Every spring, most baseball teams have rosy expectations. Even the lousy ones promise to surprise some people, play fundamental baseball, give that extra 10 percent.

The potentially great teams have larger goals in mind.

The Cubs, of course, are thinking World Series. They were thinking 2018 World Series when they got eliminated in 2017. With the addition of Yu Darvish, some new coaches and additional focus on the finer points of the game, the Cubs want to prove they have what it takes to get back to the Fall Classic.

Of course, they’re not exactly underdogs. They are one of the favorites in the National League and while Houston is an overwhelming darling for the oddsmakers, the Cubs know how difficult it is to repeat as pennant winners.

But new faces can help, which is why the Cubs added pitchers like Darvish, Tyler Chatwood, Brandon Morrow and Steve Cishek, along with impact coaches Chili Davis, Jim Hickey and Brian Butterfield.

At The Athletic Chicago, we didn’t rest on our laurels either. We added an impact beat writer in Patrick Mooney, who was let go by some confused people at NBC Sports Chicago. It took about five seconds for us to snap him up.

Mooney joins The Athletic mainstay Sahadev Sharma to give our subscribers the only double-barreled beat writer action in Chicago baseball. Mooney and Sharma are two of the most well-respected ball writers and will use their sources and insight to give Cubs fans the best coverage around.

I’ll still be writing columns, Q&As and features, as will editor/writer Lauren Comitor. And yes, the OG Cubs blogger Andy Dolan will still be contributing his weekly “Cub o’ coffee” column that elicits such interesting comments. Other friends and faces will write for us during the season as well, including our stable of national writers like Eno Sarris, Jayson Stark, Peter Gammons and Ken Rosenthal.

What can you expect from our coverage team? I’m glad you asked!

Analysis

Any idiot can write their opinion on the Cubs. In fact, I’ve been doing it for years. But what about the kind of analysis that doesn’t find its way into other media outlets?

Sahadev has made his bones by digging deeper into the intricacies of the Cubs for years. He won’t just tell you what happened, but why it happened. “Why?” and “How?” has been the prevailing ethos of our site and Sahadev helped set the tone from the beginning.

Why could Darvish be as good as ever this season? His cutter and slider usage, Sahadev wrote.

How bad at the plate has Jason Heyward been with the Cubs? Unprecedented bad.

Can the Cubs starting rotation match up to the 2016 version? Buzzy quotes aside, it’ll be tough to top it.

Insight

Covering a baseball team means a lot of standing around, particularly in half-empty clubhouses where the modern baseball player has plenty of distractions. It helps to have reporters who have the trust of their subjects and are capable of working a room. Having sources is good, too.

Mooney has been one of the best-sourced Cubs writers for years and he knows exactly who to talk to to get the story. After Theo Epstein led the successful pursuit of Darvish, Mooney wrote about how the team’s valued catching coach Mike Borzello might be the secret weapon in making Darvish even better.

There was a lot of misinformation out there about Jake Arrieta and the Cubs’ interest in him this offseason. After Arrieta signed with Philadelphia, Mooney broke down some truths.

When other outlets are stressing about the identity of the Cubs’ leadoff hitter, Mooney correctly deduced it doesn’t matter.

Our entire staff can work the clubhouse with the best of them.

Sahadev loves to write about pitching and Kyle Hendricks is his half-smiling muse. Back in October 2016, he wrote this eye-opening story about how Hendricks matured into a Cy Young candidate. And then this spring, Sahadev was talking to Hendricks when the pitcher’s improved curveball came up in conversation. Sahadev dug in and produced this story.

Sometimes I even join in the fun. I enjoy having long conversations with people and then spending like two days transcribing them. Here’s part of a Q&A I did with GM Jed Hoyer this spring. As longtime readers know, I always enjoy talking to Epstein as well.

Color

You can’t tell the story of the Cubs with just numbers. Stories from a crowded beat need plenty of detail and off-the-beaten-path angles. This offseason, Lauren wrote about Cubs scouting assistant Ella Cahill and her counterpart at the White Sox, Emily Blady, and how some women are breaking through the glass ceiling of baseball management.

Tommy La Stella and his bosses, Epstein and Hoyer, engaged a minor prank war that made for a perfect spring training distraction. Mooney wrote on what it said about the Cubs’ much-dissected culture.

Last season, through several interviews, I found out that a few Cubs were passing around a book about philosophy and hitting written by ex-big leaguer Shawn Green, and the recommendation first came from Brewers hitter Eric Thames. It made for an insightful story about how players deal with the pressures of the game.

Like a few other people, I was curious who the two people were that gave Hall of Fame votes to Kerry Wood, who is most definitely not a Hall of Famer. Wood even joked about them losing their voting rights. So when one of those brave souls was identified by the BBWAA, I contacted him and had a very nice conversation about it.

National writers and other markets

We’ve added some of baseball’s most trusted voices in the past year, starting with Rosenthal. And now we have beat writers in nearly every market. Your subscription gets you a lot more content for the same price.

Meghan Montemurro is one of our three Phillies writers and the suburban Chicago native (and ex-Cubs and White Sox writer) did a neat oral history on Arrieta’s arrival in Philadelphia.

If you’re into fantasy baseball, Sarris is your man. Our Mets writer Tim Britton wrote about the art of the fungo this spring, while Les Carpenter opined on bullpen cars and carts.

Everything Rosenthal writes is gold. There are few writers, in any sport, as well-connected and reasonable as our bow-tied colleague. One of my favorite moments this spring was when Gammons showed up at Cubs camp and spun some yarns as we waited to talk to Joe Maddon. His written stories are just as entertaining.

This is just a taste of what we offer on an everyday basis. We’ve had two great seasons here in Chicago, but I have a feeling that Year 3 is going to blow them out of the water. Join us at Wrigley Field and beyond from now until the end of the World Series. Or maybe, just maybe, after the parade is cleaned up.

(Top photo: Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports)