In any good competitors, there must be some losers. A wild race for the 12 MLB postseason slots means a handful of groups hit the wall after Sport 162 and needed to admit defeat.
Not all defeats are created equal, although. There are shock groups which can be glad to be concerned in any respect. There are getting older groups making one final run. There are injury-depleted squads and out-of-the-blue down years. The how issues, not simply to the style left in followers’ mouths but additionally to the path of the membership.
We already broke down the teams that fell completely out of this year’s race, however with the season coming to an in depth Sunday, 4 extra groups that actively sought playoff glory finally fell brief.
It’s time to interrupt down the degrees of disappointment for MLB’s closest also-rans.
1. Chicago Cubs
It was a story of three seasons for the Cubs.
At first, they seemed half-baked. Having added Dansby Swanson, Jameson Taillon and Cody Bellinger, the Cubs had been 24-31 on the finish of Could and seemingly headed for an additional 12 months of promoting short-term big-leaguers and sorting via younger expertise.
Then they performed themselves into the race and into the idea that maybe 2023 was a time to buy again, that this was really the following good Cubs workforce they’d been working towards. Justin Steele emerged as not only a good story but also a real ace and Cy Young contender. Taillon and Seiya Suzuki turned issues round after brutal begins. Mike Tauchman popped up as a robust contributor. By the top of July, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer determined so as to add. The Cubs didn’t mortgage the long run by any means, however they went out and acquired Jeimer Candelario and, extra considerably, declined to commerce Bellinger, resurgent on a one-year deal, or pitcher Marcus Stroman on an expiring deal.
Lastly, there was the third season, a slow-motion automobile crash known as September. Six instances, the Cubs misplaced to the Arizona Diamondbacks, their wild-card opponents. They dropped a sequence to the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose ire supervisor David Ross sparked by calling them a nasty workforce. They merely couldn’t maintain off an Atlanta Braves team with its postseason fortunes all sewn up, dropping all three video games, one on a brutal Suzuki error.
Put collectively, it’s a complicated image. The Cubs’ run differential was higher than that of the division champion Brewers and far better than the playoff-bound Marlins or Diamondbacks, however the Cubs had big stretches of the season in which they couldn’t get the big hit, didn’t have the right guy for the right moment.
In quite a lot of instances, the perfect reply for groups like that is to run it again and preserve constructing. However it’s not fairly that straightforward for the Cubs. Their finest hitter, Bellinger, will return to free company and require a a lot bigger funding to convey again. Stroman is likely to be extra inclined to return, however he isn’t getting any youthful. Some fruits of Chicago’s rebuild are beginning to arrive within the types of Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alexander Canario, however Chicago’s prospect bounty doesn’t venture to match up with the Reds’ or maybe even the Pirates’ throughout the division, elevating the specter of a workforce that missed its finest shot.
Even with optimistic developments on a number of fronts, the Cubs are again, in some ways, the place they started the 12 months, which is likely to be essentially the most disappointing vacation spot of all of them.
2. Seattle Mariners
Ought to the Mariners get a grace 12 months from disappointment after breaking via to make the playoffs in 2022? Possibly, however this workforce’s assortment of beginning pitching and continued employment of Julio Rodríguez impressed hopes for extra. In a white-hot August, they appeared to appreciate these hopes with a swift transfer to the highest of the AL West, however they returned to Earth and dropped out of the playoffs altogether in September.
Half-measures haunted this Mariners workforce. Even an enormous step ahead from J.P. Crawford and continued enchancment from Cal Raleigh couldn’t present Rodríguez with sufficient backup within the lineup. They traded nearer Paul Sewald for offensive assist on the deadline, however Dominic Canzone and Josh Rojas couldn’t transfer the needle that a lot (and shouldn’t have been anticipated to).
Seattle has among the best pitching improvement applications within the majors proper now — with George Kirby, Logan Gilbert, Bryce Miller and a horde of excellent relievers within the fold. Sooner or later, the Mariners would possibly have to do extra to complement the offense from the surface whereas their younger rotation, together with Luis Castillo, is peaking.
Is 2023 disappointing? Completely. Is it an ending? Not essentially. It may simply flip right into a studying second in an upward trajectory.
3. San Francisco Giants
Frankly, the Giants’ brass appears to be taking the workforce’s September stumbles tougher than an inexpensive observer would possibly. After a few reports questioned the job security of high baseball govt Farhan Zaidi and supervisor Gabe Kapler, the Giants fired Kapler ahead of the season’s final weekend.
That ended an period wherein Kapler was continuously requested to make a gourmand meal with leftovers and desk scraps. Frankly, the truth that he succeeded as soon as on a historic scale — profitable 107 video games in 2021 — and had the Giants in pursuit of a postseason berth once more this 12 months appeared extra like a credit score than trigger for dismissal.
Typically change wants a visual spark. Typically a contemporary begin is required. However the Giants’ current issues have by no means been tough to diagnose. They don’t have any star hitters of their prime. They barely have any hitters who can credibly play day-after-day, using a barrage of choices with platoon issues or defensive limitations that Kapler needed to therapeutic massage right into a litany of lineups. Their pitching acquisitions meant to complement Logan Webb and Alex Cobb was pumpkins instantly, forcing Kapler to utilize what amounted to a two-man rotation for much of the summer, a high-wire act that couldn’t be sustained lengthy sufficient for the workforce to remain within the NL wild-card hunt.
Nonetheless, a bunch of youthful gamers is beginning to arrive within the Bay Space, and remolding the workforce round these abilities — Patrick Bailey and Kyle Harrison amongst them — is barely starting. Including confirmed stars round them all the time seemed like a crucial subsequent step, and that also appears to be the plan for the offseason.
Possibly there are inner causes that made transferring on from Kapler the logical name, however having whiffed on each main free agent and misfired on too many middling choices, Zaidi and the Giants look like taking part in the blame sport greater than reaching something productive.
4. Cincinnati Reds
You possibly can’t gauge every part based mostly on personnel strikes, however this one works. The Reds promoted Nick Krall from normal supervisor to president of baseball operations and elevated participant improvement govt Brad Meador to GM following a shock season of competition that noticed the Reds debut a parade of fun, exciting rookies.
From the group of Matt McLain, Elly De La Cruz, Christian Encarnacion-Stand, Noelvi Marte, Spencer Steer and Will Benson, the Reds watched a younger core emerge on fast-forward. There’s actual and tough work to come back in maximizing that group, probably by buying and selling a few of them, however the 2023 season was a giant occasion on home cash.
The Reds didn’t make the postseason this 12 months, however they aren’t upset in any respect. That they had one of the crucial encouraging seasons in baseball.
