Photo: Rich von Biberstein/Icon Sportswire

“The Cubs have a lot of defensive strengths, arguably as many as any team in MLB.”

That’s what I wrote in March in our season previews of all 30 teams and I could write the same thing today. Except I’d get rid of “arguably.”

The Cubs are SIS’ inaugural Defensive Team of the Year, which was voted on as part of this year’s Fielding Bible Awards.

The Cubs were the only team to have a positive Defensive Runs Saved at eight of the nine positions in the field (the exception was right field where injuries had Kyle Tucker not up to his usual standards). They had a Fielding Bible Award winner (second baseman Nico Hoerner), a runner-up (center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong), two third-place finishers (left fielder Ian Happ and pitcher Matthew Boyd), and a fourth-place finisher (third baseman Matt Shaw). The team finished second in Defensive Runs Saved overall and also had the second-most Runs Saved from the skill of their players (factoring out defensive positioning).

As Nico Hoerner pointed out in our interview with him, the Cubs defense gets it done in a lot of different ways.

Hoerner, coming off offseason elbow surgery, was undaunted by it. He specialized in making plays on balls hit up the middle. He had more plays saved going to his right than any other infielder in MLB.

Crow-Armstrong had a long list of highlight-reel catches and was at his best the deeper balls were hit.

Happ, a three-time Gold Glove winner, had the second-lowest baserunner advance rate of any left fielder last season.

Boyd easily led the majors with 11 pickoffs.

Shaw didn’t disappoint as a rookie and was a solid all-around fielder.

The Cubs players acknowledge that the success came from feeding off each other.

“There were times where I felt like our defense was really suffocating,” Happ said a few days ago. “Our pitchers would pitch to contact, nothing would fall and it put pressure on the other team. It felt like every time we had a chance to make a play, we were doing it.”

Said Hoerner in our interview with him on The SIS Baseball Podcast: “There’s something about being around guys who were doing it at a really high level that holds a group to a high standard. It was a point of pride.”

A point of pride with a trophy to back it up. Congratulations to the Cubs, the 2025 Defensive Team of the Year.