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Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images As the hot stove continues to burn, nothing has been won yet by any big-league club, but the Chicago Cubs have certainly passed the vibe check. Alex Bregman, the newest North Sider, beamed from ear to ear as he greeted the media at his introductory press conference. Craig Counsell's squad feels like a complete team, and everyone from Red Line riders to Round Lake suburbanites have noticed. The Cubs head into the 2026 campaign with an air of confidence that has been missing in recent years. Droves of fungible players like Alfonso Rivas suited up in blue pinstripes not that long ago, at the end of an era of North Side baseball tarnished by penny-pinching and poor player development. Those dark clouds have been carried off by westerly winds, out onto Lake Michigan. This club is showing its teeth, and in doing so, showing its fans there's good reason to believe. The Cubs' culture is taking a definite, winning shape, and their two new acquisitions have a winning pedigree. The manner in which Bregman and Cabrera arrived on the North Side suggests that the two stars are much more focused on their performances than their pockets. Both have settled into their new place of residence nicely and seem genuinely happy to be wearing the iconic Cubs logo on their chests. Juxtaposed with the Cubs tenure of the recently departed Kyle Tucker, a man who seemed like he'd rather be anywhere else, they make a refreshing change. The character of the players on this team is an extension of president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer's focus on building a sense of shared purpose, as well as a roster that can achieve that purpose. When Hoyer made the stunning move to hire Craig Counsell as the 56th manager of the club, I knew this team had just embarked on a journey. At the time, the destination was shrouded by those lingering clouds, rather than being clear and apparently reachable. In 2026, the club will have a clear view toward the horizon. With a map in hand, the Cubs have set a course for their desired destination, with the right navigators to get them there. View full article

Image courtesy of © Troy Taormina-Imagn Images For long weeks that froze over and became months, Cubs fans waited for their own personal hot stove to spark. Suddenly, in a week becoming their annual moment of truth and on an auspicious night for all Chicago sports supporters, it came together. The franchise's future came much more clearly into view. While Bears fans watched their team make a heroic playoff comeback against the Green Bay Packers, their phones lit up, delivering the news that Alex Bregman had agreed to a five-year deal with the team. Along with the trade that brought young right-handed pitcher Edward Cabrera to the North Side just over 72 hours earlier, that signing announced the team's earnest intention to return to title contention in the National League. If you want to dive deeper into the story about either of the new ball players Craig Counsell's team just acquired, please check out our comprehensive coverage here at North Side Baseball. Here, suffice it to say that in making these moves, Jed Hoyer's front office showed an urgency not seen here since the days of Theo Epstein. Hoyer and his staff will probably never admit to having a perception problem, but their recent actions suggest they're aware of its existence. The Cubs are a big-market team that has enough funds to go toe-to-toe with any other club in baseball when it comes to talent acquisition. This is a 90-win club that has watched its rivals in Milwaukee seize three straight division titles and five of the last eight, while the Cubs only limped to one—in the shortened, meaningless COVID season of 2020. The North Siders finally made it back to the postseason in 2025, but that shouldn't be their measuring stick for success or failure. They should plan to win the division every year, or go down swinging in the effort. These moves show that they agree with that, even if ownership is reluctant to spend what it would take to establish that standard. A new era of Chicago Cubs baseball is about to start, and since recent events have given this club a clear direction, the season can't come soon enough. Real change feels possible. The Cubs signed Shota Imanaga on Jan. 11, 2024. They were, in a way, right on schedule this year, making their big splashes in that same sweet spot of the offseason where talent is still available but freezer burn hasn't set in. Now, we all just have to wait and see what other changes come before spring training—and how these moves pay off come Opening Day. View full article

Image courtesy of © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images In 2025, Craig Counsell had one of the better starting rotations in the big leagues, based on results. Several of the successes won by the 2025 version of this club emanated from the bump. Yet, the team ran out of starter steam in the postseason, so they made a significant addition to their mix this week. Let's review where the rotation stands, as the beginning of spring training comes into view on the horizon. Cade Horton Featuring an outstanding array of pitches and command that earned him second place in last season's NL Rookie of the Year voting, Horton is the ace of this staff. Entering last season, we knew his fastball, slider and curveball had a chance to be special. However, what he did with his changeup, a pitch that yielded just a .115 average from opposing batters last season, took him to a new level. Only his durability is in question. He missed the team's crucial final stretch heading into the postseason with a rib injury, and was denied his playoff debut after the Cubs were ousted from the tournament before he could recover. Matthew Boyd The 34-year-old veteran returns to the rotation after enjoying perhaps his best season in the big leagues. In his All-Star campaign, Boyd showed both command and composure. With an excellent walk rate and feel for several pitches, he gutted his way through a season in which his workload far exceeded what the team expected to need from him when they signed him to a two-year deal last winter. Depending on how quickly newcomer Edward Cabrera ascends through the rotation, Boyd's spot could slide, though he still stands as one of the vital pieces of this staff. Edward Cabrera The shiniest new toy at 1060 W. Addison (at least on the pitching side), Cabrera, 27, is a near-bottomless well of talent and upside. While he has certainly struggled with injuries, the strikeout-heavy righty features a dominant curveball with which he punched out 54 batters last season. His changeup borders on being a splinker, with the ability to push it past 95 MPH. Cabrera will also enjoy better offense and defense in support of his outings than he received in Miami. If he stays healthy, he'll be the bat-misser the rotation lacked in 2025. Jameson Taillon Pitching just shy of 130 innings last season, Taillon had a 1.06 WHIP in 2025. He, too, excelled at limiting walks, and kept the team in the game nearly every time he took the mound. In only five of his 23 starts did he hurt the team's win probability by more than 2.7%. Entering his 10th major-league season, Taillon is a steady presence in the clubhouse. You know what to expect from him every five days on the mound, and every day off of it. For a team with a stable of young starters, his veteran presence will augment the youth movement. Shota Imanaga In a 2024 season that ultimately ended in oppressive disappointment for the Cubs, no one endeared himself more to fans of North Side baseball in Chicago than Imanaga. He was cruising, legitimately flirting with a 20-win season, and warranted Cy Young talk until sputtering in the second half of the campaign. Sadly, in 2025, the charismatic starting pitcher more closely resembled what he was in the second half of his rookie season. A hamstring injury kept him out longer than anyone had hoped, and throughout the second half, he was plagued by home runs that often put the Cubs in an early hole. In what will likely be his final year in a Cubs uniform, Imanaga looks to bounce back with a return to his 2024 form. That will depend on whether or not he can execute his splitter better, especially throwing it below the zone for chases. Should he reclaim that command, the fan favorite could be a sneaky weapon—albeit an expensive one. Justin Steele An elbow injury early in 2025 wiped out nearly all of the southpaw's season. The setback led to Steele's second career Tommy John surgery. His injuries, in fact, created the impetus for the Cubs to seek and develop other viable starting pitchers, which led to the rotation's current composition. Not since his impressive 2023 16-5 season have we seen what Steele can really do. His cut-ride heater and slider form a solid combination. An intentional and gradual ramp-up will be the key to Steele's success in 2026. Luckily, the squad has some depth, with Colin Rea and Javier Assad. All told, his return will be a welcome one, but it needn't be hurried. The five probable starters in this forecasted rotation each bring something unique to the table. They're not a dominant group, but they've moved from perhaps average to a tier higher. Their depth should ensure that they stay in contention throughout 2026, and if they reach October, they'll be better-equipped to advance this time. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images Of the players on the Chicago Cubs who helped the squad come to within a game of the National League Championship Series in 2025, few were more instrumental than second baseman Nico Hoerner. And yet, as the city's North Side baseball team wades through an underwhelming and perplexing offseason, the Northern California native's name has become the focal point of swirling trade talks. It's clear why another club would want to trade for Hoerner: At just 28 years old, Hoerner has two Gold Gloves to his name and just produced a season worth 14 outs above average (OAA). Not only did he get on base frequently in 2025 with a .345 OBP, but he also made things happen once he got on, stealing 29 bases. More than this, the star infielder was one of the only players in Craig Counsell's lineup to consistently hit for contact, tallying 40 extra-base hits among his total of 178. Is that kind of production easily replaceable? No. Why, then, do the Cubs have designs on bringing Bo Bichette to Wrigleyville? Now, it's worth mentioning that since Bichette's ball club made it to Game 7 of the World Series, he has more numerous and more recent failures at the plate than his counterpart in Chicago. But Bichette still finished the 2025 season with a .311 batting average. Over the course of the regular season in 2025, Bichette had fewer hits (in fewer at-bats) than Hoerner. Defensively, Bichette is inferior to Hoerner, with a Baseball Savant page featuring more blue than a postcard from the Caribbean. What Toronto's star infielder does have, however, is hype. Since entering the league with his equally-famous teammate Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bichette was announced as being one of the game's new young superstars, carrying the weight of the league's rising popularity on his shoulders. Despite falling short of his lofty expectations thus far, Bichette remains one of the more prominent and recognizable players in professional baseball. When examining this specific aspect, Bichette's profile, the Cubs' pursuit of him makes sense. This is an organization that likes to maintain a certain level of name-brand players — guys that fill seats at Wrigley. Think Cody Bellinger, Kyle Tucker, and Yu Darvish. Given that fact, it's likely that Tom Ricketts, Jed Hoyer, and the rest of the brass wouldn't mind welcoming Bichette to Chicago, with designs on hiding his defensive shortcomings next to the exemplary Dansby Swanson. Playing at second should mask a great many of his range concerns, and it wouldn't be hard for Bichette to improve at least a little on that side of the ball. Still, he'd be a far cry from what Hoerner offers at the keystone, and