It’s tough to imagine how the final few weeks of the 2019 regular season could have gone worse for the Chicago Cubs. Just two games back in the National League Central division on September 17, the team finished the year by losing 10 of its final 12 games, plunging not only out of the division race but out of the Wild Card hunt as well. It was a nightmarish run for the Cubs, but for one player on the team, that stretch represented the height of his season. Ian Happ, the young switch-hitting utility player, made 39 plate appearances in the final 14 games of the season and hit an astonishing .405/.436/1.000, crushing six homers and four doubles in that span. In the Cubs’ only two victories of that stretch, Happ went a combined 6-for-10 with three homers and two doubles.

It’s appropriate that it was Happ who enjoyed this success to close the season; it seemed like no one else on the team needed to finish the year on a high note as much as he did. He was the one who, just one year prior, had such a poor finish to the season that despite being one of the most exciting young players on his team, he went into the following spring training fighting for a job. Over the final two months of 2018, Happ hit just .192/.298/.333, with a wRC+ of just 72. Those two months tanked what had been a promising campaign, and had carryover effects well into the following year. In 56 spring training plate appearances in 2019, he ran on base and slugging percentages both south of .200.

This spring, it seems to be a different story, at least so far. Now carrying on his success, not struggles, from a previous season, Happ did this on Monday:

Kyle Hendricks CAN'T CONTAIN HIMSELF watching Ian Happ's solo shot.

( ?: @ESPN) pic.twitter.com/7QW5S14TR5

— Cubs Talk (@NBCSCubs) March 2, 2020

Read the rest of this entry »

Assuming he doesn’t get traded, Kris Bryant appears to be David Ross‘ choice as leadoff hitter this season. It’s not a secret that the Cubs have struggled to find a leadoff man since they let Dexter Fowler walk in free agency after their 2016 championship season. Last year, the Cubs’ .294 on-base percentage and 77 wRC+ from the leadoff spot were the worst in baseball.

Over the last three seasons, nine players have taken at least 50 plate appearances from the leadoff spot.

Some of these are small samples, and while we know Jason Heyward isn’t a player who would put up a 44 wRC+ with more playing time, we also know he probably isn’t going to be much more than average with the bat. Given the importance of the leadoff spot, average shouldn’t be good enough for a contending team. Ian Happ was a little above average, but his .319 OBP leaves something to be desired. Even the .333 OBP he put up in limited time overall last year isn’t great. Daniel Murphy was only with the club for a few months. Kyle Schwarber’s career .339 OBP screams pretty good but not start-the-game-off great, and being below-average against lefties means he couldn’t do it every day. Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago, Kris Bryant lost his grievance against the Cubs for manipulating his service time. The arbitrator, Mark Irvings, ruled that Bryant hadn’t proved that the Cubs held him down for nefarious reasons, essentially requiring a smoking gun, even though Irvings didn’t rule on whether teams have the right to manipulate service time if they so choose. As I wrote at the time, the decision essentially pushes any action on the question to the next Collective Bargaining Agreement, which expires at the end of the 2021 season. The result is that Bryant won’t become a free agent until after the 2021 season. The Cubs have yet to make any significant roster moves this offseason, and there are rumors, as there have been all winter, that Bryant could be dealt.

Over the weekend, Bryant emphasized to reporters that he bears no hard feelings against the Cubs:

I’ve always had the stance I want to play here, I love the city,” Bryant said.

The only thing that matters is what comes from my mouth, and never once have I said I never wanted to play here. … I’m always open to it, I’m always here to talk, it’s fun to talk about stuff like that. It’s a city that I love so much, people I love so much, fans, teammates, everybody here that I’m so comfortable with. Of course you want to be here. I don’t hold those cards.”

It’s the Cubs that hold those cards. Bryant’s statement comes on the heels of David Kaplan reporting that the Cubs were “absolutely motivated” to trade for Nolan Arenado. On the surface, trading Bryant makes little sense. He’s the Cubs’ best player, Chicago is expected to contend in 2020, and Bryant’s salary isn’t exorbitant at $18.6 million, roughly half the AAV Anthony Rendon just received in free agency. On the other hand, of the six Cubs making more than $15 million, Bryant is the only one with good trade value at the moment. If the Cubs are looking to make a change — and a change seems to be desired after a disappointing 84-win season that resulted in a new manager — trading Bryant is the most realistic option to move salary and get good, young talent in return. And based on the Rockies’ reports, Bryant might also provide an opportunity to actually upgrade at third base with a long term commitment. But first, a note about the competitive balance tax. Read the rest of this entry »

The swing is noisy and needs refining, but Lewis has the physical ability for superstardom.

