Since 2016, when the Chicago Cubs won the franchise’s first World Series in 108 years, the team has quickly declined into mediocrity.
While the Cubs won the National League Central Division in 2017 and advanced to the NL Championship Series, where they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers, they have appeared in the postseason just twice since — and one of those was in the 2020 COVID year when the playoff field was expanded from six to eight teams per league.
The Cubs have now missed the postseason for four straight years — and they are off to an 0-2 start already in 2025 after losing both games of the season-opening Tokyo Series against the Dodgers in Japan.
The reasons for the Cubs’ drop-off are complicated, of course, but one big one has been the reluctance of owner Tom Ricketts to open up his checkbook and spend big money to acquire top players. In 2021, SB Nation writer Bill Thompson accused Ricketts of having “used the Cubs exactly as intended: to make boatloads of profits. Unfortunately those profits have only resulted in an ownership unwilling to continue to try and put the best product on the field.”
In an interview with CNBC this week, Ricketts made comments in which he seemed to say that in the 2018-2019 offseason, the Cubs “spent a lot of time” determining whether to go after that year’s most sought-after free agent, former Washington Nationals Rookie of the Year, MVP and six-time All-Star Bryce Harper.
“That’s one we kicked around, but obviously never executed on,” Ricketts said in the interview.
Instead, the Cubs made only three free agent signings that offseason, with the biggest being second baseman Daniel Descalso, who was inked to a two-year, $5 million deal. In other words, the Cubs were simply never in on Harper or any impact free agents in 2019.
That was the offseason when the San Diego Padres, who had never — and still have never — won a World Series signed third baseman Manny Machado to a record 10-year, $300 million contract.
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That record was eclipsed about a month later when, in early March, Harper signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for $330 million over 13 years. Since signing with the Phillies, Harper has added a second MVP award and two more All-Star selections. He ranks fifth among all active players in career OPS (.960), seventh in offensive WAR (49.9), and seventh in home runs (336).
Jordan Campbell of the Fansided site Cubbies Crib called Ricketts’ claim that he even considered signing Harper “an insult to Cubs fans.”
“Given the Cubs’ spending the offseason Harper was a free agent, and their spending habits since, it’s very clear the team never had any real interest in signing the superstar despite the planning that Ricketts said took place,” Campbell wrote on Friday.
