Dear Cubs: Please, Please Just Be More Interesting

[RandallPnkFloyd]

The 2024 Chicago Cubs have been unexpectedly bad, and the prospects for the near future are dim. Here's the thing: that's not even the worst news. They're also a bore.

First, a disclaimer: I’m going to take off my objectivity hat to which I typically try to cling and instead take more of a personal approach here.

I am not oblivious to the trajectory of the Chicago Cubs, as currently constructed. They were never a legitimate title contender, even if a National League Central crown appeared to be in reach from the outset of 2024. It was a team that neglected to improve where they likely needed to, instead choosing to rely on upside and a team-wide uptick in performance in order for meaningful improvement to occur.

That conservatism (and the resulting mediocrity) has led the majority of the fanbase to frustration. If you’ve spent even 60 seconds on social media somewhere in the month of June, that’s an obvious statement. There are multiple team aspects to which we can point to gather up enough shortcomings, in discussing why this current club needs to scramble just to avoid spending extended time in last place in a relatively mediocre division. That, however, is not my purpose here.

Instead, I have just one primary criticism to share surrounding the 2024 Chicago Cubs: they’re boring.

While technically alive, I was too young to actually comprehend the success of the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s, until the tail end. That means that, at 34 years old, my sports fandom has been fraught with disappointment. A roughly five-year stretch of hockey (prior to my abandonment of the Chicago franchise and sport at large stemming from their own cultural rot) and 2016 represent the only championship joy I have experienced to date.

It's not as if I'm naïve in thinking that your team of choice must only win championships to be enjoyed. You can find something to like in even the worst of teams. Certain aspects of the game, personalities involved, and hope for the future offer at least some reason to engage positively with teams that are subpar among their league counterparts. With each passing day, though, I am becoming more unsure that the 2024 Cubs are offering much in any of those respects. 

Frustrations abound for an underperforming team. But it’s not as if we haven’t experienced bad Cubs teams in the last handful of decades. There have been… many. Even the worst of teams, though, featured at least a few reasons to engage.

The 2012 Cubs lost 101 games. They also featured 32 homers from Alfonso Soriano, 183 hits from Starlin Castro, stellar defense from Darwin Barney, and a young Anthony Rizzo cracking into the big leagues. They lost 96 in 2006, but had 38 homers from Aramis Ramírez and 58 swipes from Juan Pierre. Carlos Zambrano pitched to a 3.41 ERA and won 16 games, and he hit six home runs that year. The 2002 campaign – wherein they lost 95 – featured a 49-homer season from Sammy Sosa and another 59 combined from Fred McGriff & Mark Bellhorn, plus Mark Prior's rookie showing.

Those teams had standout performances. They had personality, even if the wins didn’t manifest along with those components. Perhaps most importantly, they offered some hope for the future. The 2002 and 2006 teams each improved by roughly 20 games the next season. The teams following 2012 didn’t feature the same leap, but did have Theo Epstein and a coherent plan at the helm. These 2024 Cubs are offering us very little on any of those fronts.

Moments of excitement have been fleeting, at best, this season. Michael Busch had a nice stretch. Ian Happ did, too. In fact, both of them are still in one. Shota Imanaga came flying out of the gate. Again, though, nothing has been sustainable. The most exciting things to take away from this year’s team have been…their approach in April? Maybe? Which is also to say that this team doesn’t do anything loud. Twenty teams make hard contact more consistently than the Cubs. They’re in the bottom 10 of the league in ISO. On the mound, they’re bottom of the league in average velocity. It’s hard to get the type of impact performance that even those bad teams had, when your roster is comprised of just-ok parts. What entertainment value are you getting when the whole ship is built out of “steady yet unspectacular”? Especially when “steady” has yet to truly manifest.

Furthering things is that it’s a stoic group. I’m not sure if that’s by design, but it’s simply devoid of front-facing personality. Dansby Swanson, Ian Happ, Cody Bellinger, Nico Hoerner, Michael Busch, Justin Steele, Jameson Taillon. The list goes on. A lot of guys who don’t display emotion for the better part of their daily contribution. As someone who isn’t outwardly demonstrative, I understand. As someone who wants to be entertained, though, I crave more. It makes their struggles more frustrating when it feels (however illusory the feeling) like a little more edge could change things for the better.

More than anything, this team is maybe lacking in vision. Much more than the handful of good performances we saw in 2012 and 2013, what those teams had over this one was the fact that they were part of a well-understood, publicly-acknowledged rebuild. Spending those years thinking about trades and tracking other teams' farm systems was made easier by the fact that doing those things was the plan, all along. This team fell face-first into a similar position, which feels much more like 2002 or 2006, without the fun.

They paid a manager $40 million and then sat on their hands. They have an upper-tier farm system, but appear terrified to use it, whether by pushing their talent to the top level or utilizing it within the trade market. Now, obviously, I have no insight as to what’s happening behind the scenes. But there’s a perception of Jed Hoyer here that is rapidly developing, and it isn’t one working in his favor.

None of this is to say that we couldn’t witness a boost in watchability from these Cubs. Imanaga, prior to his struggles, was full of energy on the mound. Christopher Morel possesses it, when he isn’t struggling. Pete Crow-Armstrong contains entertainment upside in league with Javier Báez. But that can’t be realized when the team is mired in its collective woes in the way that it has been going back to mid-May. Nor is it to say that, as a fan, I don’t care if the Cubs win games or not. My preference in that respect is always that the players play well, and the team wins games. But in the interim, I need something to look forward to. I value my time.

I also don’t want the perception to be that I am stripping these players of their humanity in that they’re here merely for my amusement. I understand the nature of struggle in sport and the psychological factors that exist therein. This isn’t about the Cubs as individual players; this is a critique of the Cubs' operating on an organizational level. At that level, their goal should be to get fans and followers to invest--invest their time, their emotion. What incentive is there to invest, given the absence of key factors that even those bad teams had? 

I don’t need them to be good. I just need them to be interesting.

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