The Chicago Cubs Are in Gentle Decline
“Who doesn’t enjoy going downhill? That’s when you get to stop pedaling.” – Christian Finnegan
Every successful thing has a peak. The Romans had the Pax Romana. Napoleon had the Battle of Austerlitz. The Simpsons had the Who Shot Mr. Burns? cliffhanger. For the early 21st-century Cubs, it was Michael Martinez grounding out on a mild November evening, giving the team its first World Series championship since 1908. Moistened by celebratory alcohol, this was almost certainly the peak for these Cubs, and even a second championship probably wouldn’t touch the magic of this moment.
Since 2016, the Cubs finished each season a bit less successfully than the previous one. The 2017 team dropped four of five to the Dodgers in the NLCS, and the 2018 team’s end came in a wild card game against the Colorado Rockies. The 2019 team didn’t even make it into October.
The club’s dynasty was built on developing players from within and using their big-market financial heft to play in free agency. These two ingredients have faded into the background in recent years as the team’s farm system has been weakened from trades and graduations while ownership has increasingly embraced a more frugal financial strategy. The Cubs are a team in decline, to the point at which they’re just any old NL Central contender, not a behemoth pushing around the Cardinals or Brewers or Reds.
The silver lining is that decline can take a while. As my colleague Craig Edwards noted in a recent piece, the Cubs still have a very potent core, despite their uninspiring 84-78 record. Decline isn’t necessarily collapse. The Roman Empire limped on for 300 years after Marcus Aurelius, and the Byzantine offshoot lasted longer than a millennium. It took a decade after the Treaty of Tilsit to remove Napoleon for good. The Simpsons had memorable episodes for a long time after its peak, and presumably, somebody is still watching the show, now in its 31st season.
The current Cubs are not yet done, but you can see the end on the horizon.
The Setup
Is there such a thing as a humiliating 95-win season? If there is, the 2018 Cubs may have been the best example of it. After spending the first couple months hovering around the .500 mark, the Cubs surged to reclaim first place in July. In early September, the team opened up a five-game lead in the NL Central and had pulled to within a game of the Dodgers for the best record in the National League. They then collapsed without actually collapsing, blowing the divisional lead despite a respectable 16-12 September record. The Brewers went 19-7 that month, tying the Cubs for first place on the last day of the season. After two months of firm control, it took the Cubs just one game to lose the division and then another loss to end their season.
Faced with a division they couldn’t dominate, the Cubs had a quiet offseason that year. Only two players making more than a million dollars were signed over the winter in Daniel Descalso and Brad Brach. After ranking 10th in the majors in positional WAR and 14th in pitching WAR in 2018, the team spent the offseason only tinkering slightly around the edges. After the Cardinals acquired Paul Goldschmidt, the Cubs’ response was to cheerfully announce they were out of money:
While claiming he’s confident there is no collusion occurring in baseball, Chicago Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts explained why his team didn’t spend money — and still won’t — on free agents this offseason.
“That’s a pretty easy question to answer,” Ricketts said Monday. “We don’t have any more.”
The Cubs did not make up for the lack of investment by making trades. Rowan Wick, acquired from the Padres in a quiet November deal, turned out to be a nice addition, but Rowan Wick was never going to determine the fate of the 2019 Cubs.
The Projection
Despite the lack of offseason vim and vigor, the Cubs still entered the season as the slight NL Central favorite by the ZiPS projections. The 87-win forecast in March just barely edged out that of the Cardinals (86) and Brewers (85) and was the lowest win projection for any divisional favorite coming into the season. Where ZiPS was very confident in the Cubs making the playoffs before 2017 and 2018, the general strengthening of the National League left the club as only a projected coin flip for a 2019 playoff appearance.
ZiPS was especially concerned about the outfield and only projected Kyle Schwarber, Jason Heyward, and a center field blend of Albert Almora Jr. and Ian Happ to combine for just 5.2 WAR. That’s not quite the bleak, empty, Kafka-esque landscape ZiPS projected for San Francisco’s outfield, but it looked like a real weakness for the Cubs that they spent little effort in addressing.
When it came to the starting pitching, ZiPS had a sunnier forecast. Yu Darvish’s bounce-back 2.8-WAR projection was the worst total for a starting pitcher. Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks, Jose Quintana, and Cole Hamels were all expected to have three-to-four win seasons.
