The Chicago Cubs won 103 games last year and ended their run with the World Series title. Most experts have them as favorites for the upcoming season, but there’s one thing no one is talking about. Chicago should be an even more dangerous team this year. Let’s take a deep look to the team.
We already know the Cubs have a great offense, but there’s potential for the unit to be even better in 2017. Sure, they lost Dexter Fowler, but Albert Almora Jr. could replace him in a platoon with Jon Jay. Willson Contreras will play a full season, Kyle Schwarber will be healthy, and Jason Heyward has made adjustments to his swing. And we are not mentioning Anthony Rizzo, Ben Zobrist, Addison Russell, Javier Baez or Kris Bryant, the reigning NL MVP.
Defensively it’s hard to improve what Chicago did in 2016. However, both Almora and Jay should be an upgrade over Fowler. Contreras should also eclipse what Miguel Montero and David Ross did last year. And the more Javier Baez plays, the better. The question mark will be Kyle Schwarber in left field, but that’s the less demanding position in the outfield. And he’s looked better than expected during Spring Training, so he could be average and that would be enough.
The rotation remains mostly intact, which is a good thing. Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks, Jake Arrieta and John Lackey are returning. The lone change is the departure of Jason Hammel, who will be replaced by Brett Anderson. Chicago’s starters went 81-39 with a 2.96 ERA over 989 innings last season. Repeating that seems like a stretch, but there’s no question this is a talented unit. After all, it features two of the top three candidates for the NL Cy Young in 2016 (Lester and Hendricks), and the winner in 2015 (Arrieta). We have to see if Anderson can avoid injuries, but even if he lands on the DL then Mike Montgomery could make a few emergency starts.
One area in which the Cubs have improved is the bullpen. Even though they let Aroldis Chapman walk in free agency, they still managed to upgrade their closer role. During the offseason they acquired Wade Davis in exchange for Jorge Soler. How good can Davis be? Well, he has a 1.18 ERA, 11.5 strikeouts per nine and 2.5 walks per nine over his last 182 2/3 innings. Those numbers make him one of the great closers in the game. Davis should have the support of Pedro Strop, Carl Edwards Jr., Justin Grimm, and Koji Uehara, among others. If that’s not a quality bullpen, I don’t know what is.
With such a talented roster, can anyone stop them in 2017? It seems the Cubs shouldn’t have many problems to repeat as champions for the second straight year.