Cubs (1-1)
**Zobrist LF
Bryant 3B
*Rizzo 1B
Baez SS
*Schwarber DH
Descalso 2B
**Heyward RF
Almora Jr. CF
**Caratini C
SP: Cole Hamels (LHP)
Rangers (1-1)
DeShields CF
*Odor 2B
Andrus SS
*Gallo LF
Pence DH
*Mazara RF
**As. Cabrera 3B
Forsythe 1B
Mathis C
SP: Lance Lynn (RHP)
Time: 3:05 PM CST
Watch: NBCSCH
Radio: 670 the Score
Three Up
Three Down
Baseball Prospectus’ playoff odds: 17.6%
I’ve written here before about Dillon Maples, a “stuff” D.M. with 6 letters in each name. That experiment had mixed results in 2018, and we very well may see a repeat of that in 2019. Maples still has a ton of skills, even if finding the strike zone on a consistent basis isn’t one of them. While the supply of 20-somethings with crazy pitches has certainly increased over the past 5 years, they are still finite. Because of this, Dillon will probably get a few more chances.
The reason he might get a chance here is because the Cubs just don’t have a great bullpen. Brandon Morrow will spend Opening Day rehabbing in Arizona. Jesse Chavez was just too expensive to bring back – you can’t just give out 2-year, $8 million dollar contracts to shore up your 25-man roster. Figure in the notable amount of pitcher churn there is on every team, and spots just tend to open up. The Cubs had 14 pitchers last year that made 10 or more appearances. Suffice to say, if you’re interesting, you’ll probably get a look eventually.
Enter Dakota Mekkes. Mekkes is a 6’7″ right-hander who topped out at AAA last season. He sits at 92, can dial it up to 95, and sports 3 different pitches that have a MLB-level quality to them. They don’t make pitchers much taller, but being tall alone makes you Chris Volstad. Mekkes will have to make 2 of his 3 pitches work at the major-league level to have a chance.
Mekkes was a 10th-round pick in the 2016 draft, and he’s climbed 2 levels every single year since being drafted (so he’ll be in the Galactic League at the end of 2019). He’s been a dominant pitcher at every level since being drafted, sporting a 1.44 ERA last season in AAA with 11.78 K/9. That said, he’s had a huge ERA-FIP difference at nearly every level. He has an elite strandability skill. The only problem is that strandability is a skill that doesn’t exist.
Nearly all sites that rank Cubs prospects has Mekkes in the mid-20s for the team. I think that’s mostly a reflection of his very low ceiling. Mekkes probably doesn’t have a path to an MLB contract in free agency – he’ll never have an overpowering pitch and nothing in his past has indicated he’ll ever get walks to a level anything better than mediocre. That said, he’s always had strikeouts in his game, and Mekkes is awkward enough to make people uncomfortable (and not awkward in that one uncle you only see during family reunions that has hard opinions on “the reds”).
It wouldn’t be at all surprising for me to have Dakota start the season at AAA and be the first or second man up. It wouldn’t be completely shocking for me to see him start the season in Chicago (his main obstacle being the fact that he isn’t on the 40-man roster, whereas someone like Adbert Alzolay and Tony Barnette is). Mekkes seems about to have as high a floor as a 10th-round pitching prospect can have – Steamer has him as a 4.31 FIP in 2019 and ZiPS has him at 4.56. 2018’s league average FIP is 4.15, so that gives you at least some idea where he could fit in right now.
Zack Short, the first entry in this series, was a draft pick in the same year (2016) as Mekkes was (Tom Hatch was the first draft pick the Cubs had that year, in the 3rd round). It is looking like the Cubs did a decent job unearthing people that may actually contribute to a major league roster in that year. Those two and a 25th round pick (Trent Giambrone) all look like somebody that has some major league future, however fleeting that might be. That’s a pretty big credit to this front office, in all honesty. It’s really rare that anybody outside of the first 7 rounds or so ever does anything in the league, even if it’s just getting 5 appearances or 10 plate appearances. It’s possible (but unlikely) that the Cubs will get two players from a draft 3 years ago onto the major league roster.
