Too late now, but one of those high-priced sluggers would look great in Cubs lineup
It's not hard to see what the Cubs had in mind with their rebuild.
President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer wanted to emulate the Houston Astros by developing homegrown stars and become NLCS regulars.
Don't take giant risks on high-priced free agents. Build from within, which is largely how the 2016 World Series champs came together.
One problem here. The Astros produced an impressive string of hitting stars, guys like Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez, George Springer and Carlos Correa. It took plenty of tanking to create Houston's winning farm system, but it came together exceptionally well.
The Cubs' highest-ranked players in OPS right now are two former Dodgers, Cody Bellinger and rookie Michael Busch, who are tied for 47th in MLB at .781.
Keep in mind, this is baseball. So the outlook could be completely different two or three months from now. But as the Cubs sit below .500 on June 1, it's easy to wish they had gotten involved in some of those bidding wars for high-priced sluggers.
Teams like the Yankees, Phillies and Dodgers are thriving with thump-heavy lineups. The Rangers used free agency to win last year's World Series title. The Orioles seem set to be the next tank-heavy success story. And there are a few teams, notably Central Division leaders Milwaukee and Cleveland, that have pieced together winning teams at a good value.
One concern for the Cubs is they have spent money. According to spotrac.com, they rank eighth in MLB in payroll at $226 million. They rank just behind the Dodgers, but the large amount of deferred payments in Shohei Ohtani's contract messes with that team's total.
But somehow, everyone on the Cubs is having a down year offensively at the same time. The only veteran player with a higher OPS than last season is Mike Tauchman.
Really, though, is there any reason to expect this to be a great offensive lineup? With essentially the same cast last year, the Cubs were top 10 in most meaningful offensive categories. Maybe that was the fluke performance.
Bellinger was really good in 2023 but had a pair of miserable campaigns before that. Seiya Suzuki is unproven in MLB. Ian Happ hasn't been above .800 OPS since 2020. Christopher Morel is just getting started in his career. Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner are great defenders, with any offense considered a bonus.
The Cubs used to have the best-hitting catcher in MLB with Willson Contreras. Now Miguel Amaya and Yan Gomes have the Cubs ranked 29th out of 30 teams in offense from catchers' spot. And they haven't thrown out many base stealers, either.
Anyway, if it were possible to go back in time and tinker with the current roster, you'd probably start by looking harder at free agents Bryce Harper in 2019 or Corey Seager in 2022. It would be interesting to see if how much a dangerous bat could improve the current lineup.
There is another chance to get involved. Juan Soto (.991 OPS) is expected to be a free agent this winter and Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner may have opened the door for an escape by warning fans he may not be able to afford the luxury tax hit.
The Yankees already have three players set to make at least $32 million next year between Aaron Judge, Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton. The Dodgers and Phillies are also likely tapped out, so the Cubs could probably be real contenders for Soto, unlike Ohtani last year when they were an extreme long shot.
The problem for the Cubs is they committed to Happ and Suzuki for two more seasons. There's not much flexibility right now to either add from the outside or bring up prospects for a test run. That might be Hoyer's biggest miscalculation.
It's probably safe to say the Cubs would rather have an outfield of Soto, Tauchman and Pete Crow-Armstrong, especially if Bellinger was playing first base. The problem is, they already settled on Happ, Bellinger and Suzuki, with Busch at first base. The price tag is essentially the same with either option.
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