Lock the stages first
Build 2012–14. Championship Window 2015–20. Teardown / Reset 2021–24. Re-entry 2025. The active 2026 season is excluded.
How do you judge the full life of a championship window?
Report 004 is not a GM ranking and not a dynasty label. It asks whether Chicago built the 2016 core well, maximized it while the window was open, recognized the decline at the right time, converted the teardown into useful future value and actually built another contender.
14completed seasons
139core evidence records
139 / 139records source-linked
300,000random-weight tests
Start here
The method follows the window from construction through the next contender.
Separate creation from inheritance
Báez and Contreras were inherited organizational assets. Rizzo, Bryant, Hendricks, Arrieta, Schwarber and others arrived through different channels. Acquisition and development credit are not automatically the same.
Grade the window without ring halo
The 2016 title is rewarded primarily in postseason conversion. It does not make every free-agent contract or deadline trade a good decision.
Judge the exit using information available then
A 95-win 2018 team is not retroactively treated as an obvious seller. The timeline asks when the decline evidence became strong enough to justify sacrificing another run.
Follow the 2021 assets into 2025
The report distinguishes direct teardown descendants, retained old-window Cubs, new development, new spending and later unrelated trades.
Create controlled future value.
Turn it into wins and October rounds.
Recover value and reassemble.
Test whether another real contender exists.
Seven MLB lifecycle questions
The categories match the actual Cubs argument.
Team strength & sustained contention
How much regular-season winning and contender longevity did the lifecycle create?
Postseason conversion
Did the best teams turn regular-season quality into series wins, a pennant and a championship?
Core construction & development
How effectively did Chicago create and develop the roster that opened the window?
Window resource deployment
Were payroll, prospects and deadline resources spent intelligently while the team was trying to win?
Decline detection & exit timing
Did Chicago keep trying for too long, sell too early, or pivot at a defensible point?
Teardown asset conversion
What did the outgoing core actually return in realized Cubs value through 2025?
Next-window conversion
Did the reset become another meaningful contender—and where did that roster actually come from?
Evidence integrity
139 of 139 core records carry a source.
14 / 14Season results
12 / 12Core construction events
15 / 15Core-player rows
10 / 10Draft / IFA classes
12 / 12Development cases
17 / 17Window transactions
9 / 9Teardown return branches
14 / 14Manager seasons
5 / 5Manager decisions
10 / 10Peak-player events
5 / 5Availability shocks
16 / 162025 provenance cases
Source families: MLB.com/Cubs official history, transaction and player-development records; Baseball Reference season pages; and a rights-reviewed Wikimedia Commons photo archive. Formula and summary tabs are excluded from the 139-record evidence count.
Does the verdict depend on our priorities?
The exact score moves. The lifecycle classification barely does.
300,000 random-weight tests: 200,000 unrestricted simplex draws plus 100,000 bounded plausible models where every dimension receives 5%–30% weight. Component scores stay fixed; only priorities change.
Classification: 85+ Elite; 75–84.99 Successful with flaws; 65–74.99 Mixed; below 65 Weak. Every named philosophy remains “Successful with flaws.”
What the model cannot claim
Lifecycle scoring still contains judgment.
2026 is excluded
Report 004 stops after completed 2025. The active 2026 Cubs cannot improve or damage the frozen historical score.
Re-entry is only one complete season
The 92-win 2025 team is real evidence, but one season is not proof of a durable new championship window.
The 2025 role-weight index is not WAR
The transparent 1–5 role weight is only a causal provenance check used to estimate where the roster came from. It does not directly enter the seven-dimension score.
Some teardown value remains immature
Kevin Alcántara and other young assets retained future value at the cutoff, so realized-return grades may change with later seasons.
2020 needs context
The 34–26 pandemic season remains in the story but is treated carefully when volume comparisons require full-season context.
Why isn't the workbook public? The native 28-tab research database remains private. Public transparency comes from the evidence inventory, model weights, source policy, limitations and robustness tests.