The Chicago Cubs Are a Contender's Lineup Stapled to a Rebuilding Team's Pitching Staff

Sometime this week, Jake Woodford will toe the rubber and absorb some innings on behalf of the Cubs bullpen. When he does (barring something unforeseen happening first, like a trade for another form of reinforcement or an emergency call-up), Woodford will become the 33rd pitcher Chicago has used this season. That's the same number they used all year in 2019, the last time the ball flew like this. It's only two fewer than they used in all of 2018, a year marked by a draining fight for the NL Central crown and a litany of injuries.

They'll push beyond the 35 pitchers the 2018 team used, too. They're likely to at least flirt with setting a new team record. They used 43 pitchers to get through 2022, after needing 40 to limp through 2021. Those seasons were the products of unusual circumstances, in that the team was trying to protect many pitchers' arms from overuse in the wake of the pandemic; had to navigate a shortened spring training after the lockout heading into 2022; and unloaded several pitchers in each summer to pace up their rebuilding project. None of that stuff is happening right now, though, and this flat-out was not supposed to happen.

It's halfway normal, these days, to turn to a few dozen pitchers over the course of a season. That the Cubs are already running up on a bad year's worth of them, however, is a telling indictment of their preparation, scouting, risk assessment and development. This team will end up using several more pitchers over the balance of this season, be it because they trade for a bunch of help or because they're compelled to admit defeat and trade away some of their impending free agents. In effect, that's an announcement that they're no further along in the project of amassing enough pitching depth to field a sustainable winner than they were four or five years ago.

It's hard to always have good answers for the difficult tests of depth that happen during a modern major-league season. As you can see, even a quarter-century ago, it was customary to use about half as many arms as the Cubs will use in 2026. Injuries and a rising baseline for offensive talent have rapidly increased the number of guys big-league teams need. Still, even with the Cubs at 50-40 entering Tuesday's games, it's fair to say that they've failed some critical tests that other teams have passed. 

With some of the formerly slumping hitters starting to recover, the quality of Chicago's everyday lineup has been on full display of late. That makes the juxtaposition of those players with this pitching staff even more jarring than it would be otherwise. Pete Crow-Armstrong is more than capable of being a one-man show at times, but he's not alone in delivering lately. Dansby Swanson, like Crow-Armstrong, is a two-way threat, contributing to both run production and run prevention. Seiya Suzuki and Michael Busch are climbing out of the holes in which they stuck themselves at the plate, and each has made huge strides defensively. The lineup is deep and balanced, even if it's also been mystifyingly inconsistent this year.

We've already talked a lot about how committed this team is to a core that will be around for quite a while. We should also take this moment to reflect on just how strangely that's shaped, though. Ideally, the team will get back the likes of Justin Steele, Cade Horton and Ben Brown at full strength next season. In reality, that's too optimistic. Besides, there's a whole second half to play, in which none of those three are likely to play a role at all. Beyond them, the pitching staff is as lacking for long-term commitments as the lineup behind the hurlers is awash in that same certitude. The Cubs lineup is what it will be for the next several years; the Cubs' pitching staff isn't even what it will be for the next fortnight.

They've bumped along admirably over the last few weeks, but this is the pitching staff of a rebuilding team, not a serious contender. That's very weird, because the lineup is very much that of a serious contender, and these days, most teams have both or neither. The Cubs' deficiencies in depth and talent on the pitching side are so glaring that it's virtually impossible to imagine them overcoming them. On the other hand, if any team can survive what the 2018 team couldn't, it's probably this one—the best lineup the team has fielded since that fateful year.

Somehow, Jed Hoyer needs to be extremely active over the next four weeks. He has limited ways to achieve that, but unless he threads the needle better than he ever has before, this Jekyll-and-Hyde team will live the ghastly end of that story: self-inflicted destruction, wasting the good because of an inability to fend off the bad.