The Chicago Cubs were terrible in 2022. Things were awful at the start to the point where a solid second half didn’t even slightly get them close to the playoff race. They went into this off-season with a clear plan that would allow them to compete in 2023.
It is still hard to see them being one of the six best teams in the National League but they will fight for that six-to-eight range if pretty much everything goes their way. They also have the advantage of playing in the National League Central which is one of the lesser divisions in the league.
They hope that the free agent signings that they made are able to help them in their quest to become a much better team this year. For a lot of the free-agent decisions that they made this year, there seems to be one common theme.
Most of the signings that they made have one thing in common. Dansby Swanson, Cody Bellinger, Eric Hosmer, and Trey Mancini are all World Series champions.
The Chicago Cubs are bringing in some impressive players for 2023 and beyond.
Swanson won it with the Atlanta Braves in 2021, Bellinger won it with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020, Hosmer won it with the Kansas City Royals in 2015, and Mancini won it with the Houston Astros in 2022.
With this group, there is a lot of experience with multiple different organizations that did things much differently. The younger players on the Cubs are going to learn a lot from these guys as they bring a very unique perspective to the group.
Since Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, Willson Contreras, and Kris Bryant amongst others are all gone, Kyle Hendricks is the only playoff battle-tested player left so these new guys can be very valuable.
A guy like Dansby Swanson had elite production in 2022 which is why he comes to the Cubs on a very lucrative contract. Bringing recent World Series experience along with that resume of regular season production will really help the team.
These aren’t the only four moves that the Cubs made but it is notable that they are the four biggest moves and they are all champions. It may be a coincidence but it also might be something that the Cubs valued when coming up with their off-season plans.