That line, written by Eric Longenhagen, led Royce Lewis’s writeup in our 2020 Top 100 Prospects rankings, which were published earlier this week. Both halves of the sentence are intriguing. While the first is potentially a red flag, the second is indicative of a blue-chip up-and-comer with a sky-high ceiling. Selected first overall by the Minnesota Twins in the 2017 draft out of a San Juan Capistrano high school, Lewis holds down the No. 13 slot on Longenhagen’s list.

Alex Hassan isn’t all that concerned with the 20-year-old shortstop’s swing. According to the Minnesota farm director, the underlying characteristics are what really matter. Lewis possesses plus bat speed, a good bat path, and “when he makes contact, he does a lot of damage.”

While nothing is actually broken, Lewis isn’t exactly quiet in the box.

“There are some characteristics that are unique to Royce,” said Hassan. “What’s interesting is that leg-kick piece. Last year, I went back and looked at some of his GCL video from right after he signed, and there are plenty of pitches where his leg kick goes right up to his belt, and he executes his swing from there. It’s something he’s tinkered with. It can be a big leg kick, somewhat of a medium leg kick, and at times he’ll try to get his foot down a little earlier. But the kick has been there since he came into the system. It’s simply a feature of Royce, as opposed to some kind of bug that’s popped up.”

Hassen espouses an if-it-ain’t-broke-fix-it approach, but at the same time he recognizes that excessive movement can be deleterious to a hitter’s ability to consistently square up baseballs. He’s seen Lewis make strides toward. Moreover, he’s seen them made cautiously, and without undue urging. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: Sources have indicated to FanGraphs that Fernando Romero has been awarded an additional option year. This post originally stated that Romero was out of options, and has been updated.

The need to define a scope, to create a boundary of coverage, creates a hole in prospect writing. Most public-facing prospect publications, FanGraphs included, analyze and rank players who are still rookie-eligible because, contrary to what you might think after seeing the length of my lists, you just have to stop somewhere, if only for the sake of your own sanity. Because of this, every year there are players who fall through the cracks between the boundaries of prospect coverage and big league analysis. These are often players who came up, played enough to exhaust their rookie eligibility, and then got hurt and had a long-term rehab in the minors. Some are victims of the clogged major league rosters ahead of them; others are weird corner cases like Adalberto Mondesi.

Regardless, prospect writers are arguably in the best position to comment on these players because they fall under the minor league umbrella, but simply adding them to prospect lists would open a can of worms — what do you do with other young big leaguers? So every year, I examine a subset of the players caught in this limbo to give curious readers an update on where once-heralded prospects stand now. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the remade Mookie Betts trade, the latest revelations about the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal (including “Codebreaker” and “the dark arts”), and the Mets’ failed sale to hedge fund billionaire Steve Cohen. Then they preview the 2020 Cubs (46:13) with The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma, and the 2020 Diamondbacks (1:20:08) with The Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro.

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Audio interstitial 2: Ultrababyfat, "Diamondback"
Audio outro: Tunng, "Code Breaker"

Link to Astros WSJ report
Link to Travis on the Cubs’ pitching development problems
Link to Sahadev on the Cubs’ player development overhaul
Link to order The MVP Machine

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After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for eight years. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Chicago Cubs.

Batters

It’s hard to feel much excitement about the Cubs. They won the World Series when they were one of the best teams in baseball, so to see them in stasis as they pass through the core’s long twilight just doesn’t feel quite right.

I think of the Cubs like one of those expensive, powerful German luxury cars. It was dominating, with an engine that snarled, and looked like it would roll over the mid-size crossovers that were the rest of the NL Central. But it turned out the insurance for the car was expensive, the upkeep and maintenance fell behind, and now it isn’t any more desirable than a late-model, non-luxury brand. Read the rest of this entry »

Earlier this week, I looked into contending teams with weaknesses in the infield. Today, let’s continue by looking at teams who could upgrade their pitching, plus teams involved in blockbuster trades sending MVP’s to the West Coast.

Los Angeles Angels

The Hole: The Angels had only a single pitcher throw more than 100 innings last year. That’s bad. What’s worse is that it was Trevor Cahill, who had a 5.98 ERA and still beat his FIP (6.13), good for a -0.8 WAR effort over 102.1 innings. He’s a free agent at the moment, and that was the pitcher the Angels used most.

