Which Cubs Have Had Successful Seasons--and How Do We Even Answer That Question?

[RandallPnkFloyd]

Baseball seasons are so long that almost every team and individual season end up rendered in gray, rather than black-and-white. So, in a gun steel-and-charcoal campaign, where are the light gray silver linings--and who gets to decide on their value?

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Success is a hilarious concept within the world of sports. From a fan perspective, success is almost entirely dependent on final outcomes--especially in matters of team sport. Did your team win a championship? No? Well, then we can only assume that season was a failure, not a success. That’s an oversimplification, of course, but fandom does tend to be a pretty simple framework in most cases.

As a teacher, coach, and athlete development specialist, I’m extremely process-oriented by nature. I'm also prone to stretches of overthinking about what sound process and success actually look like. So, while I can sit here and say that the 2024 Chicago Cubs season has not been a success--and be right--I also have to recognize that there are layers to that that would make me wrong.

The organization set a goal to reach the playoffs this season, on their way to establishing the “next great Cubs team.” In that respect, the season was not a success. You don’t even need the championship qualifier here. The team underachieved for months, putting together a hot stretch in August that served as the fake rally with which we’ve become all-too-familiar, in macrocosm. They failed to reach the playoffs. There are reasons they failed that ran beyond their control, but by their own standard, set forth back in the spring, it was an unsuccessful season.

There are layers to consider, though. A team is made up of individuals, and those inidividuals all had their own seasons. We can define success a little differently when looking at them in isolation than when examining the team in a wide-angle lens.

Focusing specifically on the offense, what do you want out of a hitter to demonstrate success in a given year? Landing on the positive side of the 100 wRC+ threshold? Developing a new element of the skill set, or continuing to thrive in an old one? Steady performance? Broad development, especially for younger players? I’ll admit I probably have more questions than answers. At the same time, our answer is probably somewhere in there. You obviously want hitters to land above average, and to show us that they are either providing stability where it didn't previously exist or developing new areas of success. That last bit rings true in terms of development, too. With that in mind, perhaps we can turn our attention to some individual Cub hitters that did have a successful 2024 season--or at least muse about their place within all of this.

Places where we can count simple developmental progress as a win are always the most comfortable, so that’s where we start. The Cubs had some very loud successes here, primarily in the form(s) of Michael Busch and Pete Crow-Armstrong. 

Busch was a fascinating acquisition from the jump. Squeezed out of the infield picture in Los Angeles, the offensive upside was clear. It was just a matter of where he’d play. It quickly became clear that he’d assume the void left by Anthony Rizzo what feels like a decade ago. And he’s done just that, in effective fashion. He’s been above the 100 mark in wRC+ in each individual month outside of August, while turning in a 120 mark overall. Perhaps more impressive (given that we expected his offense to be pretty good) is the defensive evolution he’s showcased. He has 8 Defensive Runs Saved. That number isn’t only acceptable; it's elite. There’s some development that he’ll still undergo – primarily cutting down the strikeouts – but he’s the guy. 

Same goes for Pete Crow-Armstrong. We spent the entire year wondering if and when Crow-Armstrong’s bat could even remotely catch up to his glove. Turns out, the answer to if was yes, and the answer to when was August. A 154 wRC+, .244 ISO, and 8.2 BB% were among the marks Crow-Armstrong posted that month. Everything good was up, and the strikeout rates were down. He’s carried that over a bit into September, too. The defense requires no encomiums. He’s a Platinum Glove Award candidate-in-waiting. It’s a different conversation than we might’ve been having in, say, July, but the growth there is evident. This breakout was essential for establishing his role.

I suppose we can lump Miguel Amaya in with those guys, too. The sample size is still small, but no smaller than Crow-Armstrong's. After Amaya's swing and approach changes in the summer, it’s possible that he could be The Guy behind the dish--although only possible, and far from certain. He posted gaudy wRC+ figures in July and August (149 and 157, respectively), and struck out at a mere 2.9% clip in the latter month. His ISO exceeded .250 in August, too. It hasn’t carried over into September, primarily due to some horrendous batted-ball luck. Given how poor his offense looked for the first three-ish months of the year, it’s hard to label it a success outright. Maybe we lean more inconclusive. But he’s at least generated more equity for himself within the “catcher of the future” conversation.

