Mr. Hoyer, in the Conservatory, With the Candelario-Stick
The Cubs made it clear that they’re buyers on Monday afternoon, acquiring third baseman Jeimer Candelario from the Nationals for shortstop Kevin Made and pitcher DJ Herz.
What a difference a week makes! After losing the opener of a four-game series to the Cardinals just over a week ago, the Cubs stood at 45–51, and it seemed more likely that they would be sellers than buyers come deadline time. An eight-game winning streak later, off the backs of the hated Cardinals and the moribund White Sox, changed that calculus; even a Sunday loss to break the streak wasn’t enough to banish the idea that the NL Central was there for the taking. After all, four games in the standings isn’t that wide a chasm, and with the fourth-best run differential in the National League, there’s at least one legitimate reason to think the Cubs have deserved better than their .500 record this year. The Pirates have faded, the Cardinals wouldn’t be trading off talent if even they thought they had a miracle in them, and neither of the Reds or Brewers are likely to take big steps forward.
Candelario had a wonderful bounceback season for Washington. Whatever was in the water at Comerica Park last year that made every player in Detroit suddenly not know which side of the bat to hold appears to have filtered out of his system, with his .258/.342/.481 triple-slash with 16 homers and 30 doubles looking a lot like the 2021 season that was thought at the time to be his breakout campaign. Last year, it took all of six months for Candelario to go from one of the hotter names in baseball to being non-tendered. Settling for a one-year, $5 million contract to re-establish his value, he has done just that and will head to free agency in a much stronger position than last time.
The Cubs only get to rent his services, but they’ll be happy to have them. While the hot corner hasn’t exactly been a tire fire in Chicago, it’s certainly been one of the less happy positions for the team, with a combined line of .234/.319/.412. There hasn’t been a stable starter there this season, with the hot corner manned by a combination of Patrick Wisdom, Nick Madrigal, and Miles Mastrobuoni. Wisdom has impressive enough secondary skills to be a plus offensive player despite a sub-Mendoza line batting average, but he’s also stretched as a third baseman defensively and is best suited as a four-corner role player who can hit more than the occasional homer and maybe come off the bench when he’s not starting. Mastrobuoni is pure utility material, and Madrigal would likely need to find some kind of Captain America-esque Super Soldier Serum to be a five-homer hitter. You’d be nuts to confuse Candelario with José Ramírez or Alex Bregman, but he’s a legitimate B+ starter at third you can stuff in the lineup every day without having to worry about a defensive caddy or some kind of exploitable platoon split.
In return, the Cubs give up two legitimate prospects, though neither stood in the upper echelons of the team’s farm system. In our prospect rankings (which went live for the Cubs just a few weeks ago, so you should really check them out), Herz ranked 19th in the system, and Made was 22nd. Both players have some real upside for the Nats, but it’s not at all like trading Hayden Wesneski or Kevin Alcántara, let alone someone like the just-promoted (to Triple-A) Pete Crow-Armstrong.
The ZiPS projections don’t really go against the scouting community on this one, pegging Made as 1.5-WAR-ish shortstop at his peak with lines in the .250/.330/.360 range. The computer does still have hope that Herz can tame his command issues and gives him a good shot at being an acceptable fourth/fifth starter at some point. A bullpen conversion might help with the control, though I’m not overly hopeful that a changeup specialist with iffy command and unimpressive velocity will be all that scary in the late innings. For now, Made and Herz slot in at 12th and 18th, respectively, in Washington’s system.
For the Nats, signing Candelario was always about hoping to flip him at the deadline after a comeback season, and that’s just what they did. Whether the return for playing him at third for a year was worth not looking at Jake Alu when healthy or any other candidate that could plausibly be part of the next good team in Washington, we’ll have to wait a few years to find out. For the Cubs, ZiPS now has them as the best rest-of-season team in the NL Central by a very slight margin, though it’s close enough that they may simply run out of pages on the calendar.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
With Bellinger playing more first base the Cubs only had one real hole – at third. I was really hoping they would make this deal, thrilled it happened. This isn’t a team looking to go all in, but they owed it to the players (and fans) to shore up the one position that didn’t have a clear starter, and to not burn off the top of their system to do it.
