Chicago Cubs 2024 preview
If the pattern holds, you’re looking at the 2024 NL Central champions. The Cubs won the NL Central in 2020, as they went 34-26 in the COVID year. Then they finished fourth at 71-91, 24 games behind the division champion Brewers in 2021. A third-place finish in 2022 came via a three-win improvement, but they were still 19 games behind at the end of the year. Last season’s team improved by nine games and finished nine games out, but finished in second place.
What the 83-79 record doesn’t tell you up front is that the Cubs got very unlucky. They actually had a 90-72 record per Pythagorean Win-Loss, the standings metric derived from run differential. They had the third-highest run differential of any team to miss the playoffs at +96, trailing the Padres (+104) and Mariners (+99).
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Usually we see a bad record in one-run games as the culprit, but the Cubs were actually 21-24 in one-run games. They were just really good at racking up blowout wins, as they won 32 games by 5+ runs compared to 18 losses by that kind of margin. They had wins by scores of 20-9, 17-3, 16-6, 14-1, and 13-0 and six total wins by 10 or more runs. They only had three losses by 10 or more runs, so that skewed the numbers a bit.
But, it is worth noting that, despite a 12-17 finish to the season, the Cubs were 41-32 in the second half after going 42-47 in the first half. Could that have been a sign of things to come?
2024 Chicago Cubs Odds
(odds from DraftKings as of Mar. 23)
World Series: +2800
NL Pennant: +1500
NL Central: +185
Win Total: 84.5 (-115/-105)
Make Playoffs: Yes -115 / No -105
Chicago Cubs Preview: Offense
The Cubs are the NL Central favorites with a win total of 84.5, so that gives you an idea of how competitive this division will be. I guess you could also argue how weak this division is, in that 85 wins could very well win it. My belief is that one of the three horses in the race (sorry Pirates and Brewers fans) will find a way to get in the upper 80s or low 90s. It could very well be the Cubs.
The soft market for Cody Bellinger ultimately led to a return to the North Side of Chicago and this is a very similar team to what the Cubs put out there last season. Jeimer Candelario is gone, but he only played a partial season with the Cubs. The most notable loss is Marcus Stroman, but I’ll get to the pitching staff shortly.
This was a Cubs group that posted a 104 wRC+ last season and scored over 800 runs for the first time since 2019. Their 819 runs actually ranked second since 2008, so it was a successful offensive season overall. Bellinger was the ringleader of the offense with a 134 wRC+ during a huge bounce back season for him. He slashed .307/.356/.525 and hit 26 homers. The Cubs actually had six players hit at least 20 homers, with Bellinger and Christopher Morel tied at the top with 26.
Eight of the top nine players in plate appearances posted a wRC+ of 102 or higher. Catcher Yan Gomes was the low man with a 95 wRC+ and it would have been nice to see the Cubs upgrade at that position, but their hope has to be for Miguel Amaya to take over the position after putting up some solid offensive numbers in the minors thanks to a high walk rate.
I’ve written about this before, but I think being a “league average” player sounds like a negative. There are a lot of below average players out there and some are downright bad. The goal for any roster should be to limit the exposure of the below average players and the Cubs did a great job of that. They had a lot of guys in the 100s and 110s in wRC+, which is a very good thing.
A guy like Nico Hoerner, who had the aforementioned 102 wRC+, is a top-tier defender, so that’s just fine. Dansby Swanson only had a 104 wRC+, but he, too, was a glovesmith with 18 Defensive Runs Saved and 20 Outs Above Average. Hoerner had 12 DRS and 14 OAA, so those two guys up the middle played spectacular defense and really boosted their overall value as a result.
Running it back with a similar group, just with former Dodgers prospect Michael Busch now in the fold, should provide a lot of optimism. The part-timers and platoon guys are all pretty good hitters as well. This is a well-balanced offense, but the ceiling could rise during the season with four FanGraphs Top 100 prospects in the organization, including three outfielders with Pete Crow-Armstrong, Owen Caissie, and Kevin Alcantara.
Chicago Cubs Preview: Pitching
The Cubs finished in the middle of the pack in ERA and FIP, posting a 4.09 ERA that ranked 14th and a 4.16 FIP that ranked 12th. They had a 4.03 ERA in 2022 that ranked 20th and a 4.33 FIP that ranked 25th, so there was some definite improvement there. Don’t be concerned about the small ERA bump, as scoring increased quite significantly league-wide in 2023.
There were two really important developments for the Cubs in 2023. The first is that Justin Steele was able to follow up his leap in 2022 with an even bigger one last season. He had a 3.18 ERA with a 3.20 FIP over 119 innings in ‘22, but posted a 3.06 ERA with a 3.02 FIP in ‘23. He also made 30 starts covering 173.1 innings. Warm bodies capable of producing quality innings have been hard to find for the Cubs and what Steele was able to provide was tremendous.
