So what happened to the offense?

The 2018 Cubs season ended on a fitting note, three swinging strikeouts of Terrence Gore, Javier Baez, and Albert Almora Jr. It concluded a stretch of scoring 2 runs in 22 innings in the two biggest games of the season. It creates the biggest question mark for this off season. What happened to the offense, and what is the plan to fix it?

In the first half of the season it seemed like the Cubs offense was gonna keep doing their thing, they scored 476 runs in the first half which was good for first in the National League and fourth in all of baseball. They had the fifth highest walk rate and ninth lowest strikeout rate.Their only problem was a lack of power, but they were still getting on base and producing runs.

However, things fell apart in the second half for the Cubs, they scored just 285 runs in the second half, which ranked just 19th in all of baseball. Their walk rate dipped significantly along with a rise in their strikeout rate. Their power, which was already an issue in the first half, became even worse in the second half with just a .140 ISO which ranked 27th in all of baseball. Their overall wRC+ for the second half was 89, which means on average their offense was 11 percent worse than league average.

If you just go by Septembers numbers the Cubs got even worse, their walk rate dropped, their strikeout rate climbed, and their power somehow got even worse. Obviously it's easy to blame the 30 games in 30 days stretch, but when it comes to crunch time they just did not get the job done and now they will go home ending a stretch of three consecutive NLCS appearances.

A look at the Cubs plate discipline stats paint a grim picture, for the overall season the Cubs had the sixth highest outside swing percentage, 14th in zone swing percentage, 22nd in overall contact, and had the 10th most swinging strikes. Their numbers actually rank pretty similar to the 2017 team, but that's a problem when the Cubs changed their hitting philosophy for the 2018 season.

Of course it wasn't all bad for the Cubs. Javier Baez had a breakout season and is a legitimate MVP contender, Jason Heyward and Ben Zobrist both bounced back in a big way, and Anthony Rizzo came back from a terrible start to have another very good season.

The easy scapegoat for this is hitting coach Chili Davis, who was brought in after being fired by the Red Sox after a disappointing 2017 season. The Red Sox offense immediately improved in 2018 after adding JD Martinez, which is possible could be due to firing Davis, but it's also impossible to tell. It's possible that with velocity becoming an increasingly important factor in todays game, that Davis's prioritizing contact over power philosophy just doesn't work in todays game.

The Cubs brought Davis in to increase contact, but the problem is that it has come at the cost of the Cubs power and their ability to grind out at bats consistently throughout the game. The Cubs made Kyle Freeland throw just 82 pitches (60 strikes) in 6.2 innings, which seems to be the exact opposite mojo of the team that won the World Series in 2016.

The Cubs have some big decisions to make this off season and it should start with making a change at hitting coach and going after Nationals star OF Bryce Harper. It's clear that whatever the Cubs tried to do on offense this year did more harm than good, and signing a big time hitter like Harper could help jump start the offense and potentially lead to another ring for the North Side.