signing Bichette to a long-term deal almost certainly comes with the caveat that the incumbent second baseman will be dealt away. If and when a package is assembled to make this theoretical trade a reality, Chicago would still earn an incomplete grade for this offseason as we sit just one calendar month away from the start of spring training and the 2026 season. The North Siders still need an ace to lead their pitching rotation, and not only have they not acquired one, but also seem content in allowing other challengers to exhaust all the best available options on the market. So, the question remains: What is the Cubs' play here? For this club to expand upon its triumphs from last season, it needs consistency. That's something that Nico Hoerner has a proven track record of providing. Can Bichette, in a new city, with a new ballpark, pick up where Hoerner left off? As the great Ellie Goulding once said: Anything could happen. View full article

Image courtesy of Pacific League TV/YouTube At this week's hotly anticipated (and grossly underwhelming) MLB Winter Meetings in Orlando, a lack of activity from Chicago's North Side baseball team left fans feeling colder than a Roscoe Village sidewalk in January. While the squad's starting pitching rotation has not been rounded out quite yet, skipper Craig Counsell emphasized to the media in his presser that pitching is not a commodity of which any team can have enough. Jed Hoyer and his staff agree, but so far, they're taking a quantity-over-quality approach. They've signed three relievers this winter: Phil Maton, Hoby Milner, and Collin Snider. These three could prove key pieces to a bullpen that kept batters off balance in 2025. However, the bullpen is really only worth a damn if the starter sets them up for success. So, with prime targets like Michael King, Joe Ryan, and the pined-over Tatsuya Imai remaining unsigned, what's next? And, more importantly, who is the best option to help the Chicago Cubs claim the Fall Classic? Even Cubs fans engaged in heated debates over what is or isn't a Christmas movie agree that their favorite baseball team needs a poised, imposing starting pitcher, not only to attain their lofty postseason goals, but to reclaim the crown in their own National League Central, where the Milwaukee Brewers have reigned for far too long. There are a few fine options who would instantly make this squad better, but we've covered a handful of them recently. Today, let's focus on the pitcher who could make this a championship-caliber group: Tatsuya Imai. Imai is the best fit to join the Chicago Cubs; that's why the club's pursuit of him is so intentional. In eight seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball, Imai has been sturdy and occasionally dominant, with a 3.15 ERA and 907 strikeouts. Though he comes from the land of the diving splitter, Imai's mid-90s velocity and plus slider make him distinctly American in style and could make him the missing ingredient for a Cubs team often light on whiffs. Needless to say, another main component of Imai's profile that makes him attractive to the Cubs' front office is his youth. At just 27 years old, he could add a charge of young talent sorely missing in this rotation. Outside of Cade Horton, the Cubs' rotation leans on the older side, with just Horton and Javier Assad coming in under age 30. Younger players carry more untapped potential than a veteran player with a known track record—although, of course, they also come with more risk. With the acquisition of Tatsuya Imai, the Chicago Cubs would have an opportunity to announce that they are a true World Series contender, not just a postseason also-ran. After falling in five games to the Milwaukee Brewers last October, Craig Counsell's squad looked on as his former team got erased by the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers. The North Siders aren't as good as the Dodgers, probably, but they do have a chance to be better than the Brew Crew, and Imai's arrival at Wrigley would signal that they think so, too. View full article

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images Although Ebenezer Scrooge-level labor strife looms less than one year from now, MLB's championship-caliber teams (like the Toronto Blue Jays) have lifted the spirits of their fanbase with early signings of Dylan Cease and Cody Ponce. Ever so briefly, Cubs fans felt the same surge of warmth in their breasts—thanks (or not, as it turned out) to an erroneous report from Bob Nightengale that the Cubs had signed erstwhile Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen. It's a moot point, but some instantly felt as though the price for Gallen was a bit too high. Or is it? It's no secret that Jed Hoyer, Carter Hawkins and their staff are seeking a new ace for the top of their rotation, and they have their sights set on hurlers like Michael King, Tatsuya Imai, and Ranger Suárez—in addition, of course, to Gallen. While rumors of what other NL Central squads might do swirl like flakes in a snow globe, Hoyer has a real opportunity to once again position his organization as a perennial World Series threat. Being one of the 29 teams that falls short of baseball's ultimate prize creates the perception that there is less to work with than there really is. The team can and will move away from players like Matthew Boyd, who not only vastly overachieved in 2025, but will be bearing the weight of extra work in his role with Team USA in the forthcoming World Baseball Classic. Waiting in the wings are the likes of Jaxon Wiggins, the towering righty projected to join the squad before the sweltering days of a Wrigley summer arrive. Landing one of those top-flight arms will be important to a team with big dreams for 2026, but their floor is steadily rising each year. Thanks to a media slip-up, we arrived prematurely at one of the North Siders' major offseason destinations. Their approach to this Winter Meetings figures to provide the evidence that diehard fans have been seeking for some time now, that their club seeks to reclaim its view from the top. If you're like me, you've wanted a reason to dive back into the world of Major League Baseball, counting down the days until balls and strikes are once again the currency of our hopes and dreams. In no small way, the Winter Meetings will start showing us just how much there is to hope for. View full article

