Despite 3-1 victory against Tigers, answers remain elusive for Cubs

Tigers shortstop Javy Baez centered himself under a pop fly Tuesday, familiar flags flapping above. He squeezed the ball in his teal glove, then jogged off the field — for the first time in his career — toward the visitors’ dugout at Wrigley Field.

‘‘Time passes,’’ Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said of his reflections before Baez’s first game back at Wrigley since being traded to the Mets in 2021. ‘‘We had a core group of players that led to a lot of winning. They came up young, and they led to a lot of winning. And we had a really successful run with those guys. And I don’t think anything that happened with trading them or anything that happened subsequently should take away from that.’’

Things sure have changed. After a successful stint with the Mets, Baez has struggled the last three seasons with the Tigers and entered the game batting .185.

The Cubs, despite beating the Tigers 3-1, don’t have it all figured out, either.

This season held the hope of the Cubs’ first playoff appearance since they broke up the 2016 World Series core of Baez, Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant. Instead, the big news on the Cubs’ side Tuesday was that they had parted ways with closer Hector Neris and called up rookie Jack Neely.

‘‘Similar to the way we looked at the deadline,’’ Hoyer said of how the Cubs’ performance affected the decision. ‘‘I don’t think things have changed that much. We’ve played better, but I don’t think our odds have increased that much.’’

The Cubs remained 5½ games behind the Braves in the battle for the last National League wild-card spot, and FanGraphs had their playoffs odds at a paltry 3.4% entering the game.

The departure of the 2016 core made way for Hoyer to build a new group from the center out. Essentially, it’s the group he has now — with room for improvement in the next couple of years.

He talked a lot about how committing to moving on at the 2021 trade deadline, in the wake of stalled extension talks, would accelerate the Cubs’ timeline on the other side.

And now?

‘‘If you would have asked me on that day, if we had gotten this kind of value, I would probably say, ‘That’s fantastic,’ given what we traded away,’’ Hoyer said, referring to the fact that Baez, Bryant and Rizzo were all in walk years. ‘‘It was a rare time when all those things came together, and we made really hard decisions.’’

Among the prospects the Cubs got in the trades for that trio, all but right-hander Alexander Vizcaino remain in the organization.

Center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, after going through growing pains last September, has made big strides in his rookie season. Triple-A outfielder Kevin Alcantara is the Cubs’ No. 6 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline. Right-hander Caleb Kilian and outfielder Alexander Canario made their big-league debuts in 2022 and 2023, respectively, and both have battled injuries and limited opportunities.

In the last three years, the Cubs have shot up the farm-system rankings — MLB Pipeline had them at No. 2 this spring — and had pulled out of rebuild mode by the end of the 2022 season.

After coming within a game of making the playoffs last season, however, this season so far has represented a stall in progress.

The conversation in the last two months of the season again has turned to young players getting a chance and how to fill in for veteran relievers who were traded away.

In this case, Jorge Lopez is expected to play a considerable role in what likely will be a closer-by-committee approach. And rookie Porter Hodge got the save Tuesday, striking out Baez for the final out.

It’s not as extreme as it was in 2021 or 2022, but the Cubs also don’t have their attention zeroed in on a path to the playoffs, the natural next step.

After Neely, Hoyer said the Cubs don’t have any other call-ups from Triple-A scheduled.

‘‘It’s fun right now,’’ he said. ‘‘You watch Iowa, we have a lot of players that are getting close to the big leagues, kind of on the border, so to speak. So we’ll certainly have those conversations.’’

Fittingly, back in August 2014, Baez was one of those players pushing for a call-up with his play at Triple-A. But time passes.