Painful play unlikely to stop but shouldn’t resemble ’22
When a team trades away one-third of its opening-day roster, especially when nearly all of those moves coming within a week span, the quality of play inevitably diminishes.
Look no further than the Cubs the last two weeks. Since the July 30 trade deadline, the Cubs were 2-12 entering Saturday night and have surrendered double-digit runs in each of their last three games, all losses.
There already have been plenty of ugly moments since the sell-off, including Friday’s 14-10 loss to the Miami Marlins: The Cubs surrendered a double-digit inning for the second time this season, something that hadn’t happened since 1975, according to team historian Ed Hartig. The Cubs have been setting a lot of “first time since” lately — and not the good kinds of records or notable moments.
The Cubs embraced this path as a means to improve their long-term outlook, but when trading away All-Star talent and filling those holes with veterans and inexperienced minor-leaguers, the margin for error significantly drops.
The Cubs are using the final six weeks of the season to evaluate who warrants consideration beyond this season. That doesn’t make games such as Friday’s or the ugly 0-7 homestand any easier to endure for players or fans.
There is an expectation, however, that this stretch for a transitional roster over the final 44 games will not be indicative of what 2022 will be like for the Cubs.
“As far as the wins and losses from it, it shouldn’t be at all,” Kyle Hendricks said as the team embarked on a six-game trip. “You’ve got to focus on the process right now . ... You’ve got to roll with the punches in this environment right now.”
President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer on Thursday said he understood fans who might be concerned or freaked out by what has transpired.
Some injuries — such as catcher Willson Contreras (knee) and starter Adbert Alzolay (hamstring) being placed on the injured list — haven’t helped either.
But the decrease in top talent, subpar on-field performances and the front
office’s wait-and-see offseason approach with the impending impact of a new collective bargaining agreement have created external skepticism as to how they will be competitive next season while building the “next great Cubs team.”
“Obviously we’re playing short-handed, and I think that’s very clear — we’re not going to be playing short-handed going forward,” Hoyer said Thursday. “For the next couple months, we’re going to have to play short-handed and give a lot of opportunities, and my guess is that we’ll find some interesting things over the next two months. But those will be probably individual one-off things that we can use going forward, and it’s exciting to be able to let these guys have opportunities to play and to prove that.”
Hoyer cited what the Cubs were able to do between 2012-14 with opportunities converting into contributors on their winning teams. He specifically referenced reliever Héctor Rondón, who went from being a Rule 5 pick in 2012 to recording 18 saves and a 3.53 ERA the year they won the World Series.
“We were able to do that because over where we were, and we can now do that for the next couple months,” Hoyer said. “But as far as representative of what we’re
going to be going forward, not at all.”
Rafael Ortega and Patrick Wisdom have impressed since getting called up in May — although they are older, 30 and 29 years old, respectively, than someone like Rondón in the prime of his career at the time. Even so, the Cubs need solid, reliable players regardless of whether they might be a key piece of whenever the organization delivers its next successful postseason stretch.
“Obviously we have a number of holes to fill this winter, and we want to field a really good team,” Hoyer said. “Seeing what the rules of our game are before we make significant decisions is just pretty straightforward and obvious.”
The free-agent class has the type of top-end talent that immediately can bolster a team. It’s too soon to say what level of aggressiveness the Cubs will take in that market, but the opportunity will be there to add impactive talent. Finding the right fit, such as when the Cubs signed Jon Lester to a six-year deal before the 2015 season, is a factor too.
While the front office works out the specifics in the coming months of the roster-building blueprint they want to follow, there are also two truths. If the Cubs plan to avoid a similar rebuild to what the franchise and fandom endured the first time, there will be a means to do so — cha-ching. They cannot fall short in developing their younger, big-league starting pitchers and progressing MLB-caliber talent through the minorleague system.
Those concepts sound basic but are part of the reason they are in this position.
In the meantime, more games like Thursday and Friday’s are inevitable this season.