CHICAGO, IL – SEPTEMBER 26: Kyle Tucker #30 of the Chicago Cubs is seen on the field prior to the game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Friday, September 26, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by George Gaza/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
MLB Photos via Getty Images
Nothing’s ever easy in baseball, even for division favorites. Just ask Kyle Tucker, Craig Counsell and the rest of the Cubs, who went to spring training amid predictions they were positioned to stroll through the NL Central.
With Tucker getting off to a fast start after being acquired from Houston, Counsell’s team was rolling out of Memorial Day. It was that 38-22 start that eventually salvaged the season, which turned into a slog after Tucker injured his right ring finger sliding into second base on June 1.
Counsell, in year two of a five-year, $40 million contract, was constantly shuttling arms in and out of both the rotation and the back-end roles in the bullpen.
Matthew Boyd and Colin Rea were true under-promise, over-deliver starters, luckily for team president Jed Hoyer. They were the only Cubs to make more than 25 starts, with a constant run of injuries the biggest reason Counsell penciled in 13 starters.
Twelve Cubs got at least one save, with Daniel Palencia racking up 22 after replacing the since-released Ryan Pressly as closer.
But Counsell probably shouldn’t clear space for a Manager of the Year plaque. Spotrac placed the Cubs’ end-of-the-year payroll at $211.9 million, so that’s a little more than $2.3 million per regular-season victory.
Six of the other 11 postseason team got more bang for their buck, including Counsell’s old team, the Brewers. They repeated in the NL Central under Pat Murphy, with a five-game cushion over Chicago while spending only $1.21 million per victory.
But at least the Cubs aren’t the Mets. For all of their spending — $342.million to win 83 games — they let a postseason spot slip away when they were shut out by Miami on Sunday.
Here’s the thing for Counsell and Tucker: The hardest part of their job starts on Tuesday.
Both Counsell and the Cubs rode postseason adrenaline in the last decade but neither the manager nor his franchise have enjoyed any recent success in October.
Counsell has compiled a .533 regular-season winning percentage in 11 seasons with the Brewers and Cubs. But that percentage drops to .368 in the post-season, including a 1-9 stretch that began with a crushing loss to the Dodgers in Game 7 of the 2018 NL Championship Series.
The Cubs meanwhile have gone 4-9 in the postseason since their franchise-shaping Game 7 victory over Cleveland in the 2016 World Series. That record drops to 4-10 if you include a one-game NL Central tie-breaker against Counsell’s Brewers in ’18 and then 1-8 if you start counting after they overcame Washington in the ’17 Division Series.
The good news for Counsell’s Cubs is they are the home team for the Wild Card series against San Diego. The Padres will have to win two out of three at Wrigley Field to advance to the NLDS against Milwaukee.
It was Counsell’s call to jump to the Cubs after the Brewers allowed his contract to expire after the 2023 season. They made an offer to keep him but it wasn’t nearly enough to keep him from having an open mind about joining Hoyer and owner Tom Ricketts in Chicago.
You wonder if Brewers owner Mark Attanasio and GM Matt Arnold would have allowed him to go into ’23 as a lame duck if he had capitalized on chances to bring a World Series to Milwaukee for the first time since 1982 (when Counsell was a Little Leaguer in the Milwaukee suburbs).
Counsell’s teams got some rough draws in October. They lost to Washington’s pitching tandem of Max Scherzer (five innings) and Stephen Strasburg (three innings) in the one-game wild-card game in ’19. Somehow they had that game won until Trent Grisham misplayed Juan Soto’s bases-loaded single in the ninth inning.
The Brewers stopped hitting in Atlanta in ’21, losing the NLDS 3-1 after a 95-win season. They were swept by the Dodgers in the ’20 wild-card round, with losses to Clayton Kershaw and 20-game winner Luis Urias. They stopped hitting in Atlanta in ’21, losing the NLDS 3-1 after a 95-win season, and then missed the postseason by one game in ’22.
Maybe that’s why Attanasio and Arnold decided to let Counsell go into ’23 without a contract extension. The Brewers repeated as NL Central champions but were swept in the wild-card round by Arizona, even though both games were in Milwaukee.
You can see why he could have a hard time projecting confidence before Game 1 against the Padres.
Tucker, who has long been projected to be the top hitter on the free agent market, used a fast start to earn a trip to the All-Star Game for the fourth year in a row. He hardly seemed bothered by his first trade, hitting .284 with a .918 OPS (12 homers, 16 stolen bases) in his first 59 games. The Cubs were 37-22 in those games.
Yet a long summer later, Tucker needs a long, productive run in the postseason to end the questions about his health. He tried to play though the finger injury in June but was on the Injured List with a hairline fracture in his right hand in September.
The 28-year-old has missed 110 games the last two seasons, with the longest absence coming from a slow-to-heal shin injury in 2024. He played 136 games this season but caused some raised eyebrows by hitting only .251 with 10 homers and a .778 OPS in 77 games after June 1.
On the IL for most of September, Tucker returned in the season’s final weekend to go 1-for-11 in the Cubs’ sweep of the Cardinals. He’s homered only once since Aug. 23.
Tucker is playing in October for the seventh year in a row, after piling up 64 postseason games in Houston. That includes three World Series and five trips to the championship series.
Those are Derek Jeter numbers. But the catch is Tucker delivering an OPS that’s 180 points lower in the postseason than the regular season.
It’s tough to be a hero in October. But there’s no running from the expectations. Tucker and his manager, Counsell, need to find a way to flip the script.
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