Chicago Cubs: letter grades for every player in 2019

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The Chicago Cubs generally underperformed in 2019. An honest rating of their season shows several players delivering average at best seasons. Let’s take a closer look.

The Chicago Cubs enter the 2019-20 winter with a new manager, David Ross, and a full set of challenges. Ross inherits a largely veteran and contending roster from his predecessor, Joe Maddon. But it is also a roster that has largely failed to live up to pre-season expectations for two seasons running, and it is also largely populated by expensive veterans whose best days are probably behind them.

Whether Ross can whip that conglomeration into contending form will be an interesting challenge.

The biggest question marks center around the pitching staff, which enters 2010 lacking a true ace. Jon Lester and Yu Darvish used to fill those roles, but Lester is showing his age and Darvish – while perfectly adequate in 2019 – was at best a No. 2 or 3.

The farm system has failed to give the Cubs much aid, either on the mound or among the position players. Such formerly projected stars as Ian Happ, Addison Russell, and Albert Almora Jr., all failed to take advantage of the opportunities offered to them during the 2019 regular season.

Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, and Willson Contreras remain a viable core to build around, but the cost of keeping them is rapidly accelerating beyond the value they have brought in return. One or more could be a trade chip.

Here’s a rating of every member of the 2019 Chicago Cubs who either got 100 plate appearances or pitched at least 40 innings. Because of his large, multi-year free-agent contract signed during mid-season, Craig Kimbrel is also evaluated.

Chicago Cubs: The of the Lot

Nick Castellanos, Grade: A. The Chicago Cubs had only one player in 2019 who merited an A grade … and they’re losing him. Nick Castellanos, acquired in a deadline trade with the Detroit Tigers, provided immediate and serious impact in right field.

In Chicago, Castellanos batted .321 with 16 home runs, 21 doubles, 36 RBIs and a 151 OPS+, easily the team’s best.

If the Cubs had a team full of Castellanos, they’d be playing in the World Series right now.

Unfortunately for Cubs fans, the 2020 team probably won’t have even one Castellanos. He is a free agent this winter, so all of the uptick he provided the Chicago offense in August and September amounted to nothing more than a personal salary drive.

Kyle Schwarber, Grade: B+. Schwarber’s performance is a Rorschach test for how you view performance stats. If you like power, he’s your guy. If you want contact, he’s trade bait. His .250 average was a career-best, and his 38 home runs led the team. There’s real value in that. But he also struck out 156 times, and all that no-contact drove his OPS+ down to 120, which is good but well short of heroic.

Defensively, the best that can be said of Schwarber is that he tries and he rarely embarrasses himself. He will never be a great left fielder – not that there is such a thing – but the Cubs will overlook that in return for 38 home runs.

Javier Baez, Grade B+. Baez matured into a more stabilizing force in the Cubs lineup in 2019. For one thing, he found a position: shortstop. His batting average, home run, and RBI totals all moderated somewhat from their 2018 career highs, but they did so within acceptable ranges.

He still strikes out too much, a product of his desire to chase, but at 28 percent he’s no longer the wild man he once was. His 91 mph average exit velocity shows that when he hits the ball, it stays hit.

Defensively, there is little to work on. Baez ranks among the game’s best. All that stands between him and a solid A grade is a bit more strike zone judgment, leading to more contact and in turn to a higher batting average.

Anthony Rizzo, Grade: B+. At age 29, Rizzo’s is a mature, consistent and solid performance. In 2019 he batted .293 with 27 home runs and 94 RBIs. That’s no longer enough to win him an All-Star spot but he’s still probably among the top tier of National League first basemen.

His 137 OPS+ was best on the team for anybody who played the entire season in Chicago.