You’d be excused if you missed the biggest free-agent signing of the off-season in Daniel Descalso. Descalso signed a 2 year, $5 million deal, and hit .238/.353/.436 last year. Descalso brings walks to the table (15.1 BB% last year), but let strikeouts get away from himself a little bit (26.0 K% last year). He can play 2B and 3B, but doesn’t really do either all that well – FanGraphs rated him as a net-negative in every season since 2011. He has a long, established history of never being good at any position; last year was the first year he was even league-average with the bat and it brought his career wRC+ to a moribund 85. Descalso is a warm body that will see the field only if Russell ends up being released (and he’ll get some run in the time that Russell is suspended).
It’s my contention that the Cubs have somebody in their system that is already as useful as Descalso. Zack Short had a 15.6% walk rate and a 26.0% strikeout rate in AA last season. The walk rate is the best in his career (though it’s always been good), and the strikeout rate is the highest of his career (though that’s expected as you climb levels). Last season, they sported very similar power numbers (.190 ISO for Short, .198 for Descalso). Clearly, the translation from Tennessee to Chicago means that Zack’s numbers will come up…wanting. How much so is up for some debate. Steamer projects Short to have an 81 wRC+ if he was called up next year. Descalso projects to 94 wRC+ in the same metric. I’m not sure if the 13-point gap can be truly overcome by superior defense (Short figures to be a slightly below-average defensive shortstop or a slightly above-average second baseman), but I’m also not entirely convinced Steamer has the right figures for Short. The reason I say that is because Short is an extreme fly-ball hitter (and I mean extreme – he hits them at a 54% rate, which would be first among all hitters in professional baseball last year). Short is so bizarre a player that you just can’t find comps for him. Extreme fly-ball shortstops are unicorns – Trevor Story had the highest rate among MLB SS and he got there 43% of the time! I don’t know if flyballs are more easily, less easily, or about as translatable as any other batted-ball profile. I just know that it makes Short more interesting than other AA SS types.
Short’s big problem will be seeing if he can last in the majors with a strikeout rate similar to what he brought to AA. If he can do that, I think there’s every chance Short can not only be a major-league player, but a major-league regular. It’ll be interesting to see if Short can hit major-league righties, too: Short’s OPS last season against lefties was .963, and against righties it was .699 (nice). I hope Short gets a nice, long look in spring training. Descalso probably shuts the door on Short playing a lot in 2019, but it’s also not a big hurdle for Short to jump. 2/$5 doesn’t scream “guaranteed spot on the 25-man,” and it obviously shouldn’t. In any case, Russell’s suspension opens the door for Short to get some major-league experience for the first quarter of the season. Put it all together, and Short is certainly one of the more interesting non-roster invites of the 2019 season.
This season, the Cubs’ biggest free agent signing is probably Daniel Descalso. That isn’t what people expected from this front office, which has been a major player in every off-season that followed a competitive season. While it’s perhaps not realistic to expect a 9-figure free agent every off-season, the fact of the matter is that is what Cubs fans have become accustomed to. They have ranged from the brilliant (Jon Lester) to the terrible (Jason Heyward), but they’ve actually occurred…until this season.
Last year’s big FA purchase was Yu Darvish. He signed a 6 year, $126M deal last offseason and basically didn’t pitch for the Cubs last year. His season amounted to 40 innings of replacement-level baseball (in reality, he was a touch better, but it was close enough for our purposes). Last year’s second big FA purchase was Tyler Chatwood. He signed a too many year, $too much money deal last offseason and basically didn’t succeed for the Cubs last year. In fact, if you add Darvish and Chatwood together, you get the following monstrosity:
Tyuler Charvish: 143.2 IP, 28 GS, 5.21 ERA, 8.5 K/9, 7.3 BB/9, -0.3 fWAR
For all intents and purposes, the Cubs did not make a FA signing last year. They set $37.5M on fire and received such little production for it that they had to get Cole Hamels at the deadline just to have a warm body in the rotation (and he turned out to be a revelation). This season, Chatwood won’t be anywhere near the rotation and Darvish is presumably healthy (if “best shape of his life” stories are to be believed). In a way, you can pretend that Yu Darvish was signed to a 5-year, $101M dollar deal this offseason.
