The Team Theo built

The 2015 Major League Baseball season is upon us and what better way to kick start the campaign than a Cubs-Cardinals match up. The perennial powerhouse that is St. Louis seems to somehow be there when it counts every year (super annoying) and for the first time in half a decade, the Cubs won’t be staring down 90 losses. The  Cubbies are supposed to be contending this year, a real dark horse picked by many ( just not any Cubs fans) to at least reach the playoffs and it’s easy to see why.

The Cubs ended last year with 89 losses, but the font office continued to work hard behind the scenes. The mastermind that is Theo Epstein has had his Sam Hinkie (76ers GM) cap on since he took over in 2011. To say the Cubs have been awful on the field is an understatement. They lost 101 games in 2012 and 96 in 2013. While the team was struggling to come up with the goods on the field, Epstein and GM Jed Hoyer went to work of the field. They managed to get rid of deadwood such as Alfonso Soriano, stacked the minor league affiliates like nobody else could and along the way got draft picks that would pay off down the road. Epstein also made some amazing trades to add talent to the organization and slowly rebuilt a franchise that would be consistently good for a decade. While the cornerstone of the franchise was slowly being built, Epstein signed Jon Lester to a 6year/$155 million contract and also grabbed the game’s best manager Joe Madden from the Rays after their GM Andrew Friedman decided to move to the Dodgers Organization.

The Cubs weren't supposed to be good this year, nope they were supposed to lose 80 games instead of 90. The additions of Lester and Madden completely changed the game however. The Cubs then went on and signed Catcher Miguel Montero from the D-Backs. They traded for Dexter Fowler and suddenly the team looked all set to contend. With All-stars in Anthony Rizzo and Starlin Castro, the Cubs were now ready to compete. Don’t forget that Cubs also have the number 1, 3 and 12 best prospects according to baseball America in Kris Bryant, Addison Russell and Jorge Soler respectively. Add the fact that all the aforementioned players are under contract until 2020 and you see why everyone is going crazy about the Chicago Cubs.

Chicago is so stacked and has so much cap room that they could be big time buyers in the market without giving up any of their top rated prospects. The likes of C.J Edwards, Gleyber Torres, Albert Almora, and Jen-Ho Tseng could be used as bargaining chips to bring in a top rated free agent. Sunday night might be start of a special season for Chicago and history could well be in the making, whether or not the Cubs will win the elusive World Series Championship is a topic of its own, one thing we do know is that they are built to be great for the next decade.