a great chance to make it six out of eight. That’s incredible!
Also a bit of a digression, though an illustrative one, in that it demonstrates that winning a World Series is very hard, and winning an NLCS is almost as hard, especially over the past seven years. The Cubs were swept in the same round in 2015, and could indeed be swept again this year, but there’s no material difference between losing in four games and losing in six games. It’s just two games! It sucks just as much either way, but the Cubs are still playing while 26 other teams aren’t.
You might point at the manner of the Cubs losses as reason to be especially frustrated, and sure, you can find some reasonable points to make. Like this one, for example, about how the Cubs bullpen has been historically wild:
From @SlangsOnSports: The Cubs' reliever 23 walks is most by any team in 8 games or fewer in the postseason.
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) October 18, 2017
That’s bad! But it’s also not a surprise to anyone who watched the Cubs this season. The bullpen was clearly a step down from 2016 due to injuries, regression, and general ineffectiveness. Relievers are fickle, and had the Cubs not dealt Jorge Soler for Wade Davis last offseason, they would have had no one. But the Cubs also traded for Justin Wilson at the deadline, one of the better left-handed arms available at the time, and then watched him completely lose the ability to throw strikes once he donned a Cubs uniform. He’s not even on the NLCS roster, and he was penciled in as a shutdown arm.
Those little things have happened all over. Ben Zobrist had his worst season since 2007, which was before he was “Ben Zobrist”, thanks to both projectable age-related decline and an acute wrist injury. Jason Heyward is pretty clearly broken, and while his outfield defense and general all-around skills are playable over 162 games, he’s going to get exposed against top of the line pitching, especially left-handed pitching. Like, say, Clayton Kershaw and Rich Hill. Javy Baez is tremendously fun, but also totally boom or bust at the plate, and it’s been all bust this postseason. Kyle Schwarber was also broken for most of the year, and he represented a rare bright spot last night with a first-inning homer of Yu Darvish, the only run the Cubs would score all night.
On top of that, the Cubs players who did produce in 2017, chiefly Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, and Willson Contreras, aren’t hitting the ball well, or at all. That happens against fantastic pitching, of which the Dodgers have plenty. The Cubs are in a big hole, and it’s not much fun for fans. But if you look at it through the right frame, it’s not a team falling short of expectations in the playoffs. It’s a team that’s overachieved to get to where they are this year, a season removed from a World Series win, running up against a very good baseball team.
The Cubs certainly have some work to do on the roster this offseason, and they should have the financial freedom to do it, with upwards of $70 million coming off the books. They’ll need to add pitching, yes, and they might not be able to count on Zobrist and Heyward going forward. But their core offensive contributors are all still young, and all still cheap.
This was the end of one mini-window within a much larger competitive window. It’s not what Cubs fans wanted, but it’s still a great place to be.
