Is 2023 A Success Even if the Cubs Miss the Playoffs?

To me it’s TBD. If the offense goes cold, starting pitching still struggles and the team ends up with 78 wins, the season probably isn’t a success. There were some successful components to the season, but still in a situation where we didn’t finish .500, we couldn’t take advantage of a weak division and WC race and two of our top players are still FA. 

In the scenario you pointed out I can definitely take a more optimistic view of the season as a whole. After all it was just 2 years ago that Jed traded the core of the team down to bare bones. Building a team that is playing meaningful baseball with a few games left in the season is an accomplishment to some degree. I know for a fact that a few specific posters here would not agree with it, but I’d consider it somewhat successful.

I find that these conversations tend to work backward.  People figure out how they want to feel about the season, then work backwards to come up with a metric that justifies it.

I dunno. It's not fine if they miss the playoffs. But it's still better to try and fail than to not try at all 

59 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

To me it’s TBD. If the offense goes cold, starting pitching still struggles and the team ends up with 78 wins, the season probably isn’t a success. There were some successful components to the season, but still in a situation where we didn’t finish .500, we couldn’t take advantage of a weak division and WC race and two of our top players are still FA. 

In the scenario you pointed out I can definitely take a more optimistic view of the season as a whole. After all it was just 2 years ago that Jed traded the core of the team down to bare bones. Building a team that is playing meaningful baseball with a few games left in the season is an accomplishment to some degree. I know for a fact that a few specific posters here would not agree with it, but I’d consider it somewhat successful.

I think you hit the nail on the head. There's obviously quite a few games left to be played and the season is far from done. I just remember how rough it's been since ~2019, knowing that the team wasn't going to make any noise. It almost became a chore to watch as the old core grew stale (I still LOVE those guys, but it was clear everything had run its course in Chicago). 

It's nice to have a fun team playing competitive games again. Hopefully that means they'll get to the playoffs and test their mettle against the best, but if nothing else, this year has been a refreshing change of pace. 

54 minutes ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

I find that these conversations tend to work backward.  People figure out how they want to feel about the season, then work backwards to come up with a metric that justifies it.

I dunno. It's not fine if they miss the playoffs. But it's still better to try and fail than to not try at all 

Well put. I definitely think people are going to come at this (come the end of the season) with very rigid/inflexible parameters that will determine their answer. 

I wanted to pose the question now just so that we can all remember that, no matter what goes down these next two months, at least we got a team worth rooting for again. 

I think it will be a disappointment, because they would have wasted outstanding seasons by Bellinger, Stroman, Candelario, Swanson, Tauchman, Steele, Alzolay, Merryweather, etc. Combine that with the very real possibility of losing Bellinger, Stroman, and Candelario and we might be struggling to get to .500 next year.

1 hour ago, Hairyducked Idiot said:

I find that these conversations tend to work backward.  People figure out how they want to feel about the season, then work backwards to come up with a metric that justifies it.

I dunno. It's not fine if they miss the playoffs. But it's still better to try and fail than to not try at all 

I agree. I'll be disappointed if they don't make the playoffs. But I'll be less disappointed than if they punted. Opposite of Kyle, I think the expectations are set at the beginning of the season by the team. Jed said they were trying. They spent money, so let's try and win. If they don't, then they have to figure out where they came up short. Even if the world tilts off its axis and they do win the WS, they will need to prepare for next year. 

Win or lose they are well-positioned to add a lot of talent this offseason either with graduation, trades, or FA.

I think it's a false dichotomy to suggest it has to be either a success or a failure. It is a sliding scale. Let's say it ranks from -10 for abject failure to +10 for a world series victory.

If they play a lot of exciting baseball down the stretch but come up short, I'd say that's probably a 3-4. If they play a lot of meh baseball down the stretch and fade out of contention early, it's probably a 0 or a 1 to me. It could be a little less depending on why they sputter.

I'd guess that's the range I'd find myself in personally.