(Photo by Nuccio DiNuzzo/Getty Images) /

Chicago Cubs: Reliable Position Players

Willson Contreras, Grade: B. Delivering a .272 batting average and 24 home runs in 105 games, Contreras earned a second All-Star Game start, making him arguably the National League’s best catcher. The two knocks on him are his pitch-framing capabilities and his tendency to tail off as the season wears on. In 2019 Contreras hit .262 – 10 points off his season average – following his return from an injury in September…although his slugging average actually improved slightly. He will rate an A when he puts together a consistent, full season of more than 120 games.

Kris Bryant, Grade: B. Like Contreras and Baez, Bryant’s game has matured to a predictable production level. In 2019 he batted .282 with 31 home runs, 77 RBIs and a 131 OPS+. While it doesn’t measure up to the National League’s best – Anthony Rendon’s OPS+ was 153 – you would absolutely take it year in and year out at a reasonable price. The question, of course, is whether the price will remain reasonable. Bryant is a 4th-year arbitration case (that might net him $25 million) and free agency is not far off. All of which ratchets up trade discussions.

Ian Happ, Grade: B. Happ’s mortal sin was taking spring training too lightly, earning himself a demotion to Triple A. He languished there most of the season before being recalled in late July. Suitably chastened, he showed the potential the Chicago Cubs have always believed he had.

In 58 games, he batted a career-best .264 with a 126 OPS+. Stretched over a full season, Happ projected to top 30 home runs and 90 RBIs. He will enter the 20-20 season still just 25 years old, so he will be an interesting test case for new manager David Ross.

Chicago Cubs: Reliable Pitchers

Yu Darvish, Grade: B. Following a disappointing 2018 debut, Darvish matured into something approaching what the Chicago Cubs thought they were getting when they signed him to a high-dollar, ace-level deal. Still, his 6-8 record with a 3.98 hardly threatened the National League’s All-Star pitchers.

The best news was that Darvish held up all season, delivering 31 starts and 179 innings of work, far better than his injury-abbreviated 40 innings of one season earlier. His 1.097 WHIP was a personal best since 2013, and his 112 ERA+ was, if well short of dominant, at least above the league average.

Kyle Hendricks, Grade: B. Hendricks continued to illustrate that stuff isn’t everything in the modern pitching game. Never throwing a 90 mph fastball, he still produced an 11-10 record and staff-best 3.46 ERA in 30 starts. Hendricks isn’t an ace but he’s a solid number two. His 129 ERA+ was best among the team’s most-frequently-used starters.

Steve Cishek, Grade: B. Operating mostly in a setup role, the sidearming Cishek posted a 2.95 ERA in 70 appearances encompassing 64 innings. His 29 walks were a liability, but his 151 ERA+ testifies to his generally strong performance.

Brandon Kintzler, Grade: B. The Cubs never envisioned Kintzler as more than a supplementary player in their pen, but when the major parts – Morrow, Edwards, Strop – fell apart he stepped up. His 2.68 ERA in 57 innings made him day in and day out the most reliable pen option, and he fails to merit an A only because of his comparatively light workload in a less-than-pressurized assignment…Kintzler had only one save all season.

Chicago Cubs: So-So Position Players

Victor Caratini, Grade C+. Caratini is a perfectly acceptable backup to Contreras behind the plate. He hit .266 in 2019 with 11 home runs and a 104 OPS+. Whether he could ever succeed as a regular is open to debate. In his one extended trial – during Contreras’ August injury – Caratini performed credibly, with a .287 batting average and .500 slugging average. At the same time, his 17 percent caught stealing percentage was well behind the 26 percent league average.

Jason Heyward, Grade: C. Heyward’s defensive skills and team leadership are his best assets. He’s primarily being paid, however, as an offensive threat, and at that, he’s solidly mid-pack. The tale is told in both his .251 batting average and his 98 OPS+.

David Bote, Grade: C. The Chicago Cubs did a curious thing last season, signing Bote to a multi-year contract essentially absorbing all of his pre-free agency seasons. That suggests the Cubs see emerging value in Bote, who only occasionally provides evidence for that belief. In 2019 he batted .257 with 11 homers and a 103 OPS+ while flitting between infield positions as needed. Bote has from time to time suggested that he has a future as a power hitter, but he’s never delivered on a consistent basis.

