Fun Fact: Only one team wins the World Series every year. Which means 29 teams don’t win the final game of the year which according to Moneyball means their season didn’t fucking matter. When a team gets eliminated from winning the World Series I’ll do a profile of their season.
Today’s Team….Chicago Cubs
How Did They Get Eliminated
Let’s get this out of the way. I am not a Cubs fan and they are my least favorite team on many levels. From a rivalry perspective, from the fans, to their stadium and where it is located. But I keep a lot of that angst inside. I’m not going to do the shit-posting on Twitter, mostly because if someone were to reply to me a response shit-posting me back I’d delete the post and throw my phone into a quarry.
That being said…
THE CUBS WERE ELIMINATED BY THE BREWERS. FLY THE L FLAG BECAUSE THE CUBS ARE NOT GOING TO WIN THE WORLD SERIES. THEY DIDN’T REALIZE THAT YOU COULD SCORE RUNS AFTER THE 3RD INNING WHEN THEY WERE IN MILWAUKEE. THEY WERE A SUPER HYPED TEAM TO WIN THE DIVISION AND THEY CHOKED IT AWAY. THEY SPENT A TON OF MONEY IN THE OFFSEASON, THEY HAVE THE HIGHEST PAID MANAGER IN THE MAJORS AND THEY BLEW IT. THEY HAD ALL THE MOMENTUM THEY HAD THE BREWERS FANS PISSING THEIR PANTS AND THEY COULDN’T DO IT. PETE CROW-ARMSTRONG IS GOING TO DO EXTRA SQUATS IN THE OFFSEASON AND HE WILL STILL BE 40 FEET AWAY FROM CATCHING DINGERS OFF THE BATTER’S EYE AT AM FAM FIELD. HE ALSO HAS A DUMB EARRING THAT I ONLY REALIZED HE HAD IN THE PLAYOFFS. THEIR PLOY TO PLAY A 5 GAME SERIES IN AUGUST BECAUSE IT WAS GOING TO SORT OF RAIN IN JUNE DIDN’T WORK. THEY ONLY PICKED UP ONE GAME IN THOSE 5 GAMES.
What Do I Know About This Team Because I Only Follow the Brewers and Pay Attention to Playoff Baseball?
All right. Now that I got that out of my system. Let’s talk about the Cubs.
Because the Brewers eliminated the Cubs from the playoffs if they lose to the Dodgers I won’t feel much disappointed. The only exception is if the Brewers blow like a 3-1 series lead, or lose a game in the 9th again. I don’t have the same anxiety in this Dodgers series like I did in the Cubs series. Because if the Cubs would have won that series against the Brewers it would have been the most insufferable offseason ever. Not only that anytime an argument between a Brewers fan and a Cubs fan would come up it would come back to “DUHHH WE GOT A RING YOU GOT NOTHING, WE ALSO KICKED YOUR ASS BACK TO MILWAUKEE YOUR STILL THE LITTLE BROTHER, DUGHHHHH GREEN BAY SUCKS.”
Sure, every Cubs fan will say that the Brewers winning was their World Series and I am here to say, yes, yes it was. The Cubs were supposed to win this Division, the Cubs were supposed to be one of the best teams in baseball. They didn’t accomplish either one of those goals. To shut up an entire city, yes, that is my World Series. I don’t care.
The Cubs started out strong and had a strong lead early in the season. I was out at a bar for the Kentucky Derby and watched as the Cubs took the first 2 games of a weekend series. In that moment you knew the Cubs were going to be tough to chase down. Hell, the Brewers were barely keeping up with the Cardinals at the time. But then something changed. The tide started to shift. The Brewers started to get hot and the Cubs started to play just fine.
I’m not in the research part of the profile yet so I will still go off of what I know. Kyle Tucker struggled down the stretch, Pete Crow-Armstrong had a 30-30 season but he did a bulk of his work in the first half of the season. Everyone in Chicago thought he was going to be the MVP this year and he might get a smattering of 10th place votes. Seiya Suzuki provided a lot of power and did a great job in the outfield. Dansby Swanson played a serviceable shortstop and I didn't really know any more players were calling out and I just watched 5 straight games of Cubs.
Craig Counsell finally made the playoffs in his second season with the team but when the Cubs went down early in Game 1 against the Brewers Counsell looked like he was going to get fired in the middle of the game. He looked stressed and that nothing could go right and his team played to his emotions. Counsell knows how to manage a bullpen which is important in the postseason but just like when he was with the Brewers was the bats didn’t come alive when they needed them the most.
The Cubs' downfall in the playoffs, even though they won 4 games, was that they didn’t really score any runs. They scored 6 runs in just one of their playoff games and even when they won they didn’t score more than 4. Their bullpen was really good, even when they were down multiple runs, and shut down the Brewers bats, but the offense for the Cubs just never found a way to get them back into these games.
So Now That I’ve Actually Done Some Research How Did They Make the Playoffs and What Led to Their Demise?
They were 6th in Homeruns led by Micheal Busch, Seiya Suzuki and PCA all with over 30. But here’s the thing, Crow-Armstrong and Suzuki each had 25 Home Runs at the All-Star Break, post the All-Star break they combined for 13. As a team they had 141 Home Runs at the All-Star Break and while they had a respectable 81 Home Runs post All-Star break As you can see their main guys that had been crushing homers in the first half weren’t doing it in the second half. The power fading away let the Brewers catch up and hold on to the Division lead.
They hit well with runners in scoring position 6th in the majors with a .267 team average and hitting 55 of their home runs with runners in scoring position, 2nd best in the league.
The Cubs were aggressive on the basepath stealing 161 bases, 3rd in the league, with PCA’s 35 leading the way and Nico Hoerner being 2nd on the team with 29.
