In a way, it’s almost fitting that the Chicago Cubs will open their 2025 season in the Tokyo Series in Japan, against the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and before the other 28 teams in baseball do.

It means everything has started earlier than before. Pitchers ramped up earlier. Hitters began their programs sooner in the winter. There was a sense of urgency to be ready for March 18 – the same type of feeling the team has to return to the playoffs.

“I think that the goal, certainly, given where we are as an organization, is to make the playoffs,” Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said on the first day of spring camp in February. “Obviously, winning a division is part of that. But I think that’s the focus: getting to October, making sure we have playoff baseball. That’s the focus.”

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That urgency was felt even before the fall breeze had really settled in Chicago last year. Hoyer met with the media at the end of last season and acknowledged how critical 2025 was for the organization. It has been seven years since the Cubs have appeared in the playoffs in a full season. Yes, it’s also the final year of Hoyer’s contract, but that played nothing into the equation, he claims.

But his actions this winter dictated – contract or not – that the Cubs aren’t leaving anything to chance when it comes to playing in October. It started in earnest in December when the Cubs pulled off a blockbuster trade with the Astros to acquire Kyle Tucker – a free agent at the end of the year. He’s the type of star bat the team had been lacking in 2024 and the caliber of hitter that can help them avoid the May and June slumps that have torpedoed their seasons the last two years.

“You don’t make a trade for Kyle Tucker if you don’t feel like you have a really strong team going into that year,” Hawkins said at that spring-opening same press conference at the Cubs facility in Mesa, Ariz. “So certainly, I would say, objectively, we’ve improved year over year in terms of just the talent level that’s on the field.

“And in the three-plus years I’ve been here, this is certainly the most talented team.”

The Cubs were willing to dip into their prospect capital and ship 2024 1st-round pick Cam Smith – who looks poised to crack the Astros Opening Day roster – along with former All-Star Isaac Paredes and pitcher Hayden Wesneski to Houston to complete the deal. A team with a 78-win projection doesn’t pull off that kind of blockbuster move.

The 28-year-old Tucker knows that and even in his short time in the organization, thinks this year is the time to reach the pinnacle of the sport: October baseball.

“We have a really good ball club, and I think we have a really good opportunity to have a lot of success this year and to the playoffs and have a run at the World Series,” Tucker said earlier in camp. “I say it every year, that’s our goal is to get to the World Series and win. I don’t see a whole lot of point in showing up just to come out and play some games and go home at the end of the day.

“You want to come up, show up and win. That’s kind of what our jobs are revolved around.”

The bullpen – another area of concern for swaths of the last two seasons – was heavily addressed this winter. Seemingly every week the Cubs were adding or linked to a new pitcher. Even while the team slept halfway around the world in Japan this weekend, they were linked to veteran Lance Lynn.

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Despite raising the floor this winter, the Cubs aren’t content.

“I think even teams that come in with a 97-win projection aren’t just throwing their hands up and saying, ‘Hey, we’re good and we’re done,’” Hawkins said in February.

Now comes the time to prove it for Hoyer, Hawkins and the rest of the organization. It starts with a two-game set at the historic Tokyo Dome against the World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, the standard bearer in baseball and the team every team is trying to knock off.

“They’re the defending world champions, they’ve got a great group,” shortstop Dansby Swanson told reporters Sunday in Tokyo. “But we feel like we have a really strong group over here as well. We have a really good blend of guys who have been there and done that.”

There is no doubt now is the time. The organization knows it. Now, it’s time to go prove it.