Chicago Cubs year in quotes: We dont play for consolation prizes

May 11, 2024

One year ago, Dansby Swanson was introducted at Wrigley Field and told an emotional story about his grandfather, Herb, who had recently died in hospice care at the age of 88, the day after Swanson married soccer star Mallory Pugh at a Georgia resort.

As a boy, Swanson regularly visited his grandfather’s house, asking Herb to hit groundballs to him, developing at an early age the sense of routine that would one day make him a Gold Glove shortstop. Swanson was born in 1994, about midway through a period of sustained success for the Atlanta Braves. Swanson, however, often found his grandfather watching the Chicago Cubs on WGN.

“Being a Cub means more to me than people would realize,” Swanson said on Dec. 21, 2022.

The Cubs are no longer on the superstation, and the franchise recently canceled the waiting list for season tickets at Wrigley Field. The Cubs have just one player remaining from their only World Series-winning team since the Theodore Roosevelt administration, and the club has zero postseason wins in the last six years. After missing the playoffs by one game, the Cubs have not signed a new player to a major-league contract so far this offseason.

Wrigley Field remains an item on the bucket list for sports fans across the country, reaching 2.7 million in attendance during this transition year. The Cubs began to create an identity around steady players such as Swanson, a smooth defender with some offensive pop, and homegrown All-Star pitcher Justin Steele. The 2023 season was good TV — entertaining, unpredictable and stunning. Rewinding for a moment will help explain what’s ahead in 2024.

January

The Cubs aren’t a small-time operation, but they also aren’t a franchise that looks to shatter the salary structures for free agents. Swanson’s seven-year, $177 million contract is a solid investment, a step up from the six-year, $100 million deal the Braves offered him during the 2022 season. Swanson’s eventual counteroffer to his hometown team — six years, $140 million — was a reasonable proposal by industry standards and in line with deals signed the previous offseason by Javier Báez and Trevor Story. The cost of doing business also appears to be going up. The 11-year contracts signed by Trea Turner ($300 million with the Philadelphia Phillies) and Xander Bogaerts ($280 million with the San Diego Padres) forced the Cubs to adjust to an extent.

Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts: “They’re elite talent and they should be able to get whatever they can in the market. We just know that there’s hidden costs on those deals. It’s not just the dollars. The front end might feel good. The back end probably won’t feel good. And then if there’s players that are coming up that you think you could get some major-league at-bats for — and you got a guy blocking him — that’s not a great result, either. You always have to balance that all out. Some teams just weigh those factors differently than we do.”

February

A major-league manager does hundreds of press conferences each year, which can be numbing. The team’s broadcast partners usually want to record every answer on camera, forcing the manager to be “on” for even mundane questions. That makes it resonate even more when we can go behind the scenes and a manager shows some emotion and drops a few F-bombs.

David Ross addressing the team at the start of spring training: “In this room, 14 first-rounders, 10 Gold Gloves, 10 All-Stars, 10 World Series champions, three Silver Sluggers, two Rookies of the Year, an ERA title, an All-Star Game MVP, an NLCS MVP and a standalone MVP. But that don’t mean s— coming into this season. It’s about how we connect as a group. We have to come together as a group and pull for one another, fight for one another, lift each other up when we’re f—ing struggling. Help each other out when we make a mistake. Have each other’s back. It’s that little s—. The trust in each other is going to carry us through those tough moments.”

This speech from David Ross has me absolutely fired up🔥

(📸: Cubs YouTube) pic.twitter.com/unKRQu5csc

— Cubs Zone (@CubsZone) March 30, 2023

March

Two years after Anthony Rizzo shut down contract talks in spring training — setting the stage for a huge sell-off at the trade deadline — the Cubs finalized a three-year, $35 million extension with Nico Hoerner and laid most of the groundwork for Ian Happ’s three-year, $61 million extension. The Cubs aren’t as desperate this winter because Hoerner stayed healthy (150 games) and played so well next to Swanson as a Gold Glove second baseman. Happ won his second Gold Glove as a left fielder and finished with 21 home runs, 84 RBIs and a .791 OPS. The Cubs probably won’t acquire a superstar this offseason, but they know they need to upgrade the roster with two more everyday-type players, a front-end starting pitcher and multiple relievers.

