Ten years ago, the Chicago Cubs selected a squatty college catcher from Indiana who looked like an undersized middle linebacker with a left-handed swing reminiscent of Babe Ruth.
Not only did Kyle Schwarber turn out to be one of the greatest home run hitters in postseason history, but the Cubs used the savings from their No. 4 pick to spread some money around and sign three high school pitchers with bonuses worth at least $1 million. That group included two future Cy Young Award contenders: Justin Steele and Dylan Cease.
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The Cubs got their World Series parade down Lake Shore Drive and Michigan Avenue in 2016, a triumphant scene at the end of a 108-year championship drought. That is a forever achievement, though it still feels like the franchise could have done even more with all that goodwill.
For a team that readily acknowledged issues with identifying and developing young arms, the Cubs waited until the fifth and sixth rounds of the 2014 draft and shrewdly selected two of the best pitchers in the National League right now. Yet the Cubs are still a last-place team at the All-Star break and only 3 1/2 games out of a playoff spot.
Baseball is a hard game and a weird business. Both Jed Hoyer, the current president of baseball operations, and Theo Epstein, his predecessor, would agree that you’re never as smart as people think when the team is rolling. And it’s usually not quite as bad as it looks when the team is struggling.
Looking back at the 2014 draft a decade later is an instructive way to explain the team’s current predicament.
Kyle Schwarber’s presence continues to be missed
Any fair analysis of the Hoyer regime has to take into account the circ*mstances in which he inherited the job, and how the Cubs went into an extreme cost-cutting mode during the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s no way a value-obsessed executive like Hoyer would simply not offer Schwarber a contract through the arbitration system and let him walk for nothing — unless there was a clear directive to slash payroll after the 2020 season. That financial reality factored heavily into the decision to trade Yu Darvish in what was essentially a market of one team — the San Diego Padres — willing and able to pick up salary, give up prospects and fit into his no-trade preferences.
Still, the Cubs are 275-309 since the start of the 2021 season with two sell-offs at the trade deadline, a September collapse that got manager David Ross fired last year, and an 8 1/2-game divisional deficit at this year’s All-Star break.
Kyle Schwarber’s 36 home runs this season are the most by a #Cubs LHB since Billy Williams’ 37 in 1972. #EverybodyIn @Xfinity pic.twitter.com/ypBK17n46A
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) September 16, 2019
Unprompted, a club source recently identified the team’s lack of slugging as the No. 1 priority that has to be addressed. And that doesn’t just mean raising the floor with incremental improvements at a few underperforming positions. It would be getting a true power hitter who expects to put 40 home runs on the board.
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The Cubs have a deep pitching staff, an improving defense, a solid group of position players and a promising farm system. But the lineup lacks that imposing presence, someone who changes games with three-run homers and stops the offensive lull before it stretches into a two-month spiral.
Cody Bellinger was supposed to be that guy, but he hasn’t been able to recapture that MVP level so far this season. The Cubs also chose Seiya Suzuki when Schwarber was a free agent after Major League Baseball’s lockout ended in 2022. Suzuki is a fine hitter (.811 career OPS), but he doesn’t do as much damage. Schwarber has 112 home runs to Suzuki’s 47 during that time. Suzuki’s erratic defense in right field has made him closer to a designated hitter than the elite defender the Cubs envisioned.
The Philadelphia Phillies, meanwhile, have the best record in baseball, which means Schwarber is on track to go 9-for-10 in playoff appearances.
“Everyone has this big picture of what 10 years is going to look like,” Schwarber said. “And everything’s different. It’s cool to see where everyone goes and how it all plays out for everyone’s career.”
Justin Steele could carry his team into October
Getting injured on Opening Day and receiving scant run support prevented Steele from making his second trip to the All-Star Game. But the lefty has proven that last year wasn’t a fluke, posting a 2.71 ERA in 14 starts and outwardly showing the fire that a reserved team may have otherwise lacked. While almost everyone else seemed to be reminding us that it’s a long season, Steele was screaming in the dugout: “Wake the f— up!”
"WAKE THE F*** UP! WAKE THE F*** UP!" — Justin Steele pic.twitter.com/rx9tyrrjC9
— Brendan Miller (@brendan_cubs) June 29, 2024
Steele recently celebrated his 29th birthday, an age when he should be at the top of his game. He’s evolved as a pitcher, incorporating some of his secondary stuff more while still relying on the four-seam fastball that he’s throwing 60 percent of the time. Command and deception have made him an undisputed, top-of-the-rotation starter.
