Chicago Cubs Rumors: Team to focus on arms, won’t count on Yu Darvish

Chicago Cubs: Theo isn’t betting on big things from Darvish

I have to give Theo a lot of credit here. Despite banking his offseason on Yu Darvish, he’s not about to gamble the success of this year’s team on the big right-hander.

"“Just making an educated guess,” Epstein said. “You can’t be overly reliant on someone who hasn’t been able to go out there and perform this year. At the same time, you do track the rehab closely. You try to figure out what he may be able to do because for a long time, he felt really well. However, if you put yourself in a position where you are overly reliant and defending on it at this point, it is on you then — the fates.”"

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck? It’s probably a duck. Darvish has. performed poorly, has missed two full months on this current DL stint alone and, at this point, is the biggest question mark on the Chicago roster.

The Cubs would be better trotting out Mike Montgomery or Jose Quintana in a postseason series right now than hoping for Darvish to pitch like he did as an opponent last fall against his current team. You don’t know what you’re going to get anymore – and Epstein knows this team has too much talent to bet it on his return.

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If Darvish can come back and be what we all expected, then any moves Epstein makes in coming days and weeks only look better. You can never have too much pitching – and, thankfully, this seems to be the modus operandi the front office is operating on.