End of the Road 2015: Chicago Cubs
After being swept in National League championship series by New York Mets, the Chicago Cubs have been eliminated from the MLB postseason. That means they’ve effectively come to the end of the road short of a World Series championship for the 107th consecutive season. As we’ve done with each eliminated team this season, let’s give them a send-off that would make Boyz II Men proud.
We’ll look at the highs and lows of their season, what bright spots their future might hold and what questions need answering as they prepare for 2016.
[On this week’s StewPod: In what year will the Cubs finally win a World Series?]
HIGH POINT: As Cubs fans will tell you, simply being competitive was a major step up after several years of rebuilding. Though the Cubs were never really in position to win the NL Central, they were playoff contenders right away thanks to a 12-8 April. With their full compliment of players locked in by August, the Cubs really took off, finishing the season on a 42-18 run. Over that span, the Cubs enjoyed six winning streaks of at least four games. That’s quite remarkable. If we’re talking high points though, eliminating both the Pittsburgh Pirates and St. Louis Cardinals in the postseason would be difficult to top.
LOW POINT: The Cubs great season ended with a thud, as they were swept in the NLCS by the New York Mets. As is often the case in October, the team that gets hot, and sometimes even the player that gets hot, determines whose season ends and whose continues. The Cubs ran into that team, led by a foursome of excellent young pitchers in Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz. They also ran into that player, as Daniel Murphy is rewriting the postseason history books.
BEST HIGHLIGHT: There were so many great highlights, ranging from Kyle Schwarber’s series of mammoth home runs, to Kris Bryant’s multiple walkoff home runs, to Addison endless loop of defensive gems. The best highlight though had to be Jake Arrieta’s no-hitter on Aug. 30 in Los Angeles. Arrieta was historically great during the second half, and had flirted with no-hitters in the past, but everything came together in that outing.
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE: The Cubs have nothing but hope moving forward. We’ve already mentioned Arrieta, Schwarber, Bryant and Russell. We haven’t even touched on Anthony Rizzo, Jon Lester, Starlin Castro, Javier Baez, Jorge Soler and others. They aren’t a complete team yet, but they have an incredible core of young players, money to spend and the absolute best people around making the decisions. Good times lie ahead.
[Related: Real hope for the future cushions the Cubs’ fall in the NLCS]
QUESTION THAT NEEDS ANSWERING: Will team president Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer go big in free agency? The Cubs are close. They’ve acknowledged they need another starting pitcher, perhaps two, to fill out the rotation. We saw how that lack of depth hurt them in the NLCS, and there are big names to be had. We’ve also heard of interest in outfielder Jason Heyward, which would be interesting. The Cubs have some trade chips as well on the big league roster and in the minors. Seemingly every option they could possibly want to explore will be available.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
