Regarding Almora, there was an article that I wish I could find and link to that pointed out that the Cubs got the best combined season of this era (since 2015) from its core 5 players of Bryant, Rizzo, Baez, Contreras and Schwarber...
Contreras 409 PA, 272/355/533 24 HR, 64 RBI
Rizzo 613 PA, 293/405/520 27 HR, 94 RBI
Baez 561 PA, 281/316/531 29 HR, 85 RBI
Bryant 634 PA, 282/382/521 31 HR, 77 RBI
Schwarber 610 PA, 250/339/531 38 HR, 92 RBI
But still under performed offensively due to how horrible the rest of the roster was offensively. Which is amazing considering in addition to the performances above, they also got their best year to date out of Jason Heyward... 589 PA, 251/343/429 21 HR, 62 RBI...
Great half seasons out of Nicholas Castellanos (225 PA, 321/356/616 16 HR, 36 RBI) and Ian Happ (156 PA, 264/333/564 11 HR, 30 RBI)...
...And solid bench play from David Bote (356 PA, 257/362/422 11 HR, 41 RBI) and Victor Caratini (279 PA, 266/348/447 11 HR, 34 RBI.
Those are your best 10 hitters and should give you a dominant offense if you get anything resembling competent play out of the rest of your roster. Instead, the Cubs got...
Albert Almora 363 PA, 236/271/381 12 HR, 32 RBI
Addison Russell 241 PA, 237/308/391 9 HR, 23 RBI
Daniel Descalso 194 PA, 173/271/250 2 HR, 15 RBI
Ben Zobrist 176 PA, 260/358/313 1 HR, 17 RBI
Tony Kemp 93 PA, 183/258/305 1 HR, 12 RBI
Lucroy/Davis/Maldonado 93 PA 158/232/256 2 HR, 10 RBI
And maybe I shouldn't have included the Cubs' third catcher in there, except that everybody said heading into the season that the Cubs needed a better option at AAA for a third catcher, they passed on signing (among others) Rene Rivera (paid a grand total of $100,000 by the Mets), and then traded away a useful player in Mike Montgomery to get Maldonado mid-season because they didn't address the need during the off season.
That's 1,160 plate appearances - 19% of the team's total - essentially acting like a second pitcher in the lineup. It's an even 20% if you add in Mark Zagunis' and Carlos Gonzalez's combined 89 Plate Appearances. When you factor in the pitchers, opposing teams were able to get a pretty sure out in 1 out of every 4 ABs, about 2 and a half at bats every time through the lineup against the Cubs. Which goes a long, long way to explaining some of those low RBI totals among the Cubs' better hitters and the extended stretches where the Cubs were unable to get anyone in from scoring position.
Looking at these totals and the other internal options the Cubs had available, it's absolutely unconscionable that Almora got 363 plate appearances. Also makes you wonder why they couldn't have paid someone like Jose Iglesias less money to be a better player (and person) than Addison Russell. Or what went wrong with the Cubs scouting that they thought Daniel Descalso would be a better player than Tommy LaStella or Derek Dietrich or Wilmer Flores or any number of other players they could have gotten better performances out of for less money. It's also an argument for why having someone else filling out the lineup card might go a long way towards the Cubs having a better offense this year.