Welcome back to Top of the Order, where every Tuesday and Friday I’ll be starting your baseball day with some news, notes, and thoughts about the game we love. Things have taken a rough turn for the Chicago Cubs since the end of April. Over the weekend, they lost three of their four games against the Reds, lowering their record to 32-34 ahead of their upcoming a three-game set against the Rays in Tampa Bay.
The Cubs started strong, with a 17-9 record that ranked third in the National League, but their 17-0 loss to the Red Sox on April 27 kicked off a nightmarish 15-25 run. Since then, only the White Sox have fewer wins than their crosstown rivals during that 40-game stretch. So what’s gone wrong? And what can the Cubs do to fix it?
What’s gone wrong? Pretty much everything. Since April 27, the Cubs rank 25th in the majors with an 87 wRC+, down from the sixth-ranked 112 wRC+ they posted across their first 26 games. Meanwhile, over their last 40 games, their pitching staff has a 4.14 ERA, which ranks 19th. Their bullpen has been especially bad, with a 4.90 ERA that is the fourth-worst mark in the majors during that span. Even fielding the ball has been a struggle; despite having reigning Gold Glovers Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner at the middle infield positions, Chicago has been among the seven worst defensive clubs in the majors, with -20 DRS and -10 OAA.
Jed Hoyer’s tenure as president of baseball operations has been defined by building depth and accruing volume rather than star power. Despite running one of the four franchises valued at $4 billion or more, Hoyer hasn’t signed a player to a contract larger than Swanson’s $177 million, and as things stand, he has not doled out a deal worth $30 million for a single season. But letting perfect contract terms be the enemy of good teams has arguably been what’s prevented the Cubs from making the postseason in every non-COVID year since 2019.
The team was at least loosely connected to several marquee free agents in recent years, but their inability, or perhaps lack of desire, to even get close to finalizing deals with elite free agents may well be directly contributing to what has been a middling team for the past handful of seasons.
The Cubs can afford to spend more than they have under Hoyer, and part of the reason why they are floundering now is because they don’t have enough high-end talent to contend with the best teams. To get star-level players, you need to pay star-level prices. Maybe those prices are excessive and don’t make sense according to dollars-per-WAR calculations, but they’re often necessary to assemble a winning roster, especially for the clubs that have the financial flexibility overpay for players.
That hesitation to swing major trades has had a positive effect, though, in that it’s given the Cubs an incredibly deep farm system. But, having a great farm system doesn’t mean much if you’re not going to use your prospects either to beef up your big league club or trade them for impactful players on other teams.
So where do the Cubs go from here? Well, they probably can’t look within the organization to stop the bleeding. Instead, the best way to fix things for this season would probably involve trading away at least one of their top prospects. If the Cubs don’t think they can sign certain free agents, trading for established stars is really their only path to acquiring a player who could drastically improve the floor and ceiling of a roster that’s more quantity than quality. Ultimately, if the goal is to win, then acquiring a true anchor for the roster is paramount.