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images When it comes to Cubs baseball, there was a great bounty of gifts to be thankful for in 2025. From a thrilling playoff run to the return of legendary players like Anthony Rizzo back into the fold, you'd have to be a turkey not to find something to like about where this franchise is, and where it could go. So, while you loosen your belts and take part in whatever timeless holiday traditions you call your own, take a look at five big things Cubs fans have to be thankful for. 1. Cade Horton: Near or at the top of every Cubs fans' wish list is a Dylan Cease-type top-of-the rotation starting pitcher. Should that happen, that pitcher will work great in concert with the magnificent Cade Horton. Before succumbing to a rib injury at the end of the 2025 season, the 24-year-old righty helped his squad stack wins in the second half. Racking up 11 wins and pitching 118 innings in the majors, Horton got to 147 total frames, setting the stage for what should be an unfettered 2026. Many believe it was Horton, not the Braves' Drake Baldwin, who was most deserving of the National League's Rookie of the Year honors. North Siders are lucky to have him, and he certainly figures to keep the Cubs in the playoff mix for years to come. 2. The Cubs are a Playoff Team: Though in retrospect, it feels as if the Cubs barely scratched the surface of what could be in 2025, they roared back into the postseason for the first time in a long time. The North Siders have a strong young core, mixed with some veteran talent that has yet to reach its full potential. In disposing of the San Diego Padres at Wrigley, and taking the Brewers to the brink, this squad's playoff showing suggested that this could just be the beginning for club looking to refill the tank and make another run in 2026. 3. Pete Crow-Armstrong: To be honest, all of baseball should be thankful for the Cubs' Gold Glove center fielder. His offensive production disintegrated in the second half, but his presence never did. Crow-Armstrong is a tremendous ambassador for the game and a bright young star the organization should want to keep around. If he stays on the track of growth and maturity, he'll no doubt provide even more core memories for the Wrigley faithful. 4. Michael Busch: The anticipation of blockbuster offseason free-agent signings is an exercise in anxiety. Around this time of year, getting caught up in what you don't have is as easy as scooping a second helping of mashed potatoes and gravy onto your plate. The fan base would love a reunion with slugger Kyle Schwarber, but in Michael Busch, they've already got one of the shiniest gifts under the tree. With 34 homers and an .866 OPS during the regular season, Busch lit up scoreboards in 2025. At 28, he's five years Schwarber's junior. He arrived on the North Side of Chicago as an overlooked talent, but his poise, performance, and defensive prowess leave baseball fans in Illinois (and beyond) no choice but to take notice. 5. Craig Counsell: A couple years ago, when the Cubs plucked their current skipper from Milwaukee, I thought it was a shrewd but necessary move. He's a "put your money where your mouth is" type of manager who, whether you agree with his choices or not, doesn't stand idly by while the game happens around him. Counsell and his staff turned Matthew Boyd into an All-Star ace who did more than just ensure his squad stuck around a couple games longer in the playoffs. At the end of the underwhelming 2024 season, Counsell famously proclaimed that his should be a 90-win ball club. He proceeded to go out and get 92 victories the following season. He's a great dude to have at the helm of this organization, and I think the best is yet to come. So there you have it, Cubs fans, if that list doesn't warm up your heart just a little bit, make yourself a cup of coffee. The North Side of Chicago is a baseball epicenter, with growth ahead. While we still may have visions of World Series rings dancing in our heads, there's much to be thankful for on this day—and every day. View full article

Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images The dust has settled from the most enthralling World Series in ages, which has subsequently led to the outset of an offseason that, in many ways, figures to be just as intriguing as the play on the field. A great deal of speculation has been placed on how Jed Hoyer and his braintrust will build off of a successful 2025 campaign, which brought winning playoff baseball back to Wrigley Field for the first time since 2017. By now, you know that whatever plans the organization moves forward with will not include left-handed ace and sentimental fan-favorite Shota Imanaga. The 32-year-old hurler just finished his second full year of Major League Baseball in a Cubs uniform, a disappointing campaign for the starter in terms of not just a drop in velocity and victories, but in his club's confidence in him to go out and get the job done. The show must go on, but hopefully with the right performers to make this heartbreaking turn of events worthwhile. With a flurry of top-flight free-agent pitchers hitting the market as we speak, it's up to the front office to get this squad's momentum heading in the right direction. Might I humbly offer the three most suitable options the club must pursue to ensure that their next act is worthy of ovation. Michael King: Over his seven years as a major league pitcher, King has curated the kind of profile that makes him a perfect fit for the Chicago Cubs' rotation. Like Imanaga, he's teetering on the wrong side of 30, but he boasts a 3.24 career ERA with 559 punch outs since his debut. Though suffering a stark decline in strikeouts from 2024 to 2025, he features an impressive array of pitches. His go-to pitch, the sinker, pairs well with his other off-speed pitches, leading to a 66th-percentile whiff rate. Along with fellow Padres starter, Dylan Cease, King took an overall step back in 2025 on a team which the Cubs defeated in the Wild Card Round of the 2025 playoffs. A good amount of that can be chalked up to knee and shoulder issues, which may scare off potential suitors this winter. Even when taking those drawbacks into consideration, King makes sense as a priority target for the Cubs. Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy has a penchant for squeezing every last drop of potential from his pitching staff, and it was just last year that the right-hander looked the part of a staff ace. If he works out, King could be a royal pain for opposing batters to deal with. Joe Ryan; In his time wearing a Twins uniform, there's nothing about this 29-year-old righty's eye test that screams, "Get this guy to Wrigleyville!" But, the more you examine both his performances and pitch arsenal, he makes sense. The most tantalizing aspect of Ryan's game is that he's a certified strike-thrower. Employing his four-seam fastball over 50% of the time, Ryan ranks in the 84th percentile in strikeouts. Perhaps more importantly, he ranks in the 87th percentile in walk rate. If getting guys out by way of the K and not letting them reach base sounds good, Ryan is your man. Dylan Cease: When you clicked on this article, this was probably the first name you expected to see. Since the Cubs traded Cease to their Southside counterparts in 2017, he's been one of the game's premier hurlers. Though he's fallen on relatively hard times the past two seasons, he's still got the raw stuff the Cubs have been lacking in their rotation. Though he only won eight games in 2025 with a 4.55 ERA, he recorded a far more impressive fourth-place finish in Cy Young voting in 2024. And during both seasons, he gave the Padres a whole bunch of innings, spinning 189 1/3 in 2024, and 168.0 in 2025. As the Cubbies have recently done with starters such as elder statesman Matthew Boyd, Cease could experience a resurgence in effectiveness as a member of Craig Counsell's squad. Outside of his ties to the city, Cease also features a more balanced pitch selection than some of his fastball-heavy free-agent counterparts. I'm certain that if Cubs fans could prioritize one reunion, it would be with Kyle Schwarber, but, should fortunes allow, Dylan Cease is an individual the whole organization should hold in high regard when it comes to playing for the home team at Wrigley once more. This is simply a select few options the North Siders have at their disposal, though in my mind, they figure to be the best. The Chicago Cubs are coming off of a postseason appearance that thrilled us all, but still felt like it was too short. The alchemy of this team is changing, and with the departure of Shota Imanaga heralds the loss of the club's soul. If this front office seeks to quickly restore it, it had better make its response count. View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images After the baseball world witnessed its brightest star, Shohei Ohtani, make history with his 10-strikeout, three-homer performance over the weekend, something still felt like it was missing. What is it? Might I offer an answer? It's a stadium called Wrigley Field and the brand of baseball they play there. Let's face it: Baseball is better when the Cubs are better. The admirable, "You gotta hand it to them" thing about sports villains is that they often effusively embrace their role as such. Arguably no team in professional sports willfully accepts that role more than Dave Roberts and his Los Angeles Dodgers. To say that Ohtani and his squad made quick work of the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS would be akin to proclaiming how easy it is for Michael Jordan to dunk on a Fisher-Price rim. Put bluntly, the Dodgers have too much money and a clear monopoly on snatching up the best players in the game. Don't let anyone tell you that's good for baseball, it's not. The "small-market" franchises owned by billionaires who beg for pity aren't innocent in this equation, either, but the Dodgers are a chief factor in the 2027 lockout rumors. We've been treated to an outstanding postseason. From high-heat Daniel Palencia "Gasolina", to a 15-inning marathon thriller between the Tigers and Mariners that blurred the lines between last call and first call, baseball made a stirring case as to why its postseason tournament stands tall as one of the best. Perhaps, then, the need to sustain the momentum that the game has built up this October, will serve as one of the driving forces in reaching a new Collective Bargaining Agreement to resume baseball operations for all 30 teams in 2027 and certainly in 2028. I love baseball too much to further discuss losing it even temporarily, so let's move on. One of the tentpoles of baseball which makes it such a special exercise in athletic competition is its emphasis on moments, and to a greater extent, stories. An early-morning walk through Gallagher Way, taking in the sights of statues of some of the Chicago Cubs legends like Fergie Jenkins and the late, great Ryne Sandberg proves as much. Since 1876, some version of the club we know as the Chicago Cubs has played baseball. Sitting in my green folding seat in the 200's section down the first-base line of Wrigley Field for Game 1 of the Cubs' Wild Card series versus the San Diego Padres, I could feel every bit of this club's storied history. Standing with the other 40,000 in attendance, the ground under my feet rattled with the type of force that made you look up at the blue skies bewildered in search of the source of origin for thunder. It turns out, it was the best kind of thunder: the kind created by happy Cubs fans. With each out Matthew Boyd recorded, the sense of wonder and responsibility for the supporters in the building increased, with knowledge that, in the playoffs, as the external noise grows louder, so does the internal noise for the opposing players. In the bottom of the fifth inning, trailing by one, all of the noise