Any ‘reckoning’ should start at top for a Cubs team that performed as well as its roster was built

Think the Cubs are done after this past week? Think again.

They were done seven months ago — if not 10.

They were done as soon as ownership cut off spending last winter during a competitive window.

They were done as soon as “urgency” and “October starts in March” became the alternatives to actually fixing a lineup the front office said “broke” and a bullpen that was an obvious weak link coming out of spring training.

Certainly the Cubs might have won more games this season with better luck and health, maybe even enough to win the National League Central. And the front office made a strong effort with the resources it had at the trade deadline to add arms and one especially significant bat in Nick Castellanos.

They might yet sneak into the playoffs with a fever-pitched final week and a lot of help, for whatever that might be worth once they get there.

But make no mistake: This team hasn’t underachieved. This is who the Cubs are. They are a good team.

They are not a great team, especially in a league that has improved as the Cubs’ store-bought rotation has aged and their patchwork bullpen has toiled without a closer for all but 57 days in the last 8½ months of baseball.

That’s not the manager’s fault. It’s not the fault of star players not playing well enough, and it’s certainly not a matter of failing to play hard enough. It won’t even be the late-season injuries that led to the team falling short of their expectations.

This had the look of an 85-win team when the season started, and if anything, the fact that it’s still in playoff contention might be a testament to the work of the manager, staff and the desire of many holdovers in the clubhouse (see: Anthony Rizzo shedding a walking boot to return from a badly sprained ankle after four days).

This is a team whose bullpen set a shaky tone during a 1-6 start and blew nine of 20 save chances the first two months of the season until pursuing free agent Craig Kimbrel in June once draft-pick compensation was no longer attached. And that was only after Ben Zobrist’s lengthy personal leave freed up enough payroll to allow it within ownership’s restrictions.

The production of the lineup is largely unchanged since last year, mostly because the lineup was largely unchanged. And that followed another spin of a coaching turnstile that has included 10 hitting coaches and assistant hitting coaches hired in eight years by this regime.

What’s clear is that the onus of this season’s shortcomings falls on the shoulders of Theo Epstein’s front office for free-agency and player-development failings, and Ricketts family ownership for failure to exercise the advantage of franchise-record revenues (with the promise of revenue increases with the launch of its own TV enterprise next year).

Two comments made months ago summed up themes that have haunted the season into its final days.

When asked Feb. 18 why ownership didn’t allocate more spending for bigger roster additions, chairman Tom Ricketts said: “That’s a pretty easy question to answer: We don’t have any more.”

And after a 25-man face plant in response to the front office’s call for early-season “urgency” in a game-a-day, six-month season, clubhouse leader Jon Lester admitted five games in: “We’re all from top to bottom pressing a little bit too much right now. I think we put such an emphasis on getting off to a good start that it’s kind of hanging over our heads a little bit right now.”

Matt Marton/AP Photo

Pull back to a wider-angle view, and heavy free-agent overpays in recent years — including $185 million in whiffs on Yu Darvish, Tyler Chatwood and Brandon Morrow in 2018 — contributed to the payroll problems and roster misfits.

And this: The Cubs promised a player-development machine eight years ago. It has been anything but.

They haven’t had a homegrown pitcher throw a playoff pitch or stick on the roster for anything close to a full season. Until the emergency debut of Nico Hoerner (24th overall pick in 2018), their only homegrown hitters have been single-digit first-round picks and David Bote, with the generous view that the jury’s still out on all but Kris Bryant and maybe Kyle Schwarber.

Two of their best players are homegrown players from the previous regime (Javy Baez and Willson Contreras). And among the young players they dismissed from the organization when they took over is one of the best all-fields hitters in the game, Yankees second baseman DJ LeMahieu, who was thrown into the trade for Ian Stewart after it was determined he didn’t fit the impact “pull” and “slug” ability they sought.

The recent lateral move of scouting and player-development head Jason McLeod to the big-league side of the operation suggests big changes are coming in scouting and player development and doesn’t reflect well on his track record or Epstein’s by extension.

It’s almost impossible to make a persuasive case that the farm system is any better than the one they inherited — the one they suggested was worse than they thought when they got here.

If the historic 2016 World Series and four-year playoff run was the goal, there’s nothing wrong with that.

If not, then the “reckoning” Epstein promised for this year should start at the top.