MESA, Ariz. — There’s certainly a different atmosphere around Sloan Park as the Cubs begin spring training.

The offseason moves — and the general lack thereof across the rest of the division — create a certain buzz that this team should be playing postseason games for the first time since 2020.

The team feels that, too.

“In the three-plus years I’ve been here, this is certainly the most talented team,” Cubs general manager Carter Hawkins said during the opening press conference on Sunday afternoon. “I think [president of baseball operations] Jed [Hoyer] would say the same in terms of these last [few] years in his role.”

[Watch the complete press conference with Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins]

The Cubs seemingly attacked every area they wanted to this offseason.

A star bat or, as Hoyer called it, a 5-WAR player? Kyle Tucker checks that box.

Building bullpen and pitching depth? They added Matthew Boyd and Colin Rea to the rotation mix and seemingly added relievers every week this offseason, culminating in the additions of veterans Ryan Pressly and Ryan Brasier just before camp opened.

Catching help? Veteran Carson Kelly fits the bill.

There’s also some cautious optimism that the roster building isn’t done, either.

“I think we’re a better team, absolutely,” Counsell said.

But, as the old saying goes, talk is cheap. On-paper improvements are just that — on paper.

“We still got to play the games, and we still got to win every day here in camp, to try to prepare us for the long season,” Hawkins said. “But, yeah, we’re encouraged about the talent that we have and encouraged about the opportunities that present us.”

Entering last season, there was some optimism, too. After all, the team had finished 2023 one game short of the playoffs and had added one of the game’s best managers in Craig Counsell. But a repeat 83-win season clearly wasn’t good enough.

[WATCH: 1-on-1 with Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy]

“I felt like we overperformed our expectations in 2023, to be candid,” Hoyer said. “And going into last year, the hope was that would sort of happen again and it didn’t. We ended up roughly around where we were publicly projected to be.”

Every year there’s a belief and knowledge that teams need to outperform projections, regardless of if they’re projected around 80 wins or 95 wins. So this year is no different.

“The goal this year is to outperform expectations,” Hoyer said. “Once we start meetings this afternoon, every conversation is about maximizing, optimizing every player to hope that we can outdo our projections.”

[Three Cubs position battles to watch this spring]

Near the end of last season when the Brewers clinched the NL Central, Counsell delivered an impassioned message to the organization as a whole: that the goal should be building 90-win teams.

Counsell echoed the message again on Friday, albeit in a different tone. The goal shouldn’t be just 90 wins, per se, but rather improving and knowing that 83 wins — the number they’ve put up the last two years — isn’t good enough.

“We got to do better. We got to do better,” Counsell said. “And I think that should be the standard, that should be the expectation. I’m not running away from the [90-win] statement. I fully support the statement.

“At this time of year, it’s like, just keep getting better. And I think we’ve gotten better.”