Steele’s season tied with 2015 Jon Lester for the second-best season by fWAR for the Cubs since 2015, when Jake Arrieta won the Cy Young. It was also just the sixth season in that span with at least 4.1 fWAR. Kyle Hendricks has two of them to his name and that was the other big development. While he wasn’t quite as good as we’ve seen him in the past, Hendricks had an enormous bounce back year.
He still only made 24 starts over 137 innings, but he was objectively bad in 2021 and 2022 with ERAs of 4.77 and 4.80, plus FIPs of 4.89 and 4.82. Hendricks is a guy who has regularly outpitched his advanced metrics because strikeouts are such huge components within metrics like FIP and xFIP and he’s just not a big strikeout guy. In fact, he had the lowest K% of his career at 16.1% last season. But, he cut his walk rate down and, most importantly, got back to keeping the ball in the park.
After posting Barrel% marks of 8.4% and 9.9%, Hendricks got down to 6.2%, which was still on the high side for him, but much closer to his career average. The reason I go so deep on Hendricks is that he’s vitally important to the Cubs this season. Marcus Stroman is gone, and while he wasn’t a high-ceiling guy he was a high-floor guy. The Cubs will give prospect Jordan Wicks a chance in the early going and also rely on Javier Assad, who was a pleasant surprise last season with a 3.05 ERA in 109.1 innings of work.
Assad is a noteworthy negative regression candidate with that 3.05 ERA, but a 4.64 xERA and a 4.29 FIP. I don’t really know what Imanaga will provide. Wicks had a 4.41 ERA with a 4.70 FIP in his 34.2 innings. Jameson Taillon was slowed by a barking back in camp, but he had a 4.84 ERA with a 4.61 FIP in 154.1 innings, so he wasn’t exactly sharp.
The other wild card here is Shota Imanaga, the little lefty from Japan who stands 5-foot-10 and 175 pounds. The 30-year-old southpaw had a 2.96 ERA over 1,129.2 innings in Japan. He struck out 1,183 batters and walked 301, posting a 2.66 ERA in 159 innings last season before getting posted. The projection systems are actually pretty high on his upside, with a lot of ERA projections between 3.55-3.80.
There are a lot of unknowns here. I do think new manager Craig Counsell, who often got a lot out of his starters in Milwaukee, could help stave off some worst-case scenarios, but I view this as a group with a wide range of outcomes.
The bullpen looks pretty good, though. Adbert Alzolay was excellent last season with a 2.67 ERA over 58 appearances. Hector Neris is a strong add alongside Julian Merryweather, who thrived in a higher-leverage spot for the first time. They’re a little depth-shy, but solid all around.
Chicago Cubs Player to Watch
SP Jordan Wicks
The ceiling guy for the Cubs is the 24-year-old southpaw who comes into the season as the 43rd overall prospect in FanGraphs’ Top 100. He’s actually fifth in the Cubs organization, so that speaks to how good those position player prospects are that I mentioned earlier. Double-A starter Cade Horton is a top-20 prospect per FanGraphs, so we’ll see how quickly he makes it to the bigs.
But, for now, it is Wicks in the spotlight. He only pitched 33 innings at Triple-A last season and 58.1 innings at Double-A. He was solid in both spots and his best attribute is the depth of his arsenal. He has six pitches that he can throw for strikes and has pretty good command as a pretty polished player out of Kansas State. If the Cubs find another tick of velo and get one or more of his secondaries to pop, he has a really high ceiling.
The sample size was small last season, but the command and the pitch mix led to a 32.1% Hard Hit% and a 6.3% Barrel% in 112 batted ball events. League average is basically 39% and 9%, respectively, so those are excellent numbers.
Chicago Cubs Season Win Total Odds & Prediction
All of the teams in the NL Central are interesting in some way. A case could be made that the Cubs have the highest ceiling in the division. I think there are a few levers for each team that could take them to the next level. As I mentioned, I think the Cubs rotation is their pressure point. This should be a good offense and maybe a top-10 type of group.
I just don’t know how high the ceiling is for the pitching staff and I’m actually a little unaware of the floor. Steele had a big innings increase last season. Hendricks could turn back into a pumpkin. Imanaga would not be the first Japanese pitcher to come over and struggle after being really good in the NPB.
I do lean Over with the Cubs, though, because they’ve got five prospects in the top 43 for FanGraphs heading into the season and I think all of them play at some point. Their ceiling could very well increase as the days go by and they should be pretty well-equipped to deal with injuries.
Lean: Over 84.5
Get all of our preseason coverage in the 2024 MLB Betting Guide.