rested firmly between the ears of the Cubbies, with slugger Seiya Suzuki striding hot into the batter's box. He laced a homer to left-center, tying the game as the crowd erupted. Now, through an uncommon formula of chemistry unique to the Cubs, the squad had encountered several instances throughout the season which put them to the test. After knotting up the game, the North Siders' underrated backstop Carson Kelly stepped to the dish, with designs on untying game. On a 2-2 count, Kelly deposited a homer that just cleared the basket in left-center field. At that exact moment, everyone in the building could feel the energy change. The feeling, electric as it was, felt familiar, as this Chicago Cubs team made a living off of resilience, and feeding on each other's energy. The celebration was epic yes, but it was created through a template that was painstakingly manifested. In their near-comeback versus the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS, the Cubs stuck to a similar formula, battling back from an 0-2 deficit and sending the series to a do-or-die Game 5. Ultimately, what stopped the Cubs short of their loftiest goals in 2025, was failing to meet at the intersection of chemistry, talent, and experience. The club did not make enough moves to ensure it wouldn't run out of ammo in October. Chicago appeared to absolutely empty the tank to make it as far as it did. Though they possess the will and belief, they need more. The 2026 campaign will almost inevitably begin with Kyle Tucker on another team. That may be alright in the long run for the Cubbies, given the crop of talent they've got in their farm system, the existing core of the big league club, and some freshly available upcoming free agents like Alex Bregman. Should they actually land a player of that caliber, he'll be coming into a clubhouse with a pretty rock solid foundation. Once the conclusion of the Fall Classic officially ties a bow on the 2025 MLB season, the work begins once again in earnest for all 30 clubs. If they wish to be the last team standing in the near future, the squad that should be hardest at work is your Chicago Cubs. View full article

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images Suffering through the first week of this four-month long offseason, the Chicago Cubs organization, got a stern lesson. Our feelings of jubilation, fist bumps, and blue towel-waving earlier this month swiftly transformed into longing for next year. Compound that with the cocktail of jealousy, despair and schadenfreude of watching the Dodgers sweep the Brewers in the NLCS, and you've got the start of one of the most uncomfortable offseasons in recent memory. Craig Counsell and his Cubs aren't the only eliminated squad back at the drawing board, figuring out a fresh blueprint for further playoff success. The San Diego Padres, the club Chicago ousted in the Wild Card round, are suddenly in need of a new skipper, as Mike Shildt abruptly announced his retirement this past week. Early speculation suggests that Cubs bench coach Ryan Flaherty could be a candidate, which would be a tough loss for the North Siders. That Craig Counsell has assembled such a formidable and even enviable staff, though, bodes well. For the team to reach similar or greater heights in 2026, certain things must change on the field. They need a beefier, bolstered bullpen, capable of setting down opposing bats faster than a bleacher bum wolfs down helmet nachos. Enter, perhaps, Yankees free-agent hurler Devin Williams, once a standout for Counsell in Milwaukee. Williams, a former lockdown closer, is coming off his worst season by far, turning in a 4.79 ERA in Yankee pinstripes, but a reunion with his old skipper and a match with the Cubs' solid pitching infrastructure could fix him. Kevin Alcántara, "The Jaguar," is one of the most intriguing prospects in the Cubs organization, and though sprinkled into the lineup sparingly toward the end of the season, he's yet to show off his true potential. Though he played through it all season, Alcántara underwent surgery for a sports hernia that figures to alter his offseason regimen. While the hot stove fires up, Jed Hoyer and the North Siders' brass have much to do in maintaining the organization's favorable position within the National League. That's a big responsibility—staying at or near the top once you get there is difficult, and the Cubs have yet to show they can keep pace with the Brewers—but that's the cost of high expectations. They have a tough needle to thread in the winter ahead; Hoyer is well aware of that. This time, at least, they have a foundation of success on which next season can build. rather than a hole out of which they must dig. View full article

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images Getting their first taste of playoff success in eight long years, the whole Chicago Cubs organization from top to bottom viscerally experienced how satisfying and cinematic October baseball really is. For nearly a fortnight, Michael Busch was the lead actor in the film. And what a picture it was. Of course, the scene could have never been set in such a way had the Los Angeles Dodgers not generously gifted the prolific bopper to the Cubbies at the outset of the 2024 campaign. Despite the agonizing fashion in which the Milwaukee Brewers dispatched Busch's club from the 2025 postseason proceedings, he proved through power, consistency, and tremendous baseball acumen that he is the prototype for what a Chicago Cub should be under the bright lights of the postseason. The long ball is unequivocally the most exciting play in baseball. Yielding various measures of success, Michael Busch dialed it up frequently. On three occasions, the first baseman, out of the leadoff spot for the North Siders, pelted Brewers' pitching for dingers. Now, of course, they didn't all hold up, especially his blast in Game 1, but what he did do is what any manager wants from the top spot in the lineup: give the other team a problem to figure out. That Craig Counsell's pitching staff looked absolutely gassed in this series isn't Busch's