SAN DIEGO — Was it a successful season in Wrigleyville?
It’s hard — even with baseball’s highest scoring lineup, best defense and best player — to judge 2026 as anything but a failure for the Cubs.
They set championship-level expectations and World Series goals.
Bowing out of the postseason after two games, their offense muzzled and MVP center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong a non-factor, before the calendar even flipped to October?
They didn’t come close.
“The goal is to win, and we didn’t play well enough to do that,” third baseman Alex Bregman said. “It’s time to look in the mirror and get better.
“I know myself and a lot of these guys will be thinking about it every day of the offseason and let it fuel us. Just not good enough. We need to get better. In all areas.
“It starts now for everybody in this organization. Assess the year and come back and be better next year, because it wasn’t good enough.”
In the wake of such disappointment, there’s one overarching question: How does this not happen again?
It’s been back-to-back years of this, the Cubs dispatched by the rival Brewers in the NLDS a year ago. That was described as fuel for their fire this season, but the embers didn’t even burn long enough for a rematch.
Craig Counsell, whom the Cubs poached from those Brewers, has two early postseason exits in three seasons at the helm, with two years left on the contract that made him the game’s highest-paid skipper.
“We lost,” Counsell said. “There’s a response to it that we get to choose, and we’ve got to improve. Everybody can point at themselves and say, ‘We’ve got to get a little bit better.’
“We’re going to have to wait to accomplish the thing we really want to accomplish. … We didn’t finish it this year, and you hope that this has to be part of the journey to the ultimate prize.”
With the investments made in Counsell, Bregman, Crow-Armstrong and more, the expectations are not going to change. The Cubs will head into next season thinking World Series, just like this year.
But at least at the moment, they have a lot of questions to answer about how they’re going to get there.
What will make the 2027 group better equipped than the 2026 one?
That’s what the offseason — likely to be halted by a lengthy work stoppage — will teach us.
This was a roller-coaster campaign, with high highs and low lows, a lot of pitching injuries and a final-week downturn that came at exactly the wrong time.
The thoughts on the minds of everyone inside the losing clubhouse Wednesday were of further blows this team is about to take, the players who aren’t going to return, the pending free agents who were such a part of this group and its plan to deliver on those championship-level expectations.
“We’ll talk about the baseball plenty,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said, “but when you get through a locker room with people that you’re really close with and people that aren’t guaranteed to come back here — and not seeing this thing through the way a lot of us envisioned and believed in — that’s the stuff that doesn’t sit right and hurts.”
Perhaps most important for Jed Hoyer’s front office, the Cubs might have to replace their entire starting rotation, with lefties Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga and David Peterson, plus righties Clay Holmes and Kevin Gausman, all set to hit free agency.
Righties Cade Horton, Edward Cabrera and Ben Brown, plus lefty Justin Steele, make for an intriguing group of possible replacements, but all are coming off injuries, a risky play.
Then there’s the corner outfielders.
Right fielder Seiya Suzuki has been an offensive force it will be tough for the Cubs to replace; he’s expected to be one of the best hitters on the market and land a big contract.
Left fielder Ian Happ is a franchise fixture whose potential departure had teammates crying Wednesday night.
“He embodies the Cubs more than anyone I know,” shortstop Dansby Swanson said through tears.
Sentimentality is a rare reason to spend for baseball front offices. Happ didn’t have the type of offensive season he consistently has throughout his career though still played excellent defense and hit for power.
“All I can say is that I love being a Cub,” Happ said. “I’ve loved my time. I’ve loved the place, the people, Wrigley Field, the fan base. And it’s been truly special. I don’t think there’s a better place in baseball to play.”
With decisions to make, how Hoyer crafts his roster – and how these Cubs respond to another bout of playoff disappointment – will answer that overarching question, the only question that matters:
How do the Cubs make sure this doesn’t happen again?