When the Cubs were at their best in 2025, their offense carried them many nights. The combination of Kyle Tucker, last winter’s biggest acquisition, a breakout season from Michael Busch, and first-half surge from Pete Crow-Armstrong gave Chicago an offense that was the envy of several teams in baseball.
When Tucker was healthy, he did exactly what the Cubs hoped he would do when they acquired him last winter, carrying the offense at times, but also helping make players around him better.
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The team’s offense took a nosedive in the second half of the season and was a reason for Chicago’s second-round exit in the NL playoffs. It’s why the Cubs enter the offseason with a few more questions than answers.
The first of those questions: How do they replace Tucker’s bat in the lineup?
The 28-year-old right fielder is this winter’s biggest free agent and is expected to get close to, if not more than a $400 million payday. While the Cubs have said they’d like to keep Tucker, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone in the industry who believes Chicago had any intention of bringing him back.
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Why?
The four-time All-Star did not look like himself for most of the second half of the regular and postseason as he dealt with a calf strain and hairline fracture in his right hand, but when he was healthy, he produced at elite levels.
Tucker hit .266 with 22 homers, 73 RBI and 87 walks. The first half was what many teams this offseason will salivate over when he carried a .280/.384/.499 slashline with 17 homers and Gold-Glove caliber defense in right field.
So if Tucker doesn’t return, how do the Cubs fill his void?
“I think we’ll always look to upgrade the offense,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer told Yahoo Sports at the GM Meetings last week. “I don’t think it’s imperative. I think we have a really good position player group. We factor in the offense and the defensive part, I think it’s a really productive group.
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“I think if you look at our depth chart, we need to add pitching this offseason, and that’s probably gonna be the biggest focus. But yeah, of course, if there are other areas offensively we can improve, we’ll look to do it.”
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Despite their second-half collective slump, the Cubs still finished fifth in MLB in runs scored. And while a glass half-full approach would tell you to look at the breakout of Busch as a reason to be optimistic about 2026, a glass half-empty would view Crow-Armstrong’s .634 second-half OPS as a major cause for concern.
The man known as PCA was one of baseball’s most electrifying players last season with elite defense as well as his first-half offense. And while he’s still just 23, like Tucker, he was a major cog in the Chicago offensive machine. If he’s not the player he was in the first half, which is hard to duplicate, the Cubs might need more offense than they’re letting on.
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“The totality of Pete’s season was really good,” Hoyer said. “The way he went about it. Obviously, it was a little boom or bust, but I think he’s gonna keep getting better and refining things. I mean, the beauty of being a great defender is you get an opportunity. And we had that with Javy [Báez]. Javy got a lot of at-bats before he was a good hitter. And we were kind of rewarded with a pretty long stretch of him being a really elite hitter, because he got those at-bats by playing great defense.
“And I think when you play great defense, it gets you in the lineup. And Pete did that in 2024 and ‘25. Matt Shaw did that for us last year. And that’s where the defenders are able to refine things a little bit easier offensively, because they’re just given the opportunity to see pitches whereas, if you’re an offense-only guy, and you’re not hitting, you’re just not going to play.”
Looking at the free-agent market, there are a few players who could contribute to the Cubs’ lineup in similar ways to Tucker. One of them being former Cub and 2025 NL MVP third-place finisher Kyle Schwarber. The other being third baseman Alex Bregman, whom the Cubs attempted to sign last winter.
While Cubs fans would love the return of their prodigal son Schwarber, the Cubs’ lineup could use the right-handed bat and Bregman would still be a fit. The 31-year-old third baseman hit .273 with 18 homers and 62 RBI and was an All-Star for the Red Sox in his one season in Boston.
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The question, often the case for Chicago in recent years: will they pay?
History would tell you no and the Cubs are more likely to spend on frontline starting pitching and a high-leverage arm than a bat.
A team like the Cubs in one of baseball’s biggest markets should be able to check more than one or two boxes, which has drawn the ire of their fan base.
Is it fair to say the Cubs’ offense is better than they showed in the second half and the postseason? Sure, but there were significant red flags that have to be addressed if Chicago hopes to return to the postseason. And while pitching is and should be a priority for Hoyer and the Cubs, not adding offensive reinforcements could be a big mistake.