Column: Chicago Cubs offense has been a machine so far — but it still could use a little help

Chicago Tribune

09-07-2025

With the Chicago Cubs on pace to finish with their best run-producing season since 1930, manager Craig Counsell was asked over the weekend if he ever was associated with such a high-efficiency offense as a player or manager.
The Cubs entered the final road trip of the first half Tuesday in Minnesota with 492 runs in 90 games, second in the majors to the Los Angeles Dodgers' 501 runs.
Counsell paused for a second and said he wasn't sure.
'I don't think so. Nothing really comes to mind,' he said. 'But as a player I don't know if I was ever really aware of that necessarily. I mean, I thought I was a great offensive player when I was a player. I look back and I wasn't that great.'
True, though Counsell did compile a 5.5 WAR with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2005, eighth among National League position players. He was a so-called grinder who lasted 16 years and played on two championship teams — the 1997 Florida Marlins and 2001 Diamondbacks — that mostly relied on great starting pitching. The '97 Marlins ranked 20th among 28 major-league teams with 740 runs, while the '01 Diamondbacks ranked eighth among 30 teams with 818 runs.
The 2025 Cubs entered Tuesday on pace to score 885 runs, which would be their highest total since the 1930 team finished with 998. That was the season Cubs outfielder Hack Wilson set a longtime NL record with 56 home runs and drove in 191 runs, which remains the major-league mark.
It was a much different era, of course, but the same home ballpark, Wrigley Field, and the same general wind patterns by the lake: blowing in early and late in the season and blowing out during much of the summer. In the current century, the closest offensive equivalent would be Lou Piniella's 2008 team that won 97 games and then got swept by the Dodgers 3-0 in the NL Division Series.
If the Cubs hope to get to the World Series, the Dodgers once again appear to be in their way. The key would be to finish with one of the top two NL records and avoid the wild-card round, then win a division series. Facing the Dodgers in the NL Championship Series would be a tall task but doesn't seem quite as imposing as it did in March, when the two met in the season-opening series in Tokyo with the Dodgers winning both games.
Like the Cubs, injuries have affected the Dodgers' starting pitching, though they have Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow on the mend and remain the best team in baseball even without the two bona fide aces. Meanwhile, several Cubs hitters have outperformed expectations — notably Pete Crow-Armstrong, Seiya Suzuki and Michael Busch — to make the offense a first-half juggernaut.
No one would've predicted that a year ago. Outside of right fielder Kyle Tucker, catcher Carson Kelly and rookie third baseman Matt Shaw, it's mostly the same group of hitters that stumbled for two months in the first half of last season, giving the Cubs a 6.1% chance of making the postseason on July 6, 2024. On Tuesday fangraphs.com gave the Cubs a 95% chance of making it and a 41.3% chance of clinching a bye.
Starting pitching will be the focus at the trade deadline, but another bat also would be preferable, especially if Shaw doesn't start to come around. He was 1-for-18 in July entering Tuesday and was hitting .165 with a .480 OPS since May 31.
Shaw hasn't even hit lefties (a .196 average), but he has remained the starter thanks to his stellar defense and a lack of better bench options. Cubs third basemen overall are last in the majors in hitting (.199) and slugging (.261).
That means any deadline deal by Cubs President Jed Hoyer likely would be made with an eye on the postseason, when opponents are likely to throw left-handers against a team that has been vulnerable to lefty starters.
'You need right-handers (at the plate),' Counsell said. 'That's kind of the name of the game.'
Switch hitter Ian Happ is hitting .225 against left-handers, while left-handed hitters Crow-Armstrong (.187) and Busch (.191) also have struggled in that category. Busch has only 47 at-bats against lefties because Counsell usually platoons him with Justin Turner, a plan he might reconsider after Busch's monster week and Turner's subpar season.
'I've always felt pretty comfortable against lefties,' Busch said. 'I just think we have a group that, no matter who is pitching, no matter who is in the lineup, whoever is in there, just try to do your best.'
Counsell has navigated his way through the obstacle course so far, and the Cubs' 54-36 record speaks for itself. He's the likely NL Manager of the Year front-runner with a team that was favored to win the division but not be a serious World Series threat, and he could join former Cubs managers Jim Frey (1984), Don Zimmer (1989), Piniella (2008) and Joe Maddon (2015) in winning an award based on regular season only.
With a team on pace to win 97 games, Counsell's decision-making will be scrutinized by fans more than ever. He's fine with that, pointing out he's in a job 'where a lot of people place their opinions on (his performance). I've done that job for a long time, so it's pretty normal.'
A reporter told Counsell on Saturday that 'now everybody thinks you're the greatest manager ever' after the same people criticized him last year. Not everyone thinks that, of course, and not everyone blamed Counsell for the 2024 offense that careened into a ditch in late April and didn't recover for two months.
He's the same guy with many of the same hitters. But it's a better offensive team and Counsell has seen much better results.
Is it the manager? The Tucker effect? The rise of PCA?
Counsell tiptoed around the topic instead of outright rejecting the 'greatest manager ever' narrative, saying his role is simply to help players win games and provide entertainment value for fans.
'I've always thought you wake up and try to make good decisions from that lens every single day,' he said. 'It gets you where it gets you. Some years you're going to be disappointed where it gets you. That's the nature of competitive sports. … I go to sleep every night fine.'
Sounds like a mattress commercial might be in Counsell's future.