It’s hard to disentangle this from Tyler Skaggs’ tragic death, and I don’t intend this to be an indictment of team building, or a dig at the franchise’s response. The team’s 2019 season was tragic, and those woes need not carry into 2020.

Despite a lot of churn, however, they aren’t exactly running out an inspiring rotation. Shohei Ohtani is back, and projects to be their best pitcher on a rate basis, but he’ll be on a strict innings limit. Dylan Bundy is somehow only 27, but it’s hard to see anything but an average pitcher with injury risk to the downside given his uneven career.

Julio Teheran is probably a FIP beater, but with Steamer projecting him for a 5.47 FIP, that isn’t enough. Andrew Heaney is basically Dylan Bundy, only a year older (somehow) — a guy you’d like as an innings-eater but with a checkered injury history.

If there’s upside in this rotation (aside from Ohtani), it’s Griffin Canning, whose fastball/slider combination has looked good in his short career. He’s also coming off of a season shortened by elbow inflammation, and he had a 4.58 ERA and 4.75 xFIP in 2019 — we’re not talking about an ace with a hurt elbow here. Overall, the team has a bunch of league average starters with downside risk.

The Fix: The team attempted defense in depth by acquiring Bundy and Teheran, but I’d prefer to see them try to go tall rather than wide. Paul Sporer suggested a trade for Mike Clevinger, and if the Indians would take Brandon Marsh plus a couple other notable names for Clevinger, the Angels could improve themselves by a lot quickly.

If you think the Indians plan on contending, however, there isn’t much to do when it comes to ace-upside pitchers. Noah Syndergaard rumors have died on the vine, and the teams at the bottom of the standings don’t have much to offer on the star pitching front. They could try to acquire Matthew Boyd to add to their quintet of average pitchers, but why? No, they’re mostly stuck with what they have — which might work out okay, but certainly feels risky for a team with Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon at the peak of their powers. Read the rest of this entry »

In the spring of 2015, Kris Bryant was coming off a historic minor league season. Splitting the year between Double- and Triple-A, Bryant hit .325/.438/.661 with 43 homers and a 192 wRC+. He then hit .425/.477/1.175 in spring training. But he didn’t make the Cubs’ Opening Day roster. Mike Olt, who had also spent some time in Triple-A in 2014, hit a good .302/.348/.545 in Iowa before posting an ugly .160/.248/.356 line in half a season with the Cubs; he started at third base ahead of Bryant. Olt was hit on his wrist by a pitch on Saturday, April 11, and didn’t start any games the next week. On April 17, with 171 days left in the season (exactly one day short of the 172 Bryant would need for a full year of service time), Olt hit the Disabled List with a hairline fracture and Bryant made his debut.

Due to the obvious attempt by the Cubs to manipulate his service time, ensuring he would not reach free agency until after the 2021 season, Bryant filed a grievance to recoup that lost day. According to Jeff Passan, Bryant has lost that grievance and will not become a free agent at the end of this season, having instead to wait an additional year. The ruling will be made public in a week, per Passan. While we don’t yet know the arbitrator’s exact reasoning, it’s hard not to see a decision in the Cubs’ favor as much else than a tacit approval of baseball teams keeping otherwise ready players in the minors for a few weeks at the beginning of the season in order to gain another year of team control. Bryant was the ideal player to file a grievance for service time manipulation, given his track record in the minors, his great spring, and lack of decent options ahead of him on the depth chart. If he can’t win, then who can?

The arbitrator may well have warned teams that while there was no real precedent to award Bryant his lost day, future cases might be decided differently; we’ll have to wait for the decision to be made public to know for sure. But even if that’s the case, the practical effect of such a decision is minimal given that the current CBA expires at the end of the 2021 season. The decision is a reminder that while service time manipulation is against the spirit of the CBA, proving such violations is extremely difficult. What’s more, the changes needed to curb the practice will have to be far more explicit in the next CBA. Service time manipulation like Bryant’s aren’t especially common and affect only a handful of players every year. But those it does effect tend to be among the game’s best young players, kept in the minors for reasons that have nothing to so with their ability. And the practice represents part of a larger issue involving the time it takes to get to free agency and the pay players receive before they get there. Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes, transaction news comes in a torrent. Check Twitter at the right time, and you’ll see four or five reporters confirming that X signed a new contract or Y traded Z to the Dodgers; generally Ken Rosenthal or Jeff Passan will have the news first, or tip their caps to the reporter who did.

