Article: 5 Bold Predictions for the 2023 Chicago Cubs

[Matthew Trueblood]

It’s Opening Day 2023, and today is our last chance to put ourselves out there before games commence. Here are five bold predictions for the 2023 Chicago Cubs, a team with intrigue everywhere but not (yet) a clear path to the playoffs.

Hopefully, these five predictions balance being interesting with being plausible. If you think I’ve wandered too far off that narrow path with any of them, let me know in the comments.

1. Seiya Suzuki will be a five-win player.
By far, the biggest bummer of the spring was the oblique strain that kept Suzuki from playing in either the World Baseball Classic or the Cactus League. It looked, for a week or two, like it might also sideline him for as much as the first month of the season, but the news has steadily improved recently. Now, it sounds as though the team could have its regular right fielder in place by the middle of April.

At that point, it’s reasonable to hope for a stellar showing from the Japanese slugger. Despite a truncated spring training, an inevitable adjustment period, and multiple injury issues, Suzuki really was quite good in 2022. The only disappointing aspect of his game was his glove, where neither the eye test nor the majority of metrics justified his reputation as an excellent right fielder.

My bet is that, this season, Suzuki has the strong, consistent offensive season he showed the requisite talent to have last season. It’s also that he’s already a better outfielder than we saw. This winter, Baseball Prospectus rolled out a new defensive value metric, and it’s the new state of the art in fielding metrics. According to Defensive Runs Prevented, Suzuki was quietly 5.4 runs better than average last year. If he can clean up some of the shaky things we saw on simple fly balls in 2022, he could get a win of value out of that, in addition to being one of the better right-handed hitters in the NL.

2. Matt Mervis will hit at least 15 home runs in MLB.
Though Eric Hosmer didn’t show very much about which to get one’s hopes up during spring training, his place on the roster to open the season never seemed in jeopardy. On the flipside, Mervis never seemed to get a serious shot at cracking that roster, although not for any particularly nefarious reason. He just didn’t do anything so undeniably loud, either in the World Baseball Classic or in his limited Cactus League time, to elbow his way into the mix.

That doesn’t mean that he won’t do so, though. I expect Mervis to continue hammering away at Triple-A pitching until the team has no choice left but to give him a fair shake. Because I don’t have much faith in Hosmer, I think that could happen before Memorial Day, and I further believe that the league is using a slightly more hitter-friendly ball this year than they did in 2022. If Mervis is a regular by the end of May, he could have a major impact before the season is out.

3. The team leader in saves is not on the Opening Day roster.
There’s one backdoor way I could be right about this, in that Brandon Hughes will open the season on the injured list, and is probably no lower than third on the team’s list of potential closers to start things off. 

I’m really pointing this prediction at the young pitchers who will open the season in Iowa and Tennessee, though. Be it Jeremiah Estrada, Cam Sanders, Brendon Little, or Ryan Jensen, there are guys with relatively clear paths to getting a closing opportunity by midseason and the stuff to hold onto the job, if things go to plan.

A dark horse in this could be Daniel Palencia. He’s still a starting pitcher right now, and could open the season in Tennessee in that role. In 2016, Edwin Diaz opened the season as a starter at Double A, too. By early May, he was a reliever, because the MLB team needed an explosive bullpen weapon, and a month later, he was that weapon. Palencia could do the same thing, if the Cubs start hot but need reinforcements in the relief corps.

4. Jameson Taillon will garner Cy Young votes.
The Cubs didn’t acquire Taillon purely because he’s shown the ability to be a solid, mid-rotation workhorse. They saw the potential for a bit more, and he’s already flashed some of that this spring. A version of Taillon with command as sharp as he showed this spring and the ability to throw a consistent sweeping slider like the one he developed in Arizona has unappreciated upside. Because he spent his early career slinging a lackluster sinker most of the time, and because he hasn’t traditionally missed many bats, Taillon doesn’t get the acknowledgment he deserves as a hard thrower. He sits 94 and can touch 96 miles per hour with his heat, and if he can maintain the balance of two distinct breaking balls while doing that, he could take a huge forward leap this year.

5. Jordan Wicks will make 10 starts for the team and enter 2024 as a fixture in their rotation.
Ultimately, I don’t expect this team to make the playoffs, or even to come within a couple games of doing so. They’re capable of winning 85 games, but winning 80 is much more likely. They have much better depth than they had a year ago, though, especially in terms of MLB-ready pitching. That should keep them more consistent than last year’s team, which always seemed in danger of falling into a spiral of nine losses in 10 games.

By the trade deadline, then, some tough decisions will need to be made. I foresee the team trading Marcus Stroman, to whom they can’t extend a qualifying offer if he opts out after the season, and maybe even Drew Smyly. When a place opens up in the rotation, it could go to Wicks, who had a really impressive first full season as a pro in 2022 and should open the year in the rotation for Double-A Tennessee. 

Wicks added a reengineered breaking ball on the fly last year, and while getting in his work affected his stats a bit, he still competed well and got outs. Now, his repertoire seems fully established, including the plus changeup he brought with him as a first-round pick in 2021. This time next year, the Cubs could have a really exciting young rotation, fronted by Justin Steele, Hayden Wesneski, and Wicks.

I’m all ears. What are your own bold predictions for this season? Does anyone think this team will take off and find its way into the postseason, after all? Plant your flag in the comments.

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[Bertz]

I don't think we got any meaningful data on Taillon’s sweeper, right?  I believe he only pitched one game in front of Statcast and it was in an early game where he only threw it a few times.  If that pitch shows out on Sunday I will be very quick to jump on board with #4

My one I feel most emphatically about is that we're fixing to have a bullpen of death like the Rays.  The Cubs have in the upper levels of the org four guys with pretty monstrous stuff in Julian Merryweather, Jeremiah Estrada, Ryan Jensen, and Daniel Palencia.  They have two other triple digit arms in Sanders and Correa.  There's a small army of guys who sit mid 90's with a nasty breaking ball.  Assuming Thompson's velo issues are temporary, they have three guys on the OD roster who can serve as high leverage long relievers.  Fulmer and Boxberger aren't especially exciting but create a solid floor in the near term here.  There's no closer-caliber lefty on the way (Luke Little is the closest to MLB and he's not close), but that's really the closest thing there is to a blemish.

[Matthew Trueblood]

4 minutes ago, Bertz said:

I don't think we got any meaningful data on Taillon’s sweeper, right?  I believe he only pitched one game in front of Statcast and it was in an early game where he only threw it a few times.  If that pitch shows out on Sunday I will be very quick to jump on board with #4

My one I feel most emphatically about is that we're fixing to have a bullpen of death like the Rays.  The Cubs have in the upper levels of the org four guys with pretty monstrous stuff in Julian Merryweather, Jeremiah Estrada, Ryan Jensen, and Daniel Palencia.  They have two other triple digit arms in Sanders and Correa.  There's a small army of guys who sit mid 90's with a nasty breaking ball.  Assuming Thompson's velo issues are temporary, they have three guys on the OD roster who can serve as high leverage long relievers.  Fulmer and Boxberger aren't especially exciting but create a solid floor in the near term here.  There's no closer-caliber lefty on the way (Luke Little is the closest to MLB and he's not close), but that's really the closest thing there is to a blemish.

Yeah, what they've done the last few years with much less in the way of raw stuff than they have now has to give you faith that they'll do something cool this year. That said, I think it'll be an interesting test of Ross's bullpen management. I haven't loved that aspect of his work so far, and he has to improve in order for the talent there to have the maximum possible impact.

[fromthestretch]

19 minutes ago, Bertz said:

My one I feel most emphatically about is that we're fixing to have a bullpen of death like the Rays.  

I do like the fact that we have, assuming Thompson's velo is ok and Assad's velo bump is real, two effective multi-inning options in Assad and Thompson. Smyly isn't going to go deep into games, and I imagine they'll have Hendricks on a short leash for awhile when he comes back. Having guys that can go 2-3 innings in relief (and not just in garbage time) is great. Add in what you mentioned about the depth of arms in the upper levels, and the bullpen could be really fun to watch.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

I like the Wicks one, I think in general we're probably sleeping on his impact because he doesn't have cartoonish velocity and there's interesting guys in front of him.  He took 2 starts to adjust to AA and then was lights out afterwards(21 IP, 2.57 ERA, 27/8 K/BB, 1 HR). Between Wesneski, Wicks, Kilian(I still believe) and Brown I think there's a strong chance you feel comfortable with 2 rotation spots from that group in 2024(albeit possibly not on opening day).  Considering the current rotation is all under contract for 2024 that's fine too and speaks to the depth that is there at the moment.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

15 minutes ago, grassbass said:

I do like the fact that we have, assuming Thompson's velo is ok and Assad's velo bump is real, two effective multi-inning options in Assad and Thompson. Smyly isn't going to go deep into games, and I imagine they'll have Hendricks on a short leash for awhile when he comes back. Having guys that can go 2-3 innings in relief (and not just in garbage time) is great. Add in what you mentioned about the depth of arms in the upper levels, and the bullpen could be really fun to watch.

Don't sleep on Alzolay too.  I've somehow lost all memory of him pitching at the MLB level last year, but the early returns on him as a multi-inning reliever are, uh, good: 6 G, 13.1 IP, 3.38 ERA, 19/2 K/BB, 1 HR

[Outshined_One]

I want Jordan Wicks to have the career I thought Jeremy Sowers was going to have.

[David]

I'm right there with you on Seiya.

Dude is horsefeathering jacked like an old school slugger.   I need it to manifest.