The Cubs Won 89 Games, Then Watched Their Rotation Walk Out the Door

The 2026 Cubs were a good baseball team that ended badly, and the first two weeks of the offseason have made the reason for that ending even harder to ignore.

Chicago went 89-73, finished with a +136 run differential (851 scored, 715 allowed), and trailed only a 103-win Milwaukee club in the NL Central. Then the Padres swept them out of the Wild Card Series at Petco Park — 8-0, then 4-1 — and a lineup that had hung a 23-3 loss on San Diego back on July 1 managed one run across 18 innings when it mattered. The Cubs also limped in, losing six of their final ten.

Now the pitching staff that was supposed to be the offseason's top priority has become a full-blown reconstruction project, and it started shrinking before free agency even officially heated up.

Two-Thirds of the Rotation Is Gone

Matthew Boyd and Clay Holmes both hit the market. Boyd, who made 22 starts and posted a 3.91 ERA over 126.2 innings with a 10-5 record, had a $15 million mutual option that went unexercised, sending him out with a $2 million buyout. Holmes was arguably better on a rate basis — a 3.29 ERA in 18 starts, 101.1 innings, a 1.19 WHIP — and declined his player option to test the market. Catcher Carson Kelly opted out as well, thinning the catching corps on top of everything else.

The injury list explains the urgency. Justin Steele, Cade Horton, Hunter Harvey, Phil Maton, Porter Hodge, Ben Brown, Shelby Miller and Riley Martin all finished the year on the 60-day IL. That is not a depth problem; that is the entire middle of a staff.

What's left is thin and uncertain. Edward Cabrera, acquired and then bounced between the rotation and the bullpen, finished with a 5.96 ERA across 80 innings and a 1.49 WHIP. Daniel Palencia's 3.64 ERA in 32 relief appearances is a genuine building block, but he threw only 29.2 innings. Jed Hoyer's front office has publicly signaled pitching as the priority, and the club has already retained both pitching coaches, Tommy Hottovy and Casey Jacobson — a vote of confidence in the instruction, if not yet in the inventory.

The Offense Doesn't Need Saving

The frustrating part for Cubs fans is that the position-player core is close to a finished product. Chicago hit .252/.338/.431 with 229 home runs and 865 runs scored, and the individual seasons were loud:

• Pete Crow-Armstrong put together one of the best all-around years in franchise history: .280/.372/.570, 45 homers, 41 steals, 107 RBI, 119 runs, a 9.83 WAR, 26 outs above average in center, and a second Gold Glove. He's the NL MVP favorite.
• Alex Bregman added 28 home runs, 93 RBI and a second Gold Glove at third with 9 OAA.
• Seiya Suzuki chipped in 26 homers, an .841 OPS and his own Gold Glove recognition after finally grading out positively in right field (5 OAA).

That's a top-tier offense attached to a pitching staff that ranked 16th in baseball with a 4.09 ERA and got a 4.50 ERA from its bullpen. Milwaukee, the team the Cubs are chasing, posted a 3.32 ERA — second in MLB. That gap, not the lineup, is the division.

What to Watch

The Cubs grade out at +1.15 runs above an average team on a neutral field, second in the league per SRS-style ratings, and that number is trending upward. The underlying team is better than the 89-win record suggests. But rating models don't throw innings in October.

Chicago needs at least two starters and a leverage reliever before pitchers and catchers report. Every day the rotation stays this empty is a day the Cubs' biggest advantage — a cost-controlled, MVP-level core — gets a little more expensive to surround.