Hoerner: “One of the most satisfying things I could do in a career would be (staying) in one place from the rebuild to the next championship. I think seeing ‘Rizz’ at the end of that — and knowing he’d been through the entire story of it — is as inspirational as it gets. That would be the best thing I could accomplish in my career.”

April

The Cubs didn’t have a true closer at the beginning or the end of the season. None of their starting pitchers reached 175 innings. The team released its Opening Day first baseman (Eric Hosmer) and Opening Day designated hitter (Trey Mancini) during the middle of the season. Third base also remains an ongoing question. The front office gave the manager a roster set up for second-guessing.

Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer: “I watched thousands of games next to Theo (Epstein) and we disagreed all the time on moves. One of the things I love about Rossy is when I go in after the game and we talk through decisions, he always has a good reason. You’re never going to agree with everything. If I was managing the team and he was sitting upstairs, there would be disagreements.”

May

There can be a lot of noise on social media about decisions that are basically coin-flips. Internally, the Cubs view the obsession with the batting order as overrated. But a completely reasonable reaction from fans is the frustration that the Chicago team doesn’t overwhelm its small-market opponents in the National League Central.

Ross: “Thank goodness for the s—– play of everybody in the division.”

June

As the Cubs drifted toward 10 games under .500 — but not completely out of the division race — two players became the intense focus of trade rumors. Even while Cody Bellinger was on the injured list — and coming off two injury-plagued, underperforming seasons – agent Scott Boras compared Bellinger to another client, Brandon Nimmo, who was at the beginning of an eight-year, $162 million contract with the New York Mets.

Boras: “Cody’s always been my comeback player of the year. But come back to what? This isn’t coming back to earth. It’s coming back to the clouds. Cody has a ceiling that most players don’t have. No doubt.”

Marcus Stroman used a much different tactic, calling out the front office on social media for not engaging in his repeated attempts to get a contract extension.

My agent and I made multiple attempts to engage them on an extension. Club wasn’t interested in exploring it now. Will see how it plays out! Love everything about the @Cubs organization!

— Marcus Stroman (@STR0) June 10, 2023

Stroman: “I’m just being straight up and real and honest with the negotiations. I want nothing more than to be a Cub. I kill myself 24/7 — on and off the field — to perform well, to keep my body in position, keep my mind in position. I truly believe I prepare like nobody else, so I know my worth. We’ve been going to the front office from spring training, very open that I want to be here. We’ve continued those thoughts. Up until now, there’s been nothing from their side. No offers, no talks, really, at all.”

July

By now, it should be obvious that this management group doesn’t respond to certain external pressures. That stay-the-course mentality also helped the Cubs push through the trade deadline.

Hoyer: “When you look at a lot of underlying numbers, we absolutely should be in the division race right now. That’s the truth of the matter. Now, that doesn’t matter. They don’t put a banner up based on underlying numbers. We have to translate that into wins and losses.”

Ross: “If you don’t have good character in there, you quit. We don’t have quitters.”

Hoerner: “We’re in such a time in baseball of trying to understand and evaluate and analyze everything. Sometimes, things just line up and happen, and you just roll with it and enjoy it.”

Kyle Hendricks: “We got the guys in this room that can get the job done. Whatever we get in this clubhouse, we’re just going to keep it rolling and keep attacking these other teams.”

August

Swanson: “People were saying, ‘Oh, it’s going to start getting crazier and crazier as the year keeps going.’ There were some ushers saying that to my wife. We’re like, ‘Crazier? It’s already pretty high-energy and wild most of the time.’ They’re like, ‘No, you haven’t seen anything yet.’”

Longtime Chicago reporters had never seen anything like this before — a Cubs player walking into the Wrigley Field press box during the middle of a game to address the media. Stroman spoke with reporters in a cramped section of the press dining room to try to answer some questions about the mysterious fracture in his right rib cartilage, an injury he suffered while already on the injured list with right hip inflammation.

Stroman: “I’m the biggest believer in this team. You’ve heard how I’ve talked about this team since spring training. Nothing has changed. I think we’re right in the thick of it. You see how we’re playing. I think we can win the division. Once you’re in the playoffs, it’s anyone’s game. No one’s a bigger believer in the Cubs than me.”

