CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - AUGUST 16: Christopher Morel #5 of the Chicago Cubs is mobbed by teammates ... [+]
The last time the Chicago Cubs won their division in a full-length season was in 2017. That’s also the last year they won a playoff game. Since then, they lost the NL Central to the Milwaukee Brewers in a game 163 and the wild card game to the Colorado Rockies the next day in 2018 and then got swept in the 2020 wild card series by the Miami Marlins.
The Cubs rebuild started the following summer, in 2021, and though they have had winning seasons for the past two years, that has not been enough to get back into the playoffs.
There is some cause for optimism that things can change in 2025, maybe even enough that the Cubs are NL Central champs again for the first time in eight years.
A lot of that has to do with the addition of Kyle Tucker, acquired via trade with the Houston Astros earlier this month. There’s a chance he is only with the team for one year because Tucker is set to be an unrestricted free agent in 2026, and whether or not the Cubs extend him is another question. But he improves the Cubs’ chances for the time being, at least.
Take a look at the ZiPS projections on Fangraphs, for example, which are quite bullish on the offense. As Dan Szymborski writes, “To get this out of the way, ZiPS absolutely adores Chicago’s lineup, from top to bottom and every which way around [...] the projections haven’t been this high on the lineup since the team’s World Series contention days.”
A projection system is just that, a projection of what might happen in the coming season, but systems like ZiPS have been in use for years and are generally pretty good at forecasting what can go right for a team as well as what might go wrong. So the high praise for the Cubs’ 2025 offense should be music to Chicago’s ears. Last season, they ranked 12th in the league in runs scored but six spots behind the ‘24 division champion Brewers.
Tucker isn’t the only reason for the expected improvement next year; he is projected to have the highest OPS+ on the team, but ZiPS is also calling for a big year from Seiya Suzuki and solid offensive seasons from Michael Busch and Ian Happ. Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson are projected to lead the team in wins above replacement, but that is thanks in part to the value they are expected to bring on defense. Part of the Cubs’ strength on the 2016 World Series team was the defense, and they haven’t fully moved away from that — the Cubs ranked ninth in baseball in defensive runs saved last year — but their defense might be particularly important to winning the division because the projections for the pitching staff are less enthusiastic than those the lineup.
The top of the rotation in Justin Steele and Shota Imanaga should be fine, but there are question marks down the line from there. Jameson Taillon bounced back nicely last season from a rocky ‘23 campaign, but that makes it tough to project what he might do going forward. Javier Assad has shown signs of potential but still relies pretty heavily on the defense to outperform his fielding independent pitching stats, and new addition Matthew Boyd might be headed for a bounceback season, and last year showed hints that it’s possible, but he is a long way away from his career year of 2019.
The projections for the bullpen are better, but the Cubs got burned in 2024 by not having a reliable closer. First, Adbert Alzolay’s struggles and then season-ending injury took away the initial plan for the back end of the bullpen, and then the remaining group of pitchers tasked with winning games in the ninth inning combined with Alzolay for 26 blown saves last year. That part of the bullpen will need to be shored up in 2025. There are a few potential internal options who could emerge, like Nate Pearson and Porter Hodge, but the closer role is just as unclear now as it was during the 2024 season.
In all, ZiPS projects the Cubs to win 86 or 87 games, which would be a three or four-game improvement over the past two seasons and — although they have not released the projections for the rest of the division — enough to win the NL Central. Only by a slight margin, most likely, which means the Cubs should continue to be more aggressive with the remainder of their offseason.
The aforementioned starting pitching staff is the obvious place to add, and there are still options on the table, even after Corbin Burnes signed with the Diamondbacks for six years, $210 million. There are still more than two weeks until Roki Sasaki needs to pick a team, and he has met with the Cubs during the courting period that started earlier this month. The Cubs creeped just above the luxury tax threshold this year and will have to pay a small tax, but they are still on pace to be well below that threshold in 2025, which leaves room to spend some money on pitching and lock down their chances of winning the division.
Expectations for the Cubs are higher going into next season, and though they are projected to win the division, it’s by a tight margin. In order to ensure they aren’t also-rans for the third year in a row, the Cubs need to stay assertive in the starting pitching market.