fault. Stretching the bigger picture out just a bit, a good deal of what informed Busch's playoff success is his plate discipline. In 2025, he only put forth a chase rate of 23.6%, challenging opposing pitchers from all 29 of the other MLB teams to really throw something nasty to get him to expand the zone. His hard-hit rate also jumped from 39.9% in 2024 to 47.3% in 2025. Busch is seeing the ball better, and swinging at better pitches. From a standpoint of what his value to the club equated to in the NLDS, he didn't necessarily create scoring opportunities for the rest of the top of the order, because he was the scoring opportunity. It certainly transformed how Pat Murphy decided how to go after Nico Hoerner, Kyle Tucker, and Seiya Suzuki. In the cases of Hoerner and Suzuki, it didn't much matter, even though they bring much different approaches to the plate, they were still able to come through in clutch situations, at least in the two games at Wrigley Field. Operating in the unenviable position of fielding questions as to what went wrong for this Cubs team, not a single member of the top brass in the organization can point to a thing that was done by Michael Busch. It wasn't just his on-field performance that cemented his place as a Cubby playoff hero, it's the electric energy and pure joy he exudes that makes him one of the primary leaders of this squad. Capturing the imaginations of supporters and media professionals alike, Busch's postseason heroics in 2025 garnered a tribute from the great Mully and Haugh of 670 The Score, commemorating the slugger's efforts with a hysterical "beer for breakfast" Busch Light salute live on-air last week. If that's not respect, I don't know what is. What made Michael Busch's play in this postseason great is the same thing that made his squad's abrupt exit from the playoffs agonizing: He showed that this team has more baseball in them. Save for some mightily perplexing managerial choices and lack of depth from the rotation, the Cubs could be taking batting practice at Dodger Stadium right now. They're not, and Busch, brilliant as he was, can't do it alone. In fact, he might be doing it with a significantly new-look Cubs' lineup in 2026 pending the departure of free agent right fielder Kyle Tucker. Some known commodities will be plugged in to various positions for Chicago next season, but how they will mesh together remains to be seen. What simply cannot be overlooked is this: The Cubs are a very good baseball team and delivered a catalog's worth of memorable moments in 2025. It always seemed like Busch was in the middle of those moments. Playing for a fanbase starved for postseason success, the first baseman provided the kind of nourishment this city, and this team, had been waiting for. View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images And just like that, the Chicago Cubs' 2025 campaign has concluded. Securing their first playoff victory since 2017, the Cubs got to play eight additional games, past the standard 162. They're heading into their shortest offseason since 2020, and yet, it feels as though it's starting too soon. Watching the team that dispatched them take almost as much pleasure in the Cubs' demise as in their own triumph, the overall takeaway from a season full of promise is a bad taste more bitter than Malört. The grind began eight months ago, when pitchers and catchers reported to Arizona. As Matt Shaw pointed out, it somehow feels as though even more time has elapsed. The Milwaukee Brewers, enjoying a season for the ages, had no regard for the Cubs' sentimental whims, nor visions of keeping their season alive. A 7-3 dispatching of the Cubs in Game 2 of the NLDS proved as much. Enthusiasts of Chicago's North Side baseball team are now acutely aware of the liability their left-handed ace Shota Imanaga poses. For much of the second half of the season, the 32-year-old hurler battled goferitis, and he gave up three home runs in front of a Brewers-mad crowd hell-bent on keeping Cubs supporters from establishing a presence inside Milwaukee's unfriendly confines. There had been several inflection points this season where the Cubs' banged-up pitching staff manifested serious trouble for Craig Counsell's squad. With Cade Horton and Justin Steele out, the North Siders never enjoyed the benefit of operating at full strength on the mound. Imanaga could not place pitches with the consistency and precision he needed, and a puzzling drop in velocity turned his fastball into glorified batting practice. The emphatic loss brought the Cubs a game away from elimination. With orange-tinged ivy ringing the outfield, the grossly underrated Jameson Taillon and the Cubs delayed the Brewers' bliss by one more day with a stirring 4-3 victory in Wednesday's Game 3. Michael Busch is arguably the best thing going in a Cubs uniform, and proved it with his third homer of the postseason, a first-inning blast off of Chicagoland-native Quinn Priester. Priester was chased early from the contest, which saw the home team post a 4-spot in the first inning, their most runs scored in postseason baseball since 2017. The heroics of an inspired bullpen turned dejection into just the smallest glimmer, forcing a Game 4 the following evening. Every moment at Wrigley Field is memorable, but the Cubs' 6-0 blanking of the Brewers in Game 4 was one for the ages. It was a lockdown performance in all phases of the game, including from an offense which solved the mystery of scoring past the first inning. Marked by Ian Happ's breathtaking 3-run moonshot to deep right field, the whisper of hope for the Cubs in this Division Series turned into an all-out roar louder than the chants of "FRE-DDY" echoing throughout Wrigley Field. And then, on a chilly mid-October night in Milwaukee, the roar was silenced. This current Brewers club didn't earn its "Underdogs That Could" reputation by giving easy outs, and they didn't do that in this decisive contest, either. Drew Pomeranz was trusted with opening the do-or-die game. In a scenario where the Cubs desperately needed a clean first inning, the veteran hurler could not