Opening Day: 2024 Cubs just need a few things to go right … and then a few more

ARLINGTON, Texas — The Cubs’ Cody Bellinger got that Comeback Player of the Year thing out of the way in 2023. Now all he has to do is move up from 10th in the National League MVP standings and make a real run at winning the award in 2024. Easy, right?

Right fielder Seiya Suzuki merely needs to take what he did last August and September, when he tore the cover off the ball, and apply it over a full season. Christopher Morel must keep all that electric power, eliminate a bunch of strikeouts and, oh, while he’s at it, can he go ahead and lock down third base?

As long as Justin Steele pitches again at a Cy Young kind of level, everything will be peachy on that front. And assuming newcomer Shota Imanaga takes to big league pitching right from the jump, Adbert Alzolay continues as a legit closer, Hector Neris makes the back end of the bullpen wicked and all the other hurlers from Kyle Hendricks to Javier Assad to Jordan Wicks pull their weight, there won’t be many complaints.

Meanwhile, all the Cubs are asking of rookie Michael Busch is to be the answer at first base that Eric Hosmer, Trey Mancini and Matt Mervis weren’t.

And the Cubs need shortstop Dansby Swanson to be an All-Star and second baseman Nico Hoerner to progress toward being one himself and — of course — for the team to stay as healthy as possible.

If all that happens? Mega-millions manager Craig Counsell might not even have to make all the difference for the Cubs to win their division — even run away with it — and be the playoff team they weren’t a year ago.

So, sure, why the heck not?

What could go wrong?

And so what if the Cardinals, Reds, Pirates and Brewers all are trying to do essentially the same thing?

You might have heard, but Opening Day is here. It starts Thursday at Globe Life Field against the World Series champion Rangers, who will receive their rings and raise a banner for all eternity.

That’s where these Cubs are trying to get to, and the pressure to at least do a lot better in 2024 is real.

“That’s what it is,” Counsell said after taking the job. “That’s what it should be. We should be expected to win, regardless.”

The Cubs had a lot of things go right last season, when they were third in the NL in runs scored and, for most of the way, played a pleasing brand of baseball. But they lost 15 of their last 22 to end up a game out of the playoffs — an epic choke, an all-out collapse, a spectacular implosion, whatever you want to call it — at 83-79.

We want them to be better, expect them to be better, demand they be better, and yet hang on a second here — if you consult the various projection models and the gambling sites, they might not be better. Everywhere you look, the Cubs are forecast to be in the range of 82 to 84 wins or so.

And not only that, but the early-season schedule is daunting. Twenty-two of the first 32 games are against the Rangers, Dodgers, Padres, Mariners, Diamondbacks, Astros and Yankees. All those teams are projected to be winning clubs. How does 16-16 after all that sound? Not so good? Seems realistic, though.

The Sun-Times ran a feature package last Sunday on the 1984 Cubs, who are known for the heartbreak of falling a game short of the World Series. But what bothers some of those players more is that their team kind of just fell off the map after that season.

Ryne Sandberg went into 1985 feeling absolutely certain the Cubs’ arrow was pointed up, and for a while it appeared to be the case. In mid-June, they were 16 games above .500 and had a four-game lead in the NL East. But then the wheels came off — a brutal and shocking 13-game losing streak, which was followed by a 1-10 stretch in July. The final record was 77-84. By 1989, the next time the Cubs made the playoffs, the only ones left were Rick Sutcliffe, Scott Sanderson and Sandberg.

“I guess I was young and somewhat naive at the time,” Sandberg lamented a few years ago. “You can’t take anything for granted in this game. You have to win when you have the chance.”

This Cubs team has a chance. What they do with it — or don’t — will be the story.