1 hour ago, Backtobanks said:

I think it will be a disappointment, because they would have wasted outstanding seasons by Bellinger, Stroman, Candelario, Swanson, Tauchman, Steele, Alzolay, Merryweather, etc. Combine that with the very real possibility of losing Bellinger, Stroman, and Candelario and we might be struggling to get to .500 next year.

This is what I'm most worried about too. There's been some disappointments to be sure (Suzuki, 2nd half stroman, smyly, etc.) but most of the guys on the team are producing in like their 70th-80th percentile outcomes. It would suck if this isn't enough. 

But at the same time, this is still a team fresh out of a rebuild. There are plenty of pieces still to put together. I'm glad we're competitive with the parts we have. 

58 minutes ago, Tim said:

I think it's a false dichotomy to suggest it has to be either a success or a failure. It is a sliding scale. Let's say it ranks from -10 for abject failure to +10 for a world series victory.

If they play a lot of exciting baseball down the stretch but come up short, I'd say that's probably a 3-4. If they play a lot of meh baseball down the stretch and fade out of contention early, it's probably a 0 or a 1 to me. It could be a little less depending on why they sputter.

I'd guess that's the range I'd find myself in personally.

Absolutely - I definitely don't think it's as black and white as "this season was perfect" or "this season was a waste". Everyone will have their own scales on how they feel, but I think it's a good thing that the scales are still being balanced as opposed to thrown out the window in July like the last two years. 

If they miss out on Playoff then no, this season was not a success because that was the main reason they stayed as is, was to win the Division.

Plus

This is not a young an up and coming roster, most of these guys won't even be on the roster next season or the following,  so it not like these guys are in a learning mode or whatever you wanna call it for competing and playing in important games in September to gain that experience for next season,  If they end up out of the playoffs it'll just be like a fake 9th inning rally and a disappointing loss.

At least for me, the season, regardless of outcome, is a success in one aspect; I'm actively excited about where the organization is going.  Dansby Swanson has been better than I expected (I was fearful of chase rates and in ability to hit much other than fastballs), Cody Bellinger has been a really nice addition and better than I expected, while I've always been a fan of the 2022 draft, it's been even better than I could imagine so far, and the system as a whole has really been banging on most cylinders.  Perfect season in that regards?  No, but there's enough optimism in me to be excited that a strong offseason, a few prospect graduations, and the like have me thinking the team is finally pointing upwards versus neutral for once.  There seems to be some feeling of optimism that the team will retain Bellinger (and we can debate his batted ball profile and his contract value another time).  For me, long term outlook will always trump short term (barring a WS, of course) so I think in that regards 2023 is a success, the short term, 2023-season-in-a-vacuum success is debatable yet.  It'd be really fun to make the playoffs, but the overall health of the Cubs seems better than it's been for a while.  

2 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

At least for me, the season, regardless of outcome, is a success in one aspect; I'm actively excited about where the organization is going.  Dansby Swanson has been better than I expected (I was fearful of chase rates and in ability to hit much other than fastballs), Cody Bellinger has been a really nice addition and better than I expected, while I've always been a fan of the 2022 draft, it's been even better than I could imagine so far, and the system as a whole has really been banging on most cylinders.  Perfect season in that regards?  No, but there's enough optimism in me to be excited that a strong offseason, a few prospect graduations, and the like have me thinking the team is finally pointing upwards versus neutral for once.  There seems to be some feeling of optimism that the team will retain Bellinger (and we can debate his batted ball profile and his contract value another time).  For me, long term outlook will always trump short term (barring a WS, of course) so I think in that regards 2023 is a success, the short term, 2023-season-in-a-vacuum success is debatable yet.  It'd be really fun to make the playoffs, but the overall health of the Cubs seems better than it's been for a while.  

I think this is a good point in that the verdict on the MLB team is still out, but it's hard not to look at the rest of the system as anything but a pretty clear success thus far. Prospects fail, but we sure do have a lot of them, and it's been a lot of fun watching them get closer to Chicago. 