In other instances, the news comes as a trickle, as is the case with Steven Souza Jr. Last Friday, Rosenthal reported that the Cubs had agreed to a contract with Souza, and followed that with another tweet indicating that the parties had agreed to a big league deal. As of press time, the details of the contract are still unknown and it appears that Souza needs to complete a physical before anything becomes official. We’ll update this post when we can confirm the particulars.

But this is one of those deals where the financials are secondary, and you just feel good for the player. Souza, you’ll recall, was badly injured in a freak accident during the penultimate game of Arizona’s Cactus League campaign last year. As he came around to score a run in the fourth inning, his foot slipped on home plate. He hyperextended his knee and in the ensuing tumble, tore his ACL, LCL, and posterior lateral capsule, and also suffered a partial tear in his posterior cruciate ligament. Needless to say, his season was over.

It was a blow for the Diamondbacks, who were thin in the outfield at the time, but even worse for Souza, who has constantly battled injuries throughout his career. In just the last five years, he’s suffered a broken hand, a labrum tear in his hip that required surgery, and a nagging pectoral injury that limited his production even when healthy enough to suit up.

It was the pectoral that dogged him throughout 2018, a disappointing follow-up campaign to what had looked like a breakout season. In 2017, finally healthy after hip surgery, Souza put up the best numbers of his career. He hit .239/.351/.459 with 30 homers in Tampa, good for a 121 wRC+ and nearly 4 WAR. The pectoral injury limited him to just 72 games in 2018 though, and his production cratered. He hit just five homers and his wRC+ fell to the mid-80s.

Between the knee injury last spring and Souza’s sub-replacement level production in 2018, a big league deal this winter was no foregone conclusion. As a power hitter with good (but not great) on-base skills and limited defensive value, he has the kind of profile that has struggled to find traction on the free agent market in recent years. He’s also three years and a serious knee surgery removed from his last productive campaign. Now on the wrong side of 30, he seemed like the kind of player more likely to get a minor league offer with an invitation to spring training than a major league contract.

Instead, he’s found the perfect fit with the Cubs, a team that has otherwise almost gone out of its way to avoid the free agent market. Souza’s contract is only the second major league deal they’ve offered this winter (provided that you can’t Ryan Tepera’s split contract as a big league deal), a period in which they’ve neither tried to boost their squad nor traded the kind of impact talent that would help kickstart a rebuild. As Chicago prepares to take one more shot with the remaining core from their 2016 championship team, Souza’s arrival could help paper over some of the cracks in the club’s outfield.

While nothing about Souza’s signing inherently prevents the Cubs from landing a bigger fish, Chicago’s behavior this winter suggests they’re not interested in that kind of deal (and with the news today that Nicholas Castellanos is taking his talents to Cincinnati, there aren’t a lot of big fish left). If this concludes their offseason investment in the outfield, Souza will slot in as one of the club’s two reserves. The Cubs don’t necessarily have an automatic starter at any one outfield position: Jason Heyward, Ian Happ, Albert Almora Jr., and Kyle Schwarber saw quite a bit of time in various spots, and Kris Bryant played some in right and left field as well. Souza has primarily played right field throughout his career, and he figures to spell Schwarber and perhaps Heyward in the corners on days the Cubs face a lefty.

Should that prove the case, Souza’s signing ought to make the Cubs lineup a bit better. He actually doesn’t have particularly large platoon splits: He’s notched a 101 wRC+ against righties in his career and has been only modestly better against lefties (108 wRC+), mostly thanks to a slightly higher batting average and a better walk rate when he has the platoon advantage. But while Souza can hit against everyone, Heyward and Schwarber have really struggled against southpaws:

Provided that Souza’s knee is healthy enough to play the outfield regularly and in some approximation of his previous form, he should be an upgrade on days the Cubs face a lefty and a useful bat off the bench when he’s not starting. In an era of three-man benches, this kind of player feels like a long lost luxury, though the bat-first extra outfielder will likely become more common with 26-man rosters and a new rule that requires teams to field at least 13 position players. If healthy, he should fill the role capably.

A strong offseason could have made Chicago the favorites in a tight but mediocre NL Central; instead, the club’s self-imposed austerity has helped keep the race wide open. For a relatively small transaction, the Souza deal says quite a bit about how the Cubs view themselves. Signing Souza at all demonstrates that the organization is willing to make improvements around the edges of a team that should win 80+ games and compete for a spot in the playoffs again. But the lack of bigger moves indicates that management is ready to pivot if the Cubs stumble out of the gate; Souza’s signing only corroborates that course.