Offensively this team did really well, but it was unfortunately front loaded on the season. They were 6th in team slugging and 8th in doubles. Also, the Cubs didn’t ground into double plays. Like ever, they hit into the fewest in the bigs.
Pitching wise the Cubs also did well, they were 8th in the Majors in Starters ERA and 11th in Bullpen ERA. Cade Horton is the future Ace of this staff going 11-4 with a 2.74 ERA in his first season in the Majors. Unfortunately, he had a broken rib and had to finish the season on the IL.
Matthew Boyd led the starters with 14 wins, and while he got rocked in Game 1 against the Brewers he bounced back and pitched a gem in Game 4 to push the series back to Milwaukee.
Shota Imanaga had a 9-8 record but gave up 31 of the teams’ 53 home runs. While they didn’t give up a ton as a team Imanaga struggled in the last two months of the season keeping the ball in the Friendly Confines.
Ultimately this team struggled to score runs down the stretch and while the pitching kept them in games they couldn’t catch up to the Brewers and when their ability to hit the long ball dried up they were cooked.
Will they Make the Playoffs Next Year?
The Cubs will be the favorites to win the Division once again even though the Brewers and Reds will be coming back with the same teams. The Cubs will also have their core coming back for another season one bat they will be losing is Kyle Tucker. Tucker struggled in the second half of the season, but he will still get a giant contract in free agency.
They have the 19th ranked farm system and one of their top prospects got a taste of the postseason in Moises Ballesteros. Ballesteros hit .298 in 20 games in the regular season and got a few chances in the postseason.
They spent a lot of money to get Counsell so they are going to do what it takes to put a winning team behind him. So don’t be surprised at another run in the postseason for the Cubs.
Just one postseason award.
Nico Hoerner is going to win the Gold Glove at 2nd base. One of the best defensive second basemen in the game and a great hitter too.
Hey Grok, in 100 words summarize the 2025 Chicago Cubs. Please don't be racist.
The 2025 Chicago Cubs season was a strong campaign, finishing with a 92-70 record, securing a National League Wild Card berth, and second place in the NL Central behind the Milwaukee Brewers. Led by Manager Craig Counsell, the team won the NL Wild Card Series over the San Diego Padres but were eliminated by the Brewers in a thrilling five-game NL Division Series. Key contributors included Nico Hoerner and star offseason acquisition, outfielder Kyle Tucker. Pitching depth, with arms like Matthew Boyd and Shōta Imanaga, was crucial to their success.
A pretty bland summary for kind of a bland team at times.
Did the Savannah Bananas Play at their Field?
They didn’t, but they will next year so good work on not winning the World Series next year too.
Is there a baseball movie featuring this team that has dumb baseball logic I need to vent about?
Rookie Of the Year!
I only came up with this section of the profiles so I could do an extensive breakdown of Rookie of the Year.
The whole thing kind of comes down to Henry making his debut with the Cubs. The Cubs are a terrible team, they are so bad that they need to bring Henry in to just sell some tickets because if they don’t there’s a chance the sale of the team won’t happen.
Henry comes into the game and comes in in the 9th inning with a 2 run lead and 1 out. It seems crazy that this team is this bad. They seem to have the lead today. Henry gives up a home run, hits a batter and then the wild pitch that for some reason gets the runner thrown out at 3rd base. The Cubs win and Henry gets the save. Its crazy that Steadman was still throwing in the 9th when you have a full bullpen, including Henry, who could have come in earlier.
Also, the fact that Henry didn’t even get some time at AAA to figure out his command and see some batters. It also has to suck to be the guy that gets sent down or DFA’d to make room for a sideshow act.
Then the next day they are in school in August, which might not be that weird but still seems pretty early in August to be back to school.
In the next game he comes in again and gets a double play ball after hitting a batter. Then Henry has confidence and throws a strike. Unfortunately the play-by-play makes an error by saying he just threw his first strike. Technically the double play ball was a strike.
Henry strikes out the batter and the Play-By-Play guy says that brings the Cubs winning streak to a season high…2!
So now let’s get into the real logic problem with this movie. On August 11th Henry makes his debut and they get the win. The next day they win and its a 2 game winning streak. That means on August 10th they lost.
At best if they had their season long winning streak of 2 games that means they had won every other game. Which means at this time of the year their record after this 2 game winning streak, AT BEST!, is 59-58.
We go on a road trip, a 10 game road trip and the Cubs are only 3 games back of the Mets? Then they have the audacity to say that there are only 15 games left in the season. Not sure if this is a strike shortened season or what, but 59-58 and only 15 games to go, what happened to the other 30 games?
Then with one series left in the season they are just going to trade Henry off to the Yankees? This is why there was a strike in 1994.
They then talk about winning the division, but then if they win they go to the World Series. That’s some Angels in the Outfield nonsense.
But this was such a bad team there is no way that having Henry throwing all these games the team would then figure out how to win enough to make it to the World Series.
Also the hidden ball trick they do to get the first out would be a balk because Henry toed the rubber without the ball. Also, if you don’t have your ability anymore why aren’t you making a pitching change. Terrible managing.
How Will Your Team Do Next Year?
They should bounce back and retake the Division after the Brewers have won the last 3. I’m not going to do some mean thing and say they will go 0-162. They can win the Division with the same record as this year 92-70.
Next on the Chopping Block
Well, because I’ve been busy and am now finally getting to actualy publishing this. In a bout of karma that could only happen after saying everything I did above the Brewers are now down 3-0 and on the verge of elimination. Unless they pull off the most amazing comeback in 20 years I will be writing the largest profile of this series when I get everything off my chest about the Milwaukee Brewers.