This isn’t entirely genuine. Not only are there dozens of examples of pitchers getting injured and never recovering, it isn’t even the first time Darvish has missed most or all of a season with a calamitous injury. This season was perhaps the worst way to miss a bunch of time – Darvish, as you know, tried to rehab the injury, altered his throwing motion to eliminate pain, made it to rehab starts, and re-injured himself when he tried to get to in-game deliveries. One also should note that the projection systems all peg Darvish to put up the worst season of his entire career (2.6 fWAR, or thereabouts). Darvish simply isn’t likely to be the player the Cubs thought they were getting when they signed him.
On the positive side, Darvish has comparatively fewer miles on his arm than the other pitchers in his cohort. He has 3,624 batters faced in the last 6 seasons. On average, about 85 players a year face more batters each season than he has. His “arm” is relatively young for a 32-year old. I’m too lazy to pull up a study (if one even exists), but if you believe that “arm age” is a thing, which does seem intuitively correct, that’s a point in Darvish’s favor. Another is that Darvish has so many different pitches that he at least has fall-back options should something not be working. If Hendricks’ changeup suddenly deteriorated, he’s out of baseball. If Darvish’s slider suddenly deteriorated, he could at least get outs with another offering while he works through his issues. Darvish might be more likely to “reinvent” himself if a reinvention is necessary.
It really does suck that the NL Central is simulataneously very competitive and yet there for the taking, with free agents in their prime years at positions of need for this team available for just money. It seems horrible that the Cubs are seemingly not in play for either Machado or Harper. Hopefully, the return of a full-strength Darvish (and a full-strength Bryant) can act as a de facto FA signing and provide the Cubs with the necessary firepower to win the division. Lest we forget, the Cubs’ big free-agent loss this year was rent-a-swingman Jesse Chavez on the pitching side and rent-a-homophobe Daniel Murphy on the hitting side. The core of a 95-win team is still intact. The cavalry isn’t coming with a real $100M+ signing. A fake one will have to do.
With less than a minute to go in a playoff game, Cody Parkey trotted out to attempt a game-winning field goal for the Chicago Bears. He made the first kick, which did not count because he was iced.
The second was tipped, and then it hit the upright.
The result of that kick is that the Bears lost the game. Their season is now over, and we as fans are tasked with apportioning blame. Who deserves it? It’s hard to apportion blame to the defense, which allowed only 15 points. You should win most games in which you task your offense with merely scoring 16 points. It’s easy to give some blame to Matt Nagy, for playcalling that neglected Tarik Cohen and Allen Robinson for whatever reason. You can even give some blame to Mitch Trubisky, for leading an offense that needed a last-second FG to win the game.
That said, most of the blame MUST go on Cody Parkey.
The (in Mort voice) placekicker in the National Football League (end Mort voice) has basically two roles. The first is to get touchbacks. The second is to kick the ball through the uprights. Every coach knows that, every kicker knows that, every fan knows that. The kickers who do these things are successes, and the kickers who don’t are failures. These are the only things that kickers are measured by. Additionally, those kicks are most important when the game is on the line – kicking a field goal when you are up 30 is irrelevant, and kicking a field goal when down 2 is maximally important. The field goal attempt was a maximally failure – this isn’t that hard.
If you were to go on twitter, you’d find a bunch of extremely shitty people calling for Cody Parkey to die, or worse. These people are the smegma of society, and can be safely ignored. That said, a sizable contigent of people on twitter seemed to try their absolute best to absolve Cody Parkey of blame.
It was not Cody Parkey’s fault the Bears lost. They had plenty of other opportunities to win that would have kept them from being in a position that caused them to depend on a kicker that had proven to be less than dependable this season. They didn’t. They paid for it.
— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) January 7, 2019
This is a bad take. You shouldn’t share it. It’s not only factually incorrect (the worst kind of incorrect), it’s also an insult to Cody Parkey. If you absolve Cody Parkey of blame, you are either saying that his job is completely irrelevant (when it is in fact extremely relevant) or that he is so unbelievably incompetent that relying on him is a mistake (and I shouldn’t have to tell you why that’s an insult). I guarantee you if you asked Cody Parkey if it’s his fault the Bears lost, he would say yes (and he would be, in fact, correct). It would be like saying that a plumber who couldn’t unclog a toilet wasn’t at fault for the toilet overflowing because he didn’t drop the deuce that clogged it. To say that it isn’t his fault is to be afraid of failure. That’s not healthy. People can fail and still be good people (in fact, 100% of good people have failed before – it may even be a necessary component of being good). Cody Parkey is no worse a person than he was before he missed that kick, because football is a game that people watch for entertainment and it has no bearing on the greater world (and I can guarantee you that he wanted to make that kick more than anyone else did). We can be honest about that, be mad at “Cody Parkey” for him missing a kick, and live our lives. We don’t have to defend his honor online, just like we don’t have to call for his blood.
Life is a collection of experiences – many of them failures, many of them successes, many of them jubilant, many of them morose. That’s the deal. The thing about pretending that the failures didn’t happen is that you’re only pretending. You can learn from them, you can (eventually) forget them, but you can’t rewrite them. Trying to do so is probably a failure in itself.
Also, the Cubs aren’t signing anybody else this year. Buy your tickets to the 2019 Cubs Convention now!
The Winter Meetings have come and gone and the Cubs look totally different now. A brief recap of all of the transactions:
Signings
none
Trades
none
Rule 5 Draft, Major League Phase
no selection
no players selected from Cubs
Rule 5 Draft, AAA Phase
8. Blue Jays select David Garner, RHP (Cubs)
19. Indians select Yapson Gomez, LHP (Cubs)
20. Cubs select Luis Lugo, LHP (Royals)
33. Cubs select Rafelin Lorenzo, C (Pirates)
40. Cubs select Alexander Vargas, RHP (Yankees)
I’m not going to pretend to care about David Garner or Yapson Gomez, though it does seem like Yapson Gomez could potentially be an emergency LOOGY or something. Not a big loss, though. Luis Lugo is a decent org. guy. If he ends up getting a cup in the majors, it wouldn’t stun me, but I wouldn’t plan on it. Rafelin Lorenzo could take plate discipline lessons from Javy Baez. Alexander Vargas is an org. guy at best.
Wrap-Up
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! The Cubs were incredibly busy this Winter Meetings, so if I missed something, please let me know. Morale in Chicago could not be higher, and we figure to sign twice as many high-dollar free agents as we have already!
There’s been a huge question on the minds of every Cubs fan since the season ended, and I’m finally going to answer it once and for all:
Is Jeff Brohm going home to coach Louisville?
There are compelling reasons for him to stay and go. I’m here to break it down for us all.
Location
Purdue University is located in West Lafayette, Indiana (full disclosure: I am an alum of Purdue University, so I am not unbiased here). Purdue’s best asset is that it’s close to I-65, so it’s easy to leave. The Wabash River is nice if you enjoy smelly, disgusting water; we planted the wrong trees, so in fall the entire campus reeks of gingko, and the waste treatment plant provides a “pleasant” odor the other 9 months of the year. Seriously, West Lafayette is a secretly smelly campus. As far as night life, there’s a few bars and a movie theater. That’s about it. You can find fun, but you have to look. The campus itself is quickly becoming more and more beautiful; people’s opinion that Purdue is ugly was true 15 years ago but isn’t true anymore. It’s a nice campus.