deliver. Pomeranz surrendered a first-inning blast to William Contreras that set a grim tone for the away team. Slugger Seiya Suzuki briefly evened the score, answering with a long ball of his own, but the Cubs' offense looked overmatched and exhausted in comparison to what Pat Murphy's club was able to orchestrate. In a cruel twist of fate, Kyle Tucker—in what was likely his last game as a Cub—whiffed on a 3-1, straight-down-the-pipe fastball that could have (at a minimum) tied the game, had he connected. Season disconnected. This season had almost everything. In winning 96 games, the organization announced that it holds itself to the same high standards the rest of us do. We also witnessed the meteoric rise of potential stars Pete Crow-Armstrong and Cade Horton. And in defeat, this season pointed out how far this team has to go in claiming the sport's ultimate prize. With the 10-year anniversary of the last World Series team looming in 2026, the coming months will reveal whether or not this organization will do what's necessary to dive even further into postseason waters. View full article

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images On the brink of elimination, it feels trivial at best to dissect the starting pitching choices Craig Counsell and his staff could have made. But, if this is coming to you postmortem, and you're looking to start your long offseason with more mental duress, take time here to consider the options on the bump that maybe, just maybe, could have led to more favorable outcomes for the Chicago Cubs. Now, before you take this into account, along with all the rest of the nightmare fuel this NLDS has provided, consider this: Yes, the Brewers are a better team, but with a healthy Cade Horton and Justin Steele, it wouldn't have mattered. The players play, and they're playing their way out of postseason contention, and right on up to a microphone for various "Year In Review" podcasts. Who could have saved us from this painful fate? Will it be better 365 days from now? The phrase "all hands on deck" is thrown around in playoff baseball so much you can barely remember who was the last to say it. But despite its overuse, the Chicago Cubs' gut-wreching defeats in Games 1 and 2 of their NLDS series with Milwaukee introduce the question: Are all of the right hands on deck? Or could they have perhaps benefited from Javier Assad being one of the crew? One in a long line of Cubs who spent large chunks of the 2025 campaign hampered by injuries, Assad, the 28-year-old righty, returned for some spot starts late in the regular season. He's got a loaded arsenal of diverse pitches he likes to work up in the zone with; no Brewers got a look at him during the regular season; and, best of all, he was fully rested. But, alas, one big thing he is not: an available player on the North Siders' current playoff roster. The disastrous fashion in which things played out has led to more second-guessing than overly nervous patrons playing bar trivia. Among those who did land a place on this roster: Michael Soroka, Jed Hoyer's ill-fated attempt at a trade deadline starting pitcher, who (since his return from injury) has contributed serviceable but brief work out out of the bullpen. No one knows what could have been from Soroka had he not immediately succumbed to injury over the summer. That's the strange thing, the closed storyline branches of what could have been rarely reveal themselves when reality takes over. Whether it was Matthew Boyd getting lit up on three straight doubles to open the game, Nico Hoerner's horrific groundball gaffe at second, or a night full of near-escapes turned three-run Brewers homers, we don't get to see the alternate versions of what the games would have otherwise looked like if those events hadn't occurred. One undeniable fact is that while the Brewers are no fluke of a team, their run-scoring is infectious. Once one gets going, the hits tend to come in waves. Back in August, when the Chicago Cubs took 3-of-5 from the Brewers, they were able to rattle off three wins in a row—including a doubleheader sweep—largely because they shut their lineup down. Outside of the first game of that contest, the Brewers did nothing to overwhelm the Cubs from an offensive perspective. Boyd surrendered game-altering hits that hung up in the zone, and it appeared as if Brewers hitters were waiting on them. Imanaga, whom Milwaukee did see three times this year, ran out of ways to fool them. Assad's most-used pitch, the sinker, produced a sparse few extra-base hits. Over 66 plate appearances in 2025, Assad, when deploying his sinker, gave up one double and one triple. "Stuff" like that may have produced far different outcomes than what we witnessed this past Saturday, and perhaps either: Assad cruises through more stingy innings; or Soroka doesn't enter the game with the most hopeless situation imaginable. Soroka, in his limited work with the club, hasn't had the chance to pitch in very high-leverage situations. In getting completely battered by the Crew's eager lineup, Boyd did not afford his teammate a high-leverage situation, it wasn't even low-leverage, it was a lost cause. Soroka's fastball, kept low, causes bats to go much colder than the ones he puts up. His more streamlined array of pitches relies on close to equal parts of ground balls and strikeouts. The kind of rhythm the Brewers had gotten into when Soroka entered the game allowed neither. Assad's capacity for limiting hard contact (and forcing early, weaker batted balls) would also have been a welcome change of pace from what Imanaga and Daniel Palencia managed Monday night. Every pitch matters in the playoffs, in a way that makes the drama every bit as palpable as any other playoff tournament across professional sports. Assad has a unique profile, leaning less on things that modern statistical models reward and understand than do the other players (Soroka, Ben Brown, even Aaron Civale) who got spots on this round's pitching staff instead of him. The Cubs trusted others more than him, but by now, they might be ruing that choice. View full article