Chicago Cubs: Five reasons the Cubs haven’t returned to the World Series

Chicago Cubs: It is hard to have a consistent lineup when key positions are not solidified like they were in 2016.

It is fair to say the Cubs are missing Dexter Fowler more than they thought…or at least a guy like him. In other words, a solidified leadoff hitter. Fowler’s “You go, we go!” set up the Cubs offense for so many big days. His ability to have good plate appearances and get on base immediately put pressure on the opposing pitcher, who had to face the likes of Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant next.

Fowler deservedly got his big payday in St. Louis and there should be no ill-feelings toward his decision. The problem was the Cubs not filling that hole. How many experiments have there been over the past three years? Kyle Schwarber, Jason Heyward, Ben Zobrist, Jon Jay, Ian Happ, Albert Almora, etc. Rizzo obviously worked incredibly well when he was put there from time to time but he was being taken out of spots where he could be driving in runs. None of these experiments stuck around long.

The Cubs heavily relied on finding the leadoff solution in-house. They had a chance to pursue a guy like Lorenzo Cain in free agency but they did not go that direction. One could say hindsight is 20/20, that there was legit reason to believe they had players in the organization who could fill that role a few years ago, the fact is it just did not end up working.

It felt easy to trust the personnel of an organization that just won a title to be able to develop within, though one could also say they got to the point where expectations were so high they needed to put less stock in faith and pursue established talent.

Overall this offense has been all-or-nothing the past several years, and lack of leadoff is just one of the reasons why. This hurt them badly in the final stretch of 2018 when the offense “broke”.

Chicago Cubs: 2016 rotation was lethal and has underperformed since

One thing the Cubs have had the last few years was a really good rotation on paper. Since 2016 the Cubs rotation has consistently featured Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks, while seeing one last season from Jake Arrieta and John Lackey in 2017 and adding Jose Quintana, Yu Darvish, Cole Hamels and Tyler Chatwood along the way. Mixed in 2017-2018 we saw stretches of Mike Montgomery starts. There have been others to make starts but these are the main guys.

Overall the rotation just has not lived up to expectations after having an excellent 2016. It has never been awful but it has not been great. In 2016 the starters were first in baseball in ERA (2.96) with a top-five FIP (3.75). The next year, their ERA went up to 4.05 and climbed to 4.18 in 2019. Note in 2018 the starters had a FIP of 4.30 (3.84 ERA), which was middle of the pack.

What also hurts is that the past few years the starters are not going nearly as deep into games, which puts strain on the bullpen. Lots of high pitch counts from not putting hitters away and giving up a lot of contact has not been a recipe for going deep.

How has it come to this? A number of reasons. Lester has been worth every penny of the deal but everyone knew the final years of said contract would likely see a natural decline due to aging. Arrieta started to decline as well in 2017 and left to get paid in Philly, while Quintana has not been the consistent guy he was in the South Side.

Come 2018, Darvish had missed most of the year due to injuries and Chatwood struggled with command his first year posting a 8.2 BB/9. Hendricks has been far and away the most consistent starter of the bunch (3.33 ERA since 2017) and Hamels had a real nice stretch from late 2018-2019 but not enough to carry the rotation during their ups and downs.

It was almost impossible to sustain a rotation ERA under 3.00 in the coming years, but expectations were still higher for what they ended up being. An overall solid but not elite rotation.

Chicago Cubs: The supporting cast and farm is essential to a team’s success

In 2016 the core was surrounded by an overall reliable bullpen (Aroldis Champan really helped after Hector Rondon and Pedro Strop suffered injuries late in the year) and good lineup depth/bench. Having a great pinch-hitter like Tommy LaStella, utility men like Ben Zobrist and Chris Coghlan who could get on base, a veteran leader like David Ross, a slugging veteran in Miguel Montero, reliable long relievers in Travis Wood and Trevor Cahill and outfield depth piece in Matt Szczur helped the team tremendously. There were very little weaknesses on that roster and it is worth noting not a single one of these listed players remain.