I’m sure they (like every team) could use more relief depth/talent but if this is all the Cubs do I’m still very happy!
I was pretty harsh on Dan’s proposed trades, thinking that nowhere near enough prospect capital was going back to the sellers. Well, I was right about the starters and wrong about Candelario. The return here is bigger than the one Dan proposed, but way less than I thought. These guys are prospects of some kind but the Cubs are not going to miss them, and they’re probably only role players for the Nats. I would have thought that the best position player at the deadline would have gotten a better return than Jordan Hicks. But apparently not.
Not in his walk year – if he had a year left to go, maybe. I think the Nats got the best return offered as DC apparently had multiple suitors although I think the Yanks may not be buyers now.
More to the point, you’d think that renting a top-30 position player in Candelario would require more prospect capital than would the renting a 38 year old decent but hardly overpowering reliever (Robertson).
Made had a little breakout this year but he’s a long way from being an MLB regular. Herz (IMO) is a MIRP lefty with amazing stuff but too many BBs. These are definitely both interesting guys, but they’re projected to be depth pieces. Considering Jed also has a 40-man crunch upcoming this winter and Herz needs to be protected, this is extremely solid work to fill the team’s biggest remaining hole with the best available option on the market.
The Cubs have the easiest remaining schedule in all of MLB and the division is definitely winnable. Excellent move.
I was souring a bit with Made and Herz. Maybe they still go on to be good players and I wish them luck, but I think this is a very good trade for the Cubs that they won’t regret. The bullpen could use some work and they need to decide what they’re doing to do with Trey Mancini, but they are a solid team that I feel confident can win the division.
The title of this article brought me joy.
Nah, you don’t have a Clue.
Cubs are at the front end of a potential competitive window. I’m not big on these moves and the maintaining of expiring contracts, unless they expect to get extensions done. The Cubs suck against good teams and are 24-38 against teams over .500. I get it they can’t just stay idle and do nothing. But this just seems super underwhelming.
And in all honesty this signal makes me super pessimistic for offseason moves and free agency. However, I’m hoping this feeling is misplaced because they didn’t do anything to “blow up” the farm system or the current roster.
Why would buying a rental at the deadline make you “pessimistic” about the offseason? The two things are basically independent, with the only state change between now and then being the loss of two lower-end prospects.
They literally went out and got what was the widely-agreed-upon best position player available at a position where they weren’t getting good production. I feel like Cubs fans should be thoroughly whelmed at this point.
Made and Herz were not going to be added to the 40 man and could have been plucked for free. The Cubs turned them into the best available bat and we are still ambivalent about the trade…
This is a teriffic use of assets IMO
I guess I didn’t realize they were going to become Rule 5 eligible.
However, I don’t expect them to compete this year and was expecting trading off expiring contracts for mlb ready talent. Taking on expiring contracts feels weird to me in their current position if they have no intention of resigning the player they traded for or for the players they are keeping with expiring contracts. Maybe they are thinking Stroman will activate his player option now with his performance falling off. Granted he was pitching at a level well above his standard. I wonder if they’ll issue a QO to Bellinger if he declines the mutual option. I’m really hoping there is more here. After the last few years of ho-hum offseasons I’m not inclined to be positive about FA signings/trades until they show something.
If nothing else, this strongly signals that the tear-down phase of the current rebuild is OVER. There’s value in that, too.,.
That’s what I’m hoping. I’m just worried the improvements this year could be a mirage.
What playing time is ZiPS projecting for Greene and Lodolo?
This (a) helps the Cubs, (b) helps Candelario by giving him a shot at the postseason and removing even the *possibility* of a QO, and (c) helps Herz and Made by giving them a clearer path to The Show. Win-Win-Win!
Wisdom is sub-Mendoza (200 BA) but not sub-Mookie (700 OPS)