These are not the Chicago Cubs of recent years. Something special is happening at Wrigley Field.
With 56 games of the 2025 MLB season gone, the Cubs currently stand in first place in the National League Central Division. Their 35-21 record puts them three games ahead of the second-placed St Louis Cardinals, and their +95 run differential is the second-best mark in the whole of Major League Baseball, behind only the +113 of the New York Yankees.
Integral to their strong start to the season has been their prolific scoring rate. Gone are the days of Kris Bryant, Kyle Schwarber and Anthony Rizzo. Instead, the 2025 Chicago Cubs have the best offence in the majors today – and are on course to be the best in recent history.
Best Offensive Unit This Century
With 330 runs scored so far on the season, the Cubs lead the whole of the majors, ahead even of the Yankees and Aaron Judge’s Bonds-esque campaign. Were it not for unexpectedly being held to a mere six runs combined in their last two games by the Colorado Rockies – having a history-making season in their own way, albeit in completely the other direction – the Cubs would be averaging six runs per game. Almost double the amount of the Rockies.
If the Cubs can get over the six runs per game threshold, they would be the first team in the 21st century to do so. The most recent MLB team to break that barrier were the 2000 edition of the cross-town Chicago White Sox; to find the most recent National League team to score at least six runs per game, one has to go all the way back to 1953, and the then-Brooklyn Dodgers.
Currently, the Cubs’ 5.89 runs scored per game is on track to the the 12th-highest number of runs by a team since 1960. If they can get back to the 6.00 mark they were at two games ago, that ranking would shoot up to fourth. And as opposed to relying upon one or two players, the Cubs are doing all this as a team.
Cubs Have Hitting At Every Positions
Unlike the Yankees, whose offence is so overtly driven by Judge’s dominance, the Cubs sport a roster with good offensive players at every position. They wield an incredibly deep line-up every night, as illustrated by the fact that, of their nine players to have recorded more than 100 plate appearances so far this season, only one (third baseman Matt Shaw) has an OPS+ of less than 100, the league-average mark. And at 99, Shaw is close enough to that threshold for the gap to be inconsequential.
In the outfield, breakout star Pete Crow-Armstrong combines some of the league’s best defense with excellent power. Already with 31 extra-base hits on the season, including 15 home runs, Crow-Armstrong is slugging .563 on the season, one of six Cubs players to be above the .500 mark in slugging percentage, including primary catcher Carson Kelly, who is having a breakout campaign of his own aged 34.
Moat impressive in this scoring barrage is when they do it. Not including extra-inning games, the Cubs score a league-leading 2.68 runs per game from the sixth inning onwards, taking it to opposing bullpens and never letting up.
Baseball of course is about both scoring runs and not conceding them, and for all that offence, the Cubs’ pitching staff has not been performing to the same level. They are giving up 4.20 runs per game, a decidedly average mark, and have been lacking consistency in their high-leverage bullpen all season. Nevertheless, the Cubs are winning, and winning a lot of games. And on the way, they are making it fun.
