Chicago Cubs Latest Analysis and Predictions for 2024

Let’s take a look at where the Chicago Cubs stand as we approach Opening Day for the 2024 season.

There is a lot of buzz in the Chicago Cubs fan base heading into the 2024 season, expectations have been high all offseason. We are now under a month until opening day, so let’s take a moment to recap the Cubs offseason and get into some of my predictions and x-factors for the season.

If you asked any Cubs fans about the state of free agency a couple of weeks ago how everything was going, it would be completely different than now. The only big move they had made was signing Craig Counsell. Now, the Cubs finally got Cody Bellinger back in town, a move the fans have been begging for since the end of last season. This was a much needed move by the Cubs to keep Bellinger’s production in a lineup that desperately needs it going into the 2024 season.

Not including deals to avoid arbitration, the most notable signings/acquisitions have been Shota Imanaga, Hector Neris, and Michael Busch. As it stands Matt Chapman recently signed with the San Francisco Giants, who the Cubs had been rumored to be in on all free agency (I will get into this later). The likelihood of signing either of Scott Boras’ clients, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, in my opinion are pretty low at this point. Although if Jed Hoyer can make a last minute move to bolster our starting rotation I don’t think any of us would be complaining about that one bit. 

I think the patience of the Cubs front office paid off here for two reasons. One, the contract that we gave Cody Bellinger is another prove it contract, he had an amazing bounce back year that fueled the Cubs success, but to immediately think that would translate into a $200 million deal was a bit of a stretch. Cough, cough, Heyward contract… And we have seen this with the rest of the Boras clients, no team is ready to toss these large contracts out. I think Cody is going to be hungry to perform and test the waters again for the larger contract he was originally looking for. Secondly, the Cubs have a ton of top prospects that are scratching the door to get playing time in the majors, and I think by remaining flexible in the deals they inked this free agency the club can get these players the experience they need at the big league level. Pete Crow Armstrong, Michael Busch, Matt Shaw, Matt Mervis, Alexander Canario, Owen Caissie, and many others are poised to be in the future blueprint for the Cubs and need a path to the big leagues.

Here is a look at the numbers behind the deals the Cubs made: Shota Imanaga (4 years for $53 million, with the team option for 5 years for $80 million), Hector Neris (1 year for $9 million, with a player option for another year and $9 million provided he stays healthy enough to qualify for the option), and Cody Bellinger (3 years for $80 million, with opt-outs early on in the deal). Craig Counsell was also signed for 5 years and $40 million. In total for these most notable new signings the Cubs nominally spent $142 million on players and obviously more when you take into account the arbitration avoiding deals. I think a lot of Cubs fans would be displeased with this number at first glance, and rightfully so. At the beginning of free agency Jed Hoyer did say that the Cubs would be in on everyone which set an unrealistic expectation compared to what the Cubs were actually willing to spend.

Overall, I think the Cubs did enough in free agency to vault themselves into the favorites for the NL Central. However, this is a young and scrappy division. We saw the Reds show glimpses of what their future might hold, the Pirates are up and coming, the Cardinals are most likely not going to flop like they did last year, and the Brewers have always seemed to find a way to stay atop the division in recent years so you can’t count them out.

All things considered, I believe the Cubs should win the division and win 90+ games. The addition of Craig Counsell will drastically help with the management of the lineup and bullpen which will help the club improve on the record in one-run games. Last year the Cubs were 21-25 in this category. And down the stretch in September when the Cubs ended up losing their wild card spot, they went 12-16 with a +23 run differential, and as we know there were a lot of close games lost down that stretch. I believe some better management and health can easily give the Cubs a 90+ win season which would be at least 7 more wins than last year.

Time to get into my keys for success for the Cubs to make the playoffs this year and then we’ll round it out with my x-factors.

The first key to success this year is going to be health and consistency, I think these can go hand in hand as last year the injuries to Stroman and Adbert Alzolay put a lot of stress on the rest of the starting rotation and certainly the bullpen which you could tell was fatigued at the end of the year. 

The Cubs are going to be counting on a repeat of Justin Steele’s terrific season last year and are going to need the rest of the rotation to provide a solid, consistent output. Health and inconsistency placed a lot of strain down the stretch on Steele to be the guy that gives the bullpen a break or day off. Imanaga, Taillon, and Hendricks are going to need to be consistent and eat up innings. I would love to see Taillon have a better year, we saw some glimpses during the season when things were clicking, if his ERA can get closer to 4 than 5 that would be huge. With this being Imanaga’s first year in the MLB it is hard to predict what we will get from him, I don’t think he will have as good of a year as Kodai Senga had for the Mets, but if we can get anywhere near his 3.18 career ERA in Japan that would be a huge impact immediately. I have some concerns as he is a fly-ball pitcher, but he sports a lot of movement in his arsenal of pitches and is a strike thrower. Wicks, Javier Assad, Hayden Wesneski, and Drew Smyly are all in the picture for last rotation with the others being depth and long relievers. I’m sure the Cubs will ride whoever gets hot for the last spot in the rotation with Assad, Smyly, and Wicks all showing us flashes of what their best stuff can do against opponents last year.