Chicago Cubs: So-So Pitchers

Jon Lester, Grade: C. The Chicago Cubs got what they wanted from Lester’s multi-year deal: a lead role on the 2016 World Series champions. Now, as generally happens with pitchers signed to multi-year deals, they’re paying the price. Lester was only average in 2019, producing a 4.46 ERA in 31 starts. He did deliver a 13-10 record, but as usual, the ERA+ number tells a more objective story. In Lester’s case, that number was 100, identifying him as a consummately average hurler. At age 36, that isn’t likely to improve.

Cole Hamels, Grade: C. This is a composite grade. Hamels was almost never a C pitcher in 2019. During the first half, he held opponents to a .234 batting average, and his OPS+ against was in the 70s, all superb numbers. In the second half, the opponents batting average soared to .315 and the OPS+_ against to around 140. Hamels will be a free agent this winter.

Tyler Chatwood, Grade: C. On the Cubs’ staff, Chatwood was the most improved pitcher, although that’s not saying much. Working mostly out of the bullpen and in non-critical situations, he did enough – a 3.76 ERA and only about a walk every other inning – to raise hope for a higher-profile role in 2020. It was only good compared to his ignominious 2018, but it was more than the Cubs had reason to expect.

Kyle Ryan, Grade: C. Ryan was an unpublicized free-agent pickup who got his chance when the bullpen exploded and made something of it. His 3.54 ERA in 61 relief innings translated to a 126 ERA+, far better than the Cubs had a right to expect. The only downside: Ryan rarely got a chance to do much when a game was on the line.

Jose Quintana, Grade: C-. Like Hamels, Quintana’s grade is a composite. Prior to the All-Star break, he held foes to a .269 batting average, but after the break that rose to .299. His 3.78 ERA on June 1 rose a full point by season’s end. Down the September stretch run, Quintana made five starts, allowing 23 earned runs in just 18 innings, yet somehow managing to get pegged with just a single defeat.

Chicago Cubs: Abject Failures

Pedro Strop, Grade: D. Strop had his moments in 2019. When pitchers of higher reputation were unavailable, he stepped in and saved 10 games. But they were only moments. His 4.97 ERA and 90 ERA+ combine to tell a truer story.

More from Call to the Pen

Addison Russell, Grade: F. Baseball isn’t social science. The Chicago Cubs tried to recuperate Russell’s on-field game simultaneously with his personal life, and the effort collapsed in a .237 batting average and 79 OPS+ that seems certain to foretell his release. It was only a couple years ago that Russell was a budding star.

Albert Almora, Jr., Grade: F. The Cubs gave Almora every chance in 2019, even to the point of demoting his main competition, Happ. The former No. 1 draft choice simply failed to step up. He batted a cringe-worthy .236, ran the bases poorly and his legitimate center field skills failed to approach offsetting those negatives.

Daniel Descalso, Grade: F. The Cubs signed Descalso to a two-year deal to be the team’s new Tommy Lastella. They’d have been better off keeping LaStella. Filling in for Russell while the latter served his suspension, Descalso did so little that he essentially disappeared the rest of the season.

Ben Zobrist, Grade: F. Zobrist’s mid-season absence for personal reasons followed a terrible start to 2019 during which he batted just .241. Cause and effect? Could be. He returned in September to bat .283, but with little extra-base pop. Zobrist is a free agent entering his age 39 season, so it’s a fair question whether he will find work in 2020.

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Craig Kimbrel, Grade: F. There are many ways to excuse Kimbrel’s performance following his June signing to a three-year deal. He was never in proper pitching shape, he was injured, and then there’s the small sample size issue. Chicago Cubs fans can look past all of that and see a reason for hope in 2020. But the bottom line is that the Cubs got virtually nothing from the 2019 portion of their investment.

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