Are Chicago Cubs Most Likely NL Central Team To Make MLB Playoffs in 2025?

The Chicago Cubs are the most likely National League Central team to qualify for the playoffs after missing out last season in the view of an analyst.

Sep 19, 2024; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Chicago Cubs outfielder Seiya Suzuki (27) celebrates with shortstop Dansby Swanson (7) after hitting a two-run home run against the Washington Nationals during the third inning at Wrigley Field. | Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

After two straight winters of making additions to the club and still falling short in the regular season, the Chicago Cubs are hoping to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2020.

According to Will Leitch of MLB.com, the Cubs are the most likely team in the National League Central to make the playoffs in 2025.

"Sure, this team would have been better if it would have kept Cody Bellinger instead of flipping him to the Yankees in the wake of the Kyle Tucker acquisition," he wrote. "But even so, no team in this division is more geared up to win than the Cubs."

Chicago has made additions that extend beyond Tucker, including to their starting rotation and bullpen in a bid to improve an already strong pitching staff that finished third in the National League in team ERA in 2024.

The rotation depth comes in the form of the free agent signings of Colin Rea and Matthew Boyd, who will provide support behind the club's strong one-two punch of Shota Imanaga and Justin Steele.

Star closer Ryan Pressly joins Tucker in coming over in a separate trade with the Houston Astros, but he's not alone in providing new firepower for the bullpen with Ryan Brasier and Caleb Thielbar joining the ranks as well.

The key to the Cubs rising to the Milwaukee Brewers' level to either challenge for the division or earn a bid as a Wild Card team, will be getting the team's offensive output to match what the team's pitching staff did last season.

Adding a top flight hitter like Tucker is a major step toward achieving that, but the team will need more from its big 2022 free agency splurge Dansby Swanson, who slugged under .400 last year for the first time since 2018.

Seiya Suzuki has improved his wRC+ in each of his three campaigns in MLB, and young center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong has a chance to level up his game at the plate to make this lineup deeper and more difficult to navigate.

There is no reason that a group led by Tucker, Suzuki, Swanson, Nico Hoerner and Ian Happ can't piece together an above-average season, and if they can figure it out, look for Chicago to make good on this prediction.

It would sure be a welcome change for the fans on the North Side, as the Cubs have not won a playoff game since 2017.