The Results
Rather than one season, 2019 for the Cubs felt like several “mini-seasons,” with tones ranging from upbeat bubblegum pop to Black Francis during a particularly mopey week.
The first few weeks felt like a bit of a rerun, as the team struggled out of the gate to a 5-9 record. Not counting 0-1 starts to the season, the Cubs hit the bottom of the division for the first time since 2014. This time, the pitching was to blame; Cubs starters ranked 29th in the majors in WAR with the worst BB/9 rate in baseball. No blame can be assigned to the offense at this point, and Heyward got off to a hot enough start (.375/.460/.700, 0.8 WAR in 50 PA) to start some speculation that he discovered the player left behind in Atlanta and St. Louis. No starting pitcher injuries were causing these struggles either, and the Cubs were left to just wait around for the pitching issues to work themselves out.
With an ERA of 6.00, the bullpen was even worse, but at this point, the team had real hopes that Brandon Morrow would return in the near future. Those hopes were dashed as further elbow soreness kept him from throwing a live a batting practice. Morrow later received an injection of lubricant in his elbow, but the team at this point still believed it could get Morrow back for the second half of the season.
Waiting around for the rotation to fix itself appeared to bear fruit for the Cubs. Over the next six weeks, the team went 25-11, establish a 2 1/2 game lead in the division. The rotation went 13-7 with a 3.16 ERA. Darvish was still struggling with his control, allowing 27 walks in 43 innings, but he was at least staying healthy and not pitching poorly enough to drag down the rest of the starters. Meanwhile the offense kept cruising, with half the team’s lineup posting a wRC+ north of 140 during this period: Kris Bryant (178), Anthony Rizzo (174), Javier Baez (148), and Willson Contreras (147) were all on fire. Bryant hit 11 homers in 36 games, effectively silencing any remaining worries about lingering power issues related to his shoulder.
Most of the team’s “name brand” talent was doing pretty much what was expected, but there were some hints about deeper problems with the team. The bullpen wasn’t a disaster, but with Pedro Strop missing a month with a sore hamstring and no good news about Morrow’s recovery, things looked awfully thin. Heyward returned to earth, and it appeared that ZiPS’ worries about the offense from the outfield were well-founded. Happ, who was demoted in the spring to work on reducing his strikeouts, wasn’t exactly lighting the Pacific Coast League on fire, so he didn’t look like a quick fix.
Chicago’s run didn’t last. The team spent the next two months struggling, going 27-30 into the trade deadline. The Cubs finally took a more active approach to the team’s weak points, addressing the outfield and the bullpen as they ought to have done seven months earlier. Enough money was found squirreled away in the cushions to sign Craig Kimbrel to a three-year, $43 million contract. Out of in-house solutions for fixing the outfield issues, Nicholas Castellanos was acquired from the Tigers, forcing Heyward into a center field timeshare with Almora.
Kimbrel alternated between being injured and pitching terribly, but Castellanos proved a revelation for the Cubs. He hit eight home runs in his first 19 games with his new team, and with the Cardinals and Brewers having quiet deadlines, it appeared that he might help enough for the Cubs to pull away. Enough, at least, for me to write a headline that I’ll wince about for the rest of my career.
The good times didn’t last. From the point that the Cubs established a 3 1/2 game lead on the back of a cruising Castellanos, the team went 21-26. A nine-game losing streak in September, punctuated by getting swept the by the Pirates (a collapsing team praying for the end of the season), bombed Chicago’s last chance at snagging the second wild card spot.
What Comes Next?
Despite the negative tone of this piece, the Cubs still retain playoff-caliber core of talent. The 2019 season did not negatively change how we should think of Bryant, Rizzo, or Baez, and the Cubs still have the makings of a solid rotation, especially given Darvish’s improvements over the course of the season (more below). But the supporting talent is on the weak side for a top contender, and with Castellanos a free agent, the fundamental issues surrounding the outfield remain.
The team’s farm system rankings improved over the season, going from 25th to 20th on THE BOARD. That’s undoubtedly good news for the organization, but it remains difficult to see exactly who in the minors would push the Cubs forward in 2020. Adbert Alzolay is probably the name I’d guess is the most likely to break out and make a real contribution, but him replacing Hamels’ 2019 performance strikes me as far-fetched.