The University of Louisville is in a highly underrated city. Louisville is pretty awesome; there’s a ton of bourbon, fourth street live! is a fun little place, and instead of a dirty river, you get a nice one. Jeff Brohm agrees – he lives in Louisville in the offseason. One of my closest friends lives in Louisville and had this to say: “A city most known for horse-racing and bourbon, Louisville has many of the advantages and amenities of a large city without the accompanying headaches; and perhaps due to its long-time lack of professional sports franchises, it is one of the largest college sports markets in the country, home to rabid fans and a bitter rivalry.”
Advantage – Louisville
Football Pedigree
Purdue was a horribLe program when DarreLL HazeLL was reLieved of his duties. Brohm took a team full of middle-MAC talent and won 7 games in his first year (including a bowl win) and won 6 games (pre-bowl) in his second year, including a 49-20 beatdown of Ohio State. This is a fancy way of saying that it doesn’t matter a single bit how good a program was before Brohm got here. He can take a 2-10 Louisville team to ACC championship contention just as easy as he can take Purdue to B1G championship contention.
Almost. Purdue is situated in a slightly better place, in the lesser of the two B1G divisions. Wisconsin (and Northwestern, to some extent) are the only real obstacles to winning the B1G West every year until something changes, and Wisconsin (in my opinion) is on the beginning of a slide into irrelevancy. The division is anyone’s for the taking. Meanwhile, Clemson is in Louisville’s division, as is Florida State. It’s going to be hard to consistently win that division.
Somewhat paradoxically, I think Brohm would have an easier time recruiting at Purdue than at Louisville. The reason: Brohm already recruits Kentucky well. He was able to get Rondale Moore to decommit from Texas to go to a team that plays in West Lafayette. He nabbed Milton Wright from many bigger and better teams that were on him heavily. Would he have landed Wandale Robinson if he was in Louisville instead of Purdue? Maybe, but not certainly. Purdue is in play for a lot of the talent in Kentucky, and figures to be for some time. Brohm is able to recruit in ACC territory from a B1G location (and recruit from that position of strength). Neither Indiana nor Kentucky is a football factory, so I’d default to Indiana being a better territory than Kentucky, recruiting-wise.
Advantage (slight) – Purdue
Expectations
Purdue would literally be happy with going 8-4 every year. We had a coach named Joe Tiller who coached for 12 years, never won 10 games in a season, and we built the man a statue. There are people who already want to build Jeff Brohm (13-12 in his Purdue career) one. The expectations literally could not be lower for a non-doormat Power 5 team.
Louisville ALREADY fired Jeff Brohm once, back when he was the offensive coordinator (in a move that was panned at the time – nobody remains from that decision in Louisville). Brohm is the favorite son of Louisville football, but that only matters right now and the season after he’s hired (if he’s hired). Just think about Tennessee football – it’s a program that was good like 20 years ago where everybody expects to win 11 games a year, and they riot when that never happens. Expectations at Louisville will be very high for Brohm – while I’m confident he could meet them, there is no doubt that he’d have a lot more pressure on his shoulders.
Advantage – Purdue
Facilities
Purdue just finished a huge renovation to their football facilities (their home facilities – Michigan will tell you the away facilities still suck). It’s one of the better facilities in the Big Ten. That said, Louisville is about to finish their own renovation, and their stadium itself is unquestionably better than Ross-Ade Stadium (one of the worst football stadiums in the Power 5 conferences). Purdue has an advantage here against many peer teams, but Louisville isn’t one of them.
Advantage – Louisville
Intangibles
Purdue loves Jeff Brohm. It’s hard to imagine a campus and a program more fully embracing somebody than Purdue has with him. It was a slam dunk hire from the minute he was announced. He’s the prototypical Purdue guy – quiet strength, no frills, principled, flashy offense (Purdue literally reinvented college football in the 90s with Drew Brees and basketball on turf). There’s no doubt that Purdue is a statue job if Jeff Brohm wants it.
Unfortunately, you can say the exact same about Louisville AND add the fact that it is home. He still lives there. His family went there, including his dad. He flies there all the time, which is a nice way of saying he’d rather just live there all the time. His heart is in Louisville, and that’s a powerful thing.
