Cubs' Honoring of Anthony Rizzo Feels Essential Given the Time & Place

[RandallPnkFloyd]

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It's entirely possible that you, dear reader, have found it difficult to invest emotionally in the Chicago Cubs over the course of the last several months. 

The underperformance certainly doesn't help. While they're not alone in their struggles to accrue wins consistently among their contending adversaries, the underperformance permeating throughout the roster can pin down such emotion. The team's inability to maintain any level of transparency regarding their process around player health (see: Kyle Tucker's calf) could be another factor. There are others, of course. But the purpose of this piece isn't to dwell on those. 

Instead, Wednesday morning's announcement that the team will bring Anthony Rizzo back into the fold as an organizational ambassador following his sudden (albeit, probably expected) retirement offers us a temporary reprieve from any grievance that might be lingering and, subsequently, stalling that emotional investment. In fact, the report that the team will honor Rizzo in a ceremony at Wrigley Field this weekend to mark the transition could serve to ignite those struggling to uncover the positive vibes and propel them in the entirely opposite direction.

Statistically, you're not going to find Rizzo's name too frequently across the various leaderboards in the history of the Cubs' organization. He ranks sixth in home runs (242) and 10th in extra-base hits (538). Beyond that, it's a smattering of lists you don't necessarily want to be a part of. First in hit-by-pitches (165), eighth in strikeouts (871), 10th in double plays grounded into (112). But little of that seems to matter, especially when one considers the accolades. 

A three-time All-Star. A four-time Gold Glove recipient. A vote-getter for the Most Valuable Player award in five separate seasons, including fourth-place finishes in each of 2015 and 2016. There's an arbitrary nature inherent in certain baseball awards, but that Rizzo was able to have his name called for, or, at least, adjacent to multiple still speaks to his importance to the organization at an inflection point in its history.

The acquisition of Anthony Rizzo always did feel like a turning point. 

When the Cubs hired Theo Epstein in October of 2011, it wasn't long before the revamped front office acquired a player immensely familiar to Epstein and Jed Hoyer, the latter of whom acquired Rizzo when Epstein was still in Boston and Hoyer was running his own shop in San Diego. By January of 2012, Rizzo was a Cub, headed to the North Side in exchange for fellow deal-headliner Andrew Cashner. Along with the transparency of their new team president, Rizzo's arrival served as an immediate injection of vibes. 

Not that the team was ready to immediately start anew solely on the merits of their new first baseman. The team lost 101 games in 2012 (he appeared in 87). They lost 96 in 2013. Another 89 losses followed in 2014. But, by the time the team was ready to contend with their newfound core, it was Rizzo that served as the de facto captain of a team that included long-hyped prospects Kris Bryant, Javier Báez, and Kyle Schwarber (among... others). He'd experienced the losing and the growing that sometimes accompanies it.

Rizzo led the team in bWAR that year (6.4) and trailed only Bryant in 2016 (5.8) as the team ended their 108-year World Series drought. As was the case in those early years and for the remainder of his time in Chicago, Rizzo wasn't the standout. He finished second in WAR to Bryant again in 2017 (4.7) before his game started to show some early signs of regression, taking a total backseat to a player like Báez before the decade was over. But the vibes. 

An emotional wreck. Tarp catches. Striking out Freddie Freeman. Chasing Freddie Freeman down on the basepaths. The parade speech. To say nothing of his works within the city, including a multi-million dollar donation to Lurie Children's Hospital among myriad other contributions both in Chicago and New York. Rarely did his name leap out and scream at you from the stat sheet outside of those prime seasons, but there was an energy that Rizzo carried that died out quite a lot when he and his fellow "core" members were gone by the middle of 2021. 

It never should have ended the way that it did. The Cubs, on an organizational level, have been reckoning with that process in the years since. One could argue that they're still not there, especially given how the past few months have gone. It's exactly that context that leaves the return of Anthony Rizzo as much more than a simple feel-good story of a former player rejoining the club in a symbolic fashion. Instead, this is something that actually matters. In the name of vibes, of course. 

This is an organization that lost a legend in Ryne Sandberg earlier this year. It was an absolute devastation to the franchise, the fanbase, and the city (even to someone such as myself who was only conscious long enough to merely perceive the latter portion of his career). Compound that with injuries, inconsistent play, and upside failing to be realized from the present roster, and there's a real exhaustion that begins to take hold. While it was certainly a joyous occasion seeing Sammy Sosa back in the mix (now on multiple occasions in '25) and having Derrek Lee join him as part of the team's Hall of Fame induction, there's also an entire generation of fane that are much more intimately familiar with Rizzo than either of Sosa or Lee. To say nothing of how much has happened in the world over the past decade.

Rizzo's return is an emotional victory in an entirely different way. 

You're obviously not going to replace the void left by Sandberg, whether as a tangibly accomplished player or as a more abstract, ceremonial presence post-career. Still, the fact that Rizzo possessed the vibe and leadership that he did from the jump on the field and has done the work he has in Chicago away from it makes the value of his presence almost unquantifiable. It's also a chance to work in the direction of recovering some of the magic lost when this team decided to dump just about everyone who stepped to the plate or on the mound in 2016.

It's all of it. There's a healing factor, on multiple levels. There's a comfort factor. In a season where it's become increasingly difficult to grasp either, it just feels damn good to have Anthony Rizzo around again.

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Rizzo in the bleachers a couple days ago was epic. 

Initially, I was a bit bummed the Cubs didn't sign him for the rest of the season. He probably wanted what, $25M/season. So we have one month left, sign him up for $5M. I'd rather have Rizzo on the bench than Santana. (although, I'm assuming Santana came MUCH cheaper)

But now with the past weekend, it was perfect. Man, Rizzo is back with his jolly positive attitude in Chicago. It's perfect. If he signed as a player, and he performed poorly, then that might sour his reputation in Chicago. So it worked out better this way. 

And to your point, we needed a more recent amabassador, especially with Sandberg's passing.