Chicago may not want to spend, but they need to spend. They ought to be in the market for a second baseman, at least one outfielder, and about half of a bullpen worth of relievers. These things will not come cheaply, nor do I think they have the prospects to trade to fill all these needs. I agree with Craig that the Cubs look like an 85-to-90 win team entering the winter, but I think this is all they look like. That win total is predicated on the notion that there are no nasty surprises from Bryant, Rizzo, and the rest of the classic Cubsiverse. Life has a way of supplying those nasty surprises, and that win projection feels precarious to me; the current roster has a lot farther to fall than grow.
Complicating the situation is how many key parts of the team hit free agency after 2020 or 2021. Just retaining most of Bryant, Baez, Rizzo, Quintana, and Lester will require a larger payroll than the Cubs have today.
The Absitively, Posilutely, Way-Too-Early ZiPS Projection – Yu Darvish
In April and May, Darvish allowed at least three walks in a game in nine different starts. From July on, he only had a single game in which he allowed more than one. Darvish going from a 12% walk rate before the All-Star Game to 2% after the break is one of the starkest changes for a pitcher that I can recall after following baseball obsessively for 35 years. Batters started swinging at Darvish’s offerings outside the strike zone again, partially due to Darvish adopting a knuckle-curve late in the season to add a harder breaking pitch to his repertoire. Pitchers sometimes struggle for years to add new pitches, and Darvish added his just by having a conversation with Craig Kimbrel and a warmup session.
Darvish, who arguably throws seven different offerings, is a nightmare for pitch classification algorithms, but if the resurgence holds up, it’s a dream for the Cubs. Having Darvish’s big contract work out in the end, unlike Heyward’s, might also have the happy consequence of making the Cubs a bit more willing to spend.
| Year | W | L | ERA | G | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | SO | ERA+ | WAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 9 | 5 | 3.47 | 27 | 27 | 153.0 | 124 | 22 | 46 | 188 | 127 | 3.5 |
| 2021 | 7 | 5 | 3.58 | 24 | 24 | 135.7 | 113 | 19 | 42 | 161 | 123 | 3.0 |
| 2022 | 7 | 5 | 3.78 | 24 | 24 | 133.3 | 115 | 20 | 42 | 154 | 117 | 2.6 |
| 2023 | 7 | 4 | 3.77 | 22 | 22 | 124.0 | 107 | 19 | 39 | 143 | 117 | 2.5 |
ZiPS is still hedging bets on Darvish’s innings totals — unsurprising given his history — but the computer is confident that his late-season improvements are largely real. Stats like swing percentage and first-strike percentage tend be leading indicators of walk rate, and despite him struggling early in the year, both of those numbers were career-highs in 2019. I wouldn’t be surprised if, when running the final projections, Darvish’s projected WAR/150 IP comes out near the top of the Cubs rotation for 2020.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
I am not saying this is directly related to the price of a beer at Wrigley, but after winning the series they had the audacity, nay recklessness to increase the price all the way to $9.75.
Does anyone think ticket or beer revenues have anything to do with the Cubs’ spending? They’ve been insanely profitable for 20 years now and that was before they bought up half of Wrigleyville and got their own TV network. The owners don’t want to spend like the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox, and that’s fine, but its purely their choice.
Isn’t the new TV network for the Cubs just starting this season? So really not seen any impact of that at all as of yet….
“The owners don’t want to spend like the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox, and that’s fine, but its purely their choice.”
The Cubs’ 2019 Opening Day payroll – by both cash spending this year and the CBT calculation – was higher than both the Yankees and Dodgers. The Red Sox were #1 and the Cubs were #2.
I, too, winced when I was reminded of the “Slowly Pulling Away” headline. Those were hopeful, better days!
Good.
The Cubs Jump-The-Shark moment occurred when Anthony Rizzo was seen yukking it up in the dugout while being eliminated by the Rockies.
Gerardo Parra was on the Rockies that game …. Baby Shark doo doo doo doo doo doo!!!
Dan, what’s the outlook on Nico Hoerner? Do you think he will make the roster out of ST and start at SS or 2B?
