NL Preview: Cubs mix Michelangelo and Theo Epstein's 'more stuff'

(He named them Ernie and Ron, after the Hall of Famers Ernie Banks and Ron Santo.)

“But I can’t utilize Cub logos,” Maddon continued. “If I could utilize Cub logos, oh my God, this would be through the roof. You know, if you could put a Cubs tattoo on David, or a hat. Mona Lisa wearing a Cubs jersey, for example.”

Maddon was rolling, explaining his theme for 2018. He wants the Cubs to recognize the artistry in their play, so classic pieces with a baseball twist now surround the team’s workspace. Salvador Dalí wears a catcher’s mask, while David — in a jockstrap — stands on the mound as if pitching from the stretch.

The artwork is covered in scribbled slogans — “Chicks dig the leather,” meaning defense; “Dominate 1-1,” meaning the all-important 1-1 pitch — that Maddon hopes will seep into players’ consciousness.

“It’s more of a visual, just being able to see his thoughts down on — well, it’s a painting, so not on paper but on canvas,” said left fielder Kyle Schwarber, who made his own visual improvements in the offseason, shedding about 20 pounds. “It’s hard to pick everything out, but if you’re able to walk by and take a few things each day and know that’s what we want to be, it’s big.”

The gallery will move with the Cubs to Wrigley Field, where the National League pennant has been decided three years in a row. Twice the visitors have claimed it, with the Cubs taking the middle crown, in 2016, and then following up with a long-awaited World Series victory. Last season was more of a struggle — the Cubs had a losing record at the All-Star break and fell by 11 wins overall, to 92-70.

Yet they took over first place in the NL Central for good in late July, outscored their opponents by 127 runs in the second half, and outlasted Washington in their division series. Now they look even better, with three starters who were not with the team a year ago: Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood, who arrived as free agents, and Jose Quintana, who thrived after a midseason trade from the Chicago White Sox. Brandon Morrow has replaced Wade Davis as the closer.

If Maddon’s buzzword is art, Theo Epstein’s is stuff.

“While the league has been getting more and more stuff — more velo, more ridiculous breaking stuff — we’ve been regressing toward more average stuff,” said Epstein, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations. “We have really talented pitchers, but just in terms of raw stuff, we haven’t quite kept up with the competition. That’s not the be-all, end-all — there’s a big difference between stuff and pitching — but you don’t want to get too big a gap there. If you look at all of them, Darvish, Chatwood and Morrow all have excellent stuff, among other things they bring, so I think that’ll help us.

“We’ve got the lowest ERA in baseball over the last three years, but we haven’t done it with dominant, overwhelming stuff. Especially the last couple of years, it’s regressed a little bit. I think it’ll just be nice to have a little more stuff, a little bit more margin for error, and then try to pitch and execute game plans, disrupt timing, hit our spots and everything else.”

The Cubs hired Jim Hickey, formerly of Tampa Bay, to be their pitching coach, and Chili Davis, formerly of Boston, to be their hitting coach. If Hickey can harness the pitchers’ raw stuff, and Davis can coax more contact from an offense that finished second to Colorado in runs scored in the NL last year, the Cubs should return to the World Series.

NL Central

Even so, their Central Division rivals will not make it easy. The St. Louis Cardinals seem poised to return to the playoffs after an excruciating absence of two whole years.

“Not being able to go to the postseason the last two years, you see the hunger that everyone has,” said pitcher Alex Reyes, whose return from Tommy John surgery, perhaps by May, will boost the staff. “That’s what the organization expects from us.”

The Cardinals tried to persuade Giancarlo Stanton to accept a trade to them. When he passed, they dealt for a different Miami outfielder: Marcell Ozuna, who has started in the last two All-Star Games. He instantly gives St. Louis the middle-of-the-order threat it was missing.

The Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers were the only teams in the majors last season to have a winning record but fail to qualify for the playoffs. The Brewers added outfielders Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich, who must help on offense and defense because the rotation still looks shaky beyond Chase Anderson and Zach Davies.

“We talk about the run prevention unit, so part of that is pitching, and part of it is defense,” general manager David Stearns said. “We think our defense got better with our acquisitions, and we think frankly our pitching got better with some of our acquisitions.”

The Pittsburgh Pirates are not exactly starting over, but they traded their best hitter (Andrew McCutchen) and best starter (Gerrit Cole), so it’s hard to expect a winning season. The Cincinnati Reds made no changes to a rotation that contributed to the NL’s worst earned run average (5.17) last year, so a fourth consecutive 90-loss season seems likely.

NL West

The Los Angeles Dodgers have a better streak to preserve: They have won the NL West five seasons in a row, and should do so again. It’s easy to forget just how close they came to beating the Astros in the World Series. Consider these unlikely events: Kenley Jansen blowing a save in Game 2, Clayton Kershaw squandering a four-run lead in Game 5 and Darvish getting shelled in both of his starts.

