This October, it will have been 10 years since the Cubs accomplished what generations of baseball fans and Chicagoans had long thought impossible: They won the World Series. It remains remarkable that that happened. I was there in Cleveland the night Anthony Rizzo caught that ball in his glove, and I kind of still can’t believe it was all real. But it was. It really was.
What is not commonly remembered today, 10 years later, is that the Cubs were actually considered a year or two early to the dance. They had made the playoffs the previous season, jumping from 73 to 97 wins but finishing only third in a hotly contested NL Central race behind the Cardinals and Pirates. The Cubs vanquished both of those division rivals in that 2015 postseason but were swept by the Mets in the NL Championship Series.
Heading into 2016, they were still considered young and maybe a little too green. They obviously refuted that rather definitively, but that just made it more exciting, because it meant that this team was just getting started. The 2016 Cubs’ roster was filled with young stars such as Kris Bryant (24), Anthony Rizzo (26), Jason Heyward (26), Kyle Hendricks (26), Jorge Soler (24), Willson Contreras (24), Javier Báez (23), Addison Russell (22) and Kyle Schwarber (23).
The presumption was that the 2016 Cubs title was just the first of many. This looked like a dynasty in the making.
It did not turn out that way. The Cubs lost to the Dodgers in the 2017 NLCS and the Rockies in the NL Wild Card Game in '18, before missing the playoffs entirely in '19. In the pandemic-shortened '20 season, they won the NL Central for the first time since ’17 but were swept by the Marlins in the NL Wild Card Series.
A year later, they had traded Báez, Rizzo and Bryant, part of the exodus from that 2016 team, frustrating Cubs fans and reminding everyone that 2016 wasn’t supposed to be everything. There was no question that, while flags fly forever -- especially that particular flag -- the Cubs had missed a huge opportunity to build something bigger. The Cubs had the title, all this young talent, a huge fan base and, presumably, tons of revenue to work with. How did that dynasty never happen?
Chicago missed the playoffs in four consecutive seasons, but last year’s team won 92 games, snapped that drought and won the team’s first playoff series since 2017, before falling one victory short of a trip to the NLCS. And now, coming off that step forward, they have Alex Bregman.
So the question must be asked: Are the Cubs finally throwing around their muscle in the NL Central the way their fans have been wanting them to? Is this the start of a new dynasty … in the division at least?
Obviously, on one hand, this is a silly question. If anyone is a currently a dynasty in the NL Central, it’s certainly not the Cubs: It’s the Brewers. Milwaukee has won the last three NL Central titles, and four of the last five, after all, and had the best record in baseball last year.
But the Cubs have always enjoyed advantages no one else in the NL Central has. They’re the Cubs, a global brand in a major market with a true American landmark in which to play its games. This was the initial promise of that Theo Epstein version of the Cubs: Build with young talent and then surround it with targeted spending -- spending you can do at a level no one else in your division can.
It sure looks like that’s what they’re finally doing.
Keeping Kyle Tucker -- whose lone season at Wrigley featured a fantastic first three months and a frustrating, injury-marred final four -- was never considered a serious possibility before he agreed to a mega-deal with the Dodgers on Thursday night. The Cubs could have afforded him, but you can’t blame him, or them, for perhaps looking elsewhere. Even with Tucker gone, this team has leveled up this offseason.
Trading for Marlins flamethrower Edward Cabrera, the sort of strikeout arm they desperately needed, was a surgical strike, and fortifying the bullpen with a wave of reasonable free-agent signings made sense. But the signing of Bregman was the big swing Cubs fans have been waiting for, the sort of deal that no one else in the NL Central is going to make. That’s the Cubs being the behemoth -- the bully. That’s how dynasties are made.
Meanwhile, the Brewers have spent the offseason trading away Isaac Collins and threatening to do the same with Freddy Peralta. The Reds went after Schwarber but ended up settling for … JJ Bleday. The Pirates brought in more offense than that, but you can make an argument that none of the hitters the Bucs have acquired would actually start for Chicago. And of course the Cardinals, the Cubs’ most hated rival, are in the early stages of what looks to be a from-the-studs-up rebuild, with only Brendan Donovan left to be traded after shipping out Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras this offseason. The Cards will be back eventually to challenge the Cubs, but it’s going to be a while.
Add it all together, and it sort of looks like the Cubs have the sort of runway they haven’t had since 2016. That was supposed to be the team of the future then. It didn’t turn out that way. It may well be setting up for the Cubs again, thanks to the Cubs finally using the advantages in the NL Central that they had all along.
Though, of course: Before we start doing too much dynasty talk, perhaps the Cubs can get past the Brewers first.