Even during an up-and-down season, the Cubs defense still feels like baseball art

I survey the playing surface and see the grass’ right angle spreading open to the horizon, nine white dots astride my field of vision. Just above them, rippling off the buttons of their caps and waving in the wibbled heat, a net nearly invisible draped over each defender. The net dips between them but I can’t see holes. Each player is tethered to one another by the slightest elastic. Balls roll up then down and into gloves but never fall to the ground; players skirt one another’s space like synchronized swimmers. In this orchestration, baseball reveals itself as an aesthetic sport, judged in space for its own flourishes: a throwback of the chin, the arm’s follow through. A wink and smile between gum chomps.  

Perhaps the plays that that expose the game’s beauty most are in the field, those that require both instinctual and theoretical mastery. Applying theory into bodily knowledge is the highest level of execution in any discipline. Like a prop plane, Nico Hoerner whorls an entire circle to catch a ball looped in the wind tunnel above, then understands subconsciously that a well-timed throw to Busch at first will result in an inning-ending twin-killing. Nico has grabbed a batting helmet while we chatter, disbelieving. What takes us minutes to compute well after it’s happened, he’s anticipated. The numbers underscore what our eyes have taken in — the 2026 Chicago Cubs dominate inthe SABR Defensive Index ranking, a statistic that accounts for all position groups moving together for range and proficiency.

Pete Crow-Armstrong recently called Defensive Runs Saved (DRS), “doctors” on a talk show. Maybe that’s more appropriate. He had 14 of the Cubs 36 DRS at that point in the season, second among National League teams. I see the calculation of space — the dotted line and surgical cut measured ahead while shagging flies, the precise angle of the glove — in his jumps from right center. The timed leap through a cloud, the proprioception to bend and not dive. 

Ian Happ said there are no more gap splitters a few years ago, the power alleys have all but closed for business. It’s true that there is almost nothing more demoralizing for a hitter than the suffocating web of great defense. To fans, the net can be harder to detect. More speed, fewer diving catches. A better arm, no rush. As of June 12, the 2026 Cubs Team Fielding Run Value leads the majors at 28. So, a relay perfectly executed looks as it ought to, no more or less. This is what we teach children. As in gymnastics, effortlessness is a feature to be noted, a grade.  

The Cubs defense is a marriage of instinct and theory

I see Dansby skid on one knee, then his whole calf, popping out of the slide in a twist to throw. How long can a man make this play? Has there ever been a time he could not? The day this ability fades I will surely turn away. A shaking grandstand and a rattling crowd oppresses the visiting team, but for Ozzie Albies to hit a ball 106 and fail to meet the outfield grass must be too much to bear. It’s why ballplayers compartmentalize the days.  

Javy Baez’s April slide into the plate against Kansas City — lifting his hand to avoid a tag then placing it on home so quick it was nearly missed — presents us with marriage of instinct and theory at a stark level. The brilliant execution is barely realized live — humans are left to churn through the processing. In reality, the catcher couldn’t match Javy’s mind. 

We can point to 2021 and his bizarre rundown in Pittsburgh that may have cost the just recalled Pirates first baseman, Will Craig, any real shot at an MLB career.

Or maybe Baez’s tag plays, where the glove seemed to read the ball out of the catcher’s hand to throw a runner out at second. Baez’s natural abilities are what Cub defenders after him are measured against. And by extension, the 2016 team, which lead MLB in DRS with 82, is what all Cubs defenses thereafter must measure up to, including the 2025 group that topped them with 84 and won the team Gold Glove.

This May against the Cubs, Reds catcher Tyler Stephenson thought a tag play was a force out at the plate. Perhaps he couldn’t see the force in front of him at third with Ian Happ loping home. Fans lament because it’s such an obvious mistake, but in truth, knowledge of the rules has not met instinct at the angle of the line. The web breaks open. And this is the reality of it. The net is but loose string if not all nine beings bear it up, if it doesn’t hang above each of their heads. The net exists in the tension between, pulling one to the spot, and another over, to provide backup. 

Turning back, I think of Rizzo’s willingness to creep past the pitcher’s mound on bunt attempts during his time as a Cub. Completely vulnerable and open to the ball, he risked himself to prevent a roller from scoring a run, to intimidate the batter from bunting. In our gauzy memory, we recall the story of his father chipping golf balls at him, a two-year-old who caught 10 straight in his glove. Baez, behind at second, creeps a few steps toward first. There is a ripple in the mesh: Rizzo the tip of a spear, Baez a stretch in the membrane. And now Dansby, and now Nico. The net is each individual, it is the team.   

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