“Sometimes you just have to tip your cap to the opposition,” general manager Farhan Zaidi said. “That’s probably the greatest, maybe only, solace in the whole World Series experience: We lost to a very deserving team.”

The Dodgers do not have as much rotation depth as they did last season, and losing Justin Turner to a broken wrist late in spring training will clearly hurt. But with their ingenuity and money — and the contributions, at some point, of the rookie right-hander Walker Buehler — the Dodgers should figure it out.

The Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies both earned wild cards last season, feasting on the lowly San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants, who both improved over the winter. Despite a few departures, one of the two — probably Arizona — should claim a wild card again.

The Diamondbacks lost the majors’ leader in slugging percentage, J.D. Martinez, and it’s hard to expect their rotation to be as sturdy as it was last season, when all five starters made at least 25 starts. But the new outfielders Steven Souza Jr. and Jarrod Dyson should somewhat make up for losing Martinez, as catcher Alex Avila should for the loss of Chris Iannetta, who joined the Rockies.

With Charlie Blackmon, the majors’ leader in total bases, facing free agency after the season, Colorado should feel an urgency to return to the playoffs. The Rockies’ wild-card loss to Arizona gave them an intoxicating whiff of the postseason.

“The one word I would use to describe that feeling was ‘addicting,'” starter Chad Bettis said. “Once you get a taste of it, you want more of it, and that’s what we’re pushing for. We expect to be in the playoffs. We’re built really strongly and we have a lot of depth.”

The Rockies spent lavishly to maintain a strong bullpen, giving a combined $106 million to Wade Davis, Bryan Shaw and Jake McGee for the next three years. Those veterans must maintain their durability to again ease the burden on a young rotation, no sure thing in an unrelenting atmosphere.

The Padres — yes, the Padres — made the largest commitment to a single free agent in the offseason, signing first baseman Eric Hosmer for eight years and $144 million. He should start seeing some of the Padres’ “hot talent lava,” as the agent Scott Boras put it, make an impact in the majors, though San Diego does not have the pitching to contend.

The Giants, meanwhile, would be the easy pick to win the World Series, if only this were 2012. They won’t lose 98 games for a second straight season, but they added two more over-30 boldface names — McCutchen and Evan Longoria — to a roster that already has too many.

NL East

In the East division, the Washington Nationals should run away with their fifth title in seven seasons. Dave Martinez signed on as their fourth manager in that span, but the Nationals’ problem in escaping the first round of the postseason just might be their players — or plain old bad luck. Still, while Washington’s well-rounded roster looks all but flawless, we can’t expect this team to break through to the NLCS until we finally see it.

To emphasize the idea of getting over the hump, Martinez — a former bench coach for Maddon who shares his old boss’ creativity — imported three camels from a nearby petting zoo to inspire the team one morning in spring training.

“My message to them is, ‘Hey, when we get there, it’s just playing one more game,'” Martinez said. “One more game. It’ll be Game 163, 164, 165, that’s it. We’re good enough to finish this out. They know that.”

The Philadelphia Phillies lost 96 games last season, but they liked what they saw in late summer from young players like Rhys Hoskins, J.P. Crawford, Nick Williams and Jorge Alfaro. A team that had just one player signed to a long-term contract, the Phillies added four through free agency: starter Jake Arrieta, first baseman Carlos Santana and relievers Tommy Hunter and Pat Neshek. The message was clear.

“If the young players really do take a step forward this year,” general manager Matt Klentak said, “we’ve invested in areas that support them.”

The Phillies probably lack the rotation depth to finish much higher than .500, and who knows what kind of rotation the New York Mets will have. As usual, the talent is there but the health history is concerning. The new manager, Mickey Callaway, will modernize the team’s approach to pitching and injury prevention, which makes sense. But counting on a roster with such a dubious health history — and questionable defensive skills — does not.

The Atlanta Braves enter the fourth year of their rebuild, and the first under a new general manager, Alex Anthopoulos, who will use this season to evaluate the team’s young players. Soon, the Braves must start adding talent to maximize the prime of their star first baseman, Freddie Freeman. But that time is not now.

One thing is certain this season: The longest NL playoff drought will continue. The Miami Marlins, who haven’t made it since 2003, actually outscored the Dodgers last season. But with a threadbare pitching staff and farm system, the Marlins’ new ownership revived the franchise tradition of slashing payroll and trading for prospects.

The chairman, Derek Jeter, never experienced a losing record in his 20 seasons starring for the New York Yankees. He knows how things look in Miami, but concedes nothing.

“People just automatically assume that we’re not going to win,” Jeter said. “I don’t like the word ‘rebuild’ because there’s a negative connotation to that. We’re building something. You never put in the mind of your players or your teammates that it’s OK to lose. It’s not OK to lose. You go compete.”

Whatever their record, Jeter insisted, the Marlins will reflect his values.

“We’re going to play the game the right way, we’re going to be professionals, we’re going to play hard,” he said. “If you’re a fan of the Marlins, you will be proud of the players that we put on the field.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.