Expectations were high for the 2024 Chicago Cubs. Not only did Jed Hoyer re-sign Cody Bellinger and add both Shota Imanaga and Michael Busch to a team that won 83 games in 2023, but he also stole Craig Counsell away from Chicago's division rivals, the Milwaukee Brewers, and gave him the richest contract an MLB manager had ever received.
When the Cubs made the shocking move to fire David Ross and replace him with Counsell on that record-breaking contract, they were making a statement, expecting Counsell to lead them to glory. Well, the Cubs wound up being sellers at the 2024 trade deadline and finished with the same 83-79 record they did the season prior.
The day after the Brewers won the NL Central division title, Counsell said there was a "big gap" between the two teams. He was right at the time, with Milwaukee having won the division by a sizable margin over Chicago, but the Cubs seemingly did what they could to try and bridge that gap over the winter.
This offseason saw them completely revamp their bullpen, add Matthew Boyd to an already stout rotation, plan to hand the third base reins to top prospect Matt Shaw, and, of course, acquire star outfielder Kyle Tucker. They were all-in on competing in 2025. Early returns, however, would suggest that the NL Central might still be Milwaukee's division.
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Craig Counsell's take on Cubs standing vs. Brewers still feels true
There's reason to believe that the Brewers might take a bit of a step back in 2025 after trading closer Devin Williams and losing key players like Willy Adames, Frankie Montas, and Colin Rea to free agency. I mean, the best players they added were probably Nestor Cortes Jr. and Jose Quintana; neither of those guys are needle-movers.
Expectations are a bit lower for Milwaukee, but it's not as if anyone expected the Brewers to be nearly as good as they were in 2024. The Brewers are a team that seemingly is always in the postseason hunt no matter who is on their roster. The Cubs, on the other hand, have not made the playoffs in a full season (excluding 2020) since 2018.
The Cubs are hoping to change that in 2024, but they lost their first two games of the year. Counsell didn't exactly help them get closer to winning, either. The challenge of going to Tokyo and defeating the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers was always going to be a tough one for Chicago to overcome, but it would've been nice for the Cubs to have won one of those at least.
There's still a lot of time, obviously — the Brewers haven't even played a game that counts yet — but until the Cubs give Milwaukee reason to believe things have changed, the Brew Crew has to feel good about how they measure up against their arch-rivals. There will be a gap between these two teams until either one proves otherwise.