Thanks
I’m not Dan, just nosy, and I will offer an answer anyway. I think Hoerner is trade bait during the offseason. If he isn’t traded he’ll probably compete for the 2B job in ST if they haven’t acquired anyone/anyone better but starting the year in AAA seems most likely
Thanks SeniorGato!
#pedantry: The Treaty of Tilsit was in 1807 and confirmed Napoleon’s dominance over Central Europe. He wasn’t removed for good until Waterloo in 1814 and Congress of Vienna the following year.
I meant that in the sense that was about the high-water mark for Nappy and the tide slowly going against him took a long time to wash him out to sea.
Fair – I think I misread your point the first time!
Dan, I’m interested to hear feedback on why everyone points the finger at the Ricketts family being ‘frugal’.
In 2018 and 2019 the team was a top 5 spender. At what point should we be saying Theo has underperformed? Ricketts recently jumped on the radio here in Chicago and talked about moving away from the idea of ‘windows’ for contention. Who’s fault should it be when the GM uses his assigned budget as he sees fit – and these are the results?
I don’t have the info, but I also wonder how many teams in 2018 and 2019 paid the luxury tax
Don’t forget the failure to develop any pitching during his tenure hence the necessity to spend on pitching in dollars and prospects. Yeah, Theo and player development deserves most of the blame here.
I’m not sure Epstein should necessarily get the credit, but Hendricks debuted two years after he took over the Cubs.
The numbers that I’ve seen for 2019 are that the Cubs’ payroll isn’t just top 5 but top 2 – after only the Red Sox – whether going by Opening Day 25-man payroll or end of year estimated payroll for the CBT calculation.
Ricketts talking about the Cubs being “out of money” was extremely foolish from a PR standpoint, but I was hoping that Dan would go beyond the common narrative and write more about the numbers of what the Cubs are actually spending and how the front office has used that money. And one takeaway for me is that it becomes apparent that the payroll dollars quickly add up when a team is paying free agent-level salaries for about half of its roster. (For the Cubs, that’s Heyward plus close to an entire pitching staff.)
I must respectfully disagree with a core part of your analysis:
The series peak for the Simpsons was *clearly* the Homer At The Bat episide!
And this, boys and girls, is what happens when you barely develop any pitching during the rebuilding process…
Homer at bats?
When I started saying this in 2017 the $/WAR was too good and emotions were higher therefore I was carazy. Now that it’s mainstream opinion, meh too late 2019’s over everyone missed their shot the past three years to call it Cubs just bottomed out on the way back up thanks
I would argue this was the end of the Cubs season.
https://www.mlb.com/news/yadier-molina-paul-dejong-back-to-back-home-runs
Cubs bullpen may not have been terrible but closers were terrible all year. $19M on Morrow and Kimbrel -with 2 more years of Kimbrel at $16M don’t give you a lot of optimism.
Bullpens are overrated
Only if you spend over $110 MM on SPs.
truth
One title is not much of a dynasty. As to the spending issue, there certainly seems to be a gentle/gentlemen’s agreement to stay under the cap if possible. Seems teams like the Cubs are very profitable, and have increased dramatically in value, so this crying poverty is absurd. Perhaps if the Ricketts weren’t so busy contributing to Trump they could spare the time and money to improve their team. If a billionaire is willing to compromise a 3 or 4 billion asset over 30 or 40 million, then they get what they deserve. Same goes for the Yankees, Red Sox or any other wildly profitable company that chooses to pinch pennies.
As a Giants fan I have learned firsthand that a sports dynasty can come crashing down very quickly. At All Star break 2016 the Giants had the best record in baseball and the core of three World Championships largely intact. What happened after that?
I remember the 87 win ZiPS projection being riduculed by Cubs fans and Madden as being inaccurate and out of touch with reality because the Cubs were much better than that. As it turned out it was too optimistic.
This is a tiny “issue”, but, to be fair, being within 3 wins of a projection is pretty much a bull’s eye. Being under by that margin won’t make it too optimistic and being over won’t make it pessimistic. The primary reason for this is because the projection is Pythag based and Pythag has an error range of (drumroll, please)… usually 3-4 games.