Even on the injured list, Marcus Stroman kept the energy high for the Cubs as they entered the stretch run. (Dustin Satloff / Getty Images)

September

The Cubs climbed to 10 games over .500 on Labor Day and soon saw their playoff odds soar to almost 93 percent, according to FanGraphs.

Swanson: “I love seeing where we started and where we’ve come to. What people looked at the Chicago Cubs as (when the season started) versus what they (see) now. To me, there’s a difference in how we go about our business and the expectations and standards that we’ve started to create here. That’s a big deal. If you want sustainable success, you need that part first. I feel like we’ve done a really good job of building on that. Every day we show up, we expect to win. That’s a really important step until you can really thrive at a high level.”

Ross in a moment of frustration after losing a series to the Pittsburgh Pirates: “That’s not a good team that just took two out of three from us.”

Hoyer: “There was a curse in Boston until there wasn’t. There was a curse here until there wasn’t. There’s no curse. Ultimately, I would hope that the real benefit of 2016 is people believing that good things can happen. If we’re good enough, we’ll win. The supernatural is not causing missed fly balls for Brant Brown or Seiya Suzuki. What I learned in Boston is what I learned here. If the team is good enough, and gets the right breaks at the right moments, you can win. I don’t even think about that stuff. When I heard that today, I kind of laughed because I thought we graduated from that. Apparently not.”

Stroman: “We just seemed defeated, at times. Things don’t feel like they’re going our way at all. It feels like everything that could be going wrong is going wrong.”

Ross: “If we don’t get to where we want to get to, I’m the head of the team. I’m the manager of this team. The blame should come on me first.”

Bellinger: “There’s no prediction of the future in anything. I really just enjoyed my time with this group of guys, with this coaching staff. Playing for the Cubs organization and Wrigley Field was really special.”

October

Ricketts: “I don’t think that we want to start calling seasons we don’t make the playoffs good seasons. That’s a consolation prize, and we don’t play for consolation prizes.”

Hoyer (opening statement at end-of-season press conference): “The question that I keep reading everywhere is: ‘How do you define the season?’ I know you guys have asked our players, Rossy, Tom: ‘Is this a success or not?’ I’ll start by saying, ‘No.’”

Ricketts: “I think Rossy had a great season, and the players played hard for him. He’s our guy.”

Hoyer: “Next year is going to be important. We have real organizational momentum. It’s really important to continue to build on that. Obviously, Rossy’s a big part of that. But, yeah, he’s not a new manager anymore.”

November

Hoyer (via press release): “We made the difficult decision to dismiss David Ross as our Major League Manager. On behalf of the Cubs organization, we express our deep gratitude for David’s contributions to our club, both on and off the field. First as a player and then as a manager, David continually showcased his ability to lead. David’s legacy will be felt in Chicago for generations and his impact to our organization will stack up with the legends that came before him. Going forward, our Major League team will be managed by Craig Counsell.”

"There is momentum happening here."

Craig Counsell on the Cubs. pic.twitter.com/XWu5e05m4Z

— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) November 13, 2023

Hoyer: “My job is to figure out how to win as many games as we possibly can in the short term and the long term. There was nothing about this move that I didn’t feel like met that criteria. This is no knock on Rossy, who I think incredibly highly of. I just felt like Craig is at the very, very top of the game.”

Counsell: “David is a very good man. David texted me probably before the news broke here. I called him back immediately. We had what I think is a very good conversation. I’ve always had great respect for David. That gave me the ultimate respect for David, the way he handled the conversation. Part of this business is really difficult, and it’s really cutthroat.”

December

By the middle of the Winter Meetings, it became increasingly clear that the negotiations surrounding Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto were trending away from Chicago. Counsell will have to draw from some of the creativity and flexibility he relied upon while managing the Milwaukee Brewers. Game planning for more than 83 wins presumably won’t involve Stroman, who opted out of the final year of his contract and $21 million guaranteed in search of a long-term deal. Bellinger carried the team for long enough that Boras is seeking a contract worth well over $200 million, according to ESPN. There’s plenty of time left and resources available to make big moves, but it will be a lot of work just to get back to the playoff bubble.

Hoyer: “As I’ve said a lot of times over the years, winning the offseason is probably more curse than blessing.”

(Top photo of Swanson: Matthew Grimes Jr. / Atlanta Braves / Getty Images)

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