Chicago Cubs interested in Scooter Gennett

The Chicago Cubs have taken the entire offseason off but are ready to participate in the bargain bin signings.  They started with a deal for Steven Souza and now are interested in Scooter Gennett.

Despite the promise of a shakeup, the Chicago Cubs have done very little this offseason outside of a few minor league bullpen signings and signing OF Steven Souza.  Now the Cubs are showing interest in free agent 2B Scooter Gennett who only played in 42 games last year due to injury

Gennett did post two of the best seasons of his career with the Cincinnati Reds in 2017 and 2018 when he posted 6.7 fWAR including an out of nowhere 4.5 win season.  That 2018 season was largely smoke and mirrors as his Statcast numbers indicate almost every part of his game was well below average.

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Nevertheless, Gennett could compete for ABs at 2B for a Cubs team who relied on the combination of Addison Russell, Daniel Descalso, and David Bote. That crew only managed to generate 1.3 fWAR and was in the bottom half of the league in production at 2B.  The Cubs got so desperate for production at 2B they opted to bring up prospect Nico Hoerner who jumped right from AA into the starting lineup.

Every year before the start of spring training, MLB teams bring in a number of familiar names that have had success in the MLB before. Whether they are aging, recovering from injury, or in the best shape of their life, every team invites a number of these guys to see what they have left in the tank and if they have anything left to contribute.

Signings like Souza and (potentially) Gennett are fine in a vacuum and could even end up being valuable 1 WAR depth types.  The issue for the Chicago Cubs is that these minor signings have been the marquee events of the offseason.

They still have a ton of talent on the roster and Theo Epstein at the top, but that combination missed the playoffs last year and blew the division and wild card on back to back days in 2018.  If Scooter Gennett is the answer, you should probably reevaluate the questions you are asking.