This is what Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson signed up for.
The Cubs are coming out of the All-Star break atop the Central Division with one of the best records in the National League, a clear trade-deadline direction and their sights set on the postseason.
“That’s what you always envision,” Swanson said in a recent conversation with the Sun-Times, “is just an organization, a group that demands a lot out of itself and wants to put absolutely the best product possible on the field at all times and obviously give yourself a really good chance to do something special.”
It has been a winding road in recent years, and there’s still months of baseball to determine if the Cubs (57-39) will achieve that “something special.” But Swanson says he didn’t doubt that the organization could reach this point.
Swanson, wired to be laser-focused on winning each day, has understood the blueprint from which the Cubs were building since they pitched it to him in free agency.
Two and a half years ago, the Cubs signaled that the rebuild was over and they were getting serious about winning by signing Swanson to a seven-year deal worth $177 million.
After a swift gutting of the 2016 championship core at the 2021 trade deadline and a lackluster 2022 season, the Cubs’ successful courtship of one of the top free agents during the offseason of the shortstop was a refreshing change of pace.
Still, with the front office trumpeting the importance of sustained success, the next two years were full of close calls and heartbreak for the fan base.
“I understood the trajectory of everything,” said Swanson, who has maintained consistent communication with president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer and general manager Carter Hawkins. “I understood what was ahead. It’s hard to judge things based off of initially what goes on and what happens. And even in the first two years, we had a lot of really good moments, just never could sustain it enough to be able to get to where we wanted to get to.”
Swanson and his teammates spoke openly about the disappointment of missing the playoffs. But he also could zoom out and look at the big picture.
He’d infamously come to his free-agency meeting with the Cubs armed with research on the organization as a whole and further questions about the farm system. And in the years since, he has known which prospects were in the pipeline and trusted Hoyer and Hawkins to supplement that young talent with more veteran additions.
That trust, however, didn’t keep him from being hands-on in the process. Leading up to the 2023 trade deadline, Swanson was sidelined with a bruised heel, which gave him extra time to talk with Hoyer about his approach.
This year, there’s no question about whether the Cubs should add or subtract at the deadline. Only the Dodgers (58-39) have a better record in the NL. The Brewers (56-40), overperforming for a second consecutive season despite losing major contributors, have made it a tight division race.
Trade-deadline conversations typically pause for the draft, then pick back up again over the All-Star break.
“We have a handful of teams that know exactly where they are, but a lot of teams that are in the middle,” Hoyer said at the beginning of the month. “Look no further than 2023, when all of a sudden we went from sellers to buyers in the last 10 days. A lot of things are going to change. There are probably some teams that will sell that don’t expect to, and vice versa.”
The Cubs’ most obvious need is pitching, ideally reinforcing the rotation, which has endured the brunt of the team’s injuries this season, and adding bullpen support.
Despite entering the break with the second-best offense of the unofficial first half, the Cubs still have room to upgrade.
The Cubs believe in rookie Matt Shaw’s ability to eventually be the answer at third base, but the .531 OPS the Cubs have gotten out of the position this year has been the worst in the majors.
The team also has gotten little offensive production from its bench — although Justin Turner, Jon Berti and Vidal Brujan have had only 273 plate appearances combined to make an impact.
“We’re not really set up for platoons and things like that; that’s not really how our roster is set up right now,” Hoyer said. “So if we’re adding bench pieces, we’re also adding depth in case of injuries.”
Moves at the deadline will be geared toward setting the Cubs up for a strong finish to the regular season as well as a likely playoff run, which would break a four-year drought.
“The biggest thing is just continuing to play good, solid baseball,” Swanson said of the second half. “I know that sounds just like, ‘Well, yeah, duh.’ But when you have the good players that we have, the consistency of taking the field every day and putting out a good product will do a lot of good for us. And just continuing to stay diligent on what made us good in the first half.”
