The reign of the Chicago Cubs as defending World Series champions is over -- or at least it will be when someone else wins the World Series. After winning the NL Central and taking a dramatic NLDS from the 97-win Washington Nationals, the 2017 Cubs are no more. They ran into a 2017-sized Los Angeles Dodgers buzzsaw in the NLCS, getting trounced in five games.
Despite no title, I think the season can be called a slight success, as the Cubs won the NL Central for the second straight season, making the playoffs for the third straight year for the first time since 1906-08. They also made the NLCS three straight years for the first time in franchise history and had the best record in the NL after the All-Star break by four games.
Of course, it was only moderately successful because the Theo Epstein regime has elevated this franchise to the point that not winning the NL pennant -- and maybe even not winning the World Series -- isn't good enough anymore.
How do they fix things this offseason to get back to the top of the baseball world? There are some questions to be answered.
The Rotation
Both Jake Arrieta and John Lackey head to free agency, so there are two natural holes here. Well, maybe.
Behind Kyle Hendricks, Jon Lester and Jose Quintana, could Mike Montgomery slot in here?
In 14 starts this season, Montgomery had a 4.15 ERA and 1.14 WHIP. His strikeout rate was actually higher as a starter than reliever and he's put together some very good outings. It's feasible that he could be a quality fifth starter on a good team, but he seems better suited in the role the Cubs have been using, which is long relief and an injury-replacement starter.
Simply: The Cubs need at least one starter and it's arguable to say they need two this offseason.
After several major trades the last few years, the farm system is pretty depleted in terms of prospect currency to trade, so the Cubs will need to look to free agency here. They do have tons of financial flexibility, too. The payroll was over $170 million this year and there's around $40 million coming off the books.
The hunch is this is an amicable breakup with Arrieta. He's just not really reliable anymore for full seasons in terms of command and he's about to get paid like an ace, in all likelihood. Obviously they could keep the dialogue open in case the price falls drastically, though.
Otherwise, the Cubs will target cheaper starting pitching options in free agency and I like them for Alex Cobb. Some other possible options: Andrew Cashner (full circle!), Tyler Chatwood, Jeremy Hellickson, Jaime Garcia or even a short deal for CC Sabathia.
The options don't sound great, but keep in mind this is for a fourth or fifth starter behind three excellent ones. A Cobb-Chatwood (check the road splits of the latter compared to Coors Field this past season) combo would work well.
Of course, there's also the big splash possibility of Shohei Otani. Due to him not waiting another year to jump to MLB, it might not even cost that much for this next season, either. It's all in the pitch, so to speak.
I guess the Cubs could also go crazy for free agent Yu Darvish, though the gut feeling is he sticks in L.A.
The bullpen
Wade Davis hits free agency and there's a very good discussion to be had about retaining him. The thought process in trading for him seemed to be that he was a one-year stop-gap until Carl Edwards Jr. was ready to take over as a full-time closer, but Edwards has been fickle enough with control to seriously question making him the top dog in the bullpen of a contender.
Brian Duensing is also a free agent.
Plus, one of the Cubs' biggest weaknesses all season was the eighth inning.
They could really use a pair of big back-end arms here, but we aren't sure how much money will be left after filling out the rotation.
It'll be a tricky proposition for the front office for sure.
Some good relievers available in free agency aside from Davis and Duensing: Addison Reed, Brandon Kintzler, Matt Belisle, Juan Nicasio, Bryan Shaw, Anthony Swarzak, Luke Gregerson, Tony Watson, Brandon Morrow and Jake McGee.
If I had to guess, I'd say they spend the bulk of the money on the rotation and grab something like a Shaw/McGee combo for the bullpen. There would be enough talent with a Shaw-McGee-Edwards-Pedro Strop-Hector Rondon (maybe, he was pretty broken for much of this year) back-end to put something good together. Then maybe something positive happens with a minor-leaguer, such as Dillon Maples (who got a cup of coffee in September). Maybe Justin Wilson bounces back and looks like he did with Detroit in the first half, too, as he can't possibly continue to be as bad as he was with the Cubs.
The Schwarber and/or Heyward question(s)
Unlike with pitching, the Cubs are loaded up on position players for the foreseeable future.
Ben Zobrist is still around for two more years and the following players are locked up through at least 2020: Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Addison Russell, Javier Baez, Willson Contreras, Ian Happ, Albert Almora, Jason Heyward, Tommy La Stella and Kyle Schwarber.
In looking at the above names, the Cubs are covered everywhere and, thanks to positional flexibility, in most places double covered.
Those who read Tom Verducci's wonderful book on the 2016 Cubs know how much Epstein in particular is committed to keeping Schwarber long term. He's a die-hard fan.
Schwarber got off to a miserable start in the 2017 season, to the point that he was demoted to the minors.
After coming back, Schwarber hit .255/.338/.565 with 18 homers in 200 at-bats after returning and that seems reasonable for how he'll perform moving forward. He's now spent over 1,100 big-league innings in left field in the regular season and, let's face it, he's simply never going to be better than bad out there.
Should the Cubs run out of spending money on pitching and still need another arm, it's reasonable to move Schwarber to an AL team. Even in an abbreviated and overall bad season, Schwarber still hit 30 home runs. Power is cheap these days, but guys capable of topping 45 in a season aren't.
Without Schwarber, the Cubs still have the following setup heading into 2017:
C: Contreras
1B: Rizzo
2B: Baez
SS: Russell
3B: Bryant
LF: Happ
CF: Almora
RF: Heyward
UT: Zobrist
Then there's La Stella, a backup catcher and another outfielder (maybe bring back free agent Jon Jay?).
If I had to guess, however, I'd say Schwarber isn't going anywhere. A lot of people really want to talk about it, so consider my job on this front done.
An idea that might sound crazy? Dealing Russell and putting Baez at short with Happ at second. That could probably land a good starter or reliever and free up more money to add to the pitching staff.
I tend to feel that both of these ideas are longshots, but sometimes front offices need to be creative and the Cubs need pitching while not having the prospects needed to make big-time trades. It's free agency or trade big-leaguers.
Of course, then there's Heyward. He's still a great fielder and baserunner, but it's fair to say now after two seasons that we might never see him be a passable corner-outfield bat again. Is there any way in the world the Cubs can trade him along with the six years and $134-plus million left on his deal? They'd probably have to eat a ton of the money, but if they could make it work, look back at the above positional alignment and go with Schwarber in left, Almora in center and Happ in right for the regular lineup.
Overall, the 2018 Cubs will likely enter the season similar to 2017, as the favorites in the NL Central. There's just some work to be done by the front office in the coming months to make sure that's the case. They need 1-2 starters, at least two late-inning relievers and trading Schwarber or Heyward might be the best route in helping to accomplish all of it.