Most interestingly, Cubs actual results were well under their Pythag based on real runs scored vs allowed. Given their 814-717 RS-RA spread (+97 differential), they should’ve won 91 games (both the basic James Pythag and Pythagenpat come up with that). It can readily be described how this in conjunction with the Brewers (769-766; +3 differential) significantly overperforming their Pythag made the difference in who got to the playoffs.
amazing what good A level bullpens can do(by A level I mean the guys that are used to close out games you’re leading). Cubs lost 15 games when leading entering 7, 11 entering 8th, and 8 when entering 9th. brewers on the other hand 6 when entering 7th, 7 when entering 8th, and only 3 when entering 9th….
Beating Pythag…the new market inefficiency
Loved the history references. I’ve often wondered if there is a correlation between liking baseball and liking history.
This is going to be an interesting offseason. As much as it pains me, I think it is time to cash in some of the bigger stars on this team to begin a rebuild. Rizzo would be hugely valuable to the Yankees or Red Sox at first base and could net a nice return. Baez is one of the best defensive shortstops in the league, but his hitting will never be better than it is now. I say get value for him while you can. Bryant should be an option for teams that miss on Rendon/Donaldson this offseason and could gain a lot of current and future value for the Cubs. Contreras should be an attractive asset to about 25 teams around the league and Caratini is good enough if the plan is to tear down this club. Quintana and Lester are in contract years and should be moved in July if the team is out of contention.
IMO, I think the Cubs should also think about adding prospects (perhaps even prospects received in the trades consummated above) to ugly contracts to move them from the team. Heyward isn’t going anywhere, but perhaps the Cubs could get nibbles for Kimbrel, Darvish, or Chatwood.
This team has not been the same since losing Dexter Fowler. Having a consistent center fielder and lead-off hitter has hamstrung this team for three straight seasons. I’m not advocating that they should have paid him $15M per year, I’m just saying that it has been a missing piece for a long time. Until they find a consistent leadoff hitter that can threaten teams with a ~.350+ OBP, the offense will never be as strong as it can be.
To ask this team to take a major step forward is pretty laughable. Dan is right- there is so much more room to fall than to grow. So while this plan will be completely unpopular and it will make me nauseous every time I see Rizzo in a Red Sox or Yankee jersey, it is time to start building the next championship team instead of waiting around for this core to get back to previous levels.
Have to agree that the author is not focused enough on what the Cubs actually stand to spend. They have a ton of money tied up already. Hard to see how anyone says this front office has been cheap.
Also take some issue with comments here about how the team has not developed pitching. I get that it is true, but I also don’t think it was their focus even as they fell on their sword repeatedly admitting they had not developed pitching.
When they built that 2016 team they did it after drafting bats and they kept drafting bats once they were competitive – Happ and Nico. And they spent their money and trade chips largely on getting ML established pitching. That was how they kept the window open. Lester, trading for Arrieta and Strop (one of the greatest trade hauls in club history), signing Cole, trading for Quintana, trading for Chapman and Davis. And by and large they have flipped some of the pitching down in the minors and did so pretty well. Phelps was acquired for Hatch and Castellanos was acquired for Lange. Neither of those guys were hair on fire type pitching prospects but rather just likely depth pieces on a major league roster some day.
For the Cubs all the bills are now about to come due as the core group of hitters hits arbitration and will all hit FA a the same time. And the pitching they have relied on is getting longer in the tooth or about to come off contracts themselves. So they front office is faced with two choices. Cash in big time and do a full on rebuild or try to retool on the fly.
It is very hard to justify the first course of action given the team still won 84 games last year and could also gain cost certainty on key pieces of the roster longer term by extending a couple of those guys who will hit free agency in 2021 or 2022. If you sign Javy Baez now it will be at a discount to what he will get in FA in a couple of years if he stays healthy. Same thing for Rizzo, Bryant, Contreras and Schwarber (if they keep producing). But there is no way the Cubs could possibly afford to sign all of those guys now or when they actually hit FA. And I really don’t care what happens with the new CBA in a year or two. Those guys are all going to get paid if they stay relatively healthy and go into FA. The Cubs cannot afford to keep them all.
So what do they do? I think they take a hard look at a retool that doesn’t crater the team but puts them in a position to remain relevant longer term. So that means they have to look at what they have down on the farm, what holes they need to plug now and what they need to do to strengthen longer term. Tough needle to thread, but they have to try and do it.