The development angle is a copout, though. You can do that with nearly every team in Major League Baseball. “Well they’re bad, but look at this guy who’ll be important going forward.” Let’s talk about the veterans, because this is where things get murky, and murky is where things get interesting. 

Ian Happ has had a successful season. He shook off a poor April and a merely average May to post upper-tier numbers for much of the season. It hasn’t been his best overall season, but he’s continued to demonstrate steadiness in his approach and has bumped up the power numbers from his last two seasons (.210 ISO), even with a complete absence of it early in the year. The eye test doesn’t love him with the glove, but the metrics all have him above average. Who am I to argue (although I plan to, at a later date)? It's not nearly as cut-and-dry with the likes of Seiya Suzuki, Cody Bellinger, or Dansby Swanson, however.

Do we call it a successful year for someone who turned in a very strong offensive season, but became unplayable defensively? What about a hitter who turned in a solid season, but lost much of the impact that earned him a lucrative new three-year(ish) deal? And then we arrive at the captain of the Chicago infield, who started off poorly on both sides of the ball and quickly regained control over his defense--only for the offense to continue faltering until late July. While never an upper-tier offensive threat to begin with, can we consider what has become a just-okay year by his own standards to be a success?

If you haven’t figured it out, this column is speaking more to the philosophy of success than the actual standard of it. You could certainly point to the strides Suzuki made at the dish, to argue in favor of a successful 2024. You could also lean to the side that says his defensive ineptitude could hamstring the Cubs’ roster construction, if he’s strictly a DH now. Cody Bellinger’s year hasn’t not been a success. But the absence of actual power is also a concerning element to navigate for him. Swanson isn’t expected to be an offensive catalyst. But playing on that contract, he kind of is, right? Or he has to be, unless and until the team expands its spending in some substantial way. Does a two-month stretch of strong showings at the plate compensate for a performance that was at least partially responsible for digging the Cubs their early hole? 

This is the manifestation of my own brain, getting caught up in pieces elsewhere on the internet that opine things like “Dansby Swanson had a good year” or “It’s a good thing that Cody Bellinger is probably coming back, actually.” Because my initial inclination is to disagree. Yet, the massive gray areas wherein we can define success or failure complicate that to such a dire extent. It’s one of baseball’s great paradoxes.

Regardless of all that, disappointing as the 2024 Cubs may be, at least they offer some… nuance? Some things to talk about? I had discussed, back in the middle of the summer, that the Cubs were not only bad, but something worse: boring. They are, at least, less boring now. 

Major League Baseball is a unique sport, in that there’s such a significant emphasis on development. Other sports have this, as well, where you’re looking at stages of a rookie’s evolution into a veteran. But there’s such a heavier emphasis on it in the baseball world that it’s easier to find the successes in the midst of the disappointment of the team context.

Ultimately, you can define success in a lot of ways. The 2024 Chicago Cubs were not successful in many of them. But there are also these other things (I’m gesturing broadly now) where we can actually be happy about the trendlines. So who knows what it really means, anyway?

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[Guest234]

Lots of gear grinding working with a not so massive amount of gray matter.

[Billy62]

So, as we approach the off-season the question will be asked over and over again of how to improve this ball club. It is guaranteed to be at least a .500 campaign for 2024, which leads me to the conclusion that this was a solidly mediocre team. Not bad, not overly good......just mediocre. Not good enough to get into the playoffs, and if they did, it most likely would have been a short appearance and then a fast exit. Now, the eyes will be on Hoyer. What can he do to take us to the next level? Obviously standing pretty much pat last season really didn't work. If that was because he felt that some real fire was coming up from the minors, fine. But if it was a desire of the Ricketts clan to keep spending down and profits up shame on them. If you build a winner, every nickel you spend comes back dressed up as a quarter. With the fact of staring at 2025 with it pretty sure that you will not have the services of Hendricks, Wisdom, Smyly and maybe even Bellinger if he opts out, who will be the new faces? This is what the winter does to bring excitement.