Be thankful the Cubs refuse to press their advantage in the NL Central

The Cubs could probably spend the Cardinals and every other team in the division into oblivion, but they remain unwilling to do so

While this newsletter is devoted to – urgent bulletin forthcoming – the St. Louis Cardinals, this particular episode will focus on our blood rivals from Chicago, the Cubs. When it comes to the Cubs’ fortunes and competitive acumen, though, all of it is very relevant to the Cards. So this time around, I’d like to talk about how the Cubs, if they chose to, could probably spend their way to annual supremacy in the National League Central. However, the Ricketts family and lead decision-maker Jed Hoyer manifestly refuse to do that. Signs point to the offseason of 2024-25 continuing this trend of meek reluctance. In light of the reason for this season, I’ll boldly frame this as something for which we should be thankful. It’s Thanksgiving, you see.

Let me say up front that if the offseason proceeds as I expect it will, then I’ll probably pick the Cubs to edge out the Brewers for the division title next season. The Brewers have the most skilled and resourceful front office in the division, but the contributors the Cubs have in place plus the on-ramping of young talent that’s nearly ready give the North Siders an on-paper edge for me (the Brewers’ all-but-certain loss of Willy Adames to free agency is also playing a role here). That the Cubs almost certainly won’t do the basic work of a contending team makes things much more fraught than they should be.

First, let me highlight this semi-recent report from Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic:

Any talk about the hot seat, though, has to acknowledge that Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and general manager Carter Hawkins have consistently followed the long-term plan authorized by the Ricketts family, and worked within ownership’s budgetary parameters, trying to deliver sustained success instead of a one-year fluke.

The Cubs do not intend to deviate from this course, multiple sources told The Athletic, ruling out a pursuit of Juan Soto or Corbin Burnes even before all the baseball executives and agents checked out of the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort and Spa. Rather than pursuing talent at the top of the free agent market, the Cubs appear positioned to make noise in the trade market.

The Soto part is what protrudes above the rest. There is no orderly and sensible universe in which signing Juan Damned Soto amounts to any deviation from any long-term plan. Note that this is a criticism of the Ricketts and their organizational valets within the Cubs, not of The Athletic’s reporting. Since said reporting comes from a pair of established, on-the-scene beats and not a swoop-in national presence, you may assume accuracy.

Soto, besides being one of the most productive batsmen in all baseball, is still just 26 years old, and his blend of contact skills and batted-ball authority means he should age very well as a hitter. A team of the Cubs’ riches has no excuse whatsoever for not vigorously pursuing Soto on the free-agent market and making a market offer for his services. There is no such thing as a competitive window or timeline that doesn’t dovetail with Soto’s projectable future as an MVP-caliber producer. None. To suggest otherwise is to reveal that winning baseball games isn’t your primary objective.

Speaking of the Cubs’ riches, they enjoy an advantage over their divisional peers that’s the envy of every other large-market colossus in MLB. It’s not just that the Cubs are one of the wealthiest teams in the league, it’s also that the rest of the NL Central can’t compare to what they have.

To demonstrate, we’ll turn to Forbes’ annual franchise valuations. Given the opacity of club finances outside of the publicly traded Braves, Forbes’ forensic accounting gives us the best guess at what each team’s books are truly like (what the teams themselves say about their finances is utterly useless information). Using Forbes’ estimates of gross team revenues, let’s look at how big of an advantage the highest-revenue club in each division has over the second-highest-revenue club in each division: