There's a lot that goes into turning around a losing season into a competitive one in Major League Baseball.
Belief in the team, the manager and overall roster talent is the foundation to competing for the playoffs.
It seemed like the Chicago Cubs were missing at least one of these things when they sat 10 games under .500 in early June.
But Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic recently wrote that belief was always there in the locker room.
Manager David Ross held meetings with Yan Gomes and new signing Dansby Swanson, who were on poor teams record wise, before turning things around and winning the World Series with the Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves.
Gomes told Rosenthal, "We took a lot of pride this year in bringing the team together, having team gatherings, spending time together in spring training. A lot of that was, ‘Let’s not let that go to waste. We’re putting a lot of effort into this. Let’s put it on the field as well.'"
That belief and effort turned the Cubs into one of the hottest teams in the league.
Instead of sure sellers, president Jed Hoyer had to decide if he still wanted to get a return for his two biggest assets, Cody Bellinger and Marcus Stroman, or if he wanted become a buyer and push for the playoffs.
Much to the delight of Swanson, the front office chose the latter.
"My thing was, you can’t just turn it on and off, when you want to win. If we want to be good, the expectation needs to be that we’re going to win. Just because it’s not going purely as planned this year, you get to a deadline, (you can’t just say) we’re done with the year," the shortstop told Rosenthal.
Chicago is firmly in the playoff race now. Entering Friday, they're two-and-a-half games out of first in the NL Central and only a half game out of the final Wild Card spot.
But if they don't make the postseason, did the front office make the right decision for the franchise by not selling?
"Yes, we’ve put ourselves in a position to keep players and even add a couple of really good players. But that’s all for naught if we don’t continue to do what we’re doing," Ross told The Athletic.
The Cubs are hoping that their play on the field will take of all questions about the decision to keep this team together.
More must-reads: