Something was lost in translation when Japanese outfielder Kosuke Fukudome made his heralded debut at Wrigley Field on opening day of the 2008 season.
Fans held up placards in the right-field bleachers with the phrase “It’s Gonna Happen” in English on one side and the Japanese version on the other. But after Fukudome tied the game in the ninth inning with a three-run home run off Milwaukee Brewers closer Eric Gagne, a Japanese reporter revealed the sign maker got it wrong: The placards actually read “It’s an accident” in Japanese.
Seiya Suzuki makes his major-league debut Thursday against the Brewers at Wrigley, and the forecast for the Chicago Cubs’ newest Japanese free agent is much sunnier than things turned out to be for Fukudome, who never lived up to the hype that accompanied his four-year, $48 million deal.
The left-handed-hitting Fukudome was widely viewed as the missing piece on an already stacked team that was a consensus pick to get to the 2008 World Series and end a 100-year championship drought. The 27-year-old Suzuki isn’t expected to lead a rebuilding team to the postseason in 2022, and since the Cubs ended the drought six years ago, he can go about his business and acclimate himself to the majors while the team transitions to a new era.
Whether he’ll be part of what Cubs President Jed Hoyer refers to as “the next great Cubs team” is anyone’s guess, but with the Big Three of Kris Bryant, Javier Báez and Anthony Rizzo having moved on, Suzuki and catcher Willson Contreras will serve as the centerpieces of the lineup for the foreseeable future.
Opening day is a time to dream, so feel free to close your eyes and envision a best-case scenario.
OK? Now open them and look at reality. The Cubs are coming off a 91-loss season with 31 of those losses coming by five or more runs, and the only significant free-agent signings were Suzuki and starting pitcher Marcus Stroman.
The “thoughtful” offseason spending plan that Chairman Tom Ricketts promised was basically the signing of two players. All of the offseason rumors about the possible returns of Rizzo or Bryant or signing free-agent shortstop Carlos Correa turned out to be idle speculation during the 99-day lockout.
The Rickettses are who we thought they’d be, and that means a season of diminished expectations.
Still, the Cubs have an estimated payroll of $144 million, according to FanGraphs.com, which isn’t what it could be but is still second in the National League Central to the St. Louis Cardinals’ $163 million. They also play in a division with two other rebuilding teams in the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates, so it’s quite possible the Cubs could finish third with a sub-.500 record, albeit well behind the favored Brewers and Cardinals.
Would that suffice? And if so, does it mean ownership is taking the fans for granted?
The last time the Cubs entered a rebuild 10 years ago, most fans gave them the benefit of the doubt because of the reputation of Theo Epstein, the highly regarded Boston Red Sox general manager who took over as president of baseball operations and presented a clear vision of his game plan. The teardown began and Epstein executed his plan to a T, so fans suffered through three mostly awful seasons before the turnaround in 2015.
While Hoyer, the former GM who was promoted to succeed Epstein as president after the 2020 season, also deserves credit for the moves that made the first rebuild a success, he knows he doesn’t have the same gravitas Epstein had in 2012. His teardown last summer was a work of art, but most of the pieces the Cubs got in return won’t be ready for a few years, so it’s impossible to know whether he got enough back for Rizzo, Bryant and Báez.
And with much higher ticket prices than a decade ago, Cubs fans are no longer willing to sit through three bad seasons waiting on a potential payoff in 2025, meaning Hoyer is already on the clock.
We’ve seen Cubs teams come from nowhere to contend, as they memorably did during playoff seasons in 1984, 1989, 1998 and 2003. For this edition to pull off a surprise, it needs veterans Kyle Hendricks, Jason Heyward and Ian Happ to have rebound seasons after poor showings in 2021; Stroman and Suzuki to be the game-changers the Cubs are betting on; Frank Schwindel and Patrick Wisdom to pick up where they left off; and young players such as Justin Steele, Keegan Thompson, Nick Madrigal, Clint Frazier and Nico Hoerner to take big steps forward.
Long-term injuries to pitchers Adbert Alzolay and Codi Heuer put them behind the eight ball, and starter Wade Miley also is out to begin the season. The bullpen remains a concern with three pitchers 35 or older and only one left-hander in Daniel Norris.
Defensively the Cubs haven’t shown much this spring, and that could be their biggest deficiency heading into the season.
But at least it’s opening day, and soon enough the sun will come out and the weather will warm and fans will make beer cup snakes in the bleachers.
When all is said and done, Wrigley Field is still the main attraction, same as it ever was.
And that’s no accident.
