This article first appeared in Sportsnet Magazine’s MLB preview.
Through the dark swell of clouds that has hung over Chicago Cubs fandom for the past century or so, a bright, beautiful ray of sunlight appeared this March. It happened in Goodyear, Ariz., and came in the form of three obliterated baseballs. Two of them were crushed into a parking lot beyond left field; the third was powered to deep right-centre; all came off the bats of a group of players who are the most exciting thing to happen to the Cubs in as long as anyone cares to remember.
Those back-to-back-to-back home runs, hit by Jorge Soler, Javier Baez and Kris Bryant in a spring training game, represented something rare and fleeting for the Cubbies faithful—hope. These are three of the most feared young power hitters in the game, and they’ll all be wearing Chicago blue at some point this season. (Bryant may be held in the minors for a few weeks in April to delay starting his service clock and, eventually, free agency.)
Of course, there’s also been some off-season activity at Wrigley Field. Like signing ace Jon Lester for his durability and nasty curveball (which led to a whiff on more than 18 percent of opponents’ swings in 2014) and hiring manager Joe Maddon, who brings his ingenuity and eccentric style—he blared Jimi Hendrix during the Cubs’ first workout of spring—to the more tactics-driven National League.
You get the sense this rebuild has been very well-designed. President of baseball operations Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer have spent the past three and a half years patiently building through youth and the draft, assembling one of MLB’s most envied minor-league systems and installing young, high-upside talent like first baseman Anthony Rizzo. They spent on pitching this off-season, adding free agents Lester and Jason Hammel, then made a series of under-the-radar-yet-influential adds like Miguel Montero, Dexter Fowler and David Ross.
If luck breaks in their favour and the Cubs do the unthinkable—win a pennant or even the World Series—they’ll write textbook chapters about this rebuild. But it’s the big three who will really make this club worth watching.