At the beginning of every Major League Baseball season, hope springs eternal. That is, of course, until the first couple weeks of games are played.
Once that grace period is up—a period that has been all too short for Cubs fans in recent years—it’s interesting to take a less emotionally charged look at the team. After all, many players on teams will fall short of lofty expectations while others will put on performances that nobody saw coming.
It’s only three series into the year, but players on opposite ends of that spectrum have emerged—or descended—for the Cubs. Since it’s only been about a week and a half, it’s nothing to get too caught up in, but if these trends continue, the club could be forced to head in a different direction entering the final years of its rebuild.
Here are the Cubs’ three most disappointing players and three most surprising players at this point in the season.