Please, St. Louis Cardinals fans: Don’t sleep on the Cubs

Some St. Louis Cardinals fans believe that the team’s biggest rivals, the Chicago Cubs, are not a threat. Please don’t be so sure.

There’s something about the St. Louis Cardinals’ Chicago rivals that invites overreaction. Four years ago, the Cubs were deemed a generational juggernaut after winning their first World Series in 108 years. Now, many believe they’re a rotting corpse of a ballclub, all but incapable of competing for the 2020 postseason.

Don’t buy it, Cards fans. The Cubs can still bite. And maul.

After 2016, ESPN and others jumped the gun in throwing the D-word — dynasty —  at the Cubbies. The Worldwide Leader published a graphics-and-blurbs piece with all-caps block letters that bellowed, “2016: HISTORY. 2017: DYNASTY?” Chicago Radio host David Kaplan published a book titled, The Plan: Epstein, Maddon, and the Audacious Blueprint for a Cubs Dynasty. Prevailing wisdom projected the Cubs as a long-time powerhouse.

Fast-forward three years. In September, Jared Diamond of the Wall Street Journal wrote a story headlined, “The End of the Chicago Cubs’ (Nonexistent) Dynasty” and subtitled, “Just three seasons after a World Series title, the team is set for sweeping changes after an organization-wide failure due to underperformance and misplaced spending.”

In February, a survey of six USA Today reporters picked the Cubs to finish fourth in the NL Central with an 82-80 record, six games in back of St. Louis, the newspaper’s predicted division winner, with the Reds in second and the Brewers in third.

Believe it when you see it.

Yeah, Chicago looked inept at the end of 2019, losing 10 of their last 12 and finishing third in the NL Central, seven back of the Cardinals and five back of the Brewers. The front office isn’t spending money as it did. Manager Joe Maddon is gone. The pitching staff is old. Kris Bryant trade rumors won’t go away.

More from St Louis Cardinals News

• The St. Louis Cardinals sign catcher Willson Contreras
• Cardinals: Day 3 of Winter Meetings brings first move and catcher rumors
• Cardinals Rumors: Growing buzz that St. Louis will sign Willson Contreras
• Cardinals Rumors: Here is what Oakland is asking for Sean Murphy
• The St. Louis Cardinals’ 2024 rotation needs work

Still, it would be an overreaction for Cards fans —or anyone else — to assume the Cubs are toast, and that St. Louis should worry more about the Brewers and the rebuilt Reds.

As of now, Kris Bryant is still in Chicago, as is Javier Báez, Anthony Rizzo, Willson Contreras, and Kyle Schwarber. Injuries to Baez, Bryant and Rizzo, who played through an ankle injury in late September, had much to do with the Cubs collapse. If that hard-hitting group stays healthy, it might offset what looks like so-so starting pitching and an unpredictable bullpen.

While USA Today is bearish on the baby bruins, oddshark.com projects them as the second-best team in the NL Central, pegging them at 85.5 wins, two fewer than the Cardinals and two more than the Reds. Baseballprospectus.com likewise sees Chicago as the second-best team in the division, with 84.8 wins, behind Cincinnati (86.2) and ahead of St. Louis (80.9).

Clearly, Baseball Prospectus is less than sanguine about the 2020 Cardinals.

These varied predictions tell us that the NL Central is anyone’s ballgame. Well, anyone but the Pirates, everyone’s pick to finish last. The fact is, every team in the division has flaws. The Cards have an up-in-the-air outfield, a possible hole at the leadoff spot, and a thinner-than-usual pitching staff.

The Cubs seem congenitally unable to develop their own hurlers and are stuck with a mostly past-their-prime staff. The Reds may have improved their offense at the cost of their defense (Nick Castellanos in right, Mike Moustakas at second). The Brewers lost Moustakas and Yasmani Grandal to free agency.

It would be silly for the Cardinals to enter this season convinced that one division rival is more deadly than another. Still, as fans, we tend to take a comic-book view of our team’s antagonists. As a “Silver Age” Spider-Man reader, I know the Marvel web-slinger’s top two villains were (and maybe still are) the Green Goblin, first, and Doctor Octopus, second. The Reds may be the Cards’ Doc Ock (or Kingpin, or Kraven the Hunter, or Sandman), but the Cubs remain the Cards’ Green Goblin.

If there’s one thing Marvel Comics have taught us, it’s that great villains rarely die (after the original Green Goblin perished, his son inherited the bad-guy-in-green business). You might have seen a supervillain plunging into a vat of acid at the end of one comic, but he’ll invariably return several issues later with a long-winded, implausible explanation of how he skirted certain death.

That could prove to be the case with the 2020 Cubs. The Reds are in ascension, and the Brewers have Christian Yelich (now for quite a while), but recent history and a centuries-long rivalry peg the Cubs as Cardinals’ Enemy Number One. Which means, if the Reds dominate March, April and most of May, and the Cubs are in the cellar, you resist sending your psychic powers to support Chicago, which will be hosting Cincinnati for three straight day games May 29-31.

Until they’re mathematically eliminated, never believe the Chicagoans are the lesser of two divisional evils. For Cards fans, the Cubs are always the team to beat. And they feel just the same about your Redbirds.