For the bullpen, Alzolay, Neris, Leiter Jr, Merryweather, Palencia, and Cuas are shaping to be what we will see throughout the season from the bullpen along with some of the aforementioned names fighting for the 5th spot in the rotation. Alzolay and Neris figure to be the closer and set up men for the year. Leiter whose specialty is a splitter that fares very well against lefties and Merryweather and Palencia are the flamethrowers of the bullpen. I think Neris is a key addition to this bullpen that the Cubs desperately needed (I will talk about this in just a bit). As for the rest of the bullpen if they can stay healthy, I believe this is a solid bullpen.

As for the offense, the Cubs scored 6th most runs, walks, and RBIs in the MLB last year. The Cubs were able to get on base, steal, and score runs very effectively. However, the power output was quite average, ranking 15th in home runs last year. The Cubs do a great job getting on-base and this is part of what made them exciting last year, up and down the lineup guys can work a walk and find ways to get on base. And I think this year I would love to see 20-25 HRs from Dansby Swanson, Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki and 30 HRs from Bellinger and Morel. Nico Hoerner is an underrated bat that not enough people talk about in my opinion, he does a fantastic job getting his bat on the ball and getting on base. Throw in some timely hitting from Yan Gomes, a much larger sample size from Pete Crow Armstrong, and other exciting young bats. And this is a dynamic offense to watch out for in the coming year.

Defensively this roster is loaded with talent, there is gold glove talent in the outfield and infield. Simply put, the roster is too good to finish 19th place in fielding percentage like they did last year. The talent is there, I would say the only spot in question is 3rd base, will Morel be able to slide into third base and play at least league average defense? I sure hope so, because this team desperately needs his bat in the lineup.

Time for the X-factors of the year. I have 4 of them, two position players and two pitchers. For the position players, I have Cody Bellinger and Christopher Morel. Bellinger is an easy one, a lot of predictions for the upcoming year for the Cubs have been based on Bellinger returning to Chicago and replicating or getting close to replicating what he did last year. This will be crucial for the Cubs offense, one cannot understate how impactful another .300 BA, nearly 100 RBI, and 25-30 HRs season this would be for the Cubs. If Bellinger can get anywhere these outputs which gave him an OPS+ of 133 last year, this will put the Cubs in a great position to win the division and make the postseason.

For Christopher Morel, we have not seen a full season with Morel in the lineup just yet. If you take a look at his 162 game averages from his 2022 and 2023 seasons on Baseball Reference, you would see 31 HRs and 86 RBIs with a .241 BA. I think this is well within the realm of possibility for Morel going into 2024, he hit 26 HRs in just 107 games in 2023. If the Cubs can find a way to fit Morel into the lineup, most likely 3B and DH, he is going to be a real impact bat for the club this year. I for one am thankful that the Cubs didn’t sign Chapman, although his defense would have given the Cubs gold glove defense across the whole infield, I don’t think his inconsistency was worth keeping Morel and other young bats out of the lineup. If Morel can play league average defense at 3B and hit 30-35 HRs this year, the Cubs will be sitting pretty come October.

Onto the pitchers, for this season my x-factors are the two newcomers Shota Imanaga and Hector Neris. Expectations are high across the board after two breakout seasons from Justin Steele and Adbert Alzolay. I would love to think that they can repeat the success from a year ago, but if we are being realistic, a slight regression might be the case during this season. And if this is the case, we need a solid number 2 starter in Imanaga and someone to protect Adbert Alzolay to keep him fresh throughout the season. Imanaga’s career high for innings in the Nippon Professional Baseball League was 170 innings in 25 games, for reference last year Justin Steele threw 173 innings in 30 starts. We need another starter to get deep into games and keep innings off the bullpen. None of the starters in the rotation averaged 6 innings per start last year, the more effective innings the starting rotation goes, the more fresh the bullpen will be come September and avoid another collapse like last year. 

For Hector Neris, he is coming off a career year with the Astros. A 1.71 ERA, appearing in 71 games, throwing 68.1 innings. This is the back of the bullpen set-up/closer arm the Cubs needed so badly last year. Counsell can use Neris and Alzolay to keep them fresh. This was a huge pick up for the Cubs that I think went slightly under the radar due to the large Boras clients being out for grabs still. If Neris can come close to his year last year, or even be in-line with his career averages, this will bode especially well for the Cubs and give them a nice bullpen to work with throughout the year.

I hope you all enjoyed this breakdown of the offseason and my predictions for the Cubs. I know I sure am happy baseball is back! Fingers crossed for a Jed Hoyer miracle to sign Jordan Montgomery, we’ll see how that all shakes out. But as things stand, I’m predicting a 92-70 record for the Cubs which I think would be enough to win the NL Central!