The Chicago Cubs need to make some major changes.
The Chicago Cubs thought that canning Joe Maddon in favor of David Ross would instantly vault them back into the championship picture. While Ross did navigate the Cubs into the postseason, they didn’t do much of anything while they were there.
The Cubs’ bats, some of whom are among the biggest names in baseball, fell totally silent against the Miami Marlins, as they were swept in this best-of-three series that saw the underdogs dominate the mighty Cubs at Wrigley Field.
The Cubs can’t afford to sit on their hands while the rest of the division improves around them if they want to put this failure behind them. They should look to make these three deals in the offseason.
3. Trade for a closer
The Cubs have been trying to sort the bullpen out for years now, as perennial All-Stars like Craig Kimbrel and journeymen like Jeremy Jeffress has yielded mixed results. Stability is the name of the game at the back end of the bullpen, and Chicago needs to look around the league at underperforming, selling teams who could part with a closer or elite reliever who does damage in the seventh and eighth innings. With the likes of Josh Hader, Devin Williams and Andrew Miller in that division, the Cubs need to give that unit a kick in the butt.
While solving the Jon Lester question in the starting rotation is going to be difficult to solve, Chicago has the likes of Yu Darvish and Kyle Hendricks there to straighten things out. Any team trying to contend in 2020 led by guys that would struggle to land the eighth inning gig on most contending teams is kidding itself. Unless the likes of Javier Baez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo all simultaneously start hitting like it’s 2016 again, the Cubs will need to improve here.