For the second consecutive year, the Chicago Cubs ended the regular season with a winning record, matching last year’s 83-79 finish.

And yet, while six National League teams will soon prepare for the postseason beginning Tuesday, the Cubs were instead cleaning out their lockers in Wrigley Field home clubhouse after losing their season finale Sunday afternoon, ready to head out and begin their offseason.

In 2023, the team’s September collapse put a bit of a damper on the year after a remarkable turnaround over the summer, but it was otherwise a season that indicated the Cubs were out of their rebuild and ready to compete. They just missed the playoffs by a single game but looked like a team on the rise, giving the organization and its fans reason to have real playoff expectations in 2024.

But again, there will be no postseason games that involve the Cubs. That, regardless of any other successes experienced either individually or as a ballclub, ultimately makes for a disappointment of a season.

“We wanted to be busy today, and we wanted to be planning for things happening later this week,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “That’s not going to happen. Seasons are sacred. You don’t take them for granted. You’re fortunate. I told the team this: We’re fortunate and blessed to get chances and to get to wear the uniform. So, when you don’t accomplish all your goals, there’s a bitter taste in your mouth, absolutely.”

That’s not to take away from the good things that did happen this season.

Shota Imanaga looked like one of the best signing the Cubs have made in years. Michael Busch proved to be a huge find for the front office. Porter Hodge went from starting the year in Double-A to closing games in the big leagues. Pete Crow-Armstrong started living up to the hype over the last two months. Seiya Suzuki had his best, most consistent offensive season.

Those good things and more happened for the Cubs. With the year now over, it’s only right to note those things, because they are important developments when it comes to this team trying to win starting next season.

But again, the team fell short of its own expectations and goals. You are what your record says you are, and the Cubs have to wear that.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” Cody Bellinger said. “I think the frustrating part is, the talent’s there. We were close last year, and then this year, we had that dry spell where we couldn’t shake out of it. In this league, it’s hard to come out of that. So yeah, it’s frustrating because you know the talent and potential.”

Counsell recently talked about the “big gap” between the Cubs and the NL Central champion Milwaukee Brewers.

Since the Cubs’ last division title in 2017 (so not including the 60-game 2020 season), the Brewers have won the Central four times, including in three of the last four years. Last year, they beat the second-place Cubs by nine games. This season, that gap widened to 10 games.

But it’s not even just the gap in the division that’s gotten wider, as far as records go. Whereas the Cubs finished one game back of a NL wild-card spot in 2023, they’ll finish at least six games behind the last wild-card team in 2024.

It’s easier said than done, but the Cubs have to find a way to close the gap next season, and the players have let it be known that they’re well aware of that.

“The easiest way to say it is we just obviously have to get better,” Dansby Swanson said. “We’ve finished at, what, 83 wins the last two years? Obviously, that’s not good enough. We need to be able to build a group that’s able to get to kind of that 90-plus [wins] threshold. I mean, that’s what it seems like it takes to be able to put yourself in a position to get into the postseason, and so I think that we obviously, as a group, just have to get better. I think that that’s the easiest way to look at it. That’s the easiest thing within our control is we just we have to get better.”

“It’s not like I want to pound the table up here all the time, but I think the standard for us players needs to be to show up next year and expect to win and to be competing for this division,” Jameson Taillon said. “I think the best way to start that is to say it out loud. It’s not something we can shy away from. We need to get better, and I think it just needs to be acknowledged.”

That means they can’t go through extended slumps like they did in May and June. Those months accounted for most of the Cubs’ slide from 17-9 on April 26 to 39-48 on July 3. This is the major leagues, and we’ve over the last two seasons on the North Side that when a team digs itself a hole that large, it’s extremely difficult to get out of it and make it to the postseason.

“As simple as it sounds, when you play better, those things don’t happen,” Swanson said. “I think periodically, we were just bad for too long of stretches. We just weren’t good enough. I wasn’t good enough. Injuries didn’t help. … I think a lot of guys take accountability for themselves during that time, but yeah, winning baseball is hard. The big leagues is a hard place, and we just, obviously, gotta figure out a way to put together nine innings a little more consistently throughout a six-month season and not go through a six- or seven-week stretch where we’re losing pretty consistently.”

So that puts a cap on the Cubs’ 2024 season — a year that began with so much promise but ended in disappointing fashion. The fact they were officially eliminated from playoff contention with a week left to play cannot happen again if the Cubs are going to hold themselves to a higher standard.

When he was first introduced as the team’s new skipper last November, Counsell talked about stepping out onto Wrigley Field and feeling the history and the energy of the ballpark. However, he also made it clear that when you walk out to Wrigley as a Cub, “You already know it demands your best.”

They didn’t give this ballpark or the over 2.9 million fans who came to the park their best this year. That should be enough motivation for the Cubs to make sure they’re not heading home at the end of the regular season in 2025.

“We’re here to experience the postseason,” Counsell said. “We didn’t get there this year, so that means that there’s work to do, and I think I’ve said that. I’ve enjoyed the work. I think I’m thrilled by the work. I’m energized by the work, motivated by it. Motivated as much as ever by this place. It’s become even more special just to be a part of this place, and that’s really motivating to try to get this to a really good place.”