Baseball is such a long season, so when a team has a player as electric as Pete Crow-Armstrong, it makes the season feel so much shorter. However, when you’re talking about the 2026 Chicago Cubs, there’s way more than PCA to keep you excited.
Let’s get the bad stuff out of the way first.
The Cubs have one of the worst pitching situations in baseball. Currently, the Cubs have the 18th-best team ERA in baseball, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. That might not seem too bad, but they’ve been ravaged by injuries. 38 non-positional players have made at least one appearance for the Cubs, and key pieces such as Justin Steele, Cade Horton, Ben Brown, Shelby Miller, Phil Maton, Riley Martin, Hunter Harvey, and Porter Hodge have all had at least one stint on the IL.
Despite all the injuries, the Cubs actually have a decent-looking rotation heading into the postseason. Kevin Gausman and Clay Holmes were added at the trade deadline and have provided some stability to a rotation led by Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga, who have been very up-and-down this season.
Gausman has also been rocky since arriving from Toronto, but at least he comes with needed postseason pitching experience. Holmes will likely start game one of a series, but they’ll have to decide who they trust most in games two through four.
The bullpen, on the other hand… that might be a problem; however, the Cubs aren’t trying to beat you with elite pitching; they’re going to beat you with their lineup. Nico Hoerner is the only player in their healthy lineup with an OPS below .737, and he’s still managed to compile 2.1 WAR with his elite defense.
After Hoerner, there’s not a weak spot in the rest of the lineup. Of batters with at least 25 games played, the Cubs have 11 different hitters with at least a 100 OPS+. As a team, they’re second in MLB in home runs, first in OPS, first in walks, and have a massive lead in total runs scored. The Cubs also lead baseball in games scoring at least 5 runs, something they’ve done 80 times this year, and they’ve won 83% of those games.
Historically, when teams score fewer than 4 runs, they win less than 50% of the time, and when they score more than 5, that percentage rises to nearly 80%. Essentially, the Cubs are going to live with giving up a few runs because their offense will handle things on their own.
Chicago might not be the most complete roster in baseball, but Vegas is seriously underrating them. The Cubs are currently +1700 to win the World Series, tied for only 9th-best in baseball and 5th in the NL. They have the exact same odds of winning the World Series as the Houston Astros, a team I feel has no chance in October. It feels like an absolute steal of a line to bet on the best offense in baseball in the postseason, and if they win a series or two, they will definitely be in line for a great cash-out as well.
The saying goes, pitching wins in October, but I’ll be fading that and betting on the best offense in baseball.
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