One key element is missing from the construction of the 2025 Cubs starting rotation

The 2025 Chicago Cubs' goal is clear: make the postseason. Once there, the hope is that the nature of the game can open a window of opportunity for them to make a run in October, even if they lack the star power of the Dodgers. It's not quite the goal fans want to have, considering the heavy reliance on hope, and to win the postseason you have to get there first. Regardless, that is the goal and important element of winning in the postseason is pitching.

Looking at the starting rotation alone, it looks to be good enough to win in the regular season, but what it lacks compared to the Cubs last window in 2015-2020 is postseason experience.

Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, Colin Rea, Javier Assad, Ben Brown, and Jordan Wicks have a combined zero innings pitched in the postseason. Jameson Taillon has 4.1 career postseason innings, all pitched in 2022 with the Yankees. Matthew Boyd boasts 12 career postseason innings, 11.2 of them coming with Cleveland last year (0.77 ERA, 14 strikeouts and 1.1 WHIP). To be fair to Imanaga, he did pitch in the 2023 World Baseball Classic which is a pretty big stage, but MLB postseason is a beast of its own.

To put this in perspective, compare this to 2015-2016. When they rose to legitimacy in 2015, their key move was bringing in an all-time postseason great in Jon Lester who won two rings in Boston and boasted 84 career postseason innings pitched. Jason Hammel also had 15 innings under his belt entering 2015. Come 2016, they brought in John Lackey, who had 127.1 postseason innings, and like Lester, also won two World Series championships; he notably pitched in the World Series clinchers for both of them (2002 with the Angels and 2013 with the Red Sox). There was value in having "postseason masters" in the rotation during those runs.

Does this disqualify the Cubs' current starters from having postseason success? Absolutely not. To be fair, looking back at 2015, neither Jake Arrieta nor Kyle Hendricks had pitched in the MLB postseason before, and we saw how well they pitched in October even in that first year. Go even further back to 22-year-old Mark Prior in 2003, who sported a 2.31 ERA that postseason. Heck, that entire 2003 rotation barely had any experience as well. There is no saying that if the Cubs get to the postseason, we cannot see the likes of Steele, Imanaga, Brown, etc., do great things.

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Another thing to keep in mind is if the Cubs are in the race at the deadline, they could acquire another veteran starter who has pitched in the Big Dance before. What the staff looks like now will not look the same when we approach the end of 162. Plus, the dynamic of pitching has changed over the last few years, and teams in regular and postseason don't necessarily handle starters quite the same way they did even a decade ago. There is a lot more "staff" usage in games -- look at the Rays or the Dodgers 2024 postseason run. Sometimes, it's out of strategy, and other times out of necessity with injuries.

Overall, the situation the Cubs rotation is in does not doom them, but it is nice to have that type of experience on the team. That can be acquired or they can roll the dice if they indeed make it.