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“You’re seeing somebody with so much confidence,” manager Craig Counsell said. “The confidence is built on the hitters’ reactions and his ability to execute it. He’s throwing a pitch that the hitter kind of knows it’s coming, but he puts it in a spot that’s just uncomfortable for them. The way the ball moves is uncomfortable for them, so it’s OK that they know it’s coming. It’s OK that they know that the fastball in is coming because they just can’t get the barrel to it.”
As the Cubs weigh various buy-or-sell scenarios around the July 30 trade deadline, they already have a deep pitching staff to make a second-half run and the starters to take control of a playoff series. Steele remains under club control through 2027, which adds to the belief that the Cubs have no plans to take a step back next season. Steele also remains a link to Jon Lester, one of the best big-game pitchers of his generation.
Steele is scheduled to start the first game after the All-Star break, a Friday 1:20 p.m. matchup against the Arizona Diamondbacks that could set the tone at Wrigley Field. As the Cubs try to pass a cluster of teams that includes the Diamondbacks, Steele may have a lot more left in the tank after not throwing a single pitch in April.
“I’m in a good spot,” Steele said. “I just want to stay right where I’m at.”
Dylan Cease was an early adopter
The issue wasn’t that the Cubs traded Cease and Eloy Jiménez to the Chicago White Sox to shake up a team dealing with a World Series hangover. That’s what prospects are for. Jose Quintana helped the Cubs reach the 2017 National League Championship Series and win 95 games in 2018. The problem was the Cubs didn’t have more prospects knocking on the door.
The draft and player development are inexact sciences. Cease deserves the credit for turning himself into the front-line starter who played his way out of the White Sox rebuild and landed in San Diego. But in buying out his college commitment to Vanderbilt and overseeing his recovery from Tommy John surgery, the Cubs recognized some of the forces that created their late-breaking wave of young pitching.
Matt Dorey, a longtime Cubs official who’s now the vice president of player personnel, explained as part of an interview last year about Steele’s gradual transformation from a high school kid to the new ace.
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“Cease is really intelligent,” Dorey said. “He was super-curious about pitching. At that point, we were starting to come online with a lot of different and new technology. We didn’t probably know what we were doing with it, but he was super curious. So when he had surgery right away, I don’t know if I ever saw a player, especially a high school player, dive into his rehab as well as he did in terms of trying to learn about his delivery, learn about his arm action and learn about why there was some injury risk at a young age in terms of the biomechanics.
“He talked a lot about pitch shapes and learning new pitches. I wasn’t there in player development. I just remember them talking about how invested he was in his rehab. This is always a challenge when you have 18-year-old kids who are in Arizona and have never really been away from home. What are they going to do with that free time? He truly dove into it. He got a lot stronger. He came out having a much better baseline movement pattern and delivery.”
Craig Breslow arrived later and continued to expand and define a pitching development program that has given the Cubs extra confidence to target an international free agent such as Shota Imanaga and pitchers in the draft. Guys like Porter Hodge — a 13th-round pick in the 2019 draft out of Cottonwood High School in Utah — were not showing up and pumping upper-90s fastballs in high-leverage situations while Joe Maddon managed the team.
Pitching is the team strength that can keep the Cubs in every one of their remaining 64 games. Teams this close to a playoff spot should not be selling at the trade deadline. As great as planning for the future sounds, nothing is guaranteed.
“They’ve flown by,” Schwarber said. “You look back and you go, ‘Holy cow, it’s been 10 years already.’ It doesn’t feel like it. It goes in a flash. The biggest thing is always trying to make sure that you’re taking in every opportunity.”
(Photo of Kyle Schwarber from 2019: Quinn Harris / Getty Images)
Patrick Mooney is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Chicago Cubs and Major League Baseball. He spent eight seasons covering the Cubs across multiple platforms for NBC Sports Chicago/Comcast SportsNet, beginning in 2010. He has been a frequent contributor to MLB Network, Baseball America, MLB.com and the Chicago Sun-Times News Group. Follow Patrick on Twitter @PJ_Mooney