That has to start by looking at the farm system. It is not lacking in talent so much as the talent is very young and is mostly in the form of pitchers with good ceilings but uncertain floors. The fact is they have drafted a lot of arms in the last several drafts. A lot the best pitching prospects are 19-20 years old. They signed Gallardo last year and he was considered the primo international pitching prospect. Marquez is well known and also very young. Franklin can throw four pitches and scouts love his frame. Cruz came on strong last year. Last year they took both the guy with the best fastball and the guy with arguably the best curve ball in the draft. Etc. Of course how many of those guys actually work out I have no idea. But the philosophy is hard to knock. They didn’t trade away Adbert or Abbott who are more likely to add depth sooner and they kept all the young arms with the biggest projection.
The field players in the farm system have some depth pieces in guys like Zach Short and only one or two potential impact guys. Davis looks like he could be an everyday major leaguer. And Amaya looks
similar. But there are literally no power bats down on the farm.
So, to summarize, the farm needs an impact bat or two and a sort of can’t miss starter. If they get those things in a trade or two you suddenly have a farm system that looks like a top 10 system. That’s how quickly the script can turn.
That brings us to the current roster. How can Epstein and Hoyer not trade away one piece of that core right now. I get that losing a big bat in Contreras, Rizzo or Bryant will hurt. But it will not be a death tune for the team remaining competitive. No matter what they do this offseason they are not going to be projected to win 95 games bc they can’t afford to go out and sign a big time stud. But they could keep most of this core and with some outperforms be a real contender still. They need a guy who can get on base or two more consistently. That won’t cost a fortune and could come within a trade. And they need some luck with the bullpen getting better which they may be able to fix largely from within.
And without a doubt if they don’t trade one of their big core bats right now they will get far less value as remaining service time erodes. You have to sell someone while there is still significant value to be gained by the trade.
So now who do they look to flip knowing they can’t afford everyone long term. The easiest guy to trade is probably Contreras because he has the most control and comes at the lowest cost in terms of salary to the buyer. So who are the teams that think they are close to winning right now and what do they have the Cubs could use now and in the future. The Braves, Dodgers, Astros, Padres, Rays, Phillies and others could all use Contreras. And I don’t see any FA’s they could expect to produce at anything close to his level. No way Contreras doesn’t net you a top prospect and a couple of other solid players. Schwarber doesn’t make much sense to trade right now as I don’t think he nets you a big haul. Would they trade Rizzo or Bryant? If they do it better be for a big haul. Rizzo is a premium fielder and a left handed bat with a great approach. Hardest guy to trade in my view as he’s the guy I’d most want to keep along with Baez. My best guess is they flip Contreras and get two really good prospects back – not dissimilar to what the White Sox did when the Cubs took on Quintana. And if this team is flagging at the trade deadline get ready to see another big piece shipped off, probably Bryant who has Boras as his agent and that makes him the least likely to sign an extension early.
To me the scenario that seems most likely is the team works out an extension with two of Bryant, Rizzo, Baez and Contreras and is trying to lever the other two into young talent that keeps the team relevant for the long haul. And I would not put it past them to be opportunistic in shipping off a veteran arm either. That though comes with a huge risk to the current staff being effective. So maybe that pitching trade is more likely at the trade deadline when the Cubs know what they have better (good or bad) and teams are willing to pay something to get over the top more than they are right now.
The path you’re suggesting is of course the most logical- sell off valuable assets while keeping the team competitive. Unfortunately, it’s rarely done well and leads to long periods of mediocrity. Teams like the Angels, Giants, and Red Sox are cautionary tales for the Cubs. All big market teams, all big spenders, and all tried to keep the band together too long. I’m not advocating a Marlins-esque fire-sale, but I am advocating that the Cubs reset the budget enough that they can be spenders in free agency. If you’re asking for improvement (or, frankly, the same performance) from Lester, Heyward, Schwarber, and most of the bullpen, I think you’re wishing. There just isn’t enough here to challenge the Cards and Brewers, let alone the Dodgers or Nats. Accept that fact, turn over some of the stars, and find the next championship team for the Cubs.
One caveat: I’m guessing Ross didn’t sign on for a major overhaul of the roster. He’s going to get 1-2 years to win a championship with this roster. After that, all bets are off.