Advantage – Louisville
The National Football League
Jeff Brohm is an extremely competitive guy. The dude wouldn’t quit the NFL, even when the NFL wanted to quit him. He played for a half-dozen teams even though he barely started. He tried hanging on to the point where he played in the XFL! What I’m trying to say is that Jeff Brohm will seriously think about coaching in the NFL if those teams come calling (and they will come calling, believe you me).
He can more easily jump to the NFL from Purdue, and I’ll tell you why.
If Brohm leaves for Louisville, he has to stay for at least 4 years before he leaves unless he wants to be unwelcome there the rest of his life. Louisville will be his job whenever he wants it, if he ever wants it and it’s close to open. Meanwhile, he can feel like he accomplished something at Purdue in another year or two and leave with no hard feelings. Not a single soul will begrudge him if he leaves Purdue for Cleveland, while nearly everyone in Louisville will. When you happen to live in Louisville, that has to mean something.
Advantage – Purdue
Three Most Famous Alumni
Purdue – Neil Armstrong, Amelia Earhart, Drew Brees (we own the skies)
Louisville – Mitch McConnell, Gina Haspel, uhhh, Jeff Brohm (we’re screwed, aren’t we)
Advantage – Jeff Brohm attended the goddamn University Of Louisville
Conclusion
This is a tough decision. Brohm likes it here. We like him here. That said, the heart wants what the heart wants. It’s not coming down to money – I don’t think either team is going to lose this battle over money, they’ll both pay him up to top-10 in the country – so it’s really just a matter if Brohm thinks it’s time to come home (and if really DOES want to come home). I think he does, and I’ll hate to see him go.
The Cubs will go into this offseason ready to make at least some small amount of changes to the baseball club. Theo Epstein said as much in his incredible post-season conference (almost always the highlight of the year for non-baseball activities). The problem with jettisoning young players is that you are getting pennies on the dollar – advertising that you are getting rid of players tends to do that. There are a few candidates for the ole’ heave-ho, and I’ll lay out a case for each here:
Ian Happ: Happ has had 875 career plate appearances at the MLB level, and he’s struck out in nearly 300 of them (296, or 33.8% of appearances). That’s 5% more over his career than Javy Baez – nobody in the organization gives away quite as many ABs as Ian Happ does. Happ walks a lot, but lost a lot of power this season – only an unsustainable .362 BABIP this year allowed Happ to have any real semblance of production. Ian is prone to deep, deep slumps, and gives away a little bit in the field, so you’re looking at a second-division starter unless he can find a way to add power or disicipline, neither of which he’s had in spades in this organization.
Kyle Schwarber: Schwarber is the prototypical case of tools vs. results. To this very day, I think Schwarber has the highest potential, hitting wise, of any player in the organization! He has great plate discipline (as does Happ, to be fair). He can hit the ball a freaking ton. He takes his walks. He just…can’t make contact with the ball when it’s in the strike zone. He also doesn’t swing when the ball is in the strike zone (for good reason sometimes – Schwarber has a huge hole in his swing down and in). Schwarber hasn’t fixed that hole in 1274 plate appearances, and it will keep him from taking the leap into a premier hitter. What’s left – an average to above-average left fielder with both glove and bat – is still an attractive piece, but you can imagine another team thinking they can finally unlock his MVP potential, and the Cubs may well think this is the likely ceiling here.
Addison Russell: Just as a baseball decision, it’s easy to imagine Russell getting jettisoned. He’s backslid offensively in almost every season. On defense, he’s still nearly elite, but the bat wipes out nearly all the value the glove provides. If Russell were just an average guy, it would be time to think hard about moving Russell to a bench role (and a costly bench player, at that). Add in the other issues that we won’t recap here, and Russell is an easy choice to non-tender.
