Chicago Cubs: The good, bad, and ugly heading into Opening Day
By JACOB GRANT
The Chicago Cubs will be looking to exceed expectations this year by building on the good while fixing the bad.
The Chicago Cubs are going to experience some ups and downs in 2021.
The areas of concern have been ever-growing since Theo Epstein left the building. When Epstein was here, it was always “In Theo we trust”. Now we look to the first-year president of operations Jed Hoyer to take the Cubs back to the promised land.
The Cubs are not a small market team but have acted like one since the pandemic. When speaking to ESPN’s Jesse Rogers, Cubs owner Tom Ricketts said the team had suffered losses “of biblical proportions.”
The moves that followed were reflective of such and left Cubs fans searching for answers. The departure of Jon Lester and Kyle Schwarber in free agency, the trade of Yu Darvish and Victor Caratini to San Diego for unproven prospects and the unwillingness to pay your young stars and sign them to one-year deals only were all a big part of it.
It is March 25th at the time of writing and we haven’t heard a peep about extensions for Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, or Kris Bryant. Most of whom, expressed their feeling towards an extension getting done before the season starts. What’s the hold-up?
Now don’t get me wrong, this team is still adequate. It just seems like a small fall from grace compared to where we were just five years ago. The term “dynasty” was what this ball club had the potential to be. Unfortunately, winning 90+ games and getting bounced in the NLCS does not meet expectations. Here is a look into the good, the bad, and the ugly of this Chicago Cubs organization heading into opening day: