Cubs better than expected before season

Coming in I thought they would land between 85-88 wins, and had the best chance of all NL Central teams to win the division. They should end up with more than 90 wins, though almost definitely in 2nd place due to the Brewers taking off.

Losing Steele for the season, Amaya for almost the whole season, and having Imanaga and Taillon down for good stretches have been a lot to overcome. Had I known that going in. I would have expected them to struggle to end up above .500.

I haven’t given up on winning the division, though it’s highly unlikely now. Basically they’ll need to win 2 of 3 and hope the Brewers play .500 ball from here out. Could happen but maybe 10% chance.

Barring that I think they have as good a chance as any NL team entering the wild card round. I hope they can earn a home series with the top wild card seed. If they survive that round, then they would be very capable to compete for the pennant with the Brewer, Phillies, Dodgers, or whoever. The Brewers are the best team and the Cubs just won the season series against them. The other teams all have real flaws just like the Cubs.

This season also has me very excited for the future with the emergence of PCA, Shaw, Caissie, and Horton. Bush is solid and Hoerner is very good. Swanson is older but should still have 2-3 more years of excellent play at SS, though his bat is fading. Also Steele and Amaya will be coming back strong, I hope. The other starting pitchers besides Steele and Horton are aging, which is a concern for next year.

I do not expect Tucker to come back. Hopefully he can pull himself together and contribute again this year. No clue what is up with him. Thumb, head, both… no one knows, maybe not even Tucker himself.