Theo Epstein and the Chicago Cubs are chasing the wrong Tigers

The Chicago Cubs have spoken with the Detroit Tigers about Nick Castellanos and Shane Greene, but there’s a different Tiger they should be chasing.

For most of this run of Chicago Cubs playoff teams, they’ve been a good, but not a great offensive club. From 2015 until this season (through 99 games):

The target here is obviously 2016, a year so perfect from start to finish nothing could spoil the fun – not Aroldis Chapman’s past, not Gleyber Torres’ future, not even Rajai Davis. It also happens to be the only season their offense clicked to a league-leading degree.

The cornerstones of these Cubs are widely considered to be everyday regulars like Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, and Willson Contreras – but the bedrock of their success has been the rotation. Their World Series winner aside, the Cubs offense has waxed and waned.

Take last year’s Cubs team, who stumbled through a grueling end-of-year schedule before losing consecutive one-game playoffs: they lost 3-1 to the Brewers for the division, and they lost 2-1 in 13 innings to the Rockies in the Wild Card game. Both games were at home.

What’s more, over the last two months of last season, the Chicago Cubs put forth a mere 78 wRC+, tied with the Reds for 11th best in the National League from August onward.

That has to be tickling at the back of Theo Epstein’s mind as we approach August – this time without the August waiver deadline to bring in a final injection of offense for the stretch run. But run back through those faces of this generation of Cubs players, and that’s half the offense right there.

Granted, Theo has threatened significant changes, but it’s hard to imagine improving the team on the whole while moving any one of those four. So where can they improve the offense?

At second, David Bote has been passable. Daniel Descalso gives their clubhouse a veteran presence the organization values. They can dream on Ben Zobrist’s return [to form] and/or Addison Russell snapping out of his years-long funk.

Or they can bank on the magic of Robel Garcia, the 26-year-old rookie they unearthed from the Venetian hinterlands. The former Italian leaguer’s status is pending on so-far so-good status for now. As I write this, in fact, he’s just hit one into McCovey Cove, his fourth home run of the season, building upon a .774 slugging percentage through his first 12 big league games:

On the whole, the Chicago Cubs infield hasn’t been the problem. The outfield, however, has struggled to keep up ever since a Dexter-Fowler-sized-hole developed after the 2016 season.