I don’t measure whatever happens rest of season TBH.  My measuring stick is whether they resign Bellinger or not.  It would be quite the gut punch for the Cubs not to pay up, and watch the Yankees or Angels sign him.  

34 minutes ago, PeanutPunch33 said:

I don’t measure whatever happens rest of season TBH.  My measuring stick is whether they resign Bellinger or not.  It would be quite the gut punch for the Cubs not to pay up, and watch the Yankees or Angels sign him.  

Whether the sign Bellinger or not has nothing to do with this year. What if they don’t sign him but sign Ohtani? What if they sign Nola and trade for a stud major league ballplayer but not have Bellinger. Why does this years determination on if the season was a success or a failure rest on what the Cubs do with Bellinger next year? 

I really, really want playoff baseball in Wrigley this year.  However if they don't make it I think judging it as a success or failure will depend on what they do in the offseason.  

If they barely miss but keep Bellinger and add some more pieces I think you can say they're still building towards something and would make missing the playoffs a lot less painful.  

However if they miss and lose key pieces and don't replace, total F from me bro.  

5 hours ago, 1908_Cubs said:

At least for me, the season, regardless of outcome, is a success in one aspect; I'm actively excited about where the organization is going.  Dansby Swanson has been better than I expected (I was fearful of chase rates and in ability to hit much other than fastballs), Cody Bellinger has been a really nice addition and better than I expected, while I've always been a fan of the 2022 draft, it's been even better than I could imagine so far, and the system as a whole has really been banging on most cylinders.  Perfect season in that regards?  No, but there's enough optimism in me to be excited that a strong offseason, a few prospect graduations, and the like have me thinking the team is finally pointing upwards versus neutral for once.  There seems to be some feeling of optimism that the team will retain Bellinger (and we can debate his batted ball profile and his contract value another time).  For me, long term outlook will always trump short term (barring a WS, of course) so I think in that regards 2023 is a success, the short term, 2023-season-in-a-vacuum success is debatable yet.  It'd be really fun to make the playoffs, but the overall health of the Cubs seems better than it's been for a while.  

Brilliantly put. I think there's actually semblance of confidence now in the front office that they have an actual direction. It's not aimless anymore. 

2 hours ago, PeanutPunch33 said:

I don’t measure whatever happens rest of season TBH.  My measuring stick is whether they resign Bellinger or not.  It would be quite the gut punch for the Cubs not to pay up, and watch the Yankees or Angels sign him.  

I hear this - all of me wants Belli in right and PCA in center for the next half-decade. But whether they re-sign Bellinger or not, I think it's fair to evaluate this season as some sort of success since the team is competitive again AND guys like Belli (and Swanson) have been excellent moves. 

2 hours ago, The_Achiever said:

I really, really want playoff baseball in Wrigley this year.  However if they don't make it I think judging it as a success or failure will depend on what they do in the offseason.  

If they barely miss but keep Bellinger and add some more pieces I think you can say they're still building towards something and would make missing the playoffs a lot less painful.  

However if they miss and lose key pieces and don't replace, total F from me bro.  

I think this encapsulates a lot of what the fans are feeling - this team has momentum right now. The farm is doing well, risky moves like the Belli and Dansby signings are paying off, and guys like Amaya and Madrigal are playing their way into a future roster spot. It would sting like hell if this doesn't continue; hopefully there's a few big offseason moves and prospect graduations to put the Cubs back on the WS contention path. 

2 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

Whether the sign Bellinger or not has nothing to do with this year. What if they don’t sign him but sign Ohtani? What if they sign Nola and trade for a stud major league ballplayer but not have Bellinger. Why does this years determination on if the season was a success or a failure rest on what the Cubs do with Bellinger next year? 

That's a lot of "what ifs" as opposed to signing Bellinger. Bellinger fills a lot of voids for the Cubs (CF, 1B, power hitter, etc.).