Albert Almora Jr.: Almora is the epitome of a 4th outfielder. He can give you a productive PH in a critical situation, he can play all three outfield positions, and he doesn’t have horrible platoon splits so you don’t worry about leaving him in the game for a second PA. What Almora can’t do is drive the ball with authority – his ISO this year was eclipsed by Billy Hamilton. I feel confident in saying that Almora has the lowest ceiling of all of the young players on the team. I can’t ever envision him being more than average with the stick, and with walk rates similar to Javier Baez, you have to be elite in the field or with the stick to be impactful and Albert isn’t either.
The unique situation that the Cubs find themselves is that they can easily re-arrange themselves to have a home for either Manny Machado or Bryce Harper (or even both, honestly!). The Cubs have $24.1 million to play with to reach 2018’s payroll (without moving any salary, and assuming Russell and Kintzler are gone and that Hamels will stay around $20MM). It does not seem unlikely that the Cubs can be in the market for either. I’d like to examine now the benefits of each.
Manny Machado
The first thing that jumps out about Machado is his incredible consistency. With the exception of a bad-luck 2017 (BABIP-induced), Machado has put up wOBAs of .370, .366, and .377 in 3 of the past 4 seasons (2017’s number was .328, still above league average). Machado is a near lock for mid-30s dingers, and above-average defense at third base. He has no platoon advantage, does not wilt in high-leverage situations, and he’s only 4 months or so older than Harper. Lastly, Machado has been injured less recently than Harper has. Machado missed half of 2014, while Harper missed parts of 2017.
Bryce Harper
Harper has higher highs and lower lows than Machado does, which is first an indicator that Machado is the safer play (always remember, variance is good for bad teams and bad for good teams). Harper also sucks in the field, though he’s equally bad in CF and RF. The primary advantage of Harper is that he is an absolute monster at getting on base: his career OBP is .388 compared to .335 for Machado. From 2015 to now, here’s the top 10 list for OBP:
- Votto, .442
- Trout, .435
- Goldschmidt, .410
- Harper, .410
- Judge, .398
- Freeman, .391
- Cabrera, .388
- Altuve, .386
- Bryant, .385
- Rizzo, .385
Harper is elite at getting on base, and it isn’t like he sacrifices power for OBP. Harper has the 9th most homers in that same timeframe (Machado has the 8th most). Harper being a Cub would probably make getting a righty OF a priority, as Harper has shown himself merely decent against lefthanders. I’d imagine in the scenario that the Cubs sign Harper, they keep Almora and get rid of Schwarber (for defensive reasons and for handed-ness reasons). This team is pretty left-handed as it is.
The most obvious need on the team is hard to discern. If you take as given that Russell is gone, you can put Zobrist at 2B right now and slot Happ or Bote in there to spell him (frequently). Sign Machado, and you have a backup SS for Baez off days (and Bryant moves to LF for Machado everyday- come to think of it, Schwarber is the odd man out in either scenario). Sign Harper, and you probably have him Harper/Bryant/Heyward/Almora playing some chimera structure.
Both players have slight question marks about their personalities, as well. Machado insists upon being a shortstop – we already have one of those, and he’s a lot better at the position defensively than Manny is. Machado actually kinda sucks at shortstop and is great at third. You can perhaps get away with Bryant/Machado/Baez/Rizzo given how unreal Baez is at second, but I’d rather not risk opening up a defensive hole if we don’t have to (though is Bryant/Baez/Zobrist/Rizzo any better?). Harper has literally been choked on camera by a teammate – I think most of that is on Papelbon, but you can’t help but wonder a little bit. Still, I clearly don’t know them as people, so it’s hard to say too much on this point.
I’m not certain either signing makes more or less sense than the other. Both can fit, especially if some of the core is on the way out anyway. I think I prefer Harper, but it’s a soft preference at best. Contract demands may be a greater informant than any positional consideration, too – I don’t think Machado even WANTS to come to Chicago, while Harper clearly would entertain the notion. While it sucks that we are thinking about this and not the playoffs, we can at least feel fortunate that we can basically assume we’re in for someone, even if we come away with nobody. This front office (and this ownership group, despite any political misgivings you may have) has operated in such a way that they have the benefit of the doubt.
