Flop vs. Derek Jeter’s Surprise Marlins Leaves Cubs in Need of a Shake-Up

Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press

In 2015, it was out with the old and in with the new as the upstart Chicago Cubs knocked off the St. Louis Cardinals in the first series of the playoffs.

Five years later, the Miami Marlins put the Cubs’ future in flux by returning the favor.

After taking the lead with a 5-1 win Wednesday at Wrigley Field, the Marlins finished off a sweep of the Cubs in the Wild Card Round by beating them 2-0 on Friday.

The big hit belonged to slugging first baseman Garrett Cooper, whose two-out home run off Yu Darvish in the top of the seventh inning broke a scoreless tie:

A big reason the game was still tied to that point was the pitching of Sixto Sanchez. With the help of 27 fastballs of at least 99 mph, the 22-year-old rookie held the Cubs scoreless through five frames on four hits and two walks with six strikeouts.

Thus did Sanchez follow the fine example laid down by fellow flamethrower Sandy Alcantara. In the first game of the series, the 25-year-old served up just one run over 6.2 innings.

If this was anyone’s first up-close look at the 2020 Marlins, what they did to the Cubs was a variation on a theme.

After losing 105 games in 2019, Don Mattingly’s club beat expectations—not to mention an early coronavirus outbreak—this season by winning 31 games and qualifying for their first postseason since 2003. Their young hurlers had a lot to do with it. According to FanGraphs, only Cleveland got more wins above replacement from starting pitchers age 25 or younger.

Even if the Marlins hit a wall against Atlanta in the National League Division Series or against another team in a later round, their rise will almost certainly continue beyond 2020.

Indeed, it’s a good sign that they’re already a playoff team while plenty of talent still awaits in their third-ranked farm system. And after taking over the team in 2017, owners Derek Jeter and Bruce Sherman have kept the club’s long-term books clean for potential splashes in free agency.

As for the Cubs…well, suffice it to say, they’re trending in a different direction.

Nam Y. Huh/Associated Press

Back when the Cubs dispatched the Cardinals in the NLDS in 2015, they were only beginning to rally around a core of ace Jon Lester and sluggers Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant.

A year later, they were a 103-game winner and, after a 108-year wait, World Series champions. They made the playoffs again in 2017 and 2018 and ultimately won more games than anyone in the four seasons that spanned ’15 and ’18.

However, the Cubs didn’t even make it past the Wild Card Game in 2018. They then missed the playoffs entirely in 2019. And while they did indeed rectify that failure in 2020, an all-caps “DOOM” was written on the wall before they fell to the Marlins.

The North Siders started this season strong by winning 13 of 16 through August 13 but then capped off their 60-game schedule with a 21-23 record. They had no greater curse than their offense, which scored only 4.1 runs per game with the fourth-worst wRC+ in Major League Baseball from August 14 through the end of the regular season.

It wasn’t no-name players who held the Cubs back. Rizzo had a down year in posting just a .755 OPS with 11 home runs, while Bryant, Javier Baez and Kyle Schwarber could only wish that their years were as good as “down.” From 2019 to 2020, their collective OPS declined from .875 to .647.

It’s a fitting end, then, that the Cubs scored a grand total of one run in the process of notching a third straight season without a playoff win. Likewise, the aforementioned four players collected all of one hit.

Overseeing all of this was David Ross, who understandably feels worn out by his first year in the manager’s chair:

It nonetheless reflects well on Ross that he at least got the Cubs to the postseason, especially given that his roster was largely the same as the one Joe Maddon couldn’t get to October in 2019.

The situation with Chicago’s roster perhaps didn’t have to be that way, but the team did little on the 2019-20 offseason market apart from signing second baseman Jason Kipnis and closer Jeremy Jeffress to low-risk contracts. Though both of those deals worked out, it became increasingly difficult to forgive the Cubs’ lack of bolder moves as the team sunk further into mediocrity throughout the season.

In fairness, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein and the rest of Chicago’s front office might have been spooked by their mixed track record in free agency. They’ve hit on Lester and Darvish but had less luck with Jason Heyward, Craig Kimbrel and Tyler Chatwood.

From the outside looking in, though, it sure seems as if Chicago’s lack of activity on last winter’s market was an ownership-driven decision. Team chairman Tom Ricketts signaled his wariness of the luxury tax in February and later told ESPN this in June: “I think there is a perception that we hoard cash and we take money out and it’s all sitting in a pile we’ve collected over the years. Well, it isn’t.”

Whatever the case, the Cubs must soon begin assessing the best way forward. Ideally, this will involve doing what they must to reestablish themselves as a powerhouse in 2021.

But how?

Gregory Bull/Associated Press

The Cubs do have some big-money contracts set to come off their books this winter, including those belonging to Lester, Chatwood and Jose Quintana. But by way of arbitration, guys like Bryant, Baez, Schwarber, Willson Contreras and Ian Happ are due for pay raises next year.

There’s also, of course, the question of how the club’s finances have been and still stand to be impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. No fans were able to attend games at Wrigley Field this year. And right now, the Cubs can only hope this will change in 2021.

Alternatively, the Cubs could pursue blockbuster talent on the trade market. But with only baseball’s No. 27 farm system at their disposal, they’re missing a crucial ingredient for doing so.

That brings us to the nuclear option: Blow the team up and start over again from scratch.

But this too seems unlikely. Though Epstein has already carried out one successful rebuild since taking charge of the Cubs in 2011, it’s doubtful that he and his main lieutenants will be tasked with doing so again while they have just one year left on their respective contracts. 

Likewise, Bryant, Baez and Schwarber are only under Chicago’s control through next season. And even if Epstein wanted to trade one, two or all of those three, the reality is that their poor 2020 performances and their escalating salaries—$35.6 million in unadjusted dollars for this season—render their trade value basically nonexistent.

The Cubs are thus headed for an offseason that’s conducive neither to a rebuild nor to lavish spending or trading. The best middle ground might be to go all-in on a rebound in 2021, wherein they keep their core stars, make some creative trades and urge ownership to at least consider some lucrative one-year deals.

The only unacceptable plan would be another winter like the one the Cubs had after the 2019 season. That would effectively be staying a course that led to a dead end in 2020. There would be little reason to think that it would lead anywhere different in 2021.

Granted, there’s probably nothing the Cubs can do to salvage the dynasty they seemed to be building back in 2016. But at this point, they have to at least try to salvage some dignity.

Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs.