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I was listening to MLB yesterday and they were going to
give teams grades for the first part of the 2019 season. In a variation of that, I thought I would
give the Cubs players grades. If I was
giving the Cubs a grade as a team, I’d probably go with a B-. After a horrible start, they seem to have
righted the ship. The same can be said
for some of the individual players. And
here’ are the initial report cards for the position players.
Willson
Contreras: A I
admit that coming into this season I was worried about Willson. His second half of 2018 was terrible. His power outage was particularly disturbing. In 2019, however, the power has
returned. Contreras has hit seven home
runs and is slugging .625. His OPS is
1.043. His previous high in OPS was
.855. If Willson is at .850 or better he’s
one of the best catchers in the league and a huge asset. His WAR is currently at 1.7.
Anthony
Rizzo: C+. Rizzo’s batting average sits
at a not so cool.228 but his OPS is at ,853 and he has a WAR of 0.8. His defensive WAR is an unsightly -0.2. That will come around. Anthony is heading in the right direction
going forward.
Daniel
Descalso: B. Daniel
has played up to expectations and has provided some stability at second base
for the Cubs. Daniel’s OPS is a mediocre
.757, but that will play for now. His
WAR is currently at 0.1. His slot is the
one most likely to be taken by Addison Russell, assuming Russell gets his act
together.
Javy
Baez: A. No surprise here. Baez is the most exciting and dynamic
Cub. He’s also the most effective. Javy is hitting .302 with an OBP of
.341. His OPS is .954. Javy has nine homers and a WAR of 1.7. He’s also the most fun guy in baseball to
watch. I think playing shortstop exclusively
helps Javy.
Kris
Bryant: C-. Kris
is currently hitting .230 but has looked much better lately. His OPS is at .775 and while he has only
three homers, two of them have come recently.
Like Rizzo, Bryant seems to be coming around. Despite a slow start, and low batting
average, Kris has a decent WAR of 0.7 for this time of the season.
Kyle
Schwarber: D. I’m
not sure Kyle will ever meet the Cubs original expectations. It was great that
Kyle had a game wining home run last night, but generally speaking, he just
hasn’t produced. Kyle has hit four home
runs and has eight RBIs thus far. His
OPS is .741 and he has a WAR of 0.3. That’s
just not what was expected from Schwarber.
Albert
Almora Jr. D+. It seems like Albert has been invisible for
most of this season. His OPS is
at.639. He’s slugging only .319. I really think he’ll hit another gear soon.
Jason
Hetward: A. . I’m grading somewhat on a curve because of
limited expectations of Heyward, but Jason is off to an excellent start. Jason is hitting .309 with five homers and 15
runs batted in. His current WAR is 0.6. It would be better if his defensive WAR wasn’t
a shockingly bad -0.4. His defensive
metrics have been deteriorating for a while, but Jason is still a good
defensive outfielder. His defense will
improve and his offensive numbers will probably regress.
Ben
Zobrist: D. It
gives me no pleasure to give Ben a D. He’s
a great teammate and consummate pro, but it’s hard to overlook an OPS of .583. His career mark is exactly 200 points higher
at .783. He also has limited range in
the field and currently has a WAR of -0.3.
I hope it improves, but I’m not particularly optimistic.
David
Bote B+. Admittedly, I
wasn’t widely optimistic about Bote’s ceiling, but I may have underestimated him. The power seems real. Bote is slugging .508 with three homers and
has a surprisingly high WAR of 0.6.
David also seems to have a flair for the dramatic.
Mark
Zagunis: D. This
is going to seem unnecessarily cruel, but Zagunis’ value to the Cubs is he
doesn’t play much. If Ian Happ was on
the team Joe Maddon would probably constantly tinker with the lineup. Maddon doesn’t seem the need to play Zungunis
very much so in essence, Zagunis’ lack of ability stabilizes the Cubs
lineup. Atta boy, Mark.
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