This has been a bad team for the last quarter of the season. Which is remarkable considering PCA was performing at an MVP level and Bregman at a near-MVP level for that entire time.
Really, over the last 40 games, no one on the offense was particularly bad. Amaya and Hoerner weren’t great. Everyone else was at or exceeded their career norms.
I think the defense fell off from all-time great to merely amazingly good after Swanson got hurt, and it exposed how much the pitching staff was relying on an absurdly elite defense to stay above water.
Shota, Holmes and Peterson were fine as starters, which was probably the most you could expect from Shota and Peterson. I think they were hoping for better from Holmes when they traded for him. Gausman and Boyd were bad. The entire bullpen was awful except for Civale, who may have been the last quarter-season MVP, and Zeferjahn, who recovered from his first few appearances to look decent.
The Cubs never got the help they were hoping to get from the IL. They also bizarrely sidelined Rea and Assad, ground ball throwing innings eaters, for a quarter of the season. Over the last 40 games, they’ve combined for 27 innings.
Overall, for a team that was supposed to win 90-something games and was favored to win the division, winning 80-something games and not even being close to the Brewers has to be considered a disappointment. Especially given the historically great season from PCA.