Last season really saw the team struggle with both getting production out of their bench and relying on the bullpen. Hard to win when you are among the bottom four in save percentage. Since the past two years have seen few roster moves being made, developing assets from the farm has become more crucial. The farm since 2017 has produced a very mixed back of depth and the Cubs have not done much in terms of adding veteran bats the past few years. Adding Nicholas Castellanos at the deadline last year was an incredible, add but outside that they have not hit big on bat acquisition.

They are still hoping to see the likes of Albert Almora, Ian Happ, and Adbert Alzolay reach their full potential, which is something the Cubs banked on getting earlier. Solid depth has come from the farm in Victor Caratini, David Bote and Rowan Wick but there is hope to get more because they are going to need it. Kind of want to see that stud player that emerges from nowhere other contending teams seem to get. Hopefully Nico Hoerner can be a force moving forward and others can finally fully reach their potential as we have seen flashed of promise from most of them.

This can open up so many other tangents on the Cubs organization on the state of their farm, lack of offseason moves and trades that get questioned. However the main thing to take away is that the team just has not had the supporting cast to help get back to the World Series.

Chicago Cubs: Team has been bitten by the injury bug more often

Outside of Kyle Schwarber injuring his knee in early 2016 and a few very minor injuries here or there, the team had an incredible bill of health that was pretty much unsustainable. As the years have gone on, the more untimely injuries have piled up. This is really hard for the players to control and just happens via freak accidents.

2017 saw some nagging injuries with a big one being to Willson Contreras in August when he strained his hamstring running to first in a game in San Francisco. Contreras had to miss several weeks and was sitting at 21 homers and a .274/.342/.519 slash at the time. Luckily the Cubs still won the division, but it was still a tough loss.

2018 is really when the big injuries started to hit. Yu Darvish signed the big deal to replace Jake Arrieta and he only made eight starts before missing the rest of the season due to elbow problems. Kris Bryant missed 60 games in the latter months of the season and dealt with shoulder issues and also had the incident where he was hit in the head by a 96-mph fastball in Colorado that April. This was also the year Brandon Morrow their closer got hurt midseason and never played again and Pedro Strop, their overall best reliever, hurt his hamstring on the bases in September.

Go to 2019 and the injured list grew. Contreras suffered another hamstring injury in August, Javier Baez fractured his thumb in early September, Anthony Rizzo had the ugly ankle injury in mid-September, Craig Kimbrel went on the IL multiple times with elbow inflammation and Bryant rolled his ankle in late September causing him to miss the last week or so of the season. Also worth noting the non-injury related leave of absence Ben Zobrist had to take during most of the year.

Hard to sustain success when so many top players get hurt.

Chicago Cubs: Other teams have passed them by

Since 2016 the Cubs have been competing for the playoffs and made it two of the last three seasons, but unlike 2016 they were not necessarily the NL favorites. The fact of the matter is the Los Angeles Dodgers took the spot as the NL’s power house pretty fast. Since 2017 they have two pennants and have averaged 101 wins. We saw what they did to a Cubs team that was out of gas in the NLCS a few years ago.

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To the frustration of Cubs fans, they have seen teas in their own division pass them by. The Milwaukee Brewers under Craig Counsell tripped up the Cubs in 2018 and took a division title away from them and have finished above them in the standings since. Down the stretch in 2018 the Brewers outplayed and outcoached the Cubs big time. Even Christian Yelich came up and took a potential NL MVP award from Javier Baez that year. The team adjusted while the Cubs now are going to try to play catch up when (if) the season starts.

Other NL teams on the rise like the young Atlanta Braves were able to beat the Cubs good last year and the Washington Nationals finally rose above all to win a World Series.

Oh, we cannot forget to mention those dang Cardinals either getting revenge for the past several years in that four-game sweep at Wrigley Field. All those teams just mentioned made the playoffs last year while the Cubs did not, and most of them will be around to keep competing for a while.

One could probably dive a lot deeper into the reasons the Cubs have not made it back to the World Series since 2016. These reasons just show the tip of the iceberg. To sum it all up, they have overall been good just not good enough.