Looking ahead with Jed Hoyer to the 2022 Chicago Cubs
By Bill Felber
Ian Happ
Happ’s status will be Hoyer’s trickiest winter question. Either way Hoyer goes, he’ll be subject to second-guessing.
Happ is a second-year arbitration-eligible. If the Chicago Cubs keep him, they can expect to pay him about double the $4.1 million he earned in 2021. Hoyer could also choose to release Happ and move forward from him, much as they did with Kyle Schwarber just last season.
The decision on Happ is compounded by the inconsistent nature of his performance. He’s spent most of the summer with a batting average under .200 and producing pitiful OPSs in the range of .600.
Yet since the trade of most of his fellow regulars, Happ’s performance has transformed. He’s batting .331 since August 1, having hit more than half his season total of 21 home runs just the past five weeks.
That up-and-down pattern fits Happ’s pattern. In 2020, he was batting .315 in early September before going 13-for-72 over the final games. One season earlier he was under .210 in early September, but finished 17-for-43 to raise his final average to a respectable .264.
Regarding 2021, one possibility is that his recent performance improvement is driven by the departure of so many of his former teammates, elevating his role as a team leader. It may have forced him to mature.
If you buy that speculation, then Happ could be a good bet as a full-time left fielder next year. But if not – if all one can really expect of Happ is a continuation of the inconsistency he’s always shown – then Hoyer’s best option may be to cut him loose.