It’s over… it’s finally over. This 2022 Chicago Cubs season has been brutal. It’s been one of the roughest seasons in a long, long time. It was essentially a season of no hope, beginning with last year’s trade deadline, followed up by a pedestrian offseason. The Cubs were built to fail this year… and, spoiler alert, they did. In a division only rivaled in weakness by the AL Central, the powers that be over on Addison decided to “not try” this year… pocketing a boatload of cash, waiting for the “right time” to spend it. There is no joy in Wrigleyville…
That 2016 World Series is our saving grace. Part of me feels like it was decades ago; the other part of me can bring those feelings back like it was yesterday. After you win a championship, and since this was the Cubs’ first one in most of our lifetimes, how do you follow that up? Well, you try to keep the core together I would imagine. We have this experience only from the Bulls and the Blackhawks who were able to win multiple titles with the same core. There were different reasons for each of our one and done teams, like the 85 Bears, the 05 Sox. But the 2016 Cubs… we’d be different. We’d certainly be back again, with our young, history making team. Well, we were back in the postseason, which is goal #1. However, we never made it back to the World Series. We waited 5 years… maybe too long, maybe not long enough, and then blew it up. Thing I can never figure out, something I will never understand/agree with, is why. Yeah, give me spin story #1-10, but bottom line, we had a perennial playoff contender; when did we ever have that in Wrigley? With a team that plays 162 every year and is one of the lucky ones to move on to the postseason on a consistent basis, blowing up the team wasn’t the answer. Why did this team not go back to the World Series? Good question. But to blow up a team that is making the postseason consistently… stupid; nobody is convincing me otherwise.
2022 was like Year 1 of the “new core”. Who is that new core? Contreras, although he made it through this year’s trade deadline, is probably gone. J-Hey is gone. Kyle Hendricks, the last of the 2016 team, will be back… I think. Are we talking Ian Happ? He had a great year, better than I expected; guess I’m still not sold on him. Nico Hoerner; I like him. I can definitely see him part of the long term here. Who else position wise? Right. Maybe Suzuki, Velazquez hopefully… Morel? The Cubs need more talent… a lot of it. And yes, maybe we have more to build on with the pitching side of things. Certainly had a nice run to end the season, racking up great performances in meaningless games, but… to say we’re good with the guys we run out to the bump, would be stupid. The Cubs need pitching too. Great thing, the Cubs have money; question is: is 2023 the “right time” to spend it? If they don’t, we will see a repeat of 2022. I don’t think anybody wants that.
I watched less Cubs baseball this year than I have in probably almost a decade… even the shit years before 2015. Frustrated to the max with the team we’d fielded, not wanting to listen to Boog… thankfully there was Pat & Ron on the radio. I think I listened to the Cubs more on the radio this year; hey, I was still paying attention!!! Yes. This end of the season is mercy time, but hey… at least we don’t have to deal with not living up to expectations this year… since there were absolutely none. Go Cubs.
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